Thread by @aldatweets

Tech companies like Amazon love to build LEED buildings with green roofs & green walls in walkable downtowns. What if this climate-friendly veneer masks gentrification that actually increases local carbon footprints? Our provocation in @IJURResearch
ijurr.org/article/contra…

@JennRice_Geog @profjoshlong, J Jurvevitch & 1 make 3 points. 1/ Climate-friendliness (including low-co2) is an increasingly important motivation to city gov'ts, big tech companies, and tech professionals. Their climate concern helps fuel downtown densification near new tech jobs

2/ This influx of tech firms and jobs into central areas is displacing poor and racialized residents, as we illustrate w fine-grained Census data from Seattle, where Amazon has played a leading role

3/ The evidence from localized, consumption-based carbon footprint analysis v strongly suggests that this demographic change is driving up (or maintaining) those nabes' carbon footprints, bc of increased wealth and the consumption style of new residents

So what should be done? Two things stand out, and we emphasize the first in the paper: "there is no climate justice without a clear and central focus on housing justice." Which of course echoes what many on the ground in Seattle (where we focus) are saying

Only non-market affordable housing in densifying areas can ensure that everyone has access to density's benefits (and public affluence > private wealth). This is explained in more depth & more directly in this essay of mine based on similar data
publicbooks.org/the-big-pictur…

The second thing is that low-carbon densification needs to be a public planning process at the metro-regional scale, with affordable housing provided throughout. This is why I've argued public housing build-out needs to be at the core of a Green New Deal
jacobinmag.com/2019/02/green-…

Now, some of paper's scholarly implications. We build on fantastic work done by scholars of environmental gentrification. "Carbon gentrification" we speak of here is distinct. Not about greening in familiar sense, but low-carbon density. Fact that this can be quantified is key!

And gets us to a wonkier "contradiction": the capacity to quantify carbon has facilitated powerful arguments for density's climate benefit. But that is almost always based on *territorial* emissions accounting, which completely misses affluent density's high carbon footprint

In the paper, we call for more, better climate data. I'm in early stages of a big data, neighborhood-level project to measure co2 footprints (& climate vulnerabilities, & many more social dynamics). But this can't be one research team, it's a collective issue for social science

TLDR A: We are absolutely in favor of low-carbon densification. But what *kind* of density is key. Density that displaces poor & racialized ppl, and doesn't even lower carbon footprints, is not the way to decarbonize cities and improve everyday life for all (or even most!)

TLDR B: Fundamental issue is housing. Only sufficient quantities of affordable housing (ie, a lot) can make density work for climate and people, ensuring access and building urban fabric of public affluence. Data catching up with the organizing: climate justice is housing justice