by Richard Platkin North American cities pay dearly for U.S. military policy in the Middle East. According to the July 1997 issue of Foreign Affairs, the cost of the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is between $30 to $60 billion dollars a year. This is no small gift to the major U.S. oil […]

by Sandra Rodriguez Communities of color have much to contribute to sustainability because of their front-line experiences in struggles against environmental degradation and health risks they face in their neighborhoods and workplaces. The environmental issues faced by communities of color reflect everyday life experiences of social, economic and political disenfranchisement. Yet, for the most part, […]

by Jon Orcutt The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. October 24-27, 1991. Washington D.C. PREAMBLE WE, THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of […]

by Richard Milgrom “Sustaining diversity” can be interpreted in two different ways. First, there is a need to sustain the human diversity present in urban environments. Diversity has allowed cities to embrace difference, an essential ingredient in the promotion of social justice and the accommodation of marginalized individuals and groups. The presence of difference has […]

“Sustainability” as a goal for planning just doesn’t work. In the first place, sustainability is not a goal; it is a constraint on the achievement of other goals. No one who is interested in change wants to sustain things as they are now. Taken as a goal by itself, “sustainability” only benefits those who already […]

by Sherilyn MacGregor Recent interest in “sustainability” has overshadowed issues of social justice in planning. There is an implicit assumption that, in the face of impending ecological destruction, we’re all in this together. But, as Peter Marcuse argues, we are clearly not all in this together. The costs and benefits of moving toward a sustainable […]

by Richard Milgrom The term “sustainability” has become problematic. Some now argue that it is so overused as to be useless, co-opted by many for self-centered agendas. The four main articles in this issue of Planners Network attempt to come to grips with the term. All four recognize that it is necessary to address both […]