Green Gentrification
Urban sustainability and the struggle for environmental justice
Routledge Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City Series

Green Gentrification looks at the social consequences of urban "greening" from an environmental justice and sustainable development perspective. Through a comparative examination of five cases of urban greening in Brooklyn, New York, it demonstrates that such initiatives, while positive for the environment, tend to increase inequality and thus undermine the social pillar of sustainable development. Although greening is ostensibly intended to improve environmental conditions in neighborhoods, it generates green gentrification that pushes out the working-class, and people of color, and attracts white, wealthier in-migrants. Simply put, urban greening "richens and whitens," remaking the city for the sustainability class. Without equity-oriented public policy intervention, urban greening is negatively redistributive in global cities.

This book argues that environmental injustice outcomes are not inevitable. Early public policy interventions aimed at neighborhood stabilization can create more just sustainability outcomes. It highlights the negative social consequences of green growth coalition efforts to green the global city, and suggests policy choices to address them.

The book applies the lessons learned from green gentrification in Brooklyn to urban greening initiatives globally. It offers comparison with other greening global cities. This is a timely and original book for all those studying environmental justice, urban planning, environmental sociology, and sustainable development as well as urban environmental activists, city planners and policy makers interested in issues of urban greening and gentrification.

1. Urban Greening and Social Sustainability in a Global Context 2. Conceptualizing Green Gentrification 3. Prospect Park: From Social Hazard to Environmental Amenity 4. Brooklyn Bridge Park: From Abandoned Docks to Destination Park 5. Gowanus Canal: From Open Sewer to the Venice of Brooklyn 6. Contested Spaces: Bush Terminal Park and Bushwick Inlet Park 7. Making Urban Greening Sustainable

Kenneth A. Gould is Director of the Urban Sustainability Program and Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York/Brooklyn College and Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in Sociology and Earth and Environmental Sciences, USA. He is Chair of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association.

Tammy L. Lewis is Director of Brooklyn College's Macaulay Honors Program and Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York/Brooklyn College and Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in Sociology and Earth and Environmental Sciences, USA. She is Chair-Elect of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association.