From Environmental Trauma to Safe Haven: Place

Attachment and Place Remaking in Three Marginalized

Neighborhoods of Barcelona, Boston, and Havana
Isabelle Anguelovski*
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

In recent years, local activists in the Global North and South have been organiz-
ing to improve degraded and abandoned spaces in marginalized neighborhoods by
creating parks, playgrounds, urban farms, or community gardens. This paper in-
tegrates existing knowledge on urban place attachment and sense of community
with scholarship on environmental justice in order to understand the role of place
attachment in environmental mobilization in distressed neighborhoods across po-
litical systems and urbanization contexts. It examines the different forms of connec-
tions that activists develop and express toward neighborhoods with long-time sub-
standard environmental conditions and how their experience of the neighborhood
shapes their engagement in environmental revitalization projects. This comparison
of three neighborhoods in Barcelona, Boston, and Havana shows that activists in all
three places intend for their environmental endeavors to express grief at the loss
of community, fears of erasure, and emotional connection and feelings of responsi-
bility to place. To address environmental trauma, they aim to construct nurturing,
soothing, “safe havens,” recreate rootedness, and remake place for residents.

INTRODUCTION

Since 2001, low-income residents, immigrants, and their various supporters have joined
together to revitalize abandoned areas of the Casc Antic of Barcelona by beautifying com-
munity spaces, self-managing a new park and playgrounds, and building community gar-
dens. Similarly, since 1988, inhabitants and organizations from the degraded Afro-Cuban
neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, Havana, have organized farms, green spaces, and play-
grounds. In Dudley, a Cape-Verdean, Latino, and African American neighborhood in
Boston, residents and local organizations have rallied forces since the 1980s to transform
abandoned lots into urban farms, parks, fresh food markets, bakeries, sports centers, and
playgrounds.
These cases illustrate the emergence of organizations of residents in historically
marginalized urban neighborhoods aiming to improve environmental quality in de-
graded spaces (Agyeman et al. 2003; Gottlieb 2005). These efforts are found in cities
with different levels of democratization, urbanization, and development. Often, their

∗ Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Isabelle Anguelovski, ICTA, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; Isabelle.Anguelovski@uab.cat.

City & Community 12:3 September 2013

doi: 10.1111/cico.12026

C 2013 American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

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projects are vehicles for improving the livability of urban neighborhoods, creating agree-
able communities, and decreasing criminality in places that often appear degraded and
abandoned, with much vacant space, and without a welcoming and safe environment for
residents (Birch and Wachter 2008; Gottlieb 2005).
Traditional environmental justice (EJ) research has documented the inequalities in en-
vironmental hazards and contamination disproportionately located in urban distressed
neighborhoods (Bullard 2005; Carruthers 2008; Downey and Hawkins 2008). That lit-
erature also reports on the rise of community demands against environmental harms
and threats, and for long-term livability (Dobson 1998; Martı́nez Alier 2002; Pellow and
Brulle 2005; Pulido 1996). However, less is known about how the identities of these
activists, their sense of and attachment to place, and their interpretation of broader
urban history influence environmental mobilization in historically marginalized com-
munities. Beyond the general objectives of “greening,” sustainability, or social justice,
what are the personal, intimate, and place-based meanings of urban environmental ac-
tivism for engaged neighborhood residents and their supporting groups and nonprofit
organizations?
In this paper, I focus on the following questions: What are the different forms of con-
nections that activists develop toward marginalized neighborhoods with long-time sub-
standard environmental conditions? How do place and place attachment shape their en-
gagement in environmental revitalization projects? Using case studies of marginalized
neighborhoods across very different contexts of urbanization, Cayo Hueso (Havana),
Casc Antic (Barcelona), and Dudley (Boston), I explore whether such variation influ-
ences activists’ relation to place and place-based engagement. I also unravel how long-
term environmental decay together with specific forms of place attachment create similar
patterns of activism in marginalized neighborhoods.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS

ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL INEQUALITIES IN THE CITY

In the United States and Europe, minorities and low-income populations have historically
been victims of greater environmental harm and contamination from waste sites, incin-
erators, refineries, transportation, and small-area sources than white and well-off com-
munities (Bullard 2005; Downey and Hawkins 2008; Morello-Frosch et al. 2001). Such
neighborhoods generally get fewer environmental amenities, such as street cleaning,
open space maintenance, and waste management, while wealthier and white commu-
nities benefit from environmental privileges—parks, coasts, forests—often in a racially
exclusive way (Heynen et al. 2006; Park and Pellow 2011). Deprived neighborhoods
have also been associated with “food deserts,” where produce is scarce. Low-income
populations and communities of color are also less likely to live close to fitness centers
(Estabrooks et al. 2003; Lovasi et al. 2009).
Similarly, environmental hazards, contamination of land and water resources, and re-
source extraction disproportionately affect low-income communities in the Global South
(Carruthers 2008; Evans et al. 2002; Martı́nez Alier 2002). Northern nations and multina-
tional corporations also export millions of tons of toxic waste from industry, agriculture,
consumers, public institutions, and computer and electronic products to urban centers in

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poorer countries, and this without much state oversight and control (Martı́nez Alier 2002;
Pellow 2007).
In response to environmental inequalities, EJ struggles have emerged around the
globe. Traditionally, EJ coalitions have organized against the health impacts of contam-
inating facilities in residential areas (Chambers 2007; McGurty 2000; Pellow and Brulle
2005). In the United States, activists’ concerns were initially rooted in a civil rights frame-
work (Bullard 2005; Pellow and Brulle 2005). Today, however, communities often frame
their struggles as fights for economic and social justice (Agyeman et al. 2003), and po-
sition themselves in opposition to the traditional environmental movement and its con-
cern for the protection of pastoralism and pristine ecosystems, often to the detriment
of people’s health, jobs, and identity (Dobson 1998; Pulido 1996). In the Global South,
environmental abuses have also triggered numerous community struggles and ecologi-
cal distributional conflicts (Martı́nez Alier 2002). In these conflicts, residents fight the
private appropriation of communal livelihoods and organize against the structures of
economic and political power.
Recently, the EJ agenda has expanded to include the right to well-connected, afford-
able, and clean transit systems in cities (Agyeman et al. 2003; Loh and Eng 2010) and
to fresh, local, and affordable food and community food security (Gottlieb 2005, 2009).
Organizations also advocate for green, affordable, healthy housing along with recycling
and garden practices inside the housing complexes (Loh and Eng 2010) or for the provi-
sion of economic opportunities for disenfranchised communities around the green econ-
omy. In shrinking and declining cities, remaining residents are coming together to merge
empty lots together and transform them into parks, playgrounds, or farms (Dewar and
Linn forthcoming). This environmentalism associates social equity and wealth creation
dimensions with the concept of sustainability (Agyeman et al. 2003). In developing cities,
scholars rarely call the search for greater access to environmental goods for poor and
minority residents “environmental justice,” but rather, refer to “urban livability,” empha-
sizing both decent livelihoods for ordinary urban residents and ecological sustainability
(Evans 2002), but leaving little room for a thorough analysis of agency.
Yet, the demands of EJ activists cast a different perspective on the environment: For
them, the urban environment is the place where people live, work, learn, and play all
together. They view the urban environment in a holistic and comprehensive way. In
other words, their specific city and localized urban space are important rallying points
for marginalized residents and their supporters fighting for long-term environmental
quality, not a neutral receptacle for universal EJ struggles. Indeed, residents often de-
velop multiple forms of connection to their place, which are under-examined in urban
environmental justice scholarship.

PLACE AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN URBAN MARGINALIZED

NEIGHBORHOODS

A variety of disciplines—sociology, planning, geography, and environmental

psychology—have examined and theorized “place” in cities. Place is a meaningful
site that combines location (the geographical situation of a place), locale (its physical
and material characteristics), and sense of place (the feelings and emotions induced by
a place especially through representation) (Cresswell 2009). The history of linkages to

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a broader system together with local social relations is what produces and reproduces a
place through time (Massey 1994). Places are imbued with layers of sedimented meaning
derived from tradition, identification, and sentiment (Corcoran 2002; Hayden 1995), as
well as from people’s experiences and their social connections in it (Cresswell 2009).
Place attachment, as the affective bond between people and places (Low and Altman
1992), can rest on physical features and settings (i.e., the built environment) as well
as social dimensions (Scannell and Gifford 2010). This duality gives rise to scholarly
debates between environmental determinism versus social compositionalist views on
community and place. Place attachment stems from accumulated life experiences and
from attributing an emotional meaning to neighborhoods through an interactive and
culturally shared process (Milligan 1998). Ordinary people extract from spaces a clearly
identified, bounded, and meaningful place toward which they build a strong connection
(De Certeau 1984). Place attachment provides a sense of security and well-being, defines
boundaries between groups, and anchors memories, especially against the passage of
time (Gieryn 2000; Logan and Molotch 1987).
The attachment that people feel toward a place is often connected to their sense of
community, which includes the connection to a shared history and concerns (Perkins
and Long 2002). Essential to the understanding of place attachment is its link to identity
formation and protection (Altman et al. 1992; Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga 2003). Over
time, place identity is shaped through interactions that create values and beliefs, and it
is also intimately connected to memory (Bondi 1993; Hayden 1995). The identity and
meaning of a place are often the object of controversy and contestation (Gieryn 2000).
For instance, groups categorized as “social preservationists” are attracted to “authentic
social spaces” (Brown-Saracino 2004) and reinforce the character of the place by patron-
izing local businesses or mobilizing to protect the “authentic” old-timers who live there
(Molotch et al. 2000).
Urban sociology treats the neighborhood as an important place for marginalized resi-
dents, who have been shown to construct a personal identity tied to place, develop spe-
cific uses for spaces, and assign certain meanings to them (Falk 2004; Manzo 2003; Pattillo
2007). In the environmental arena, green space plays multiple roles for low-income pop-
ulations and residents of color. Public spaces with natural characteristics are important
resources to build community (Kuo et al. 1998). Gardens offer educational activities to
people, cultivate a self-help ethos, promote gardeners’ pride, and create strong bonds
with the space (Lawson 2005; Schmelzkopf 2002). Gardening has important social and
mental health benefits (Maller et al. 2006; Marcus and Barnes 1999). People can relax,
teach others and learn, and connect to each other. Gardens help people release stress,
escape from conflict, enhance comfort, restore hope, and improve well-being (Francis
and Hester 1999; Marcus and Barnes 1999).
Furthermore, through schools, work, religion, and race, residents of traditionally ex-
cluded neighborhoods create connections where they find social reinforcement of their
beliefs (Gregory 1998; May 2001). Often, residents attempt to recreate a village with
vibrant narrow streets and close-knit families who cherish community life (Gans 1962;
Small 2004). They build solidarities and bonds of mutual support within, between, and
across spaces (Manzo et al. 2008). For instance, neighborhood social places, such as tav-
erns, barbershops, and churches, provide spaces for casual and impromptu sociability,
while giving customers opportunities to find consistent support and comfort, and to learn
to deal with outside relations (Anderson 2003; May 2001).

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However, urban neighborhoods naturally go through phases of fragmentation and

disruption (Massey 1994). More than other places, the stability of distressed neighbor-
hoods is threatened by urban renewal projects (Fainstein and Campbell 2002; Gans 1962;
Pattillo 2007; Small 2004). Marginalized neighborhoods tend to be perceived and labeled
by outsiders—and also often by insiders—as poor urban ghettos scarred by violence, di-
lapidation, and poverty. Territorial stigmas attached to them reinforce their marginaliza-
tion (Wacquant 2007). Urban renewal tends to trigger feelings of amputation as overlap-
ping networks built in corner stores, gardens, and street activities get destroyed (Fullilove
2004) and as new developments come to replace public housing. The loss of place has
devastating consequences for memory and identity (Fullilove 1996).
When faced with the disruption and fragmentation of their neighborhood, residents
do not remain passive. First, they transgress elite constructions of what normal uses of a
place should be (Cresswell 2009). They often engage in practices “out of place” as a form
of resistance (De Certeau 1984), contest stigmas, and in turn create autonomous images
of place and community (Falk 2004; Gotham and Brumley 2002). For instance, as immi-
grants experience gentrification, they use oral and written discourse such as theater plays
to position themselves vis-à-vis newcomers and create social and moral boundaries (Molan
2007). In addition, people with shared spatial experiences who faced displacement
and place attachment disruption use nostalgia to create identity continuity (Milligan
2003).
Community identity as experienced by residents in marginalized neighborhoods is of-
ten the basis of neighborhood participation, collective action, and eventually political
action (Davis 1991; Gotham and Brumley 2002; Suttles 1968; Tilly 1974). Place attach-
ment has been shown to motivate residents to invest time in the neighborhood, moni-
tor local development, or participate in community planning (Chavis and Wandersman
1990; Cohrun 1994; Corcoran 2002; Von Hoffman 2003). Residents take action in a va-
riety of domains and sometimes articulate multiple demands at once. For instance, in
addition to proposals for economic justice and EJ, coalition members of The Right to
the City Alliance, demanded greater democracy together with the end of real estate
speculation, community space privatization, and gentrification (Connolly and Steil 2009;
Marcuse 2009). In East Harlem, recent fights for decent housing have transformed into
a struggle against neoliberalism, gentrification, and displacement, and for collective self-
determination (Maeckelbergh 2012). In other words, activists resist development projects
to protect place and preserve place-related identity (Devine-Write 2009). They mobilize
to defend the places’ heritage and social memory deemed important due to the mean-
ingful rituals that happen there (Paulsen 2007).

BRINGING TOGETHER URBAN EJ AND PLACE

To date, little is known about how place, place attachment, and sense of community shape
struggles for long-term environmental quality and livability in historically deprived neigh-
borhoods. Few urban studies have examined the deeper sense of place and identity that
connect activists fighting for comprehensive and holistic environmental improvements in
marginalized areas.1 Empirical work is needed to understand how activists experience a
neighborhood that has undergone long-term environmental degradation and decay (and
not only suffered from a toxic waste site or factory) and the broader meanings activists

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assign to their environmental revitalization work. EJ scholarship has traditionally focused

on environmental “bads,” and has only recently, and only in the United States, devoted
more attention to proactive “green” projects.
This paper examines the role of place attachment and identity in environmental mobi-
lization in distressed neighborhoods. It considers the different forms of connections that
activists develop over time and express toward marginalized neighborhoods with long-
term substandard environmental conditions, and how place attachment shapes their en-
gagement in environmental revitalization projects.

METHODS

This research is based on a comparative study of three critical and emblematic minority
and low-income neighborhoods that were organized to improve environmental quality
and livability: Casc Antic (Barcelona), Dudley (Boston), and Cayo Hueso (Havana). This
project furthers nascent work in comparative urbanism beyond the North–South divide
and toward postcolonial urban studies. It is one of an increasing number of studies that
neither separate cities in developed and developing nations nor analyze processes in de-
veloping countries in view of developed country realities, histories, and relations. Rather,
it provides a strong theoretical understanding of cities with similar spatialities, connec-
tions, and processes (McFarlane 2010; Robinson 2011).
Indeed, my inductive approach to research and my initial fieldwork revealed com-
mon patterns and experiences of neighborhood environmental revitalization across these
three cities—Barcelona, Boston, and Havana—even though at first glance, they do not
share many attributes. My purpose was to analyze neighborhoods that have all success-
fully asserted their claims to planners and policymakers and have achieved compara-
bly improved environmental and health conditions through a variety of environmental
projects: parks and playgrounds, sports courts and centers, urban farms, farmers’ markets
and healthy food providers, and waste management. Each neighborhood has been very
active and visible in each city over the past two decades as residents and their supporters
organized toward improved environmental quality. Last, I chose centrally located neigh-
borhoods to keep constant the geographic location within the city; physical proximity
to decision-makers, planners, and economic players; general infrastructure; and historic
relevance in each place (Figure 1).
The cases selected also maximize the diversity of contexts of urbanization and histories
of marginalization to test how these conditions affect (or not) the narratives and claims
of activists in distressed neighborhoods and the role of place in community organization.
Boston is a well-developed and established city with a history of racial violence; Barcelona
has been a dynamic and quite rich city “up for grabs” upon the return of democracy
with both (re)development projects and contestation movements; and Havana is in a
developing country immersed in a socioeconomic crisis since 1989.
I focused on environmental transformation in three marginalized neighborhoods to
unravel how activists not only understand and experience baseline conditions of degra-
dation and abandonment but also proactively work on neighborhood change, and to
compare how their experience of and attachment to place shaped activism across con-
texts. For instance, is there a difference in the way that activists see environmental decay
in Havana versus Barcelona versus Boston, as one place is in a developing setting, another

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Dudley Casc Antic Cayo Hueso

• Majority consists of low-income
African-American, Cape Verdean, and
Latino residents; 50% of children below
poverty line
•1,300 vacant lots by the mid-1980s, the
majority contaminated and abandoned by
the City of Boston and affluent property
owners
•Illegal trash transfer stations
•Lack of parks and recreational facilities;
Food desert
•Since 1984, community-led land clean-
up, management and (re)development of
parcels into urban farms, gardens,
community gyms, and healthy food
businesses
•31% of residents are foreigners, and the
majority of them live in poverty.
•Legacy of Franco: Crumbling housing,
poor waste management, and abandoned
and unsafe public spaces
•1980s: Unequal development; PERIS
urban plans with acute social and
environmental impacts
•Urban conflicts since the end of 1990s
(i.e., Forat de la Vergonya), occupation
and self-reconstruction of abandoned park
•2000s: Community-based environmental
revitalization projects and advocacy for
improvement in socio-environmental
conditions directed at the City of
Barcelona
• Dense and predominantly Afro-Cuban
neighborhood in Centro Habana
•By 1989: Degradation of buildings and
sanitation and further decay during the
Special Period crisis
•More than 50% of residents without daily
access to potable water; Few green areas
and safe public spaces
•1990s-2000s: Workshops for the
Comprehensive Transformation of the
Neighborhood (TTIBs) promoted by the
GDIC planning agency as autonomous
community-based revitalization projects
•1990s-2000s: Independent resident projects
around public space and recreational and
sports facilities

FIG. 1. A brief presentation of environmental change in Dudley, Casc Antic, and Cayo Hueso.

in a city in transition, and the last in a developed city? Or does place not matter, because
people experience marginalization and exclusion in similar ways?
In 2009 and 2010, I conducted semistructured interviews with 45 activists in Barcelona,
50 activists in Boston, and 49 activists in Havana. By “activists” I mean active neighbor-
hood residents, neighborhood leaders, and members of community organizations and
local NGOs whose long-term engagement appeared to have been decisive in the pursuit
and completion of environmental and health projects and who participated in direct
technical or organizing projects in each neighborhood. Some of the active residents are
or were in a vulnerable social condition.
I used snowball sampling to select interviewees after carefully identifying all environ-
mental revitalization projects and initiatives in each place. I recorded the interviews
when granted permission. In parallel, I engaged in participant observation of projects
focused on environmental and health improvements, to understand the development
of activists’ work and engagement, their use of space, as well as the dynamics and rela-
tionships between participants. Throughout the paper, I use first names to protect in-
formants’ identity, as some of them preferred to remain anonymous, and changed the
first names of some Cuban interviewees because of the sensitive political context in the
island.
Interview questions addressed the process and context that initially led to their de-
cision to participate in the neighborhood, their experience and feelings toward the
neighborhood, the connections they have built in it, the identity they have developed
around it, and the broader meanings of their engagement as related to place. I also asked
them to describe places, sites, and landmarks of significance in their neighborhood, and
related those questions to their engagement for environmental revitalization.
The data were analyzed using grounded theory techniques in Nvivo, process tracing,
and historical and analytical narratives. My initial work of line by line and paragraph
coding allowed for the emergence of unexpected but key concepts in this study: “sense
of responsibility,” “protection of tangible and intangible territory,” “war zone,” “trauma,”

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“nurturing,” and “safe havens.” Grounded theory was particularly helpful for building
stories of local activists, understanding their individual and collective identities, and un-
raveling their vision for neighborhood revitalization. Through process tracing, I analyzed
how community engagement is built upon a sense of marginalization and power in the
city, activists’ attachment to their neighborhood, and their individual and collective iden-
tity. In the next section, without describing in detail how activists achieved power, built
alliances, and implemented their projects, I briefly describe the transformations in Dud-
ley, Casc Antic, and Cayo Hueso.

STORIES OF NEIGHBORHOOD ABANDONMENT

AND TRANSFORMATION
FROM EXCLUSION AND ENVIRONMENTAL NEGLECT TO COMMUNITY-LED
REVITALIZATION IN DUDLEY

Dudley is a central neighborhood situated in the broader district of Roxbury in Boston,

with a majority of long-time low-income African American, Cape Verdean, and Latino
residents. In the early 1980s, one-third of the land was vacant (1,300 lots in a 1.5 square
mile area). As a result of years of arson and abandonment, the neighborhood had be-
come a dumping ground for contractors. Contaminating industrial businesses such as
auto-repair shops, scrap metal dealers, and truck storage facilities filled Dudley (Layzer
2006; Shutkin 2000). Contractors, outside residents, and builders were also emptying
truckfuls of old appliances, rotten meat, automobile bodies and parts, unused construc-
tion materials, and trash into empty lots that sat literally in the background of residents’
homes (Medoff and Sklar 1994). In addition, the neighborhood lacked supermarkets,
community centers, parks, and recreational facilities.
Contaminated lots were the initial focus of early restoration efforts in Dudley. In 1985,
the now well-known Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) was born, which led to
a comprehensive cleanup campaign of 1,300 lots, Don’t Dump on Us. In 1987, after much
advocacy, DSNI managed to convince the Public Health Department to shut down two
illegal trash transfers, and later obtained the power of eminent domain over a triangle of
64 acres of abandoned land to transform the blighted area into a vigorous neighborhood
controlled by the community (Medoff and Sklar 1994). In the early 1990s, local groups
turned their attention to an acute health emergency: lead hazards and poisoning. In
1994, DSNI and ACE—a new environmental NGO providing legal assistance and capacity
building—successfully took on three legal cases against dumping.
As part of long-term livability initiatives, active residents and local organizations also
started dedicating attention to open space, parks, and playground rehabilitation and
development. They also obtained control from the City of Boston over the early Dud-
ley Town Common built in 1993 and the Dennis Street Park. Some efforts have been
associated with projects in schools led by the Boston Schoolyard Initiative, in an effort
to revitalize neglected schoolyards and transform them into productive environments for
creative learning and playing.
As a response to high rates of obesity and cardiovascular diseases and the lack of recre-
ational areas, activists helped create sports grounds in or next to parks and commu-
nity centers with gyms. For instance, Project Right today develops multipurpose facilities

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offering athletics and academic, prevention, and intervention services. One recent re-
markable achievement in Dudley is the Kroc Foundation’s construction in 2011 of the
Kroc Center, a 115.5 million dollar aquatic center and fitness facility. At a smaller scale,
the Body by Brandy 4 Kidz gym, which opened in 2006, leads children suffering from
obesity to workouts and improved lifestyle classes.
Early on in Dudley’s revitalization work, activists also concentrated efforts on urban
agriculture. Through DSNI’s early advocacy work and with support from the Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA), the MA Highway Department, a $172,000 grant from
the Ford Foundation, and $60,000 from the Noyes Foundation, brownfield sites received
environmental remediation to become community gardens. Gardeners and neighbor-
hood leaders also cleaned up lots, with much guidance from the Boston Natural Areas
Network. Today, Dudley is home to three urban farms run by The Food Project and the
volunteers around them, which every year grow over 250,000 pounds of food for dona-
tion, youth-driven food enterprise, and farmers’ markets. More recently, bakeries have
become part of the local healthy food options, including the Haley Bakery, which also
organizes healthy eating and cooking classes for at-risk kids in partnership with the Body
by Brandy gym.
Last, in the past few years, Community Development Corporations (CDCs) have pro-
moted healthy and green housing together with green space development inside hous-
ing complexes. For instance, in 2009, Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corpora-
tion (EDC) completed the construction of 50 affordable rental housing units, with res-
idents also participating in the construction of a park and playground in a space called
Dudley Village. To date, more than 650 parcels of vacant land have been cleaned up and
redeveloped in Dudley’s core area. However, changes in some areas still lag behind. So-
cioeconomic indicators have yet to improve, and joblessness is still high in comparison
with wealthier neighborhoods such as Back Bay.

UNEQUAL DEVELOPMENT AND NEIGHBORHOOD STRUGGLES FOR

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CASC ANTIC OF BARCELONA

In Barcelona, Ciutat Vella, the district where Casc Antic is located, is a labyrinth of small
streets and plazas, with few streets wider than 7 m. Small stores or workshops usually
occupy the ground floor of buildings while the upper floors are housing or sometimes of-
fice spaces. Located between Barcelona’s waterfront and the broader and airy checkered
streets of the newer Eixample district, Casc Antic is a lively, diverse, very dense, if low-
income neighborhood full of contrasts and colors. Today, 31 percent of the population is
foreign, and many immigrants live without regular income.
In 1983 and throughout the 1990s, the new democratic municipality of Barcelona put
in place Special Plans for Internal Reforms (PERI) to revitalize areas left to deteriorate
during the dictatorship. However, reviving places such as the Casc Antic triggered acute
socioenvironmental impacts (Capel 2007; Delgado 2007). During the revitalization, 2,000
residents were displaced and 1,078 buildings destroyed (Mas and Verger 2004). A tenant
harassment practice known as mobbing forced residents to leave without expropriation
rights and left the emptied buildings abandoned and unsafe (Unió Temporal d’Escribes
2004). By the end of the 1990s, only 58 percent of remaining buildings were in adequate
condition (Martı́n 2007). In comparison with other neighborhoods, the Casc Antic also
offered fewer green areas and sports fields.
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By the middle of the 1990s, citizens’ movements openly started to question the
Barcelona model of urban revitalization, criticizing real estate speculation and the con-
version of the city into a theme park. In 1997 and 1999, PROVICESA—the public–private
company in charge of the old town remodeling—evicted residents and demolished flats
with the plan of building a parking lot and high-end apartments on the site. After the
demolition, city contractors left large amounts of rubbish behind. In December 2000, ac-
tive residents decided to rebuild the huge space—6,500 m2 , which they baptized “Forat
de la Vergonya”—the Hole of Shame. Supported by squatters, students, architects, in-
tellectuals, and members of neighbor organizations, they occupied and transformed the
area into community gardens, a green space, and a large plaza with playgrounds, soccer
and basketball fields, all with their own resources. Over time, the Forat evolved as a self-
managed area and a collective reflection space, despite the occasionally violent conflict
that ensued between residents, officials, and the police. In 2007, after years of conflict,
the municipality agreed to reconstruct the blocks into a permanent multiuse green space
called the “Pou de la Figuera” with playgrounds, a sports field, space for community gar-
dens, and a community center.
The reconstruction of the Pou was made possible by a new law—Lei de Barris 2/2004—
seen as the outcome of years of resident and community organization demands. It has re-
sulted in widespread environmental improvements: 2.04 million Euros of investment in
public space and green areas, 1.5 million Euros in building rehabilitation and sanitation,
9.6 million Euros in collective equipment, and 460,000 Euros in waste management (Gen-
eralitat de Catalunya and Ajuntament de Barcelona 2006). Furthermore, a large plaza
(2,520 m2 )—Allada Vermell—was rebuilt after some vocal residents complained about its
lack of functionality and safety. In 2005, the municipality constructed a pneumatic waste
system. Environmental organizations such as the GENAB and the Neighbors’ Association
also successfully advocated for the opening of a recycling center—Punt Verd—and devel-
oped recycling awareness programs.
A series of new environmental initiatives have also emerged from the Forat conflict.
Motivated residents created a self-managed community garden, developed in close coop-
eration with the work of other environmental groups. Nearby, a nonprofit organization
called Mescladis combines the provision of environmentally sustainable and socially just
food with the training and offering of job opportunities for migrant residents. In addi-
tion, in response to much advocacy from the Associació de Veins and sports groups, the
municipality built a large sports center in 2010, while neighbors and community non-
profits such as AECCA, Fundació Adsis, and Fundació Comtal organized sports leagues
for at-risk youth. In sum, residents and their supporters defended an activist-based vi-
sion for environmental and health improvements in the Casc Antic. That said, there is
definitely a risk of gentrification of the neighborhood, while some streets and buildings
remain in poor condition and many immigrant families live in poor housing conditions.

FROM DEGRADATION AND ABANDONMENT TO COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION OF CAYO HUESO

Located in Centro Habana, Cayo Hueso looks from the sky like a maze of interconnected
streets, passages, and courtyards facing the beautiful Bay of Havana. At ground level, the
activities, games, parties, music, and festivities taking place on the streets and inside the

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buildings give the impression of mini-neighborhoods within the neighborhood. Today,

40,000 residents, most of them Afro Cubans, are squeezed into 0.83 km2 . In the 1990s,
94 percent of its buildings were considered in “very bad” condition, compared to 45
percent in Centro Havana as a whole, with little access to potable water and with broken
waste disposal systems (Spiegel et al. 2001). Residents also had little public green space:
0.22 m3 per inhabitant against 3.8 m3 for Havana as a whole (Oliveras and Dı́az 2007).
Schools had almost no room for physical activity, and children had only poor access to
recreational areas and playgrounds. By the early 1990s, Havana was spatially polarized
between white residents who lived in airier neighborhoods along the Western coast and
those, including many Afro Cubans, who lived in overcrowded central areas such as Cayo
Hueso with fewer socioeconomic opportunities.
To respond to urban habitat and socioenvironmental problems in vulnerable neighbor-
hoods, the GDIC, an independent planning institution created by Fidel Castro, created in
1987 the Workshops for the Comprehensive Transformation of the Neighborhood—the
TTIBs. As spaces of autonomous decision-making, the TTIBs have promoted an emergent
civil society in Cuba (Hearn 2008). In Cayo Hueso, through the help of Oxfam Canada
and UNICEF and a newly created small construction plant, the TTIB improved living con-
ditions. It repaired 12 tenement buildings within the first three years of its creation, most
notably, Espada # 411. The TTIB has also developed community gardens, created groups
for environmental clean-up, and implemented solid waste-recycling programs. Over the
years, with the help of a European NGO and the support of the Provincial government, it
fixed up parks, such as the Trillo Park. One innovative endeavor has been the creation of
the Casa del Niño y de la Niña in 1998, a new community center, park and playground,
and recreational space for kids on the site of a former dumping ground. The Casa has
also been instrumental in the creation of a high yield urban garden.
In Cuba, the extensive economic crisis brought with it the birth of a new movement of
autonomous community-based organizations and activists, which has grown particularly
strong in Cayo Hueso. Ten years ago, a neighborhood leader named Jaime together with
active residents built Quiero a Mi Barrio (I Love my Neighborhood), an independent gym
and community center, in place of two unsanitary buildings. Another leader, Cristián,
initiated martial arts classes in an empty lot called El Beisbolito, which he fixed up with
neighbors. Activists have also devoted attention to environmental education and empow-
erment, such as the Green Map project in which children used internationally recognized
icons to build a neighborhood green map.
Environmental revitalization in Cayo Hueso has also been shaped by the organization
of autonomous resident clean-up and rehabilitation initiatives. Together with Rosa, a vo-
cal neighborhood leader, the Casa del Niño y de la Niña developed kids brigades—For
a Cleaner Neighborhood, Arco Iris, and Brigada Gloop—around environmental clean
up and protection and lobbied the local government to increase trash collection and
improve street hygiene in Cayo Hueso. Today, with the help of local artist Salvador, the
neighborhood also hosts the Callejón de Hamel—a formerly unsanitary and dangerous
street converted into an outdoor park with statues and benches made of recycled bath-
tubs, along with trees, fountains, murals, the rehabilitation of neighboring buildings, and
Rumba street concerts on Sundays.
In sum, since the end of the 1980s, Cayo Hueso has witnessed the growth of projects
and initiatives for comprehensive environmental revitalization and health improvements.
That said, building renovations in Cayo Hueso cannot keep pace with their rate of

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degradation, and the government does not have enough material resources to invest in
large-scale projects. Overcrowding is still a major health and social issue, as are sanitation
and potable water provision, waste management, and water disposal.

ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL TRAUMA THROUGH SAFE

HAVENS AND PLACE REMAKING
This section examines activists’ experiences and interpretations of their lives, homes, and
engagement in local environmental revitalization. To be sure, other interests and forms
of engagement exist in these neighborhoods, but I focus here on the dual role of “place”
in environmental engagement. Place is both a motivator for action and a goal to achieve.

EXPERIENCE OF NEIGHBORHOOD DECAY, GRIEF, AND LOSS

FIG. 2. Trash dumping (left) and empty lot contaminated with asbestos in Dudley (right).
Source: Author

First, as many marginalized neighborhoods, Cayo Hueso, Dudley, and Casc Antic have
gone through phases of fragmentation and disruption (Fullilove 2004; Fainstein and
Campbell 2002; Massey 1994; Sandercock 2003). Indeed, the accounts of active residents,
community leaders, and members of local organizations reveal frequent references to no-
tions of destruction, conflict, and war. Many tell the story of the neighborhood formerly
looking like a war zone with crumbling buildings, waste, and rodents, and portray it as a
victim of municipal violence and neglect.
What can be called “environmental trauma” is obvious in the three communities. In
Barcelona, the neighborhood environmental degradation and the harassment that fam-
ilies had to suffer in the 1980s–1990s contributed to an impression of living in a devas-
tated area. These feelings intensified with the contractors’ demolition of the buildings,
the Forat conflict between 2000 and 2006, and the destruction of community parks by city
vehicles before 2006. Joan, one of the main leaders of Veins en Defensa de La Barcelona
Vella, a local historic preservation group, recalls:

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“[The Forat] was a completely devastated area, and [ . . . ] the neighborhoods had to
swallow all of this filth and bearing it all day long. [ . . . ]. It was a real degradation,
like a bomb attack, you know, as if a war had gone through. It was an infected thing.”

Immigrants, migrants from Southern or Northern Spain, and squatters all describe the
disputes as an urban guerilla war with violence, broken windows, fire, and rockets.
In Dudley, impressions of a war zone and urban guerillas stem from the arsons and
dumping in the 1980s. José, an early community organizer in Dudley, recalls:

“We realized that there were things that weren’t normal – the dumping, the trash,
the empty lanes, burning houses every night. And going to bed and your house
catching fire overnight. Because people were setting them on fire.”

The sound and sight of fire, sirens, and firefighters storming through Dudley trauma-
tized many residents. Coupled with this, crime rates and street violence were also high at
the time, and neighbors became afraid of leaving their house alone or letting children
play on the street unwatched. Drug dealers often occupied abandoned green areas. The
tensions and violence were also exacerbated by the implementation of the busing pro-
gram, transporting African American students from their Dudley neighborhood to deseg-
regate white schools in other neighborhoods and turning the children from marginalized
neighborhoods into targets of violence. Recent immigrants to Dudley who experienced
uprooting, family separation, and/or civil war in their country of origin, as was the case
with many African immigrants, also suffered from traumatic loss and fears.
In Cayo Hueso, older activists describe how the demolition by an urban renewal project
in the 1970s created alienation, altered people’s emotional and social stability, and trig-
gered amnesia:

“The problem is that the skyscrapers created anonymity. [ . . . ] I knew neighbors

from Cayo Hueso whose point of reference was the street and now they live on
the eleventh floor without a balcony. Once, I arrived in one of those buildings and
found someone on a couch in a hallway, outside the house. The sense of belong-
ing is very great: ‘my house, my street, my block, and my bakery’” (Marco, activist
planner in Cayo Hueso)

In addition, both young and old residents describe neighborhood devastation after a
building and infrastructure collapse forced many residents to live in shelters since the
1980s.
In all three neighborhoods, the destruction, abandonment, and disruptions have gen-
erated personal and collective loss and confusion over where one belongs. People ex-
pressed a loss of social network and connections, mental emptiness, and traumatic and
grief experiences. Such feelings were also strongly connected to fear of erasure from
the neighborhood and city. Over time, people became disoriented because their physi-
cal and mental markers were erased. Residents felt dispossessed of their own place and
expressed a need for protection and nurturing. Nelson, the first director of Alianza His-
pana, a community organization in Dudley, connected this fear to the threats of possible
gentrification with the encroachment of businesses and more affluent residents from the
nearby South End:

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“You know it was a real fear. It wasn’t a fictitious fear. It was a fear that people saw,
they had seen the consequences of when the city and state decide to do something.
And so they, you know, I think they were highly aware of that possibility and decided
that they were going to continue to take action.”
As a result, much of his organization’s work used community gardens as new community
goods marking a physical and social border with outsiders. Likewise, in the Casc Antic,
supporters of the Forat fights expressed their disapproval of municipal plans, which were
meant, according to them, to create “a new identity by erasing the plaza,” as expressed by
movie director Chema Falconnetti, who directed a film about activism in the Forat. Even
residents who arrived more recently in Dudley, Cayo Hueso, and Casc Antic expressed
their fear of losing their home and being displaced from the neighborhood.

PLACE ATTACHMENT, EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS, AND FEELING

OF RESPONSIBILITY

FIG. 3. Remnants of old streets and walls in the 1990s in Casc Antic (source: Veins en Defensa de la Barcelona
Vella).

As much as activists experienced loss, individual and collective sentiments and expres-
sions of place attachment have been constant motivators for active residents, community
leaders, and their supporters to fight for better local environmental conditions. Their sto-
ries reveal that place attachment, as the affective bond between people and places (Low
and Altman 1992), rests both on physical features and settings as well as social dimensions
(Scannell and Gifford 2010). People’s attachment in the three neighborhoods stems from
accumulated life experiences and from attributing an emotional meaning to neighbor-
hoods through an interactive and culturally shared process (Milligan 1998). In Barcelona,
Boston, and Havana, activists expressed their pride and happiness to be living or working
in a central neighborhood filled with amenities—traditional shops, transportation con-
nections, cultural goods, artisans, or health centers. In all three neighborhoods, older
vocal residents spoke with enthusiasm about the past grandeur and prosperity of their
neighborhood, highlighting the location of old houses, churches, convents, and ornate
building facades, which they value as unmovable community jewels. People strongly tied
their neighborhood attachment to their identity. In Barcelona and Havana, engaged

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residents and their allies felt honored to live and work in a historical “authentic” part
of the city. They were attached to its traditions, artists, and architectural patrimony. In
Cayo Hueso, community leaders spend ample time organizing commemorative celebra-
tions of historical figures. People remember the presence of Rumba and Son musicians,
such as Chano Pozo, who played in degraded solares (old buildings).
In addition, active residents, leaders, and community workers express a tight connec-
tion to the neighborhood’s traditional social fabric and to the ethnic and social groups
that compose it. They value the intermixing of generations and cultures, as well as the
waves of immigrants and newcomers who have enriched it. Furthermore, people appre-
ciate the warm and informal relationships between residents, who are sources of mutual
help and trust. As Travis, a “social preservationist” and community organizer from DSNI
in Dudley, explains, this sense of mutual support is what motivated him to work in the
neighborhood:

“I really like the sense of community. I feel like people kind of look out for each
other. You see a lot of people that are helping the elderly off the bus. I feel like it’s
some of the little things I can kind of pick up in this community. I just like the vibe.”

The attachment to the neighborhood is also a question of atmosphere and sense of

familiarity and closeness. Activists explain how much time people spend outside their
house, building connections by talking, playing, or doing activities together. People share
other residents’ life stages (in Havana), suffer collectively from housing expropriations
(in Barcelona), support one another during family health issues (in Boston), and gen-
erally build closer ties with each other. For activists, the neighborhood is not a cold and
impersonal space.
The attachment that people feel toward a place is often connected to their sense of
community, which encompasses a connection to a shared history and concerns and thus,
provides an identity (Perkins and Long 2002). In Cayo Hueso, Casc Antic, and Dudley,
activists’ testimonies reflect common trajectories of claim construction and civic mobi-
lization. They feel part of an important history of early grassroots organization and en-
vironmental achievements, which has brought them together and built their own place
memory. They embraced early environmental victories as inspiration for their own ac-
tivism and as signs of a different future. As a Barcelona squatter emphasizes:

“I got involved in the neighborhood fights because the movement had already been
going on for years and something really beautiful was being created with the people
who were living there.”

In other words, early clean up and rehabilitation efforts in all three cities motivated fur-
ther efforts, with people aiming at following in the footsteps of the “fighters” before them.
In all neighborhoods, deeply rooted attachment and community belonging are also
strongly connected to active residents feeling responsible for improving their place. Com-
munity identity and place attachment have indeed been shown to be related to partici-
pation and collective action (Davis 1991; Gotham and Brumley 2002; Suttles 1968; Tilly
1974). Attachment and identity not only precede activism, but also reinforce it. For in-
stance, in Cayo Hueso, the TTIB workshop coordinator shares how important the history
of sociopolitical mobilization and attachment to movement achievements has been in his
own engagement and work in the TTIB:

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“There was a popular movement in the solares to solve the issues in the neighbor-
hood. Raul Castro was also there, as an engineering student.2 Plus the fight of the
tobacco workers was also here. All of this influenced me. It is my neighborhood.”
Similarly, in Barcelona, a staff member of the GENAB environmental NGO explains the
progression from attachment to action:
“When you belong to some place, you love it, you take care of it, you spoil it, you
want it to improve, no? And, put in practice, this feeling means that, without huge
stridency, you focus your day to day work towards the project you want the most.
[ . . . ] It’s no longer ‘I have to do this’.”
Leaders express their desire to give back to the neighborhood. People’s sense of respon-
sibility is illustrated by the fact that many chose to remain in the neighborhood, even
if they point out that they could have left. In Boston, many black middle-class residents
have remained in Roxbury. In Barcelona, neighborhood leaders also could have moved
to more affordable neighborhoods, but fought to stay. In Cuba, residents may resort to
“permutas,” a system of exchange of houses between Cubans, but many remained in Cayo
Hueso and became activists.
In their accounts, activists reveal that they feel particularly responsible for the new
generations of youth in the neighborhood, particularly for enhancing children’s rights
to recreation, play, and environmental quality and building a different quality of life for
them. Of the three neighborhoods, Cayo Hueso is the place where activists put most
emphasis on children’s well-being, as reflected in such individual projects as the Quiero
a mi Barrio gym, the Casa del Niño y de la Niña, or the martial arts classes offered by
Cristián. Indeed, Arsenio, the UNICEF coordinator who has worked closely with Rosa,
the founder of the Casa, explains that her feelings of belonging to Cayo Hueso were a
motive for her engagement in building the house:
“Rosa did everything of what the house is now. She has another meaning for what
she does, she has a strong sense of belonging, a lot of energy. But she had to over-
come many difficulties.”
In places where parents often work two or three jobs and children spend a lot of time
outside on their own, giving children the opportunity to participate in sports or play in
parks is seen as an important support structure for the whole community.
In addition, activists involved in environmental and health projects feel their actions
for the neighborhood provide them with a sense of personal growth and strong emo-
tional fulfillment that in turn, reinforces their attachment to place. They emphasize their
commitment of taking care of the neighborhood. They beautify it for themselves, for
other residents, and for outsiders, thereby helping the community grow stronger. Their
accounts reveal a commitment to sharing with and helping others. Mohammed, a vol-
unteer in the Barcelona community garden, perceives his action as a social service for
poorer residents. Often, activists’ long-term trajectory reflects habits of volunteering and
community work. Jaime, the founder of the Quiero a mi Barrio gym in Havana, summa-
rizes his feelings of personal achievement:
“I achieved a goal. I dreamed that the front of the locale would be a big place for
sports. I have realized myself in a project. This is the most important to me. It gives
a possibility of liberation, expansion and gives energy for the difficulties.”

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Such dedication stems from a desire to learn and show solidarity and altruism. Commu-
nity leaders feel gratified when other residents benefit from and respect environmental
improvements. Helping the community further motivates them to continue their work
and enroll others in it.
Finally, the neighborhood allows some activists to manifest their commitment to
environmental projects and urban nature. They express joy at being able to realize
their environmental ambitions in Casc Antic, Cayo Hueso, and Dudley. People dedi-
cate much time to the gardens, farms, or environmental education work because they
truly care about the quality of the environment in the city. It gives them a sense of com-
munion with nature, as Alexandria King from The Food Project environmental NGO
explains:

“I love the wilderness, I love being outdoors, I love to release through nature. And
so, actually I release into nature what I feel and have it answer back. It’s a reciprocal
relationship, being in the wilderness. You know what you respect is able to give you
that same respect back.”

As individual activists or NGO leaders, they at once apply their environmental values
and commitments to the neighborhood and aim to be good stewards of its improved
environment.

ADDRESSING FEARS OF ERASURE AND RE-CREATING ROOTEDNESS

FIG. 4. El Callejón del Hamel in Havana, a green street with Afrocuban artwork.

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At the same time, community fights for environmental quality are a response to losses
and to what some have perceived as fear of erasure (Manzo et al. 2008). The mean-
ing of activists’ mobilization is associated with anchoring themselves in memories and
hopes as a way to maintain identity continuity among people with spatially shared expe-
rience. For instance, fighting for preserving the green changes in the Forat was tied to
protecting people from further loss, as one of the core neighborhood organizers, Paco,
emphasizes:
“The neighborhood was already lost, and what we did not want was for it to be lost
another time. And we thought that, with a green space and with having life right
there inside, we thought that it would stand for this.”
The signatories of the manifesto associated the creation of a green area with the regen-
eration of a destroyed space. They pointed fingers at the municipality and the company
PROCIVESA for attempting to prevent such a transformation through the construction
of a hotel and parking lot instead.
Activists also tied their environmental projects to the protection of endangered tra-
ditional activities. People are moved by feelings of nostalgia toward disappearing prac-
tices that they attempt to recreate. For instance, engaged neighbors and environmen-
tal NGOs such as the GENAB successfully negotiated with the City of Barcelona for a
new community recycling center managed by a trapero (literally a “junkman”), which
used to be a traditional profession in the Casc Antic. Furthermore, in all three neigh-
borhoods, activists directly related their emphasis on urban agriculture to supporting
and reviving traditional but disappearing practices. In Boston and Barcelona, many gar-
den leaders emigrated from farming and/or poorer regions. For them, growing vegeta-
bles and fruit is a long-time family tradition and reflects a desire to grow certain cul-
turally valued types of food, which they could not access otherwise. Pansy, the garden
coordinator of the Leyland Street Garden in Dudley, explains this deep connection to
farming:
“There are quite a few of people who are not from Massachusetts, they are from
different parts of the country so they decided they wanted some of their home
vegetables. So they would get a spot and plant whatever they were brought up on.
It’s like me, I planted greens and collard greens, that’s cause I was raised on a farm.
. . . [I started working in the community garden] because I’m a farm girl.”
People value physically and symbolically the produce they grow as a memory of and con-
nection to their childhood. Gardens are thus one of the few places in the city where
people have close access to their culture and origins. For them, gardens also showcase
the story of a neighborhood that has been rebuilt from the ashes and can little by little
recover and flourish.
In many instances, residents have been so traumatized by the individual and commu-
nity losses they suffered that they cling to the new green spaces and do everything they
can to defend them. They become very attached to the greenery they have fought for,
especially because they do not often own a plot. In Boston, gardeners do not “want
their plot to be touched” (interview with BNAN) as it has taken them years to get the
land in shape. In Havana, activists express the fear of losing new community assets. Sal-
vador, the creator of the Callejón de Hamel, explains that Afrocuban culture is becoming

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assimilated into the national white communist culture and that his project is a means to
protect Afrocuban traditions and practices:

“I decided to do this work, creating a temple with my piece, an artistic temple [ . . . ]

which would contribute to the salvation of this cultural identity.”

The greenery, artwork, fountains, paintings, and sculptures in the Callejón are meant to
help Afro Cubans re-appropriate neighborhood spaces and recreate permanent assets.
Similarly, in Boston, a former member of Boston Urban Gardeners (BUG), Charlotte,
explains how urban gardens anchor people in their neighborhood, give them a sense of
rootedness, and let organizations like BUG repair communities and enhance residents’
sense of comfort and place:

“The gardens grew out of that tumult [of desegregation]. And they really did bring
forward lots of people who weren’t part of the, in a way, the visible landscape.”

This attachment to the territory and its new assets explains why engaged residents and
their supporters have used environmental and health initiatives to (re)create the holistic
life of an urban village and to build a greater sense of cohesion and resilience. This is
especially so in Boston and Barcelona. The vision of an urban village, as put forth by
organizations such as DSNI in Boston and the neighbors’ coalitions in Barcelona, stems
from the nostalgia for the cozy, familiar, and vibrant places that Dudley and Casc Antic in
particular used to be. In the words of DSNI’s former Executive Director,

“Roxbury was a place, it was a retreat from the city. We said let’s bring back some of
the native, [ . . . ] the cultural, aspects of a multi-cultural neighborhood that could
be used to create the sense of place that would have low environmental impact
but could also contribute to economic development. We would throw in the urban
agriculture.”

Creating an urban village involves revitalizing communal work. In all three neighbor-
hoods, people gather around an activity—neighborhood clean up, community garden,
cooking—and socialize. They adopt the principles of life in a village based on sharing—
food, space, greenery—and showing solidarity with neighbors. The idea is to extend fam-
ily relations out to the street and extend the house environment out to the park, as illus-
trated by some street signs on the Casc Antic balconies: “Els carrers com a casa nostra”
(In the street as in our house). Similarly, in Havana, spaces such as the Casa del Niño y
de la Niña offer opportunities for community activities through the clean ups of public
space or health campaigns that Rosa or Jaime organize.
An urban village is not only representative of close-knit groups of families living in
narrow winding streets full of urban social life (Gans 1962). It is also a self-sustained entity
with multiple uses of space, compactness, a vibrant life, and a range of work and leisure
activities. It helps create a unique, multicultural, and dynamic place that all residents can
cherish. It also includes community landmarks for people to connect to, such as the Pou
de la Figuera in Barcelona, Dudley Common in Boston, and the Callejón de Hamel or
Beisbolito green spaces in Havana.

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NURTURING, SOOTHING, AND SAFE HAVENS

FIG. 5. Cooking lessons at the Haley House Bakery and a recently created schoolyard at the Mason School
(right) in Dudley.

Last, activists tie the quest for improved environmental conditions to specific dimen-
sions of community safety and nurturing, as they helped build spaces that give residents
a sense of security, refuge, protection and comfort, and respond to emotional needs re-
lated to environmental trauma. Those dimensions are reflected in the creation of what
can be called “safe havens.” Safe havens include some aspects of free spaces—community
settings removed from the direct control of dominant groups where powerless groups
are able to overturn hegemonic beliefs (Polletta 1999). They also encompass aspects of
nurturing and care. They are new gardens, community centers, or parks and playgrounds
where children can play safely away from traffic or crime, and where marginalized resi-
dents explain that they re-appropriate the space as their own.
Some activists themselves use the words “safe havens.” In Boston, for instance, the or-
ganization Project Right has created “safe havens multipurpose facilities” that expand
indoor and outdoor play spaces and offer positive opportunities for youth. Offering pro-
tection is a core aspect of safe havens, as families practice sports and physical activity
together in a relaxing and comforting space.
Safe havens are particularly important since many children in these marginalized
neighborhoods have suffered from hardship—in the form of separation from their par-
ents who did not immigrate with them to Barcelona or Boston or parents who have left
Cuba, or neglect within their own family. Urban farms, community centers, or gyms pro-
vide them with spaces that offer relief and sympathy, a place to share their fears and find
mentors. In Dudley, the Body by Brandy gym and Haley House cooking classes recruit
children suffering from obesity to participate in programs with a holistic vision of health
and trust in healthy and soothing spaces. As a Program Manager at the gym explains:
“We provide a family atmosphere, a safe place to work out and to be mentally and
physically fit. Family participation is promoted, which has an effect on the com-
munity. Symbolically, that means that families are again a family, especially in a
marginalized community.”
Youth develop a positive body image and enhance their self-esteem while addressing obe-
sity and other problems impacting their development. To a similar extent, activists in
Cayo Hueso and Casc Antic emphasize their support of at-risk children’s emotional needs

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through sports. In Cayo Hueso, Cristián, who built the beisbolito playground, highlights
his work’s educational value:

We take kids away from bad things and from being in the streets. It is a way to
educate kids who have a problem of conduct. We are working with them educating
their mentality.

Community organizers see their mentoring efforts as helping children process racial
violence, family crisis, or school failure and giving them new responsibilities and
experiences.
At the same time, green and play spaces are isolated from the city turmoil, helping
users relax. They are also refuges for marginalized groups. For instance, in Dudley, the
Food Project welcomes East African refugees to a greenhouse where they grow greens
while meeting with their clinician and working on trauma, discomfort, and fears of the
unknown. As shown previously, contact with nature has been linked to mental health
problem treatment (Maller et al. 2006; Marcus and Barnes 1999). However, gardens and
greenhouses heal not only individual wounds but also community ones. The greenhouse
has a therapeutic benefit for marginalized groups. In addition, projects such as the recon-
struction of schoolyards “heal neighborhoods and wounds” by involving families in con-
struction and maintenance. Similarly, in Barcelona, the 2002 Manifesto for a Green Old
Town and Without Urban Speculation translated feelings of loss and de-humanization
into visions for community healing through the creation of a green plaza:

“We believe that a popular initiative to [ . . . ] humanize an urban space devas-

tated by massive and indiscriminate destruction deserves respect from the public
institutions.”

In other words, while new environmental projects create beautiful and hidden scenery,
they also become peaceful and secluded retreats from the city as well as places to care for
and protect. They offer residents a chance to express themselves while being protected
from the outside. They have as much a physical importance as an intangible value. At
the Haley House in Dudley, manager Bing explains how the café-bakery is a place for
community reconstruction, and links its creation to EJ concerns:

“Giving people a place, a sanctuary. [ . . . ] Why shouldn’t everybody have a place to

go where there would be a sense of possibility and community? [ . . . ] There aren’t
plenty of places that are nourishing. Nourishment like on a lot of different levels is
what I connect with environmental justice.”

In Havana, spaces such as the Callejón de Hamel allow Afro Cubans to practice traditional
dance without feeling stigmatized by white society. The trees and other environmental
elements protect the spirituality of the Afrocuban culture. Elias, a contributor to the
Callejon, explains:

“We insert the culture of African origins in the place and create a place that they
can touch. Also provide them with an intangible heritage, a treasure, a resource.”

Safe havens thus reflect a demand for space more than a demand in space. In return, safe
havens enhance residents’ positive connection to their neighborhood.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this paper, I have systematically interrogated the connection between place and
neighborhood-based activism for environmental transformation and justice. In Dudley,
Casc Antic, and Cayo Hueso, engaged residents and their nonprofit supporters have a
strong connection to the neighborhood through its physical and architectural features
and the ties they have built in it over time (Scannell and Gifford 2010). This connec-
tion to place also rests on history and traditions, common experiences of fragmentation
and disruption (Fullilove 2004; Fainstein and Campbell 2002; Massey 1994; Sandercock
2003), and activism itself. Place attachment also provides activists with a sense of security
against the passage of time, anchoring memories (Gieryn 2000).
However, beyond this tight connection to the neighborhood, the stories of activists en-
gaged in environmental revitalization initiatives reveal the dual role of place in people’s
activism: as a motivator for action and as a long-term goal in itself. Indeed, over time ac-
tivists’ neighborhood experience and attachment made them realize the pervasive con-
sequences of neighborhood abandonment, decay, and degradation on environmental
quality as well as on local identity. This memory and realization, filtered by a sense of re-
sponsibility, a desire for personal growth, and a commitment to the urban environment,
prompted them to become engaged in their locale through socioenvironmental projects.
Activists have taken action in a wide variety of complementary domains—moving, for in-
stance, from clean up to safe farming, green spaces to physical activity—which build on
each other. They do not fight against traditional threats related to safety, property, social
programs, or contamination (Bullard 2005; Cox 1982; Davis 1991; Fisher 1984; Pattillo
2007; Pellow and Brulle 2005; Peterman 2000; Venkatesh 2000), but rather toward long-
term environmental quality and health, and this in a holistic way.
Most important, activists tied their community work for environmental revitalization in
Dudley, Cayo Hueso, and Casc Antic to remaking place for residents. Regardless of po-
litical systems and urbanization contexts, residents of marginalized neighborhoods share
the loss and fear of erasure through multiple forms of disruption. Consequently, local ac-
tivists believe in creating welcoming, protective, repairing, and nurturing neighborhood
environments. They aim to rebuild a broken urban community, and fight against com-
munity and individual grief and loss. Their mobilization is rooted in memories, healing,
and resilience. In Barcelona, Boston, and Havana, nostalgia and collective memories are
used not only to reproduce identity among local residents with shared experiences who
together faced displacement, but also to create new identities among those who remained
in the neighborhood. For instance, urban farming was motivated both by feelings of nos-
talgia toward disappearing community practices, which local activists attempt to recreate,
and by a desire to rebuild a more vibrant, cohesive, and welcoming place for residents.
In addition, environmental activists closely connect EJ and safety to their place-
remaking. To be sure, local activist members of nonprofit organizations and groups and
newly arrived active residents are attracted by the character of the place, which they aim
to protect (Molotch et al. 2000). But they are also seeking to recreate refuges and safe
havens for historically excluded residents. Green spaces contribute to restorative healing
not only at the individual level (Maller et al. 2006; Marcus and Barnes 1999), but also at
the community level. Safe havens are pedagogical spaces that enable marginalized resi-
dents to receive support, reclaim memories, critically interpret how dominant definitions

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of the urban space regulate and control the way people organize their identity around
the territory, and rebuild themselves in the neighborhood. Ultimately, environmental re-
vitalization and recovery projects strengthen all residents’ attachment to and engagement
in their place. Mobilization and project development also positively reshape and rebuild
identity. Activists spend much energy building a tight urban village that all residents can
cherish.
Through this study, I have also shown that environmental activists in urban marginal-
ized neighborhoods resemble each other across countries. At the local urban scale,
broad differences in levels of development do not seem to matter much to community-
sponsored and community-led initiatives. Rather, the ways in which individuals and
groups perceive exclusion in the city, experience place attachment as a motivator for
action, and develop visions for place repair and remaking are similar. This comparison
of three neighborhoods in Barcelona, Boston, and Havana shows that activists build on
their environmental endeavors to express their grief at the loss of community, their fears
of erasure, and their emotional connection and feelings of responsibility to place. To
address environmental trauma, they aim to construct nurturing, soothing, “safe havens,”
recreate rootedness, and remake place for residents.
However, in future research, it will be valuable to examine how different political sys-
tems shape and influence activists’ and residents’ sense of place. Some nuances between
the three cases exist. Dudley had 1,600 empty lots at the end of the 1980s while the
Casc Antic and Cayo Hueso were faced with building and public space degradation (both
neighborhoods had a decent amount of empty lots but not to the same extent as Dud-
ley). Racism and racial discrimination by authorities, developers, and other residents has
been much more abrupt and violent in Boston than in Cuba, and even less in Barcelona.
In Cuba, racism against Afro Cubans is manifested more in the private sphere of social
and cultural traditions, and this despite government policies to eradicate racist attitudes.
In the Casc Antic, residents had to face greater discrimination against their social ori-
gins and the types of activities they engaged in or the types of stores they opened in the
neighborhood. Dudley residents also faced pervasive crime and violence, which added
challenges to their environmental revitalization work.
Ultimately, the stories of activism in Barcelona, Boston, and Havana reveal the im-
portance of considering the intangible benefits of socioenvironmental projects. Activists
take both physical and social dimensions of the local environment into consideration
to achieve urban EJ. Urban EJ encompasses aspects of safety that go beyond individual
protection against physical, social, or financial trauma, damage, and harm to include
community and individual safety, recovery, wholeness, soothing, protection, and place
remaking.

Notes
1 Existing studies (mostly in environmental psychology and not based in urban distressed areas) actually argue

that people’s attachment to nature—and not people’s civic attachment to a place—is closely associated with pro-
environmental behavior. See Scannell and Gifford (2010).
2 Raul Castro was known to be an active member of the student movement in Havana under the Batista

regime.

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De Trauma Ambiental a Refugio Seguro: Apego al Lugar y Transformación Espacial en

Tres Barrios Marginales en Barcelona, Boston y La Habana(Isabelle Anguelovski)

Resumen
En años recientes, activistas locales en el norte y sur globales se han ido organizando
para mejorar espacios degradados y abandonados en barrios marginales creando par-
ques, zonas recreativas, granjas urbanas o parques comunales. Este artı́culo integra
el conocimiento existente sobre apego al lugar y sentido de comunidad con trabajo
académico sobre justicia ambiental para entender el rol del apego al lugar en la movi-
lización ambiental en barrios con esta problemática a través de sistemas polı́ticos y con-
textos de urbanización. Se examina las formas distintas de conexión que los activistas
desarrollan y expresan hacia barrios con condiciones ambientales desfavorables de larga
data y en cómo sus experiencias del barrio moldean su compromiso con proyectos de
rehabilitación ambiental. Esta comparación de tres barrios en Barcelona, Boston y La
Habana muestra que los activistas en estos tres lugares buscan, a través de sus actividades
ambientales, expresar nostalgia por la pérdida de la comunidad. Para enfrentar el trauma
ambiental, ellos buscan construir “refugios seguros” educativos y calmantes que buscan
recrear el enraizamiento y transformar los lugares para los residentes.

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