Where We Live | Environmental Activists' Fight to Save Their Communities (Cunningham)

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On-the-Ground Environmental Activism

What motivates local activists? How do they strategize within their communities, and what issues do they encounter? Drawing on his extensive interviews with environmental activists across Appalachia and the Midwest, Randy Cunningham analyzes key aspects of the movement through those who know it best.

As each chapter of Where We Live grapples with a different topic, story, and group. Cunningham's sharp analysis enables readers to understand the interrelatedness of activists' struggles. Where We Live is invaluable to activists for a better understanding of their own work, as well as historians and sociologists researching environmentalism in the contemporary United States. 

Praise for Where We Live

"These are wonderful accounts of brave people fighting to keep their homes from becoming sacrifice zones. Reflexive NIMBYism by the privileged is a real problem; the inspired defense of places that have been written off, on the other hand, must be a huge part of the battle for a working earth."

—Bill McKibben, bestselling author and environmental activist

"Where We Live is essential reading for scholars and citizens who want to learn about the often-disturbing realities of how power operates in society."

—Michelle Oyakawa, co-author of Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in 21st Century America

"A must-read for anyone interested in grassroots organizing in general and environmental activism in particular."

—Peter Dreier, E. P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental College

"Where We Live tells the heroic, personal stories of environmental activists fighting against great odds to defend their communities from corporate polluters."

—David Beach, Executive Director of EcoCity Cleveland (1992-2007)

About the Author

Randy J. Cunningham has been an activist and a writer about activism since the 1970 college demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Cunningham is a founding member of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus and is retired from working in the nonprofit housing field. He has also written Democratizing Cleveland: The Rise and Fall of Community Organizing in Cleveland, OH 1975-1985.

Paperback: 220 pages
978-0-8298-0215-3
2024