Social Justice and the Green City

Abstract

A transition to a new, greener urbanism is increasingly imperative in the face of environmental crises. However, such a transition is not possible without considering social justice. This essay examines some tensions between social justice and urban sustainability and some of the reasons why a social justice approach to urban sustainability is often marginalized by a neoliberal sustainability ontology. This essay first engages with various normative concepts of social justice and its long existing but unfulfilled claim in the city. It then considers some gains toward greener urbanism but contends that urban sustainability responses have generally been more preoccupied with ecological modernization and the reproduction of best practices rather than with socio-spatial justice. In looking at some workings of green neoliberalism, the essay points to how the ecological is easily recuperated for neoliberal ends. The last section addresses some reasons why the social is de-privileged in the dominant sustainability discourses and practices, and how social justice serves, through citizenship practices, as a claim to urban change where participation is not a bureaucratized process but an everyday practice. Overall, the essay cautions against certain sustainability discourses and green neoliberalism without addressing its ingrained inequalities.

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