Green and Gray: New Ideologies of Nature in Urban Sustainability Policy

Wachsmuth, David; Angelo, Hillary

doi:10.1080/24694452.2017.1417819

Cited by 111 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…We build on this literature to call for a more explicit focus on forms of ecological gentrification that occur beyond traditionally 'green' urban ecological interventions, towards those that are associated with the 'gray' ecologies of urban density and sustainability, such as alternative transit, mixed-use density and energy efficiency efforts (Wachsmuth et al, 2016;Cohen, 2017;Wachsmuth and Angelo, 2018). More specifically, we argue that there is a new and coherent set of gray ecologies (ibid.)…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice

Rice¹,

Cohen²,

Long³

et al. 2019

Int J Urban Regional Res

184

118

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As local governments and corporations promote ‘climate friendliness’, and a low‐carbon lifestyle becomes increasingly desirable, more middle‐ and upper‐income urban residents are choosing to live near public transit, on bike‐ and pedestrian‐friendly streets, and in higher‐density mixed‐use areas. This rejection of classical forms of suburbanization has, in part, increased property values in neighborhoods offering these amenities, displacing lower‐income, often non‐white, residents. Increased prevalence of creative and technology workers appears to accelerate this trend. We argue that a significant and understudied socio‐environmental contradiction also occurs where the actual environmental outcomes of neighborhood transformation may not be what we expect. New research on greenhouse gas emissions shows that more affluent residents have much larger carbon footprints because of their consumption, even when reductions in transportation or building energy emissions are included. We describe an area in Seattle, Washington, the location of Amazon's headquarters, experiencing this contradiction and show a distinct convergence of city investments in low‐carbon infrastructure, significant rises in housing prices and decreases in lower‐income and non‐white residents. We conclude with a discussion of a range of issues that require more attention by scholars interested in housing justice and/or urban sustainability.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice

Rice¹,

Cohen²,

Long³

et al. 2019

Int J Urban Regional Res

184

118

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the past, a spontaneous and uncoordinated approach has often prevailed, that favoured, in the absence of a comprehensive strategy, local and contingent aspects [87]. Indeed, without an integrated approach and, consequently, a coordinated governance [51,88,89], including preliminary assessment of pros and cons and identification of funding sources, action plans for the development of RES risk becoming 'wish lists' [14].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

RES Implementation in Urban Areas: An Updated Overview

Delponte

Schenone

2020

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the past, national energy planning guided the development of a central program for infrastructure investment over a defined time period. However, in the current geopolitical context, environmental damage, fossil fuel depletion, and territorial imbalance caused by the centralised energy model are all factors that require a change of energy structure, establishing actions to invest in energy diversification, and solid commitment to local renewable energies. This also implies an enhancement of the role played by local bodies, and particularly by municipalities, in achieving the targets of the Kyoto Protocol and now of the Paris Agreement, because renewable sources need to be studied, applied, and exploited at the local scale. Within this framework, this paper is organized as an overview on the promotion and implementation of the major RES technologies in the deployment of the new energy paradigm at the urban scale, taking into account multiple targets. A survey of existing literature underlines how the RES topic is mostly approached as a problem of energy supply and implementation of technology, but actual sustainability in terms of a social development process and improvement of quality of life by residents is often neglected. Then, this overview stimulated the authors to highlight three main critical issues and gaps and support the need of an all-encompassing approach as a final recommendation for a general RES urban planning advancement.

show abstract

“…In contrast to the nineteenth-century, the environmental and social costs of urbanized life are no longer in the face of local urban dwellers and citizens, but out of sight in most contemporary cities in the Global North. A common conditio sine qua non for the creation of cleaner, greener, more pleasant local environs has been the externalization of the social and environmental costs of Western lifestyles to other parts of the world (e.g., the Global South), non-human beings, and into the distant or not so distant future (Brand and Wissen 2018;Wachsmuth and Angelo 2018;Lessenich 2019). Yet if the urban in urban environmental interventions is not reduced to "city-ness" (for a critique of this reduction, see also Angelo and Wachsmuth 2015), but conceived of and framed as a product of and producer of unsustainable societal and planetary processes, then pursuing urban environmentalism may also mean more than lifeworld environmentalism: namely, the mapping, problematizing, and-ideally-reconfiguring of urban(ized) life and (some of its) economic, socio-metabolic, socio-ecological, and socio-cultural implications that underpin, but clearly also operate beyond the boundaries of any given city.…”

Section: Rethinking the Urban Distinguishing Between Lifeworld Envirmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reason for the letter is not neglect, but different, non-empiricist epistemic traditions. With view to the different epistemological traditions in conceptual approaches, I position myself closes to critical theory, without, however, assigning too quickly to a critique of capitalism, as some strands of critical urban theory do, e.g., urban political ecology (Wachsmuth and Angelo 2018;Ernstson and Swyngedouw 2019). The underpinning normative horizon that shapes this article is the conviction that in light of the socio-ecological challenges we are facing, radical (and not merely reformatory) socio-ecological change is key.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the Right to the City, Rethinking Urban Environmentalism: From Lifeworld Environmentalism to Planetary Environmentalism

Haderer¹

2020

Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the environmental politics literature, cities are commonly framed as key sites for a shift towards greater sustainability and urban grassroots initiatives, such as food co-ops, urban gardening initiatives, repair cafés, and libraries of things, are commonly portrayed as such a shift's key drivers. This paper develops a critical perspective on both common portrayals. It does so by drawing on critical urban theory, especially Lefebvre's Right to the City. First, inspired by Lefebvre's critique of city-centrism, the paper argues that the scope and limits of urban environmentalism hinge not only on the goals pursued but also on how the urban is framed. Urban environmentalism may mean mere lifeworld environmentalism: the greening of cities as if there were (relatively) bounded sites. Yet urban environmentalism may also mean planetary environmentalism: the mapping, problematization, and transformation of unsustainable urbanization processes that underpin given sites and lifeworlds, but also operate at beyond the latter-at a societal and planetary scale. Second, inspired by Lefebvre's reformulation of right claims as a transformative political tool, this paper takes issue with environmental practices and discourses that present society's niches, cracks, and margins as a key fermenting ground for radical environmental change. Since not only institutional but also bottom-up pursuits of more sustainable nature-society relations often remain stuck in mere lifeworld reform, this paper foregrounds heterodox right claims as an underexplored modus operandi in active pursuits of and discourses on radical environmental change. Heterodox right claims mean the active appropriation of dominant political languages, such as the language of right, while seeking to change the latter's grammar. What this may mean in the realm of environmental politics, will be spelled out at hand of the example of claims to a right to public transport.

show abstract

Green and Gray: New Ideologies of Nature in Urban Sustainability Policy

Cited by 111 publications

References 56 publications

Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice

Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice

RES Implementation in Urban Areas: An Updated Overview

Revisiting the Right to the City, Rethinking Urban Environmentalism: From Lifeworld Environmentalism to Planetary Environmentalism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About