Sustainability and the City

Abstract

This chapter establishes the book’s key theoretical premises, including capitalist cycles of crisis and resolution (Marx), double-bind theory (Bateson), the spatial fix (Harvey), and capitalism and schizophrenia (Deleuze and Guattari). Using New York City as an example, it discusses how city leaders resolved economic crises through the continual exploitation of natural and human resources. The constant remaking of urban neighborhoods fueled the city’s economic engine, especially as the city shifted to a real estate-based economy. Towards the end of the twentieth century, this real estate imperative coincided with increased public concern about the dangers of climate change. The broad appeal of sustainability provided the perfect cover for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s neoliberal agenda to recreate New York as a luxury city. But just as Bloomberg’s emphasis on private industry intensified the gap between the city’s rich and poor it also unevenly distributed environmental benefits and burdens.