1st Edition
Urban Ecosystem Justice Strategies for Equitable Sustainability and Ecological Literacy in the City
Merging together the fields of urban ecology, environmental justice, and urban environmental education, Urban Ecosystem Justice promotes building fair, accessible, and mutually beneficial relationships between citizens and the soils, water, atmospheres, and biodiversity in their cities.
This book provides a framework for re-centering issues of justice and fairness in sustainability discourse while challenging the profound ecological alienation experienced by urban residents. While the urban sustainability movement has had many successes in the past few decades, there remain areas for it to grow. For one, the benefits of sustainability have disproportionately benefited wealthier city residents, with concerns over equity, justice, and social sustainability frequently taking a back seat to economic and environmental considerations. Additionally, many city dwellers remain estranged from and unfamiliar with ecological processes, with urban environments often thought of as existing outside of nature or as hopelessly degraded. Through a citizen-centered lens, the book offers a guide to reconciling these issues by demonstrating how questions of equity, access, and justice apply to the biophysical dimensions of the urban ecosystem: soil, water, air, waste, and biodiversity. Drawing heavily from the fields of urban ecology, environmental justice, and ecological design, this book lays out a science of cities for people: a pedagogical platform that can be used to promote ecological literacy in underrepresented urban communities through affordable and decentralized means.
This book provides both a theoretical and practical field guide to students and researchers of urban sustainability, city planners, architects, policymakers, and activists wishing to develop reciprocal relationships with urban ecologies.
Introduction Part I Urban Ecosystem Justice Theory Chapter 1: Ecological Alienation: Roots and Remedies Chapter 2: Exclusion of Social Sustainability and Emergence of Enviro-Technocratic Governance Part II Urban Ecosystem Justice Applications Chapter 3: Urban Soil Justice: Ecoremediation versus the Toxisphere Chapter 4: Urban Water Justice: DIY River Remediation in the Aquatic Commons Chapter 5: Urban Atmospheric Justice Chapter 6: Urban Compost Justice Chapter 7: Urban Biodiversity Justice Part III Urban Ecosystem Justice Pedagogy Chapter 8: The Radix Experiment Conclusion
Biography
Scott Kellogg has been Educational Director of the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, an urban environmental education and just sustainabilities advocacy non-profit based in Albany, New York, since 2009. Prior to Radix, Scott was a co-founder and collective member of the Rhizome Collective in Austin, Texas, an urban sustainability and activist center which functioned from 2000 to 2009. Scott has a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins, and a bachelor’s degree in Humanities from the New College of California. He teaches in a number of graduate and undergraduate programs in universities throughout the Northeast, including Bard College’s Masters in Environmental Education program. Scott is the coauthor of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It-Ourselves Guide (2008).
