Urban Struggle for Economic, Environmental and Social Justice

Malo André Hutson is assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and associate director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development. He is also a faculty affiliate of the UC Berkeley/UCSF Medical School Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars program

"At last, a book that looks at some of the ways in which gentrification has been reined in. The book provides a wide-ranging and largely convincing account of the alliances that have made possible some legal constraints to be placed on unrestrained gentrification" –Tim Butler, King’s College London, UK"Hutson (Univ. of California Berkeley) tries to understand the rapid and unrestrained gentrification occurring in “strong-market cities such as Boston, New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington, DC,” with their attendant displacements of poor and working-class populations. Important topics include the demographic shift back into cities; the awakening of marginalized urban communities of color; the cases of academic and medical institutions expanding into surrounding poor neighborhoods; the struggle of residents to hold government and developers accountable; and the efforts of community organizations to promote equitable development for local residents and provide more community control over land use and planning. The dynamic of economic crises involving home foreclosures and unemployment has bolstered community development grassroots efforts. Grassroots community development is seen as a way to bring about healthy, sustainable, urban communities with reduced displacement, poverty, and inequality. The new policies encouraging public/private partnerships to improve economic, environmental, and social dimensions of low resource urban communities are seen as the solution. The point of the book is that political organizing and strong community coalitions can keep government and private developers accountable to neighborhood residents." - C. Wankel, St. John's University, CHOICE

• 1. The New Struggle for Economic, Environmental and Social Justice 2. Our Changing Landscape 3. Boston: The fight for quality jobs 4. Brookylyn: The struggle for inclusive governance and transparency 5. San Francisco: The fight to preserve the mission district 6. Washington DC: 'Chocolate city' is changing 7. Deepending their Roots: The urban struggle for economic, environmental and social justice