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Short Bio

Raquel Pinderhughes is Professor of Urban Studies at San Francisco State University. Her teaching, research and community activism focus on improving quality of life for people living and working in cities. Her areas of expertise include sustainable urban development, urban infrastructures, environmental justice, green collar jobs, appropriate technologies, urban agriculture, community food security, and local food systems. In addition to her work in the United States, she has conducted research and guest lectured in Havana, Cuba, Curitiba, Brazil, and Rajasthan, India.

Her most recent book, Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities throughout the World 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 analysis of ecologically and socially responsible planning and management of the urban infrastructure focuses on water, waste, energy, transportation, and food systems.

Pinderhughes is an expert on green collar jobs, coining the term in 2004 to describe manual labor jobs related to improvements in environmental quality. Her landmark study, Green Collar Jobs" An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Business to Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment, informs our understanding of how to harness green business growth to fight both pollution and poverty and provides critical guidance to the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, the nation's first attempt to carry out the model that Pinderhughes' study proposes. The study can be found at http://bss.sfsu.edu/raquelrp/

Pinderhughes is Director of the SFSU/Delancey Street College Program, an innovative program that provides ex felons and drug addicts with an opportunity to pursue a college education on site at the Delancey Street Foundation facility. She is President of the Board of Directors of the Ecology Center, which runs the city of Berkeley’s recycling and farmers market programs, and Rising Sun Energy Services which runs California Youth Energy Services and Energy Partners, designed to reduce residential energy and water consumption in the Bay Area. She  serves on the Board of Directors of Clean City, a non-profit organization focused on cleaning, greening and beautifying the city of San Francisco while providing job training and placement services for people with barriers to employment. She is a consultant to the Ella Baker Center's Green Collar Jobs Campaign in Oakland.

Recent publications include: Green Collar Jobs: Work Force Opportunities in the Growing Green Economy (2006); Alternative Urban Futures: Planning for Sustainable Development in Cities Throughout the World, (2004); From The Ground Up: The Role of Urban Gardens and Farms in Low-Income Communities, (Boyce and Shelly, 2003); Good Farming, Healthy Communities: Strengthening Regional Sustainable Agriculture Sectors and Local Food Systems, (2002); Urban Agriculture in Havana, Cuba, co-authored with colleagues in Havana, Cuba ( 2001) .