Overview

Cities play a pivotal but paradoxical role in the future of our planet. As world leaders and citizens grapple with the consequences of growth, pollution, climate change, and waste, urban sustainability has become a ubiquitous catchphrase and a beacon of hope. Yet we know little about how the concept is implemented in daily life, particularly with regard to questions of social justice and equity. This volume provides a unique and vital contribution to ongoing conversations about urban sustainability by looking beyond the promises, propaganda, and policies associated with the concept in order to explore both its mythic meanings and the practical implications in a variety of everyday contexts. The authors present ethnographic studies from cities in eleven countries and six continents. Each chapter highlights the universalized assumptions underlying interpretations of sustainability while elucidating the diverse and contradictory ways in which people understand, incorporate, advocate for, and reject sustainability in the course of their daily lives.

Full Product Details

Author:   Cindy Isenhour (University of Maine, Orono) ,  Gary McDonogh (Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania) ,  Melissa Checker (Queens College, City University of New York)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.570kg
ISBN:  

9781107431720

ISBN 10:   1107431727
Pages:   426
Publication Date:   28 April 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction Melissa Checker, Gary McDonogh and Cindy Isenhour; Part I. Building the Myth: Branding the Green Global City: 1. 'We're not that kind of developing country': environmental awareness in contemporary China Jennifer Hubbert; 2. Green capitals reconsidered Cindy Isenhour; Snapshot 1. Transparency, consumerism, and governmentality: lessons from a very small place Gary McDonogh; 3. Going green?: washing stones in world-class Delhi Varsha Patel; Part II. Planning, Design, and Sustainability in the Wake of Crisis: 4. 'The sustainability edge': the postcrisis promise of eco-city branding Miriam Greenberg; Snapshot 2. Developing sustainable visions for post-catastrophe communities Daniel Slone; 5. 'I've got a house but no room for my hammock': the tragedy of the commons; or, another common tragedy among the Añu of Sinamaica, Venezuela Ana Servigna and Alí Fernandez; 6. Green is the new brown: 'old school toxics' and environmental gentrification on a New York City waterfront Melissa Checker; Snapshot 3. Producing sustainable futures in post-genocide Kigali, Rwanda Samuel Shearer; Part III. Everyday Engagements with Urbanity and 'Nature': 7. Whose urban forest?: the political ecology of gathering urban nontimber forest products Patrick Hurley, Marla R. Emery, Rebecca McLain, Melissa Poe, Brian Grabbatin and Cari Goetcheus; Snapshot 4. One man's trash Brad Rogers; 8. Shopping on Main Street: a model of a community-based food economy Kathleen Bubinas; 9. Spokespeople for a mute nature: the case of the Villa Rodrigo Bueno in Buenos Aires María Carman; Part IV. Cities Divided: Urban Intensification, Neoliberalism, and Urban Activism: 10. Combining sustainability and social justice in the Paris metropolitan region François Mancebo; 11. Shifting gears: the intersections of race and sustainability in Memphis Matthew Farr, Keri Brondo and Scout Anglin; 12. Can human infrastructure combat green gentrification?: ethnographic research on bicycling in Los Angeles and Seattle Adonia Lugo; 13. Urban sustainability as a 'boundary object': interrogating discourses of urban intensification in Ottawa Donald Leffers; 14. Learning 'just' sustainability: a collaboration between the Preserve East Austin Affordability Campaign and the frontiers of geography class Eliot Tretter; Snapshot 5. After sustainability: Barcelona in a time of crisis Gary McDonogh; Afterword Alf Hornborg.

Reviews

'Urban policy makers focused on sustainability often ignore the growth of eco-apartheid in their own cities. The contributors to this invaluable book confront the issue head-on, through exhaustive ethnographic research, and show us how and why environmental justice is the key to a green urban future.' Andrew Ross, author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City 'In this groundbreaking work, the centrality of sustainability to the contemporary city and its interlocking systems of urban policy, politics, and planning is revealed through ethnographic case studies and vivid snapshots of real-world places. This is a collective achievement of anthropologists working together to reframe a field that is at the forefront of the discipline.' Setha Low, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York 'This volume confronts the uncomfortable question of whether cities can ever be sustainable. Why do the lofty goals blind cities to environmental and social realities on the ground? Interrogating sustainability schemes such as branding, post-disaster rebuilding, and planning policies, the authors reveal environmental inconsistencies and exclusionary conditions produced when neoliberal interests are privileged.' Denise Lawrence-Zuniga, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Advance praise: 'Urban policy makers focused on sustainability often ignore the growth of eco-apartheid in their own cities. The contributors to this invaluable book confront the issue head-on, through exhaustive ethnographic research, and show us how and why environmental justice is the key to a green urban future.' Andrew Ross, author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City Advance praise: 'In this groundbreaking work, the centrality of sustainability to the contemporary city and its interlocking systems of urban policy, politics, and planning is revealed through ethnographic case studies and vivid snapshots of real-world places. This is a collective achievement of anthropologists working together to reframe a field that is at the forefront of the discipline.' Setha Low, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Advance praise: 'This volume confronts the uncomfortable question of whether cities can ever be sustainable. Why do the lofty goals blind cities to environmental and social realities on the ground? Interrogating sustainability schemes such as branding, post-disaster rebuilding, and planning policies, the authors reveal environmental inconsistencies and exclusionary conditions produced when neoliberal interests are privileged.' Denise Lawrence-Zuniga, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Author Information

Cindy Isenhour is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Maine, Orono. Drawing on ecological and institutional economics, her research interests are focused on sustainability policy and practice, particularly how they relate to issues of consumerism and environmental justice. With support from the Fulbright Program, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Isenhour has most recently conducted research on anti-consumption sustainability movements and sustainable-consumption policies in Sweden. She has published in American Ethnologist, the Journal of Consumer Behavior, Local Environment, Conservation and Society, City and Society, and in several edited collections. Gary McDonogh is Professor of Growth and Structure of Cities at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. His work focuses on how people actually re-create places and cities, whether from positions of power, through disfranchised struggles, or within the remapping of global flows, creating downtowns, transnational enclaves, and diverse suburbs. He is the author of Good Families of Barcelona (1986), Black and Catholic in Savannah (1992) and Iberian Worlds (2008); co-author of Global Hong Kong (2005); and co-editor of Cultural Meanings of Space and Place (1993), Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture (2003) and Global Downtowns (2011). He has published articles in major anthropological, historical, and geographic journals in the United States and Spain and is currently engaged in a multi-site study of the social history, form, image, and meanings of global Chinatowns. Melissa Checker is Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College and Associate Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Psychology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town (2005) and the co-editor of Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life (2004). She is also a founding co-editor of the Public Anthropology Reviews section of American Anthropologist. She has published articles in American Anthropologist, City and Society, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Souls, Human Organization, Urban Anthropology, and numerous anthologies. She has also published widely in mainstream print and online venues.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions