{"title":"Wetland gentrification: the African variant on ecological gentrification","authors":"L. Asante, Beverly Akomea Bonsu, I. Helbrecht","doi":"10.1177/09562478241253179","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"There is growing scholarly interest in notions of ecological gentrification – whereby environmental improvements drive up real estate prices, with the subsequent displacement of low-income residents – particularly in the global North. Drawing on an integrative review of extant literature on African urbanism, urban greenery encroachment and gentrification, this paper argues that the Western notion of ecological gentrification has little or no application in African cities, which are confronted with rapid encroachment on urban wetlands amidst burgeoning urbanization and its attendant increasing demand for property development. We conceptualize the African variant on ecological gentrification as “wetland gentrification”. It occurs when land scarcity and rising property values in African cities cause indiscriminate depletion of urban wetlands for property development, leading to the destruction of ecological resources and displacement of human populations. This paper discusses, among other topics, the implications of wetland gentrification for urban governance and vice versa.","PeriodicalId":48038,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Urbanization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environment and Urbanization","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09562478241253179","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There is growing scholarly interest in notions of ecological gentrification – whereby environmental improvements drive up real estate prices, with the subsequent displacement of low-income residents – particularly in the global North. Drawing on an integrative review of extant literature on African urbanism, urban greenery encroachment and gentrification, this paper argues that the Western notion of ecological gentrification has little or no application in African cities, which are confronted with rapid encroachment on urban wetlands amidst burgeoning urbanization and its attendant increasing demand for property development. We conceptualize the African variant on ecological gentrification as “wetland gentrification”. It occurs when land scarcity and rising property values in African cities cause indiscriminate depletion of urban wetlands for property development, leading to the destruction of ecological resources and displacement of human populations. This paper discusses, among other topics, the implications of wetland gentrification for urban governance and vice versa.
期刊介绍:
Environment and Urbanization aims to provide an effective means for the exchange of research findings, ideas and information in the fields of human settlements and environment among researchers, activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in low- and middle-income nations and between these and researchers, international agency staff, students and teachers in high-income nations. Most of the papers it publishes are written by authors from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Papers may be submitted in French, Spanish or Portuguese, as well as English - and if accepted for publication, the journal arranges for their translation into English. The journal is also unusual in the proportion of its papers that are written by practitioners.