Getting from Here to There?

Abstract

Getting from Here to There? seeks to take the study of sustainable cities into a realm of analysis and critique that has not been seriously investigated in any explicit and systematic manner: the sphere of power and politics. Using detailed case studies of selected urban sustainability programs--some stillborn or short-lived, others celebrated, still others most promising--it focuses on the political agencies shaping them and the structural elements either impeding or facilitating efforts to build sustainable cities. To accomplish this task, the authors utilize three theories or models of urban power--growth coalition, urban regime, and neo-Gramscian hegemonic--to explore the dynamics of power and politics to better understand these cases and to derive important lessons about getting from here to there. These models offer valuable lessons for ongoing or future sustainable city programs, community or business groups, key policy makers, grassroots organizations, mayors, and urban planners involved in or contemplating moving urban sustainability projects forward, as well as students of urban politics and environmental and sustainability researchers.

About the Author

Ernest J. Yanarella is professor and chair in the department of political science, University of Kentucky. He teaches and researches early and modern political theory, policy studies (especially urban sustainability and energy and environmental studies), and politics and literature. He is the author of ten previous books, including The Cross, the Plow and the Skyline: Contemporary Science Fiction and the Ecological Imagination (2001).

Robert W. Lancaster is a retired associate professor of political science, and currently a Certified General Real Property Appraiser. His primary research interests center on sustainability theory (urban sustainability to sustainable design), critical theory, and most things that involve power, as well as the impact of "green" on construction and appraisal valuation techniques.