Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice

View theTable of Contents. Read theIntroduction.ôJulian Agyeman once again pushes us all to think more critically about how to integrate two important political and intellectual projects. This book is at the cutting edge of research on sustainability and environmental justice. Agyeman has set the standard for the next generation of studies on these critical challenges.ö-David Naguib Pellow, co-author ofThe Silicon Valley of Dreams"Julian Agyeman has provided a theoretical and empirical foundation for making environmental justice a central focus of sustainability. He lucidly demonstrates both the rationale and the agenda for a 'just sustainability' that is not 'just' about environmental sustainability. In mapping this new territory, Agyeman has made an important contribution to scholarship that will also be valued by practitioners."-Mark Roseland, author ofToward Sustainable Communities: Resources for Citizens and Their GovernmentsPopularized in the moviesErin BrockovichandA Civil Action, ôenvironmental justiceö refers to any local response to a threat against community health. In this book, Julian Agyeman argues that environmental justice and the sustainable communities movement are compatible in practical ways. Yet sustainability, which focuses on meeting our needs today while not compromising the ability of our successors to meet their needs, has not always partnered with the challenges of environmental justice.Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justiceexplores the ideological differences between these two groups and shows how they can work together. Agyeman provides concrete examples of potential model organizations that employ the types of strategies he advocates. This book is vital to the efforts of community organizers, policymakers, and everyone interested in a better environment and community health.

Julian Agyeman is Assistant Professor in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University