Los Angeles: Dream a Different City

Los Angeles made smog and pollution into household words. No longer. Its citizens have said “enough.” TreePeople, founded by Andy Lipkis, is leading the campaign to plant one million trees in the next decade. Friends of the L.A. River and the Rivers & Mountains Conservancy, determined to see the return of steelhead salmon in their lifetimes, are reclaiming the Los Angeles River. To everyone’s surprise, Los Angeles is discovering mass transit. Darrell Clarke, executive director of Friends of the Expo Line, has spent nearly two decades convincing the city to build the first east-west light rail line in Los Angeles in 50 years. Adult mentors in the Girls Today Women Tomorrow work with the girls of Boyle Heights, teaching them about nutrition, exercise and their Latina culture. The community-based program also provides college scholarships in a neighborhood where the drop-out rate is close to 50 percent. Los Angeles is even planning a 26-acre downtown park, thanks to the philanthropic generosity and vision of Eli Broad. Other green projects are being promoted by the city’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who understands that environmental justice, public health and quality of life are all integral as Los Angeles citizens “dream a different city”.
Monday, April 9, 2007, at 10 pm

Chicago: City of the Big Shoulders

After the great fire of 1871 consumed the city, architect Daniel Burnham made the visionary suggestion to save the lakeshore border as public space. This idea gave Chicago’s heart a spectacular landscape, even as stockyards, industrialization and poorly planned low-income housing blighted other parts of the metropolitan area. Today, Chicago has emerged as a leader in urban sustainability, with Mayor Daley as a powerful advocate for strategies like green architecture. Daley was the driving force behind the Millennium Park, built atop a massive underground parking garage.
But much of the environmental improvement in and around Chicago is thanks to the longtime commitment of citizens like Stephen Packard and Margaret Frisbie. Packard has been mobilizing his fellow citizens for more than 30 years to protect and restore prairie. His efforts evolved into a coalition of more than 175 organizations called Chicago Wilderness, which currently protects 200,000 acres of natural habitat. Margaret Frisbie is a member of a group called Friends of the Chicago River. Trying to reverse decades of pollution, this organization is not only working to revive the river’s ecosystem, but also to give people the opportunity to reconnect with nature by fishing, boating and enjoying the shoreline.
Remembering that human beings are part of nature and recognizing that people crave a connection to the natural world are core tenets of the urban sustainability movement. Deb Perryman, a charismatic high school teacher whose classes are filled with students who live in poverty, waged a one-woman campaign to save a woodland adjacent to her school from the bulldozer and convert it into a nature trail and outdoor classroom where her students measure pollution in the creek, study the trees and plants, and learn about ecology. “Maybe none of these kids will become wildlife biologists, but certainly they will be parents someday and they will be community members,” says Perryman, named Illinois Teacher of the Year.
Monday, April 16, 2007, at 10 pm

Philadelphia: The Holy Experiment

Like many of America’s old industrial cities, Philadelphia is coping with diminished population density, building abandonment and urban decay. But vibrant community-based volunteer organizations and leadership from the Philadelphia Horticultural Society and Philadelphia Green are having a significant impact. Contributing to economic development and an increase in real estate values, they are making neighborhoods more attractive and desirable for residents. “I wanted neighbors around here to look out their window and see — that crazy woman is still out here picking up trash,” says Doris Gwaltney, the president of Carroll Park Neighbors. In her neighborhood, repeated efforts to save the park from drug dealers faltered until the Horticultural Society stepped in with a $30,000 grant. It’s just one of 150 neighborhood parks sponsored by the society that reflect Penn’s plan for a green country town.
Mary Seton Corboy has a vision that goes beyond parks. A pioneer in urban agriculture, she is a model for city farmers across the nation. “Now you’re a pioneer but initially you’re just a nutcase,” says Corboy, project manager of Greensgrow. At her hydroponic urban farm in South Philadelphia, produce is grown above what was a Superfund industrial waste cleanup site.
Philadelphia’s restoration projects go further than clearing away decades of debris. “The heart of community revitalization is the ability to touch people’s heart and souls, and I think that art can do that,” says Jane Golden, program director of the Murals Art Project, which started as a cleanup effort to reduce graffiti. Her organization’s large murals on buildings have become the voice of the community and the project’s artists have turned the city itself into a large canvas. “What we do shows us the powerful catalytic role art can play in healing the wounds of a city,” says Golden.