Climate Change, Smart Growth, Racial Oppression, and White Privilege

In this paper I will examine how people of differing environmental perspectives—namely anti-growth preservationists and environmental justice advocates—frame their responses to smart growth, using Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area as a case study. Then I will offer a race analysis of these frameworks based on the thesis that to address climate change through smart growth we need to challenge the ways certain groups try to retain their white privilege. As foundation for this thesis I will develop the norms of reparations and restoration to argue for an equitable smart growth approach that entails structural transformation to address our climate change crisis.