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  1. Home
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  3. Sustainability in the Global City
  • Cited by 20
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
December 2014
Print publication year:
2015
Online ISBN:
9781139923316
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139923316
Subjects:
Earth and Environmental Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology: General Interest, Environmental Policy, Economics and Law, Anthropology, Earth and Environmental Science: General Interest
Series:
New Directions in Sustainability and Society
Information

Book description

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.

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-Zúñiga - California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

'I highly recommend this collection of essays, and hope to have a chance to use it in teaching. It provides insightful and nuanced perspectives on how the language of sustainability is used, how programs get deployed, and their differential impacts on communities.'

Stephanie Pincetl Source: The Nature of Cities (www.thenatureofcities.com)

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