Urban ecosystem justice : the field guide to a socio-ecological systems science of cities for the people

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes efforts to understand and build urban ecosystem health and justice, extending scholarly literatures on urban ecology, political ecology and environmental justice. Through examination of cases from around the world, as well as from my own sustained work in Albany, New York, the research demonstrates that urban ecosystem health and justice has powerful cultural, social and political economic dimensions as well as (more often acknowledged) ecological and technical dimensions. The research also advances an analytic framework that can guide education as well as entrepreneurial initiatives to build urban ecosystem health and justice. The research strives to provide a theoretical as well as practical guide to the second generation of the global environmental justice movement. Rather than focus on recurrent patterns of environmental injustice, particularly in communities already vulnerable because of race and class, this research identifies positive paths forward through education, community programming, law and technical innovation.