Greening cities while feeding injustices? Discussing the urban greening paradox

Abstract

Chinese

Urban greening has become a central pillar of contemporary sustainability agendas, promoted for its contributions to environmental performance, climate resilience and quality of life. Yet critical research shows that these interventions often generate inequitable outcomes: producing exclusions, displacement and affordability pressures that contradict their inclusive sustainability rhetoric. As a conceptual debate contribution, this article offers a framework for understanding what we term the urban greening paradox: a structural tension between the universalist values of sustainability and the neoliberal policy logics through which greening is implemented. Drawing on scholarship in urban political ecology, we identify three dimensions through which the paradox materialises: the universalisation of greening benefits that obscures inequalities; land-use and housing policy practices that reinforce real-estate valorisation; and the power relations embedded in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects. Building on this analysis, the article advances three propositions: (i) the inequities associated with urban greening are endogenous to market-led urban governance rather than implementation failures; (ii) the paradox extends beyond greening to wider climate, smart and sustainability agendas, including climate adaptation and resilience strategies, where ecological goals are pursued through neoliberal instruments; and (iii) addressing these contradictions requires ex-ante, equity-orientated planning tools that embed redistribution and recognition from the outset. By systematising dispersed insights across urban greening and climate debates, the article provides an original conceptualisation of the paradox and argues that anticipating and mitigating it demands justice-sensitive governance frameworks capable of confronting, rather than reproducing, the structural conditions shaping sustainability policy.

Keywords

green gentrification neoliberal urbanism sustainability fix urban greening paradox urban sustainability

Introduction

Making cities more sustainable is one of the most pressing challenges in today’s increasingly urbanised world. Sustainability policies often carry a dual promise: to make cities more climate friendly, adaptive to climate change and capable of reducing the environmental impacts of urban life; and simultaneously to improve urban liveability and equity through the enhancement of urban nature. Policies such as urban greening are expected to deliver accessible, affordable and high-quality green environments that benefit all residents. However, despite being framed as inclusive and universally beneficial, the real-world outcomes of urban greening often fall short, particularly in contexts shaped by economic inequality and neoliberal urban governance.

Urban greening refers to the practice of creating and qualifying green spaces in cities, including parks, community gardens, greenbelts, rain gardens and other forms of green infrastructure (Anguelovski et al., 2019). These interventions are widely promoted for their positive impacts on public health, carbon reduction and social cohesion (Baró et al., 2014; Connolly et al., 2013; Gascon et al., 2016). Yet an increasing body of research points to their seemingly contradictory outcomes. Scholars have referred to an urban greening paradox to describe how the sustainability goals of urban greening can result in social exclusion, displacement and rising housing costs (Anguelovski et al., 2018, 2019; Checker, 2011; Du and Zhang, 2020; Wolch et al., 2014). Drawing on these contributions and a wider body of scholarship, this article adopts the term paradox to analyse how greening policies are entangled in broader urban transformations.

We refer to the definition of paradox proposed by Kemper and Vogelpohl (2013: 221), who use the term to ‘clarify dissonances, tensions, contradictions between two (or more) facts in urban processes’. This implies that contradictions can be analysed not only as incommensurable elements but also through their relationship and mutual constitution. Paradoxes may thus appear contradictory on the surface yet become explainable when examined through their foundations and relationship between their elements. Such an understanding is useful for uncovering the simultaneity of change, conflict and continuity in current neoliberal urban development, a theme long discussed in debates on the crises of contemporary capitalism (Honneth, 2022). In this sense, we propose reading urban greening as a process that, despite its sustainability rhetoric, may operate within and reinforce neoliberal urbanism (Aalbers, 2020). The literature we mobilise reveals how these contradictions unfold in practice, leading us to define the urban greening paradox as a fundamental tension between the intrinsic values and goals of sustainability and its implementation within neoliberal policy frameworks.

This article is not a systematic review of the literature but a conceptual debate contribution that synthesises and reinterprets existing scholarship in order to advance a set of propositions about how the paradox is reproduced across greening and wider climate agendas. Our goal is to go beyond a merely synthetic review and to spark a debate in urban studies by framing the urban greening paradox as a conceptual terrain through which critical questions about urban sustainability and climate governance can be reconsidered. The article elaborates three analytical dimensions that constitute the urban greening paradox: namely, the universalisation of greening benefits; the housing affordability pressures generated through land-use policies; and the power relations embedded in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects. We situate these dimensions within urban political ecology, with particular reference to neoliberal urbanism. Building on this analysis, the article advances three propositions: (i) the inequities produced by urban greening are not accidental outcomes or implementation failures but structurally embedded in market-led urban governance; (ii) the paradox is not confined to greening initiatives but extends across wider climate policy arenas, including adaptation, resilience, smart-city strategies and sustainability agendas, in which ecological goals are advanced through neoliberal policy instruments; and (iii) confronting these contradictions demands ex-ante equity-orientated planning tools, ensuring that redistribution and recognition are integrated into climate and greening policies from the outset rather than added reactively.

The construction of our argument is informed by an iterative engagement with literature on green and climate gentrification, urban greening policies, nature-based solutions, urban political ecology and neoliberal urbanism. This long-term process, initiated when we first encountered the notion of paradox in urban greening scholarship, has progressively shaped our analytical perspective. Over time, we have revisited and refined our understanding of this body of work through our involvement in various research projects on related themes, which has allowed us to deepen the analysis and strengthen the conceptual grounding of this article. Our contribution maps the evolution of the debate on urban greening referring to the broader sustainability agenda (climate resilience, green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, cf. Quinton and Nesbitt, 2024), and foregrounds how the paradox has been produced and conceptually expanded under neoliberal urban governance. The originality of this debate lies in our effort to systematically organise these dispersed insights within a conceptual framework. By doing so, we position the paradox not as an isolated or context-specific outcome but as a structural and reproducible feature of market-driven urbanism. This framing enables a more systematic analytical lens and provides a foundation for identifying justice-sensitive policy responses.

Framing the urban greening paradox within urban sustainability debates

To frame the urban greening paradox, it is crucial to briefly outline how we define the goals and intrinsic values of sustainability. We draw on the dominant three-pillar model, consisting of a social, ecological and economic dimension which structures much of the literature and policy discourse on sustainability (Purvis et al., 2019). In principle, sustainability combines social justice, ecological protection and economic viability, requiring governance that ensures that none of these dimensions undermines the others (Brown et al., 1987). In practice, achieving this balance is complex and requires continuous efforts to manage synergies and conflicts between dimensions (Hansmann et al., 2012). Campbell’s (1996: 3) ‘planner’s triangle’ illustrates how tensions between sustainability dimensions produce contradictions, namely situations in which advancing one goal undermines another, forcing planners into negotiation and trade-off decision making. In urban contexts, such trade-offs are particularly common, as translating abstract visions of sustainability into concrete policy instruments and planning practices often proves difficult (Bunce, 2009).

Urban greening exemplifies this tension when not all residents benefit equally from its implementation. Literature on sustainability and urban planning highlights, on the one hand, the growing importance of green and climate policies (Anguluri and Narayanan, 2017; Haaland and van Den Bosch, 2015; Wachsmuth and Angelo, 2018; Yigitcanlar and Kamruzzaman, 2018). On the other hand, several studies describe urban greening policies in terms of paradox or contradiction, emphasising the gap between sustainability rhetoric and socio-spatial outcomes. For Checker (2011: 211), the ‘pernicious paradox’ is the exclusion of low-income inhabitants from the benefits of selective greening policies. For Haase et al. (2017: 42), these strategies may marginalise disadvantaged populations, leading to a ‘paradoxical risk’ of reinforcing social inequalities. Anguelovski et al. (2018: 423) call it the ‘greening paradox’ when greening projects concern the automatic production of inequalities and overlook environmental justice, later claiming through another study that ‘the marriage of urban redevelopment and greening creates a paradox’ (Anguelovski et al., 2019: 1065). Wolch et al. (2014: 235) name it the ‘paradox of urban green space: as more green space is developed, it can improve attractiveness and public health, making neighbourhoods more desirable. In turn, housing costs may rise’. These contributions highlight a persistent gap between the planned outcomes of greening policies and the real-world consequences that unfold after their implementation.

To underline this persistent and observable gap, we adopted the term paradox rather than trade-off or conflict. The term captures the tension between the universalist rhetoric of sustainability and the particularistic, often exclusionary, outcomes produced by its policy implementation. This use of terminology is not merely semantic; it foregrounds how these tensions are relational and actively produced, rather than incidental (Kemper and Vogelpohl, 2013). Rather than revisiting these contradictions descriptively, the following sections shift attention to the political-economic mechanisms through which they are produced and sustained.

The urban greening paradox is both politically and economically constructed. Politically, it is often framed as universally desirable and apolitical, even though it operates through decisions about who benefits, who is displaced and who participates. Anguelovski et al. (2018) argue that narratives emphasising multiple benefits often obscure the contradictions emerging from their unequal distribution. Shokry et al. (2022) highlight that green projects can increase vulnerabilities among disadvantaged groups. Kremer et al. (2019) note that inequalities are not incidental but systematically produced. Asking political questions – who decides? who benefits? who is excluded? – becomes essential to interpreting outcomes (Fox Gotham, 2001; Swyngedouw, 2010). We draw on Swyngedouw’s (2010) claim that greening is not inherently political but becomes political as it unfolds through uneven distributions of power, privilege and access. This perspective reinforces the need to interrogate the mechanisms through which greening is marketised, rather than continuing to document its unequal outcomes. Economically, evidence shows that greening acts as an economic instrument (Angelo, 2019). Empirical studies demonstrate how green developments increase housing costs and generate displacement, a dynamic widely captured by research on green gentrification (Bunce, 2009; Checker, 2011; Dooling, 2009; Gould and Lewis, 2017; Immergluck, 2009; Quastel, 2009). Black and Richards (2020) show how New York’s High Line catalysed real-estate speculation, while comparative research across 28 cities finds systematic links between new parks, upwards income shifts and rising housing costs (Anguelovski et al., 2022). Du and Zhang (2020) conceptualise this as an ‘economic gain–social equity loss paradox’, revealing spatialised layers of exclusion between neighbourhoods.

To consolidate our interpretation, we draw on While et al.’s (2004: 551) concept of the sustainability fix, defined as ‘the selective incorporation of ecological goals in the greening of urban governance’. The sustainability fix captures how urban policymakers attempt to integrate environmental goals within neoliberal development trajectories, particularly where these are articulated through regeneration, resilience, greening and sustainable mobility agendas (Jokinen et al., 2018; Long, 2016; Mahmoudi et al., 2020; Martin et al., 2019). Crucially, the fix obscures contradictions by aligning ecological claims with competitiveness and political legitimacy, relying on scalar manoeuvring and forms of selective depoliticisation. Sustainability becomes selectively mobilised and strategically positioned within market-led urban projects, most visibly in interventions concerning housing and public space, where ecological ambitions are subordinated to property valorisation, urban competitiveness and growth imperatives. This lens foregrounds the contradictions inherent in urban greening: environmental claims are presented as universal public goods, yet their implementation operates through depoliticised governance arrangements, spatial selectivity and uneven redistribution of benefits. The sustainability fix therefore strengthens our argument as we articulate urban greening not as a neutral or technocratic intervention but as a politically and economically constructed arena in which sustainability is instrumentalised. In doing so, it helps situate the paradox between sustainability’s universalist promises and its unequal materialisation within broader dynamics of neoliberal urbanism.

Regarding the scope of this article, our primary focus lies on the vocabularies of sustainability and urban greening. Sustainability denotes a framework of environmental, social and economic aims, while urban greening serves as the main policy field through which we illustrate these tensions. Nonetheless, the dynamics we analyse exceed this particular domain and can be observed across broader sustainability and climate policy arenas. Urban greening represents one prominent application of this logic, but similar dynamics can be observed in other sustainability-orientated interventions such as urban energy transitions, retrofitting programmes, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, nature-based solutions and circular economy initiatives. The conversation has thus expanded towards addressing the impacts of climate change (Blok, 2020; Connolly, 2025; Heyen, 2023; Long and Rice, 2021; Marks and Connell, 2024). What was formerly labelled sustainable is now reframed as resilient, smart, circular and climate adaptive, while governance logics remain orientated towards growth, competitiveness and depoliticisation. Climate adaptation projects, such as flood protection, heat mitigation and green retrofitting, often disproportionately privilege those who are already equipped to adapt. As Bigger and Millington (2020) demonstrate, the financialisation of climate infrastructure ties municipal adaptation strategies to speculative logics, ultimately amplifying financial and environmental risks for economically vulnerable and racialised groups. Following Connolly’s (2025) argument, these policies risk producing new forms of inequality by embedding resilience into urban redevelopment processes that prioritise competitiveness and investment over addressing housing struggles. These studies further signal the need to interrogate how sustainability and climate policies are shaped by structural dynamics, especially the prioritisation of growth, competitiveness and investment. Our contribution ultimately lies in highlighting how persistent, adaptable and deeply embedded the urban greening paradox is within the contexts of sustainability and neoliberal urbanism. Hence, we keep urban greening as the primary empirical-policy anchor, using adjacent climate domains only to demonstrate how the underlying dynamics can be reproduced across the broader climate and sustainability agenda.

As these logics travel through global policy circuits and funding schemes structuring urban responses to climate change worldwide, the urban greening paradox also exceeds geographical boundaries. Recognising the global scope and pace of climate change, we argue that the dynamics underpinning the urban greening paradox are equally salient for cities beyond the global North. As Lees (2014) notes, acknowledging the potential for unjust forms of greening across both northern and southern geographies is essential for advancing a more equitable vision of urban sustainability. This also resonates with emerging scholarship on post-socialist and post-Soviet cities, contexts that remain comparatively underexamined yet exhibit strong neoliberal tendencies in their governance structures and environmental agendas. The authors’ own research, particularly their work on Leipzig and Łódź (Haase et al., 2022), speaks directly to these dynamics. In this sense, our debate invites a broader geographical conversation on uneven urban transformations, situating the urban greening paradox as a shared challenge across diverse political-economic settings and connecting discussions around unjust, unequal and more sustainable urban futures. In what follows, we identify three recurring dimensions through which the urban greening paradox becomes visible across urban sustainability agendas.

Unravelling the urban greening paradox

To unravel how the urban greening paradox is produced and sustained, we examine three analytical dimensions that capture its manifestation in practice: (a) the universalisation of greening benefits and ignorance about inequalities; (b) practices of current land use policy and their impacts on housing affordability; and (c) the underlying power relations in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects that shape the planning and implementation of urban greening and sustainability agendas.

The universalisation of urban greening benefits and ignorance about inequalities

The push to adopt urban sustainability policies gained momentum in the 1990s, aligned with the rise of the environmental movement and the discourse of ecological modernisation (Colantonio and Dixon, 2011). This marked the beginning of an era of environmentally conscious urban policy and science, in which sustainability discourses increasingly evolved into smart and resilient city paradigms. Within these paradigms, urban greening has come to be framed as a practice that provides universal benefits (Connolly, 2019).

Urban greening is widely credited with increasing climate resilience through the provision of ecosystem services (Baró et al., 2014), improving public health by enabling recreational activities (Gascon et al., 2016), stimulating local economic growth (Dooling, 2009) and enhancing social bonds (Connolly et al., 2013). Within this ‘green is good’ narrative, it is important to examine what value greening truly adds to the urban realm, and why it has come to be so strongly associated with the promise of enhanced quality of life for all. Angelo (2019) argues that the portrayal of urban greening as universally beneficial derives from the social and economic value it is presumed to generate. In contemporary capitalist societies, greening is often mobilised to create economic value through mechanisms such as green marketing, greenwashing and green investment. These processes frequently serve to raise property values and attract capital, disproportionately benefitting homeowners, landowners and investors, while economically vulnerable groups face the risk of exclusion and displacement. Nature is reframed as an asset, and urban green amenities are commodified and integrated into market logics (Knuth, 2017). This raises a critical question at the heart of the urban greening paradox: greening adds value, but for whom?

Notably, Amorim Maia et al.’s (2020) empirical study in Barcelona demonstrates that the outcomes of greening are highly contingent on socio-demographic context. The type of intervention, its spatial location and the symbolic and material value it offers to potential gentrifiers all influence the extent to which displacement pressures emerge. Evaluating urban (in)justice solely through the degree of a city’s ‘greenness’ therefore risks producing a reductive and misleading analysis. This insight aligns with Angelo’s (2019) claim that greening practices are not neutral but are embedded in urban regimes that carry specific economic and social meanings. Urban greening does not occur in a vacuum; it is shaped by, and contributes to, pre-existing patterns of inequality and exclusion. Socially equitable outcomes cannot be assumed – they must be politically contested and deliberately designed. This shows how universalised benefit framings help reproduce the paradox by displacing justice questions into the background.

Practices of current land use policy and their impacts on housing affordability

In recent years, a growing body of critical literature has examined how current land use and housing policies impact affordability, particularly in relation to urban greening. In contexts of ongoing urbanisation and densification, such dynamics are intensified: land speculation becomes increasingly common as urban space is rendered more attractive to private investment (Immergluck, 2009; Kotsila et al., 2022).

In the absence of robust regulatory frameworks to protect low-income groups, the commodification of land and housing fuels both direct and indirect displacement, rising unaffordability and the transformation of neighbourhoods to suit middle- and upper-income preferences; dynamics extensively examined in the green gentrification literature (Checker, 2011; Dooling, 2009; Gould and Lewis, 2017). These patterns are not confined to traditional gentrification hotspots; similar trends have emerged in cities experiencing newly intensified housing pressures and even in contexts of demographic decline (Anguelovski et al., 2020; Haase et al., 2022; Kronenberg et al., 2020). Although some municipalities have attempted to promote social diversity through mixed-use or social housing provisions within redevelopment areas, evidence indicates that economically vulnerable populations are often excluded from these ostensibly inclusive projects. In Dublin, the O’Devaney Gardens redevelopment illustrates how social housing units remain inaccessible to those most in need despite their inclusion in a mixed-use scheme (Lima, 2024). Likewise, the Lyon Confluence project, a flagship smart and green urban renewal initiative in a historically working-class district, has largely catered to wealthier residents while marginalising lower-income groups (Adam and Mestdagh, 2019; Roebeling et al., 2017). Comparable dynamics are evident in global South cities, albeit through different institutional arrangements; van Noorloos et al. (2019) argue that land commodification and processes often framed as ‘land grabs’ are embedded within development-led urbanisation, where land is increasingly treated as a strategic asset for growth. Drawing on the case of São Paulo, Tonucci (2024) shows how informal land development and housing access are shaped by a combination of overregulation, selective enforcement and state tolerance.

These examples reveal how greening policies implemented within neoliberal housing markets often follow a logic of value creation that undermines affordability and inclusivity. Without specific countermeasures, such interventions tend to prioritise capital accumulation over social equity (Oscilowicz et al., 2021). From this perspective, the outcomes are not paradoxical but rather predictable consequences of a growth-orientated urban agenda that frames land and housing as assets to be leveraged.

Power relations in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects

Sustainability policies more broadly, and urban greening initiatives more specifically, operate within urban contexts shaped by entrenched social power relations. As a result, these policies tend to reflect and reproduce the very dynamics of exclusion and privilege that characterise contemporary urban landscapes. While participatory approaches are often presented as inclusive and democratic, they can be influenced by unequal access to decision-making power, resources and political voice, thereby reinforcing existing hierarchies rather than challenging them (Anguelovski and Connolly, 2021; Hopkins, 2010; Kronenberg et al., 2020). Yet the ways in which dominance and exclusion shape these processes are often overlooked (Denney et al., 2018; Simmons, 2007). Decision-making mechanisms are central to urban greening and sustainability developments but debates on conflicts between ecological goals and social equity often sideline the role of profit interests and structural power (Wilson and Swyngedouw, 2014). A telling example comes from Lisbon, where traditional top-down decision making in urban greening developments has overshadowed efforts to implement genuinely inclusive public participation strategies (Verheij and Corrêa Nunes, 2021).

A key risk is the implementation of tokenistic or limited forms of participation, designed more to demonstrate compliance than to enable genuine inclusion. These formats often fail to engage socially diverse groups, particularly those facing barriers such as language, disability, non-traditional work schedules or limited familiarity with participatory settings (Kotsila et al., 2022; Lima, 2024; Silver et al., 2010). Even participants who are relatively familiar with consultation processes may struggle to navigate them effectively, resulting in uneven voice, influence and access (Kotsila et al., 2022; Puskás et al., 2021). The power relations in participatory processes and their exclusionary effects reveal yet another layer of the urban greening paradox: mechanisms intended to democratise decision making may instead legitimise exclusionary policies under the banner of inclusivity.

Recognising the political nature of participation in greening initiatives requires a critical and often conflictual approach: one that interrogates who sets the terms of engagement, whose voices are prioritised and whose voices are silenced. It also calls for the deliberate inclusion of diverse publics in shaping urban greening futures, moving beyond the performance of inclusivity to address underlying power asymmetries (Anguelovski et al., 2020; Haase et al., 2020). This demonstrates how participation can function as legitimation within depoliticised governance arrangements, shaping who can contest the paradox and how. Without critical engagement, participatory processes risk reproducing existing hierarchies and supporting exclusionary agendas rather than functioning as genuine mechanisms of democratic decision making. As Kremer et al. (2020) emphasise, ‘social sustainability will only be realizable when we deliberately embed our research into context and critically scrutinize if not question current power mechanisms and real-world practices of social exclusion’.

Explaining the paradox: Market-driven sustainability and neoliberal urbanism

Understanding how the paradox emerges requires situating urban greening within broader political-economic structures. As Anguelovski et al. (2020) and Quastel (2009) argue, urban greening forms part of a wider political project rather than a neutral or technocratic intervention. In this sense, greening is neither apolitical nor detached from the political contexts in which it is planned and implemented. The paradox therefore reflects a political standpoint, one that determines what is prioritised, what is neglected and whose voices are amplified or silenced. This underscores the need to interrogate the normative assumptions embedded in greening agendas and the way that inclusion, exclusion and participation are structured in practice.

A common thread linking the three dimensions discussed above is the way that social sustainability and justice-orientated goals are consistently overshadowed by market logics associated with neoliberal urbanism (Aalbers, 2020; Baffoe, 2023; Gibson et al., 2023). Neoliberal urbanism refers to a mode of governance rooted in the political and economic ideology of neoliberalism, which promotes market deregulation, privatisation, individual responsibility and the retrenchment of state welfare (Harvey, 2005). As Aalbers (2020) argues, neoliberal urbanism casts cities as entrepreneurial actors engaged in global competition, continually pursuing investment and economic growth. Within this paradigm, greening is not merely shaped by neoliberal urbanism but is actively incorporated into it. Rather than being approached as a public good or a ecological necessity, green infrastructure becomes a strategic asset for attracting investment, boosting land values and enhancing the marketability of development projects (Aalbers, 2020; Knuth, 2015). Under this logic, economic cost–benefit calculations increasingly determine the scope of environmental action. In this way, neoliberal urbanism not only shapes the outcomes of greening initiatives but also narrows the scope of what is considered desirable policy.

This instrumentalisation of nature aligns with what political ecologists describe as the neoliberalisation of nature: the reorganisation of ecological systems to facilitate capital accumulation (Castree, 2008). Studies show how nature is used as a financial asset (Knuth, 2015), a tool of social power (Bryson, 2013) or a vehicle for accumulation masked as liveability (Kear, 2007; Long, 2016). Environmental narratives are often depoliticised, obscuring underlying conflicts and legitimising strategies that exacerbate inequalities (Checker, 2011; Kapsali, 2024; Kellokumpu, 2023). Under these conditions, urban greening becomes less a project of ecological sustainability or social well-being and more a mechanism for value generation (Angelo, 2019). A clear example is Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where greening embedded in public-private redevelopment reinforced speculative real estate interests and deepened socio-spatial inequalities, particularly in informal housing areas (Chiu, 2024).

Neoliberal governance also unfolds within a post-political framework, where sustainability is framed as a matter of consensus based on its assumed universal benefits, rather than as a site of political contestation (Swyngedouw, 2010). This contributes to the depoliticisation of urban greening, insofar as power relations and justice questions are obscured by consensual framings that portray greening as inherently beneficial. Within such ‘green is good’ narratives, conflicts over land, housing and uneven distributions of costs and benefits are displaced by technocratic concerns about design, efficiency or implementation. As a result, distributive and procedural injustices tend to be reframed as unintended side effects rather than as outcomes of political decisions embedded in market-led governance arrangements. Ecological Modernisation Theory (EMT) reinforces this depoliticisation by framing environmental challenges as solvable through technological innovation, institutional reform and economic competitiveness, without questioning underlying capitalist structures (Mol and Spaargaren, 2000). Consequently, greening risks becoming a sustainability fix: technocratic solutions that address environmental indicators without considering the socio-economic context in which they are implemented (Scanu et al., 2021; While et al., 2004).

Finally, neoliberal urbanism also permeates the discourse on climate resilience. Connolly’s (2025) comparative analysis shows how adaptation projects can accelerate property value increases and displacement, undermining long-term climate goals. Similarly, Marks and Connell (2024) demonstrate that resilience infrastructure in Bangkok disproportionately benefits affluent districts, deepening socio-spatial inequities in exposure to extreme heat. These examples illustrate how resilience agendas, too, can be instrumentalised to attract investment and repackage climate interventions as economic assets.

Viewed through this lens, the urban greening paradox is not a policy inconsistency but a structural conflict between the normative promise of sustainability (to deliver collective social and environmental benefits) and its implementation within a framework that prioritises market logics. From a neoliberal perspective, treating land and housing as assets for value maximisation is not paradoxical but logical (Aalbers, 2020). From an urban political ecology perspective, the paradox reflects struggles over land and resources and the uneven distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. Through the lens of EMT, it reveals how power relations and inequities are routinely obscured. Under neoliberal conditions, actors such as real-estate developers or the ‘sustainability class’ benefit from greening, while more vulnerable populations bear its costs. In this way, ecological modernisation offers a surface-level discourse of environmental concern while ultimately maintaining the status quo.

In sum, neoliberal urbanism explains the urban greening paradox by framing sustainability as a vehicle for value production and capitalist investment. Greening is positioned less as a pathway towards environmental justice and more as an instrument of economic growth. Addressing this dynamic requires analytical approaches grounded in urban political ecology and critical urban studies; approaches that foreground the power relations and systemic inequalities embedded in ostensibly progressive environmental interventions. As Angelo (2019) suggests, greening must be examined through a politicised lens that reveals its alignment with accumulation and exclusions. Policies should therefore be attuned to how environmental interventions interact with political-economic contexts and how they differentially affect social groups (Bailey and Bryant, 2005). Building on these insights, the next section turns to policy strategies and tools that can support a more justice-orientated approach to urban greening.

Tackling the paradox: Towards a more just and inclusive greening policy

Returning to the urban greening paradox as a tension between universalist sustainability values and neoliberal implementation logics, we reaffirm the three propositions advanced by this debate: (i) inequities produced by urban greening are endogenous to market-led urban governance; (ii) the paradox travels across climate and sustainability policy arenas beyond greening; and (iii) mitigating these contradictions requires ex ante justice-orientated planning foundations to ensure that redistribution and recognition are prioritised and integrated from the outset.

How, then, can the urban greening paradox be confronted through practical means? Before proposing ways forward, it is necessary to acknowledge a fundamental limitation: the contradictory outcomes associated with urban greening cannot be fully eliminated so long as they remain embedded within neoliberal urbanism and pervasive capitalist logics. As Fainstein (2010: 170) argues, we ultimately face a choice: either accept the system as unchangeable, or pursue non-reformist reforms. The latter involves incremental yet strategically targeted interventions that challenge existing hierarchies and lay the foundations for more just urban futures. While broader societal transformations and paradigm shifts in urban policy remain necessary, we align with a non-reformist reforms approach. Recognising the persistence of neoliberal urban conditions does not imply paralysis. Rather, by identifying where the paradox materialises, who is disadvantaged and which actors hold the capacity to contest or reshape planning processes, it becomes possible to build leverage for more equitable sustainability transitions. Placing equity, diversity and democratic inclusion at the centre of urban greening is therefore crucial: not only for producing environmental effective outcomes but also for advancing justice-orientated urban policy (Fainstein, 2010). The following examples are offered not as an exhaustive toolkit but as illustrations of the kinds of non-reformist reforms that can begin to tackle the urban greening paradox in practice.

First, the application of an environmental justice assessment framework before the implementation of urban sustainability interventions offers a promising avenue to bridge justice and sustainability, providing ex-ante insights into potential trade-offs and injustices (Calderón-Argelich et al., 2021; Heyen, 2023; Pearsall et al., 2012). Developing a robust set of criteria to evaluate whether and how justice objectives can be achieved, particularly from a long-term perspective, would enable urban planners and policymakers to design more justice-sensitive interventions. Valuable tools such as the distributive justice index proposed by Kato-Huerta and Geneletti (2023) or the dynamic justice framework introduced by Weghorst et al. (2025) provide actionable approaches for assessing justice dimensions in urban sustainability planning. These frameworks could be operationalised alongside policy instruments that combine anti-displacement measures, equitable development strategies and inclusive green infrastructure planning, such as those advocated by the Barcelona Lab for Urban and Environmental Justice and Sustainability (Oscilowicz et al., 2021). Such anticipatory tools can play a crucial role in identifying potentially unjust or exclusionary outcomes before they are embedded in policy implementation.

Second, a variety of planning and policy instruments already exist to prevent or mitigate displacement, especially in the context of housing unaffordability, and could be more systematically integrated into urban greening strategies. Land use tools such as inclusionary zoning, milieu protection and preservation status laws are applied in areas vulnerable to gentrification or displacement, helping protect long-term resident populations (Oscilowicz et al., 2025). Municipalities can also adopt development requirements and incentives, including mandates for developers to incorporate affordable housing units into new projects or to prioritise the conversion of vacant land into affordable housing. In addition, financial instruments such as housing-focussed financing schemes targeting homeowners, renters and communities must be reconsidered to better support equity-orientated urban development (Fainstein, 2010; Oscilowicz et al., 2025). Urban greening-specific tools include regulations that require private green spaces to be made publicly accessible, developer obligations to include minimum green space in new projects and the use of green bonds and similar financial mechanisms to fund equitable green infrastructure (Bigger and Millington, 2020). These and other justice-orientated tools should be mainstreamed into sustainability planning and explicitly integrated into urban master plans. Their inclusion could even become a prerequisite for accessing national or urban development funding, particularly in contexts where public investment in green and resilient cities is increasingly tied to sustainability and climate adaptation agenda.¹

Third, more attention must be paid to the role and responsibility of real estate actors in shaping socially just infrastructure. Neoliberal market logics and social responsibility are not inherently incompatible; rather, reconciling them depends on political will, robust regulatory frameworks and ongoing negotiation. The Urban Land Institute (2020), for example, outlines best practices for incorporating health and equity into real estate development. The Schuylkill Yards project in Philadelphia serves as a case where large-scale investment in parks, open public spaces and significant community funds demonstrated the feasibility of aligning profit motives with public benefit. Likewise, emerging initiatives such as the Social, Economic and Environmental Design (SEED) Network (https://seednetwork.org) support developers and designers in evaluating and certifying the social, economic and environmental impact of their projects, offering a model for more responsible and inclusive urban development.

Last but not least, it is essential to foreground the political dimension of urban greening and to ensure the thorough representation of diverse social groups in both planning and implementation. The extent to which greening and sustainability policies produce socially inclusive, affordable and equitable outcomes depends heavily on the inclusion of diverse social groups, their values and their needs in both policy development and implementation. As Anguelovski et al. (2020) and Kotsila et al. (2022) argue, urban policies are often shaped by a narrow group of decision makers, rather than by broader democratic engagement with urban society. This is particularly problematic in socially heterogeneous, low-income areas where residents may have differing relationships to public space and urban life. A meaningful response to this challenge requires careful engagement with the values and lived experiences that different communities attach not only to greening but also to broader sustainability transitions (Agyeman and Evans, 2003; Bauer, 2022; Low, 2013). They must be designed in ways that enable inclusive renewal, mediate conflict and facilitate just outcomes (Connolly, 2019; McArdle, 2021; Rigolon and Németh, 2020). This requires an inter- and multidisciplinary approach from both academia and policy, engaging more closely with sociologists, ethnographers, psychologists and other scholars focussed on the social dimensions of urban change (Angelo, 2019; Anguelovski et al., 2020). Adopting an emancipatory and relational approach not only enhances the legitimacy of sustainability policies but also elevates social justice and inclusion to a level where they can meaningfully challenge market priorities, reshaping the very terrain on which sustainability decisions are made.

In conclusion, while the urban greening paradox is deeply embedded in the neoliberal logic of urban development, it is not insurmountable. We argue that this paradox can be critically deconstructed by exposing the growth-driven foundations of prevailing sustainability agendas and advancing more justice-sensitive approaches that pursue greener and more equitable urban futures simultaneously. Yet a key challenge remains: to what extent can recognising the structural contradictions of urban greening, alongside the tools to address them, translate into substantive changes in policy and practice? Ultimately, this depends on the political will to prioritise social justice, redistribute resources and embed equity at the core of sustainability transitions.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Anika Schmidt for her support in shaping the argument in earlier versions of the article. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive feedback. We finally acknowledge the Horizon Europe programme of the European Research Executive Agency through the MSCA Doctoral Network PRESILIENT (GA: 101073394). Although this article was not produced within the project, participation in the doctoral network provided institutional support and research infrastructure that facilitated the work.

ORCID iD

Sara Mengato

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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