
Missing the Housing for the Trees (2022)
Climate change and social inequality are two defining crises of our time. While both of these problems are global in scope, attempted solutions are frequently urban in scale: planners and policymakers increasingly place their hope in cities as places where more just and sustainable ways of living can be envisioned and incubated, while city governments are under increasing pressure to incorporate equity into urban sustainability, resilience, and climate policy.
In this series of publications, we examined California Climate Action Plans’ (CAPs) treatment of social equity. We found that though equity language correlated with an increased presence of more systemic policy interventions, such as dense and/or affordable housing, in CAPs, the majority of CAPs “miss the housing for the trees,” with green policy agendas, such as trees and open space, remaining more dominant. We also found little association between local inequalities and how CAPs incorporate equity goals.
- Article: “Missing the Housing for the Trees: Equity in Climate Planning” (2022)
- Book Chapter: “Why Climate Planning Struggles with Equity” (2022)
- Policy Report: “The Challenge of Equity in California’s Municipal Climate Action Plans” (2020)
This research was carried out with Adam Millard-Ball, James Sirigotis, and Key MacFarlane. It was supported by the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline and by the Committee on Research and the Institute for Social Transformation at the University of California, Santa Cruz.