Smokestacks to green roofs: City environmentalism, green urban entrepreneurialism, and the regulation of the postindustrial city

There is a growing consensus that many pressing environmental problems are global in reach. Yet as international attempts to address climate change and other global environmental issues meet with limited success, cities are increasingly seen as the most effective political scale at which environmental progress can be achieved. In the face of neoliberal globalization, cities have also become increasingly important players in global economic processes. This dissertation examines the relationship between city environmentalism and the changing role of cities in the globalized economy through an analysis of the environmental efforts of Birmingham, England and Chicago, Illinois. Research is based on semi-structured interviews, archival research, and historical analysis of secondary sources. It is argued that the environment has become a way for local leaders to address two crises that have accompanied globalization: an economic crisis caused by deindustrialization and state devolution and a crisis of local state legitimacy in the face of increased social polarization. As a form of "green urban entrepreneurialism," city environmental efforts prioritize those programs that can help attract capital, business tourists, and skilled labor rather than those that are most important environmentally. In addition, because city sustainability programs offer the promise that they will benefit all city residents, the spectacle of the green city obscures the ongoing social polarization in the neoliberal city and helps hide the unequal distribution of the costs and the financial benefits of city environmentalism. The limits of urban greening challenge the assumption that cities can be at the forefront of efforts to move toward a more sustainable society within the current global political and economic order.