professional development
curriculum vitae
short bio
publications
courses
personal statement on teaching
Delancey Street College Program

current research projects

Green Collar Jobs
Sustainable Urban Development


RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World (Rowman & Littlefield)

student projects

514 urban transit alternatives book
515 cradle to grave analyses
515 environmental justice slides
530 appropriate technology projects
530 SFSU campus greening analysis

current course links

515 environmental justice

514 sustainable development
530 alternative futures

Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes
Professor of Urban Studies, San Francisco State University

Green Collar Jobs Study and Report
SEE NEW REPORTS (right) FOR REPORT & EXEC SUMMARY

Poverty and unemployment are significant problems in Berkeley and other Bay Area cities and there is an urgent need for a new source of living wage jobs for low income residents with barriers to employment – a population that includes youth and adults who do not have a high school degree, have been out of the labor market for a long time, were formally incarcerated, have limited education and/or labor market skills. This report describes a category of jobs with significant potential to fill this need – green collar jobs. Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs in green businesses – that is, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality (Pinderhughes, 2006). Green collar jobs are located in large and small for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and public sector institutions. What unites these jobs is that all of them are associated with manual labor work that directly improves environmental quality. Green collar jobs represent an important new category of work force opportunities because they are relatively high quality jobs, with relatively low barriers to entry, in sectors that are poised for dramatic growth. The combination of these three features means that cultivating green collar jobs for people with barriers to employment can be an effective strategy to provide low-income men and women with access to good jobs - jobs that provide workers with meaningful, community serving work, living wages, benefits, and advancement opportunities.


Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Cities throughout the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

This book focuses on planning and policy approaches and appropriate technologies that can be used to minimize a city's impact on the environment while providing urban residents with the infrastructure and services they need to sustain a high quality of urban life. The book's focus is on ecologically and socially responsible planning and management of the urban infrastructure in five critical areas: water supply and management, waste minimization and management, energy production and use, transportation, and food systems. The book is unique in its emphasis on sustainable urban infrastructure management, processes and appropriate technologies, its pragmatic focus, its comprehensiveness, and its truly international, non-Eurocentric approach... (find out more)


NEW REPORTS


Green Collar Jobs (PDF)

Executive Summary (PDF)

email: raquelrp@sfsu.edu

Department of Urban Studies
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
Phone: 415-338-7520
Office: HSS 136

© Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes | Last updated November 2007