When Climate Change Encounters Housing Affordability Problem: Low-Carbon Gentrification and Housing Justice

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Bing Zhu
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 566194169

As the climate crisis worsens, city planners promote sustainable urban development. However, these initiatives can fuel real estate speculation, driving up housing costs and displacing communities—a phenomenon known as ecological gentrification. To date, most research on ecological gentrification has focused on vegetative greening, while the broader implications of urban climate initiatives remain less explored. This project addresses this gap by examining low-carbon gentrification, characterized by middle- and upper-income residents’ preference for neighborhoods with walkability, bikeability, public transit access, mixed-use environments, and energy-efficient systems that reduce their carbon footprint. This project assesses carbon justice by analyzing the spatial disparities of low-carbon neighborhoods across racial and socioeconomic groups and the associated gentrification effects. To achieve this: • WP1 constructs indices based on three dimensions—mobility (accessibility), building carbon emissions (operational carbon), and natural carbon sinks (green spaces)—to visualize the distribution of low-carbon neighborhoods in 1 km² grids across Germany. It then quantifies their capitalization in the real estate market, evaluates affordability, and measures disparities in access using the D-index. • WP2 investigates gentrification induced by low-carbon initiatives. Using methods such as staggered difference-in-differences, propensity score matching, instrumental variable regression, and triple-difference analysis, it examines the capital reinvestment through the energy-efficient building development and retrofitting funded by KfW Climate-Friendly Residential Properties and Energy Efficiency Modernization programs. It also assesses social upgrading by analyzing demographic shifts following these developments. • WP3 explores whether affordable housing policies—including inclusionary housing policies (SoBoN) and rent controls (Mietpreisbremse)—mitigate or exacerbate inequality in low-carbon neighborhoods and gentrification driven by low-carbon initiatives. If low-carbon gentrification limits access to environmentally friendly cities primarily to wealthier residents, policymakers and urban theorists must address its unintended social and ecological consequences. Studying this phenomenon provides critical insights for designing more inclusive and sustainable urban development strategies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants