Chapter 4 uses assemblage theory, which is an anti-colonialist theory of social and spatial construction that has traction in the Global South, to show how urban inequalities become assembled, disassembled, and reassembled over time and yet how grassroots activism for social and environmental justice and for community resilience can change the form and functions of cities. Buchanan arose at a time when the role of urban planning in the US cities was growing but largely conceived as the top–down imposition of order and dominant values on urban space. However, we are increasingly aware of just how contested and evolving the practice of urban planning and urban development are. Case studies of green gentrification from Los Angeles, California and Accra, Ghana illustrate the competing ideological perspectives on resilience in cities and the potential for and yet tentativeness of progress towards social justice in urban planning. The chapter explores the connections of racism in American land use with colonialism in the Global South, and the commonalities in the experiences of grassroots social-justice movements across cities worldwide.

Chapter 1 introduces the book’s key themes by describing the Buchanan v. Warley case in its historical social-movement context in Louisville and nationally, the legal theory behind the Supreme Court’s invalidation of racial zoning, and the 100+ years in which many subsequent land use policies and practices have segregated American landscapes and perpetuated racial injustice. The chapter provides a multi-dimensional snapshot of racially unjust land-use conditions in the U.S. more than 100 years after the nation’s missed opportunity to embrace an anti-subordination vision of land use. Based on distributive, procedural, and social justice concepts and the insights of the nine core chapters in the book, three major themes are identified: (1) racial inequity is deeply and systemically embedded in American land use in multi-faceted ways; (2) cross-disciplinary scholarly study is essential to understanding race and land use; and (3) American land use is characterized both by the intransigence of systemic racism and by social, legal, and policy changes that advance racial justice.

Chapter 11 revisits the key themes of this book’s chapters in light of questions about what should and could be done to make land use in the United States racially just. Even though the book begins with the intransigence of deeply embedded racial inequities in American land use, this last chapter turns to themes of hope and potential for a racial-justice transformation. First, the history of grassroots anti-racism activism is instructive for how the next generations of activists can work effectively for transformative change in the land use systems. Second, a substantive anti-subordination theory of the law can make a difference if it influences not only legal doctrines adopted by the courts but also the restructuring of land-use institutions, including private-market systems. Third, public policy reforms must be multi-faceted and aimed at systemic change, supported by evidence and advocacy. The chapter concludes with hopeful thoughts about how a Third Reconstruction could change the trajectory of “the monstrous and evil story” of “racism, power, wealth, and land throughout the nation’s history.”

Chapter 3 synthesizes analyses of changes in both social justice movements and legal and policy institutions to broaden our understanding of interconnections among segregation, environmental disparities, and structural vulnerabilities in low-income communities of color. The Buchanan case highlights a relatively narrow framing of land-use injustice in the early twentieth century: zoning as a tool of racial segregation in housing. Throughout the twentieth century, the struggle for land use justice broadened to address the deep structural inequalities and systemic marginalization of all low-income communities of color, including land-use policies creating disparities in environmental conditions, community infrastructure, and vulnerabilities to disasters, shocks, and change. As both grassroots movements and institutions have evolved to grapple with the persistence and complexity of land use injustice in the United States, building the capacities, power, and resilience of low-income communities of color is critical to transformation and justice, and this growing focus on community capacities has come to characterize land-use justice movements.