Tuesdays at APA: Just Green Enough - Contesting Environmental Gentrification

While sustainability and green urbanism have become buzzwords in
urban policy circles, too little analysis has focused on who gets
to decide what green looks like. Many visions of the green city
seem to have room only for park space, waterfront cafes, and
luxury LEED-certified buildings, prompting concern that there is
no place in the "sustainable" city for industrial uses and the
working class. While it is difficult to find anyone against
"sustainability," the process through which urban environments
are being remade under the rubric of sustainability are highly
contested. A major concern is environmental gentrification, in
which environmental improvements result in the displacement of
working class residents.


While social justice is supposed to be an explicit part of any
definition of sustainability, the surge in environmental
awareness in cities has not been matched with concern for social
equity. Instead, the environmental dimension tends to obscure the
social processes that created it. And yet, sustainable
development can potentially provide communities with alternative
ways of thinking about economic development, resource use, and
social justice.


Drawing on case studies from both New York and Chicago, Winifred
Curran from DePaul University discussed a strategy she calls
"just green enough" to allow for an urban sustainability that can
be used to open up a space for diversity and democracy in the
neoliberal city and make space for interventions that challenge
the presumed inevitability of gentrification.