City environmental initiatives have been heralded for their contributions to global environmental governance and critiqued for exacerbating displacement and inequality. Bringing these two disparate analyses into conversation, this book offers a comparative understanding of how the multilevel nature of environmental governance and social inequity are playing out in practice in three major cities of the global North (Chicago, USA; Birmingham, UK; and Vancouver, Canada). McKendry argues that these cities' greening efforts have been closely connected to broader processes of post-industrial transformation and branding in the neoliberalized economy, often with regressive consequences. However, these efforts have also created space for communities to demand, often successfully, that a greener city also become a more just city. As such, though they remain deeply constrained by the globalized economy and the national policy contexts in which they are embedded, these cases show the potential of cities to negotiate a more just relationship between environmental protection, social equity, and economic development.
Both critical and hopeful, McKendry's findings will interest scholars of urban environmentalism, environmental governance, and comparative urban politics.
