Green Gentrification looks at the social consequences of urban "greening" from an environmental justice and sustainable development perspective. Through a comparative examination of five cases of urban greening in Brooklyn, New York, it demonstrates that such initiatives, while positive for the environment, tend to increase inequality and thus undermine the social pillar of sustainable development. Although greening is ostensibly intended to improve environmental conditions in neighborhoods, it generates green gentrification that pushes out the working-class, and people of color, and attracts white, wealthier in-migrants. Simply put, urban greening "richens and whitens," remaking the city for the sustainability class. Without equity-oriented public policy intervention, urban greening is negatively redistributive in global cities.

Kenneth A. Gould is Director of the Urban Sustainability Program and Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York/Brooklyn College and Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in Sociology and Earth and Environmental Sciences, USA. He is Chair of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association.

Tammy L. Lewis is Director of Brooklyn College's Macaulay Honors Program and Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York/Brooklyn College and Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center in Sociology and Earth and Environmental Sciences, USA. She is Chair-Elect of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association.

1. Urban Greening and Social Sustainability in a Global Context 2. Conceptualizing Green Gentrification 3. Prospect Park: From Social Hazard to Environmental Amenity 4. Brooklyn Bridge Park: From Abandoned Docks to Destination Park 5. Gowanus Canal: From Open Sewer to the Venice of Brooklyn 6. Contested Spaces: Bush Terminal Park and Bushwick Inlet Park 7. Making Urban Greening Sustainable