Introducing Just Sustainabilities: Policy, Planning, and Practice

by Julian Agyeman

This unique and insightful text offers an exploration of the origins and subsequent development of the concept of just sustainability.

Introducing Just Sustainabilities discusses key topics, such as food justice, sovereignty and urban agriculture; community, space, place(making) and spatial justice; the democratization of our streets and public spaces; how to create culturally inclusive spaces; intercultural cities and social inclusion; green-collar jobs and the just transition; and alternative economic models, such as co-production. With a specific focus on solutions-oriented policy and planning initiatives that specifically address issues of equity and justice within the context of developing sustainable communities, this is the essential introduction to just sustainabilities.

Genres: Theory

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Brendan Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should be re-titled: Some Thoughts on Inclusive Urban Planning. The framework for Just Sustainabilities is sketched in the introductory chapter, arguing that "sustainability" conversations must seriously incorporate equity and justice concerns. Agyeman argues that we must work to decouple consumption from harmful energy use, wellbeing from consumption, and consumption from identity.

Yet the rest of the book moves further and further away from these ideas and is hardly related to "sustainability" conversations at all. Agyeman talks about making movements like local food, urban transformation, and greenspaces more inclusive. Yet, there is no connection with these topics to greater notions of "sustainability", which he poorly defines as living within the earths limits while equally distributing the world's resources for equitable consumption. While the book provides some critiques of easily lampooned movements (like the upper-middle class locavores), it does very little to provide workable solutions to these problems. For a book that claims to be "Introducing" just sustainabilities, it feels scattered and not particularly relevant in larger discussions of human-environment interactions and even environmental justice. Furthermore, the focus is solely on cosmopolitan cities, ignoring every other form of human settlement and the "sustainability" problems that these places present.

I think that environmental justice concerns and ideas have an important place in environmental movements, but this book presupposes a completely unrealistic, ideological lens advocating obvious absurdities like massive wealth redistribution from developed to developing nations and community-led radical egalitarianism throughout the world. Moving from these, arguably preposterous, desires to considering how to make sure that all social groups have a place in public parks renders the book's overall effect rather lackluster.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love a good dive into... Urban planning? It's not bad and very well-researched, but I think it presents environmental sustainability in a way that it should be a byproduct of creating a sustainable path to justice and equity. I'm not convinced this book harmoniously marries the two sub-categories well and, as mentioned, is huge on urban planning.

[Grass_Vibes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very difficult writing, at times repetitive and long winded, but full of great ideas