Is it Easy Being Green? Exploring the Relationship Between LEED-Certified Buildings and Gentrification in Chicago, IL

This paper seeks to examine two recent phenomena in cities and urban areas: the rise of gentrification, and an increase in environmentalism and “greening”, expressed both as a discourse propagated by city officials and... [ view full abstract ]

This paper seeks to examine two recent phenomena in cities and urban areas: the rise of gentrification, and an increase in environmentalism and “greening”, expressed both as a discourse propagated by city officials and physically through the construction of green infrastructure. Though policymakers and private companies have long supported the construction of large green infrastructure projects in cities (such as Manhattan’s High Line), several geographers and environmentalists have implicated these projects as encouraging or exacerbating gentrification in urban spaces. This project focuses on using empirical methods such as spatial analysis to assess the possibility of a causal relationship between LEED-certified buildings and gentrification. By developing a metric to measure gentrification in neighborhoods over time and identifying the locations of LEED-certified buildings in Chicago, this paper aims to turn an eye toward the possible unforeseen impacts of infrastructure-based urban greening, with the hope of spurring a greater consideration of issues of displacement and gentrification in local and citywide green building projects to come.