A pioneering index analyses 2,051 census sections in the metropolitan area and places Sant Boi de Llobregat and Viladecans among the municipalities most vulnerable to displacement due to heat improvements.
An international team has quantified and mapped a phenomenon that many residents in the periphery already sense: climate improvements — parks, insulated facades, shelters — can end up expelling those who need them most. The first participatory index of climate gentrification, published in the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, identifies Sant Boi de Llobregat and Viladecans as two critical points in the Barcelona area.
The research, led by Amalia Calderón-Argelich and Isabelle Anguelovski, has analysed 2,051 census sections across 36 municipalities. The result reveals a clear gap between the centre and the periphery: the highest vulnerability is concentrated outside Barcelona, in towns in the west and southwest where social precariousness combines with increasing climatic exposure.
A participatory map of displacement risk
The index combines three dimensions: exposure (temperature, pollution, age of housing, and green spaces), sensitivity (income, rent, population born in the Global South, energy poverty, and recent gentrification), and adaptive capacity (climate shelters, public facilities, and social housing). The novelty is that the weights of each indicator were set by 17 municipal technicians and activists in workshops held between 2024 and 2025.
“Rents in the Eixample have increased by more than 60% in a decade,” the study notes, rising from €10.28 to €16.64 per square metre per month between 2014 and 2024. After the pandemic, high rents have begun to seek cooler suburban areas, and the tension has skyrocketed: housing protests in November 2024 and April 2025 gathered over 170,000 people.
The mechanism is perverse: the greener and cooler neighbourhoods become attractive to those who can afford them, while vulnerable households remain in poorly insulated homes without cooling. The consulted activists cite the case of Sant Antoni in Barcelona, where they detected rent increases of 50% just for living near a superblock.
The metropolitan periphery in the spotlight
With equal weights for all indicators, the map reveals that the highest vulnerability is concentrated outside the capital. Sant Boi de Llobregat and Viladecans appear as high-risk municipalities: they have more green spaces and lower density than Barcelona, but also high social precariousness and little protected housing. Bordering working-class neighbourhoods such as Nou Barris and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat also stand out.
The study recalls that climate change nearly tripled heat-related mortality in 12 European cities during the heatwave of June 2025, with 286 deaths attributable just in Barcelona. The Catalan capital is also the European city with the most avoidable deaths due to the urban heat island effect, and projections indicate it will record one of the highest rates of heat mortality by the end of the century.
For the residents of Sant Boi, the risk is twofold: on one hand, they suffer higher temperatures and worse insulated homes; on the other, climate improvements — such as new parks or renovations — can drive up the cost of living in the neighbourhood and force them to leave. Less than 2% of the housing in Barcelona is social or public, the study emphasises, and this shortfall is exacerbated in the periphery.
Technicians and activists, two opposing views
The workshops revealed very different diagnoses. The administrative technicians placed more weight on adaptive capacity (27.9% compared to 22.5%) and infrastructure solutions, and many doubted that urban greenery alone generates gentrification. The neighbourhood organisations, on the other hand, prioritised exposure (37.5%) and, above all, proximity to parks, rental homes, and the population born in the Global South as risk factors.
Both groups agree on one thing: expanding social housing and regulating rents at the metropolitan level are key structural measures. The study arrives at a time when the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona is debating new urban planning tools to prevent climate adaptation from becoming a luxury.
For anyone living in Sant Boi, the warning is clear: the park that provides shade today may be the reason for an unaffordable rent tomorrow. The index, available for public consultation, allows each municipality to know its level of risk and act before it is too late.
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