Projections 8: Justice, Equity, and Sustainablity
Projections, the Journal of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, focuses on the most innovative and cutting edge research in planning. Each volume is devoted to a different topic of interest to planning scholars, students, and professionals. As a peer-reviewed publication, Projections welcomes original high quality submissions at the vanguard of planning theory and practice.
In Volume 8 of Projections, MIT’s Journal of Planning, we are excited to bring together articles from academics and practitioners, who theorize, critically reflect on past experiences, and examine the intersection of justice, equity, and sustainability as a framework for planning and action. In this volume, we have welcomed a variety of papers, including critical analyses, theoretical critiques, plans, observations, photo essays and other forms of reflection to encourage a broad approach to how we might understand the complexities and possibilities of achieving sustainability, justice, and equity. This volume includes detailed analyses and what we have found to be thought provoking work focused on rights and community development in the Philippines; urban sustainability and the just and equitable allocation of parks in Louisville, KY; cases of environmental (in)justice and racism in the United States and in Sweden; rights-based planning and development in Cambodia; the role and contribution of arts to sustainability; the relation between urban sprawl, sewage delivery, and waste water treatment in poor communities in Atlanta; oil and gas extraction as related to land management practices in Canada; social and cultural constructions of natural disasters in Guatemala; and the potential for sustainable community rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We are honored to have these papers introduced by Professor Julian Agyeman in a piece entitled, “Equity? That’s not an issue for us. We’re here to save the world.” And we are equally honored to present a concluding reflection by Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi in “Can Justice be Planned? Exploring the Intersections of Policy, Politics, and Planning.” We have also included in this volume two additional papers from Professor Susan Holcombe and Professor Marcel Burzstyn who participated in a seminar and film series at MIT in the Spring of 2008. This series was crafted around the theme of the journal, justice, equity, and sustainability, and we were privileged to have such speakers as the above mentioned Professors Burzstyn and Holcombe, as well as Professor Nancy Jacobs and Professor John Forester. In this volume, Professors Burzstyn and Holcombe present their own research as related to the theme of justice, equity, and sustainability.