ABSTRACT
Cities and mayors are leading the way in responding to the global ecological crisis, especially in addressing threats stemming from climate change, by “going green.” Resilience planning and adaptation plans are well underway in major urban areas. Environmental discourse has become a normal part of urban politics worldwide (Evans 2002; Isenhour et al. 2015; Sze 2015). This has the potential to have a tremendous impact given that in 2014, 54 percent of the world’s population lived in cities and the United Nations (2014) projects that to grow to 66 percent by 2050. Greening includes, literally, increasing the amount of public green spaces, such as parks (Harnik 2010). Green initiatives also promote increasing the energy efficiency of buildings, developing public transportation, providing healthy, locally sourced food, and improving recycling programs, among other initiatives (Birch and Wachter 2008; Fitzgerald 2010).
