Equitable Development

By Winona LaDuke 

Indigenous women understand that our struggle for autonomy is related to the total need for structural change in this society. We realize that indigenous people in industrial society have always been and will always be in a relationship of war, because industrial society has declared war on indigenous peoples, on land based peoples.

To look within a bigger context, when I say indigenous peoples, I'm not only talking about Indians. All people come from land-based cultures. Some have been colonized longer than I have, which means they have got more work to do.

By U.S. Representative Ronald V. Dellums

In the summer of 1993, the President and Congress accepted the federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) recommendation to close Alameda Naval Air Station and the Alameda Naval Aviation Depot, the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Naval Station Treasure Island and the Oakland Naval Hospital among other major and minor military facilities in the Bay Area. Prior decisions had already closed Hamilton Air Field and Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard.

Community Jobs in the Green Economy, a collaborative effort between the Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat, is a reflection of our shared belief in the potential of the “green economy” to generate quality jobs in our nation’s low-income communities and communities of color. We believe that America and the Bay Area can move toward energy independence while simultaneously creating high-skill and high-wage jobs for residents of low-income urban communities – residents who have not historically benefited from economic development strategies. Our goal is to provide a roadmap for community organizers, economic development practitioners, labor representatives, and city managers who wish to learn about and create high quality, green jobs in their communities.

 

By Tahnit Sakakeeny 

A Sense of Place

0ver the last four years, I've been designing and implementing urban environmental education programs for a New England-based, non-profit, recreation and conservation organization called the Mountain Club (AMC). In the past, we've struggled not only to find the most appropriate participant group for our programs, but more importantly, to find the right setting, or "base," from which to conduct our work. For example, should our programs focus on one particular Boston-area park, or should they incorporate parks across the city? Should we work with one neighborhood in particular, or should we work with community centers city-wide? We've been struggling to define and establish a sense of place for our programs within the culturally diverse urban arena.

By Enrique Valdivia 

The goals of the environmental justice movement include both protecting poor neighborhoods from environmental hazards and fostering community development. Success in environmental justice campaigns often comes to those who engage in collective efforts to solve a community's problems. This is the essence of the "empowerment" philosophy espoused by many environmental justice activists.

Like Little League and health clubs, concern for the environment has typically been a middle class pastime. Successful NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard”) campaigns in middle-class neighborhoods prompted polluters to locate their businesses where opposition was weak and disorganized. As a result, a disproportionately large number of such facilities were placed in poor neighborhoods and in communities of color. Environmental injustice came to be seen as a byproduct of environmental regulation, occurring "not in spite of our systems of law, but because of our system of laws."¹ Besides suffering the unwelcome attention of polluting industries, poor communities also have a hard time attracting desirable development. Some areas lack even basic amenities, such as paved roads, drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. There is often no legal remedy for these deficiencies. As with siting decisions for toxic waste dumps and the like, the failure to improve conditions in poor neighborhoods is a normal consequence of powerlessness.

By Virginia Seitz

At the Community Partnership Center, we are working to develop an approach that aims to democratize research, planning, and decision-making. We call this method Participatory Planning for Sustainable Community Development (PPSCD). It is grounded in community organizing and community participation in goal setting, information-gathering, analysis and decision-making, program implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. It attempts to answer the challenge of the sustainability movement of the 1990s to find ways to effectively manage growth and plan for the future that will not compromise the quality of life of future generations. It assumes that decisions about growth management and future development are highly complex and embedded in the dynamics of the social, economic, political, and environmental systems. It also assumes that within communities there are complexities of values, perceptions, and the relative power of the various stakeholder groups affected by these decisions, as well as uncertainties and urgency surrounding growth issues.

By Kalima Rose

The Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC) has worked for fifteen years to revitalize the lower Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, building affordable housing, rehabbing dilapidated buildings and training residents to own cooperative businesses in the neighborhood. The success of these efforts has forced them into unanticipated arenas, including a Displacement Free Zone campaign—their fierce effort to defend tenants within the 36-block neighborhood from evictions; and a local and state policy campaign with other New York City organizations to give landlords incentives to keep their tenants in place and to require developers to include affordable housing in market-rate developments.

On March14th, UH hosted an open house event to celebrate the next issue of RP&E : “JUST jobs: Organizing for Economic Justice.”  Featuring over two dozen articles from local, regional and national sources, this issue provides a comprehensive look at organizing strategies that aim to confront the neoliberal economic agenda.  The evening treated guests to a photo exhibit by David Bacon, speakers from the Woodfin campaign and remarks from the Rev. Phil Lawson.

“Cruising in my hybrid, saving my environment, don’t let my pride get in the way of listening to them scientists... environmental stuff is light when we step on the scene.”  It’s delightfully the rappers turn to sing about sustainability. This new breed of rappers are from Earth Team, an environmental network for teens, teachers and youth leaders. But making sustainability hip and fun has been a long time coming. Earth Team produces the GreenScreen TV show, and you can check out their music video on www.thegreenscreentv.net  

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