Green Gentrification and Urban B/ordering in Freiburg, Germany

Green urban interventions like the creation of ‘sustainable neighbourhoods’ are often presented as solution to both, the climate crisis and the housing crisis, as new housing stock is built with environmental criteria. However, critical studies rather suggest that they create a shortage of affordable housing, leading to displacement and exclusion of marginalized groups, so-called green gentrification. Recent research on green gentrification argues that it is a highly racialized process, in which racialized groups not only get dispossessed, but discriminated and excluded from decision-making processes. However, the racial dimension of green cities and green urban interventions is not sufficiently researched. I want to address this research gap by analysing processes of green gentrification and practices of urban b/ordering towards migrants and other racialized groups in the city of Freiburg in Germany. Freiburg is recognized as a European leader in environmental policy at the local level and is seen as a model for ‘sustainable’ urban living. In response to the climate crisis and the city’s housing shortage, Freiburg developed two ‘sustainable neighbourhoods’ in the 1990s and is currently developing one more. While there are some critical analyses of the city’s green policies and interventions, no study has been found that uses a racial analytical lens and few studies employ ethnographic research methods. In the symposium I would like to present insights from my first field research stay in Freiburg from September to December of 2025. I hope that the exchange between Freiburg and Barcelona might be useful to discuss how to strengthen the right to housing for migrants and racialized groups in both cities.