5.4. Nature-based Solutions and Environmental Futures

resilience requires engaging with the historical processes that have produced vulnerability in contemporar y cities. Many of these vulnerabilities are manifest in the spatial configuration of cities, for example:

ƒ The spatial division in urban areas between neighbourhoods that are better ser viced than others, with lower-income populations being hosted in areas where access to basic ser vices such as water, mobility, or energy are compromised.157

ƒ The creation of areas of privilege safeguarded at the expense of others, for example, in the creation of new enclaves of privilege. In A frica, for example, there is a proliferation of “urban fantasies” in urban projects and masterplans that do not only fail to recognize the realities of urban development in A frican contexts but also impact negatively on the lives and livelihoods of urban populations, even when those projects are not even constructed.158

ƒ The privatization of ser vices and public space, reducing the urban commons for ever yone.159

ƒ The displacement of people who are prized out of certain neighbourhoods, after the environmental quality of those neighbourhoods raises local prizes in multiple manifestations of gentrification.160

ƒ The differentiation of areas with different levels of risks,161 that often end up accommodating vulnerable populations and new migrants.162

ƒ The siting of large infrastructures in areas considered of less value, normally inhabited by less powerful black or indigenous communities—and the creation of sacrifice zones163 in processes long documented in indigenous struggles and environmental racism that claim for different frames of reference beyond development.164

Inclusive greener futures can be secured though active practices of building resilience through community innovation and collaborative planning (see section 5.5 ) and through the prevention of processes that negate peoples’ lives and existence through the implicit privileging of some lives over others—what the philosopher Achille Mbembe has called necropolitics.165 These are all processes directed through infrastructure and spatial planning and through policymaking, which can be actively prevented in the quest for just urban adaptation (see also section 5.5.1). 5.4. Nature-based Solutions and Environmental Futures

Nature-based solutions (NBSs) are a potential mechanism to manage the impacts of climate change in urban spaces. NBSs are promising in the context of halting biodiversity loss and restoring urban ecosystem ser vices in economically viable ways.166 The International Union for Conser vation of Nature (IUCN) defines NBSs as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore (create) natural or modified ecosystems” that simultaneously address social challenges, providing both human well-being and biodiversity benefits.167 The European Commission explains that because they are inspired and supported by nature, NBSs are cost-effective and provide environmental, social, and economic benefits.168

Bosco Verticale seen from the Biblioteca degli Alberi (BAM), park located between Piazza Gae Aulenti and the Isola district, Milan, Italy © Shutterstock