Just Cities

While urban planners are increasingly embracing equity goals, the profession has historically helped create the unjust landscapes it is now seeks to address. In Just Cities, Joan Fitzgerald and Julian Agyeman reveal how today's urban climate problems^—^flooding, heat, and pollution^—^are rooted in decades of planning and policy decisions that concentrated environmental harms in Black and low-income neighborhoods, creating unequal risk to the impacts of climate change. This dual legacy^—^aspiring to justice while institutionalizing inequity^—^shapes both the possibilities and the limits of current climate planning. Most analyses of climate equity and justice focus narrowly on the goals and implementation of climate action plans. Just Cities instead examines the deeper structural relationship between urban planning, racial injustice, and climate change, arguing that they are inseparable. As movements for racial and environmental justice converge, the book reveals how cities and grass roots advocates can work together to undo past harm and build fairer, more resilient, and sustainable communities.