In May, Swedish human-rights activists Sanna Ghotbi and Benjamin Ladraa set out to do just that. They’re on a quest to bike through 40 countries to draw attention to the nearly 50-year-old occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco. 

There’s so little known about Western Sahara and the Sahrawi people. We asked ourselves: ‘how can this be?’ The Sahrawi are a forgotten people. — Sanna Ghotbi

Through Ghotbi and Ladraa’s nonprofit organization Solidarity Rising, the pair launched the Bike4WesternSahara initiative. They’re pushing to bolster awareness of the Sahrawi’s fight for freedom, Morocco’s violent occupation of Western Sahara since 1975, and its crackdown on journalists and any media forum. 

The two have endured mountainous terrain, high altitudes, a heat wave, and sickness. They kicked off their journey in Sweden, and in four months have biked through Germany, Austria, Greece, Turkey and Albania. On September 27, they reached Macedonia. They hope to build a caravan of bikers in Spain, Western Sahara’s original colonizer. 

The goal is to make it to Western Sahara by the end of 2024. “We believe if we bike longer than the equator we would make a lot more noise and get people to know about Western Sahara,” said Ladraa. 

The last colony

The Western Sahara conflict dates back to 1884, and a period of colonization by Spain that lasted all the way to 1975. Spain’s withdrawal in 1975 sparked a regional war, with Morocco and Mauritania both invading the territory. By the late 1970s, Mauritania withdrew; Morocco stayed, and has held control for nearly 50 years. 

In 1991, the United Nations sponsored a ceasefire and established the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. The referendum promised the Sahrawi people a chance to choose between independence or integration with Morocco. Yet agreement on the referendum stalled. Today, no country recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, and it remains inaccessible in the world. 

Outside of the region, awareness of the occupation is almost nonexistent. Morocco has routinely blocked journalists from entering the area, and the topic is not taught in schools. 

“Both myself and Benjamin focused on global studies in school, where we talked about post-colonialism, climate change and other topics,” said Ghotbi. “We never heard about the history of Western Sahara.”   

‘Life is very harsh’

Since Morocco’s invasion, nearly half of the Sahrawi population has fled to neighboring Algeria in the Tindouf province, settling into refugee camps in the middle of the stony desert. Refugees, such as Sidahmed Jouly, a Solidarity Rising board member, are reliant on humanitarian aid. The climate is one of extreme temperatures, strong winds and rain. In 2019, a survey by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees showed that nearly eight percent of the population suffers from acute malnutrition, 28 percent display stunted development, and among children, half suffer from anemia. 

“Life is very harsh here,” said Jouly, 32, who was born in the camps. “We are refugees; we are stateless in our host country.” 

Jouly and his immediate family — including his parents, brother and wife — live in Tindouf. His extended family are among the more than estimated 30,000 Sahrawi people who live within the occupied territory behind a 1,700-mile sand-berm minefield, the second-longest wall in the world. 

Since taking control, the Moroccan government has led with an iron fist. There have been reports of torture, disappearances, killings and repression against pro-independence Sahrawis. 

“It’s a humanitarian and political crisis here…and [Bike4WesternSahara] will raise awareness about our forgotten issue, our forgotten cause, and will speed up the decolonization process in Western Sahara,” Jouly said. “Sanna and Benjamin are our heroes.”  

‘Change the world’ 

Activism has been an instrumental part of Ghotbi and Ladraa’s lives. At 21, Ghotbi was elected to the Gothenburg, Sweden, city council, where she pushed for policies that protected the rights of undocumented migrants, unaccompanied refugee children and women who’ve faced domestic abuse. 

She’s also participated in the growing anti-racist movement in Sweden, where far-right politics are on the rise. Additionally, she co-founded Digedem Lab, a democracy lab that works with municipalities, public institutions and citizens to increase political participation.

“I just have this philosophy that my reason to live is basically to try to make the world better even if I’m just one person,” said Ghotbi. She added that her parents, Iranian political refugees, also influenced her activism. “They’ve endured a lot that I haven’t, like being imprisoned and having close friends who were killed or also jailed.”

Ladraa is a musician-turned-activist whose time fundraising for the Swedish Red Cross provided him a clear view on the many humanitarian crises around the world. He began spearheading initiatives to show support for the issues impacting Palestine. That included launching the WalktoPalestine, a 3,100-mile jaunt between Sweden and Palestine to raise awareness about the human rights violations in the Gaza strip. He also biked over 1,200 miles through Sweden as part of his Bike4Gaza initiative to raise funds for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. 

Ladraa discovered the crisis in Western Sahara through a Sahrawi friend. The two also visited the refugee camps. “It does something to you, when you start to learn about these things,” he said. “I think the only way to live after that is trying to be a force for good and doing as much positive impact as you can.”

Building a network

Word of their journey has gained attention, especially on social media platforms. People have lent their support through donations, offering them places to stay and providing warm meals. “We’ve made new friends and connected with new people, and we are able to tell them the story of Western Sahara. So we feel like every day we’re doing some work to reach our mark,” said Ladraa. 

While on their journey, they’ve also connected with local human rights organizations, universities and other institutions in hopes of opportunities to host lectures and workshops. In September, they held an online security workshop for Sahrawi refugees in collaboration with San Francisco-based nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. The weeklong workshop trained Sahrawi refugees on how to protect themselves against spyware used by the Moroccan regime to surveil activists. 

They’ve also launched a campaign to raise funds to purchase cameras for Sahrawi citizen journalists living in the occupied territory. The cameras will be used to document the violence against activists living in the area. 

Bike4WesternSahara has not been easy. Outside of the physical toll, Ghotbi and Ladraa have faced financial burdens even with the donations. Ladraa says that the cost of equipment has been greater than estimated. There’s also an ongoing concern for their own safety. In a recent social media post sharing their quest, they received more than 1,000 hate responses. They were called “terrorists,” “mercenaries,” and “dogs.” In private messages, they’ve received threats against them and their families. 

But the threats have yet to outweigh the gratitude received from Sahrawis activists on social media, thanking them for sounding the alarm on their crisis, said Ghotbi. 

“If you are a forgotten people, and then you see someone is biking your flag around the world, it’s definitely more meaningful,” she said. “It’s all been quite humbling.”

Check out these related articles:

• 5 ways to mobilize your neighborhood and change the world
• The Response: Wartime Mutual Aid in Ukraine
• How Rights of Nature victories in Colombia’s rainforests can inform shared knowledge systems globally

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“I whittled down to all my favorite things,” said Pearson, whose tiny home has been featured twice on HGTV, and in many publications. 

Yet Pearson’s seven-year tiny living journey hasn’t been easy. Finding a space to park her home has been one critical issue. She would prefer urban surroundings, but tiny homes have yet to be fully accepted as official dwellings in most U.S. cities. And, as a Black woman in a space that’s predominantly white, she has had her fair share of frightening racist encounters that have raised safety concerns and led her to move her tiny home twice. 

Instead of giving up on her dream lifestyle, Pearson leaned in and launched Tiny House Trailblazers in 2016 to advocate and create a safe space for other Black tiny home owners – and inspire Black and Brown people to pursue and achieve their own tiny living dreams. 

We deserve to be here in the movement and be safe while here. — Jewel Pearson, Tiny House Trailblazer founder

Pearson is a product manager in the education technology industry by trade. To create spaces of inclusivity, she’s launched several initiatives including a cooperative between current and future Black tiny home owners and Black farmers. She has also offered webinars and workshops to share her experience and spread the word about tiny living.  

“I always say we’re holding space and ensuring representation in this movement,” she says.

The Tiny Home Movement

Tiny home living, and even nomadic lifestyles, date back for centuries among people of many cultures. The history of the current modern-day tiny house living kicked off in the 1980s, with the movement gaining more momentum by the late 1990s. Over the following decade, that led to a growing number of tiny home designers and builders, as well as DIY television shows, blogs, articles and books dedicated to the nomadic lifestyle. 

Following the 2009 housing crisis and the resulting surge in foreclosures, the movement took off as the cost of a tiny house is one-fifth that of a traditional home. The National Association of Realtors expect to see “incremental growth” in tiny home sales, reaching $5.8 billion by 2026. 

Tiny houses caught Pearson’s attention in 2013 when she saw the story of architectural designer Macy Miller, who is considered one of the pioneers within the modern-day tiny home movement.

For almost two years, Pearson researched and designed her house (which was originally 360 square feet before a recent renovation to add a sunroom). She later began hunting for a builder open to the idea of developing her tiny home on wheels–some of whom told her that her design couldn’t be done. She eventually found a builder who was willing to take on her plans. 

“What I have learned about Jewel is that she doesn’t do anything willy nilly,” said Miller who has since become a close ally with Pearson to create a more inclusive environment. “Everything has a reason.”

Indeed, Pearson began downsizing from her traditional four-bedroom home over the course of 10 years — moving into a one-bedroom apartment the year before building her tiny home. Upon her final move in 2015, she acknowledged finding a location to park her new home seemed to be just as challenging as building it.

“Most cities and counties don’t allow tiny houses on wheels [due to zoning rules],” said Pearson. “The areas that are most accepting of tiny houses are RV parks, farms and more rural locations, which aren’t always safe spaces for Black people and people of color.” Within months, Pearson discovered that firsthand.

I realized my tiny house experiences were going to be quite different from my [white] counterparts simply because of my race.

There were questionable encounters with fellow neighbors at her initial RV park that resulted in the first of two moves. She eventually landed a spot on a rural farm, a quieter space. Someone, who trespassed onto the property, was arrested for “racial intimidation” against her. Even within the tiny home movement, she’s contended with issues including receiving a threatening email from a fellow tiny home owner. 

Her experiences were largely ignored or downplayed by those within the movement.  “As I shared and raised my concerns, I also soon realized it wasn’t anything my counterparts were interested in including and/or acknowledging within the larger tiny house community discussions.”

Creating a New Space

Thus, Pearson created her own platform to have these discussions and much more. To join in her effort, she invited visual artist Dominique Moody, who built her tiny home in 2011. Known as the NOMAD, Moody’s tiny home has been on exhibit at the California African American Museum (CAAM). 

The two first met virtually, and soon began collaborating on how to address the lack of diversity within the movement. 

We felt that there was a need for a space where we could discuss the things that weren’t really being discussed in the more general arena of tiny house living. Tiny House Trailblazers became the space where we could encourage others to join in on these conversations and fellowship. — Dominique Moody, visual artist and Tiny House Trailblazer partner

In the spirit of ujamaa — which is Swahili for extended family — the Cooperative Communities project offers Black tiny home owners access to safe locations to rent and park their tiny homes. At the same time, the initiative provides a new income stream for Black farmers, who’ve lost $326 billion in land value caused by decades of state-sanctioned discrimination. 

Black farmers and landowners within the cooperative are located in North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas.

Pearson has also launched the Collective Communities project, which is in the spirit of ujima — the third principle of Kwanzaa: collective work and responsibility.

The collective offers Black tiny home owners, van dwellers and RV travelers easy access to a list of Black-owned RV parks, campgrounds and meet-up spots, as well as privately owned luxe hotels and inns. The list was developed by the camping group African Americans That RV & Camp (AARVC), and it’s reminiscent of the Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook that was originally published in 1936 and helped Black people safely travel during the Jim Crow era.

Pearson also offers consultations and hosts a weekly show on her YouTube channel to help others determine their own journey and process toward building a tiny home. She has held workshops and webinars with Moody and Lee Pera, founder of Kotierra and the former Boneyard Studios tiny house community. In October 2020, Pearson and Pera hosted the symposium “Tiny Houses, Land & Housing Equity,” exploring the explicit inequities within home and land ownership among communities of color. They also laid out unconventional strategies to reach home ownership.  

“There are so many people who’ve said to me, ‘until I saw you, I didn’t know that this movement was even for Black people,’” said Pearson.

‘Chasing That Dream’

As a tiny home advocate, Pearson’s key mission is focused on helping communities of color to live the dream of homeownership and building wealth through non-traditional means. While the rate of homeownership within the Black community rose to 43.3 percent in 2020, it continues to lag behind other communities, according to the National Association of Realtors. White Americans, at 72.2 percent, were among the largest share of homeowners. 

Nothing the systemic barriers that continue to push Black people out of traditional housing markets, Pearson understands the enduring allure of obtaining arbitrary signifiers of traditional success. 

Many of us are still chasing that dream of what society says success looks like in our mind. [The idea of success as] big – a big house, a big car.

Pearson’s tiny home, an eclectic mix of luxury that celebrates Black culture, has so many windows that it creates an open concept featuring two lofts, a large bathroom with a tub and shower, a floating stairwell, a walk-in closet, and the recent addition of a sunroom. “The tagline for my home is: ‘You don’t have to give up luxury to go tiny.’” 

Many have asked Pearson what steps to take to reach their own tiny living aspirations. Doing extensive research is critical, she said. “The last thing I want somebody to do is spend $100,000 on a tiny house and not be aware that on top of known problems with placement, you’re going to potentially have trouble with issues of racism.”  

As more communities of color join the tiny living movement, Pearson is pushing to expand the Cooperative Communities project. She adds that she’ll continue to educate and inspire others to join the movement. 

Pearson holds steadfast in her belief that tiny homes can be the answer to a persistent lack of affordable housing and home ownership, especially among communities of color. This paradigm shift away from traditional home ownership includes finding ways to reimagine housing, community development and land ownership, providing communities of color even greater ability to build wealth. 

“Racism isn’t going anywhere, unfortunately,” Pearson said. “I’d like to see Black and Brown communities really view tiny houses and this movement as a viable option for quicker access to homeownership and generational wealth building. Racism cannot be the reason we’re not in the movement.”

Check out these related articles and resources:

• Tiny house villages grow as more are pushed out in housing squeeze
• 11 tiny house villages redefining home
• When less means more: On rediscovering minimalism

The post This Tiny House Trailblazer is helping to build a more inclusive movement appeared first on Shareable.

Known as Spaces of Opportunity, the plush urban farmstead is a vital resource for a community located in the middle of a food desert.   

In Arizona, one in eight people face hunger. Feeding America estimates that half of these are children who don’t have reliable access to healthy, nutritious foods. Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbate the impact that food insecurity has on these already vulnerable communities. 

Compelled to address these inequities, a consortium of Arizona’s community-based organizations have joined forces to create a sustainable food system, providing educational opportunities for the community, an economic engine for small farmers and a place for individual gardeners to hone their own skills.

Our mission and vision has been to inspire health and wellness among the residents of south Phoenix. — Emma Viera, executive director of the nonprofit Unlimited Potential  

Unlimited Potential is one of five original founders behind Spaces, along with the Orchard Community Learning Center, TigerMountain Foundation, Roosevelt School District No. 66 and Desert Botanical Garden. Over the past seven years, Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation and Valley Leadership have also joined the partnership, bolstering their mission and bringing in additional funding sources. 

‘Perpetuated by Segregation’

At the start of the 1900s, cotton grew on the 19-acre land that Spaces of Opportunity now occupies. Back then, Phoenix as a whole was seen as an agricultural hub, known for its many natural resources. But the land, owned by the Roosevelt Elementary School District, had been desolate and empty for nearly four decades before Spaces transformed it. 

The story of the lot isn’t unique among the area, though. Scattered throughout south Phoenix are the city’s oldest Black American and Latino neighborhoods, which have faced decades of industrial development. For decades landfills, industrial parks and waste facilities were erected in these neighborhoods without regard for residents’ health or way of life. The expansion of two major interstates highways in the 1950s also further ostracized and displaced these communities. 

“The area has been perpetuated by segregation,” said Viera.

Systemic racism and discrimination has been prevalent within the area’s health and food systems, creating disparities in accessibility.  “I don’t use the term food desert, simply because we live in the desert,” said John Wann-Angeles, founding director of the Orchard Community Learning Center. “In my opinion, the term should be food apartheid because these are systemic issues and are amplified in marginalized communities.” 

Wann added that with Spaces of Opportunity, the group has been able to restore food sovereignty to the community while honoring the history of south Phoenix as an agricultural hub. 

Meeting the Mission

The consortium, thus far, is meeting its mission and more. Since the start of the pandemic, they’ve distributed over 70,000 pounds of food per year to families in need. More than 200 patrons visit the farmers’ market each Saturday morning. 

Spaces of Opportunity has also partnered with V.H. Lassen, a local elementary school, by providing food for culinary classes and the school’s student-run vegan restaurant, Healthy Roots Cafe. (During the pandemic, the cafe was relocated to the farmer’s market.) Spaces is also home to a climate-controlled vertical growing space, known as the High Tunnel, which allows students to grow foods on the farm year-round.

In addition to their horticultural work and community partnerships, Spaces of Opportunity also facilitates an incubator program. Since its introduction, nearly a dozen micro farmers and other food entrepreneurs have participated in the initiative.

“I am very thankful for the program,” said Wendy Mundive, a vendor who joined the incubator program in 2019. Mundive produces fresh juice blends, fruit and vegetable cups, salsas and various arts and crafts that celebrate her Mexican heritage. 

Mundive says the Spaces of Opportunity incubator program enabled her to reach her dream of owning a business. It also gave her a platform to share her family’s culture and history with her children. “When my kids were little, I would tell them stories about my childhood and talk about Mexican art, but they didn’t really get it,” she said. “And when I realized my kids didn’t understand [the breadth of our] culture,  I said I needed to think of something to preserve our legacy and culture.”

Since joining, Mundive has been able to expand her business by selling some of her handmade crafts in local boutiques and arts shows in the city. She hopes to expand even further in the future.  

Mundive’s story is one of many success stories for Spaces of Opportunity, Viera says. Through the incubator program, “the hope is that individuals learn the process of becoming a small business [so] they can continue in their journey if they want to, on their own,” she explains. “It’s the little things that let us know that we’re thriving and moving in the right direction.” 

‘A Real Resource’

Spaces’ land is divided into three major sections. The incubator farmland accounts for about 12 acres. There, local farmers and those with agricultural experience come to hone their skills. For an annual fee, farmers are assigned a quarter acre spot to start, with the opportunity to grow and graduate to a larger space if they are very successful. Farmers agree to refrain from using any chemical-based pesticides; and if they hire anyone, they also agree to pay their workers at least $15 an hour. 

About two acres of land is delegated for use by the farmer’s market. On Saturday mornings, families and community members come to gather and purchase affordably-priced, quality goods and produce.

The remaining five acres of land are available for use by those interested in starting their own gardens. Parties pay a small fee to claim their plot of the land. 

Spaces of Opportunity’s incubator farms and community gardens have attracted seasoned farmers, as well as people who are learning how to grow their own produce for the first time, says Kevina Devereaux, senior director of social responsibility and inclusion at the Desert Botanical Garden. 

What is grown remains within the community for those most in need—thus creating a new, sustainable food system. “Spaces has become a real resource for families and the community as whole,” said Devereaux. 

Building Awareness and Sustainability

Growing and maintaining awareness has been a challenge for the project. Last year, Ellen Degeneres featured the urban farm on her talk show, when Sprouts Healthy Community Foundation awarded Spaces a $100,000 grant. Spaces of Opportunity also holds health and wellness symposiums, along with culinary events, to help bolster awareness about the farmland both within and outside of the community. 

“There are [still] people who live within the community who are not aware of Spaces,” Devereaux says. “We’re working on building that awareness.” 

The ultimate vision for Spaces, Viera noted, is to maintain an environmentally-conscious and economically sustainable farm for the community. She says the founding partners have moved to create a separate 501(c)(3) entity under the Spaces of Opportunity moniker, and that they are on the hunt for an executive director who will oversee the entire operation. 

“We are looking at that sustainability out of respect for the community,” Viera said. “It makes sense for us to help develop articles of incorporation, policies and procedures that will preserve the role of the community, and be true to all the hard work that the community has done on Spaces.”

Check out these related articles:

• COVID-19 pandemic brings new growth to Montreal’s urban gardens
• It all starts with food: How co-ops are transforming Quebec’s food deserts
• 5 innovative solutions to food deserts

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Borne of their own social justice and community activism, the trio cultivated a food movement by transforming an empty land lot into a lush community garden in the heart of the historically Black Overtown neighborhood. Carrots, eggplant, garlic chive, kale, cranberry hibiscus, papaya, Thai basil, and moringa are in abundance for a community that has limited fresh produce options.   The three launched the Green Haven Project in 2019, to expand their efforts.

In partnership with various community-based organizations and local school districts, they’ve broken ground on five community gardens in neighborhoods throughout South Florida that have been designated food deserts. These are areas where the residents have limited access to healthy, affordable food like fresh produce. 

My definition of success is where we’ve been in positions to be able to bless others.—Green Haven Project vice president Jorge Palacios 

“We’re seeing a lot of success from the amount of food we’ve been able to grow to the different organizations we’re collaborating with now,” Palacios says. 

Outside of produce, Green Haven is also offering residents opportunities to learn about the health benefits of the food they’re growing. They host health and food workshops and outdoor fairs like “Plant Day.” They also launched a separate food pantry, providing an assortment of healthy food options. “People recognize our space as a resource hub,” Palacios says.  

‘Food deserts are drastic’

Green Haven has built new gardens in food-insecure communities in Miami Gardens, Broward, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They just broke ground on two gardens  — a second one in Overtown and another one in Liberty City. The latter garden is in partnership with The Smile Trust, Inc., a nonprofit focused on combating homelessness and food insecurities in communities, to be named Smile Haven.

Green Haven founders also estimate that more than 10,000 people have been fed through their garden and food pantry in the last three years. 

There are more than 300 food deserts in South Florida. Palacios says they are the result of many factors, including lack of financial resources and transportation to proper grocery stores.

Community members who use public transportation could travel as far as 10 miles each way just to access healthy, fresh food options.

Prior to the community garden in Overtown, residents only had immediate access to a fast-food restaurant and a trio of small convenience-style grocery stores in the neighborhood. “The food deserts are drastic,” he says. “Everything there is accessible except for fresh produce.” 

Food insecurity in South Florida mirrors a struggle for families across the nation. More than one  in 10 households nationwide experienced food insecurity in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Communities of colors, specifically Black and Latinx, are disproportionately impacted by the lack of access to quality food. Some 21.7 percent of Black households and 17.2 percent of Hispanic households experienced food insecurity in 2020, USDA figures show. White Americans fell below the national average, with 7.1 percent experiencing food insecurity.

Green Haven’s gardens proved to be a godsend for many families during the pandemic, which disproportionately impacted communities of color from an economic and health standpoint. To expand its offerings, Green Haven partnered with local organizations like Bridge to Hope, a local food bank. That kicked off the Haven’s food pantry. “We saw a lot of momentum,” says Palacios. “The neighborhood recognizes when we have things popping, and that they can just come through, not be shy, and just grab what they need.” 

‘Grow food for the people’

Palacios and Roper laid the initial groundwork for the Overtown community garden in early 2018 when they landed an opportunity to take over the empty acre lot in Overtown. The lot formerly housed a two-story low-income housing project known as “the hole.” 

Palacios and Roper, who together have been involved in various social justice and community activist work six years prior,  were volunteering at the time in an after-school youth program at the Overtown Youth Center. When that program ended, they were asked to visit the lot to see what they could do. 

“And as soon as we got there, we both immediately had the same thought – ‘Yo! We gotta get in here and grow some food for the people,” says Palacios. “It’s right in the middle of the neighborhood.”

He had moved to eating a more plant-based diet, and he also expanded his knowledge of food and gardening by volunteering with other local organizations who have a focus on educating  underserved communities about nutrition and environmental sustainability.  “I wanted to just learn from everyone, and take that knowledge to share it with others,” he said. 

In 2018, they took that knowledge and built the current community garden, overcoming logistical challenges like installing an efficient water irrigation system. With Placeres’s backing, they established the nonprofit a year later. The entire process mostly was funded out of their own pockets, with a few donations. 

The popularity of the garden grew through word of mouth. And with the growing number of volunteers, they’ve knocked on doors and walked up to residents in the neighborhood to make them aware that fresh produce is available for free. That approach generated excitement among older adults and the youth alike, says Placeres, a hip-hop artist who goes by “Legacy” and serves as a Green Haven board member.

Older folks get it…the value of what’s being grown in the garden and they’ve incorporated that into their lives. The children see us as their mentors…as their big brothers. And little by little, we have won their hearts over to the benefits of gardening and growing your own food. — Josh “Legacy” Placeres

Volunteering for the gardens has been beyond satisfying  for volunteer Nadina Liberatore. “It’s funny because I will tell myself when I go to volunteer that I’m going to stay just for an hour, [but] I feel so grounded when I’m there that time just flies by,” says Liberatore, an artist and dancer, who learned about Green Haven via an Instagram post promoting “Plant Day.” “I’ll be there for like four hours.” 

Placeres echoes that sentiment and adds: “We’ve had people from [all around the world] come to check out the gardens and to see how they can help.”

‘Not about us, it’s about the people’

In the future, the founders hope to expand their roster of gardens beyond Miami and help underserved communities build their own urban farms. “Our goal is to inspire people to do this themselves,” Placeres says. 

It’s not about us. It’s about people doing the necessary work for change  — planting a seed,  literally and symbolically, and then watching it grow.

For some volunteers like Celina Ishahak, the gardens offered a chance to make a lasting difference amid the global pandemic and summer of 2020. That time swiftly evolved into a call for social activism following the death of George Floyd and the November presidential election. 

“I was looking to make a difference for my Black brothers and sisters in a way that kind of moved beyond just a couple hours of protesting or a post on social media,” says Ishahak, who has been volunteering for the last two years. “I was really inspired to think about a long-term solution for healing for my people.”

With help from a friend, Ishahak found that opportunity within a five-minute drive from her Wynwood neighborhood. She heads to the Overtown garden every time she has a chance, describing it as a “healing space” for families. 

“The garden is so impactful, because it’s really providing a space for people to come learn something that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives,” says Ishahak who possesses a “green thumb” cultivating her own personal garden. 

“It is a place where the children can come and be safe, eat and learn about plants, connect with nature, and escape whatever they’re going through for a couple of hours and be in the sunshine.”

Check out these related articles:

• Fighting for food justice in a Texas food desert
• Community gardens are cropping up at public libraries everywhere
• Urban Family Gardens grows local food security in Colombia

The post Green Haven Project is nurturing underserved communities one garden at a time appeared first on Shareable.

I see my job as much more related to the pursuit of beauty and truth and connection. — C. Davida Ingram, public engagement programs manager for The Seattle Public Library 

Ingram ended 2021 on a high and powerful note, collaborating with an extensive group of community partners and local artists to produce a series of artistic and educational events—all part of a focus on public health amid the pandemic. That includes the event “What the World Needs Now: A Dreamathon” and the second-annual “Reflections” Dance Festival. She also worked with community partners to launch BLOOM Food Justice Initiative, a BIPOC-led community garden initiative and youth fellowship addressing pandemic-era food insecurity.  

In an interview, C. Davida Ingram shared her thoughts on race, community and social justice, and how she’s helping artists of color thrive and communities to stay engaged. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: Considering the impact of the pandemic, how are you and the Library managing these times?

A: When the pandemic began, one of the first things I learned was that artists lost over a million dollars in revenue; and that was such a staggering statistic. 

So I spent the time thinking about what are the paradigms that worked for artists of color, and what are the ingenious ways to deal within these limitations. Really good artists work within their limits, right? And COVID gave us some really interesting limits.

Q: As a Black woman, what does it mean for you to be an artist today?

A: I wasn’t born a woman; I was a child first. But I will always remember asking my dad to help me draw a face when I was about five. He taught me to make a U-shape, and to put the face on the inside. So I would probably say being an artist is one of the first identities that I had. I grew up on the south side of Chicago … [and] I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  What I loved about my education there is that it trained me to be incredibly creative and work in a lot of different disciplines. I always think back to a comment that my mentor Sandra Jackson-Dumont said: “Racism is probably one of the most generative concepts.”

I think as artists who take on conversations about racism, sometimes we conflate race with racism. I don’t think we should. Every day of my life, I’m going to wake up and be Black. Now, if that’s a hard or difficult thing, it has nothing to do with my blackness, it has to do with the environment that I’m in. Toni Morrison pointed out: racism could use up all your gas, if you’re constantly responding to it. As an artist (and art administrator), I see my job as much more related to the pursuit of beauty and truth and connection; and I think that a big part of my job is to make sure that people who are creative have many different avenues to pursue their creativity and hone their gifts. And, with the pandemic still looming, I continue to think about what it will look like to create art experiences in the new year. It’s going to be an interesting place.

 Q: What does that space look like in the new year, especially when it comes to bridging communities?

 A: I really appreciate the Seattle Public Library for allowing me to experiment. We worked on pop-up Soul clinics that offered the vaccine and an art experience; and the clinics were designed by community members. When we did just the clinics as stand-alones with nothing added we had low numbers. We’re talking like two to five people. But when we put art and culture in the mix, then we sometimes would see thousands of people. But it’s still a pandemic. We’re outside, but the questions are still: how do you right size this event?

 Q: Did that thought process help inform the vision behind the BLOOM Food Justice Initiative?

A: BLOOM came out of just looking at hunger during the pandemic and fostering civic leadership. I was so impressed with the people of color who created the community feeding programs within the city, and I wanted younger leaders to experience that type of insight and to have their space to design what they’d like to see and create.  

BLOOM was designed for young people, because the stats for suicide and mental health among young adults were so disturbing. So, I was like: what does it look like for young leaders to have a community experience that’s outdoors, that’s physically distanced? 

The first year was probably the scariest, because we didn’t have vaccines and I remember telling my supervisor, I will be as careful as possible—just please let us try. So, we did it—we started a garden. We also did virtual lectures. We eventually expanded to a community of about 40 people, still with the focus on young adults in fellowship. 

In the first year, we picked 300 pounds of apples, made cider and passed it out at a BIPOC healing event, and we did other projects that were more modest in scale. For this year, the young folks want to focus on soil remediation, but that’s what BLOOM allows us to do, to think quite a bit about our relationships—not just human to human, but also human to soil and nature. 

Q: Before joining The Seattle Public Library in 2015, what did you envision for this job? 

 A: My background is an artist who has worked in museums; I worked at the Seattle Art Museum, and even though museum isn’t in the title, I worked at the Gates Foundation Discovery Center, which essentially was a museum. At both, I was an educator focused on innovation and part of their public programs team. So when I got to the Library, I said: Would it be okay for us to focus on communities that were most affected by racism to have an opportunity to produce knowledge at the Library that would improve their day-to-day life, with a focus on civics and creativity?

There are many ways that I’ve seen my job at the Library get to be expansive, community centered … and so rewarding. 

Q: It seems like you seamlessly have fused art, community, and social justice. What is your process to bridge those spaces, especially in a city like Seattle?

A: I feel like where Seattle is, it is a very cutting-edge place to have conversations about racial justice. It’s not always easy. For me, I always have to remember that the cultural context that I have from growing up in Chicago may not always be relevant here. The cultural predicate of blackness is different (in Seattle). But I also think the thing that I get to bring to the table is being classically Black, an experience that I want to stay legible, no matter where we are.

Check out these related articles:

• Rules of the road: Partnering with public libraries for collective impact
• Libraries bring COVID relief to communities
• Community gardens are cropping up at public libraries everywhere

The post Meet the Seattle artist creating community connections at The Library appeared first on Shareable.

Spearheaded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the program has since provided direct, technical support and expertise on how best to integrate entrepreneurship, environmental management, public health, and other considerations, to more than 125 communities nationwide, to develop specific regional projects targeting access to local food. That includes farmers markets, community gardens, cooperative grocery stores, and food hubs that improve environmental, economic and health outcomes.

“The program was a real boost for our community,” said Sherene Hess, Indiana County, Pennsylvania commissioner. Indiana County, located in west-central Pennsylvania, was one of 16 communities selected in 2018.    

LFLP was born out of the former Livable Communities in Appalachia program, which was established to promote economic development, preserve rural lands, and increase access to locally grown food in Appalachian towns and rural communities. That program halted in 2014 and was replaced by LFLP, which continues the focus to support small towns and rural areas nationwide. Outside of the EPA and USDA, LFLP is supported by the Department of Transportation (DoT), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and the Delta Regional Authority (DRA).  

There are three phases within the LFLP program: plan, convene and act. In the planning phase, the community and federal agencies develop a steering committee to outline goals for the project and identify other community stakeholders for community-based workshops. In the convene phase, those stakeholders and federal partners gather for a city tour and two-day workshop. That time is open to discuss the community’s values, vision and goals, as well as brainstorm on short- and long-term actions to meet stated goals. In the act phase, selected communities finalize an action plan that can be referenced to build out existing programs or develop new ones. 

“It verified for us that we were doing something right here,” Hess said.

Indiana County, Pennsylvania:

Through its Sustainable Economic Development Task Force, Hess said local leaders focused efforts on creating an action plan that would  build a sustainable agriculture sector in the county, and a viable retail market in the city for their residents. 

For instance, they set a goal to bolster access and awareness of their local community garden. This also opened the door to offering workshops on the benefits of healthy eating and growing fresh produce. They also looked at ways to support aspiring and existing entrepreneurs in their pursuits to develop food-related enterprises.

Leaders also expanded the county’s existing downtown farmers market, including adding new signage to promote the market on its main street. Throughout the county, new farmers markets were opened as well, providing farmers and other local food producers more options to sell their produce and other goods.

“The challenge is always how to keep the momentum going,” Hess said. “We need outside partners to help us figure out our weaknesses and strengths, and how to build on our capacity. So we want to avail ourselves of all the great things that are happening outside of our region, but we also want to let the rest of the world know like, ‘Hey, we’re here.’”

Cortland, New York:

The Seven Valleys Health Coalition, a Cortland-based nonprofit, was also among the 2018 alums. Partnering with the city of Cortland and the Cortland Food Project, the coalition focused their action plan on building upon existing efforts underway in the city and county to improve the local food system and revitalize the central downtown and surrounding areas.

The final action plan was multifaceted, including creating a walk- and bike-friendly space for residents in the downtown area. The plan also pushed to develop programs focused on reducing food waste and hunger, and increasing access to local, more affordable food for the city’s most vulnerable population. Under that initiative, the coalition launched the Seven Valleys Food Rescue program.

The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cortland County, which was a member of the communty’s LFLP steering committee, kicked off the Farm to School initiative. The program connects local area schools and local food producers throughout the county, and coordinates educational activities for local students, including teaching them how to grow their own food.

One of the challenges they faced was identifying those partners that would lead the implementation of the stated goals. According to Susan Williams, assistant director at Seven Valleys Health Coalition, funding the goals was also top of list. “There’s been a lot of good work that’s come out of [being a part of the LFLP program], and our action plan has been a really useful document for us to reference and maintain accountability,” she said.

Ukiah, California:

Strengthening the access and capacity of the local food system in Ukiah has been a central mission to the work of community-based-action agency North Coast Opportunities for the last two decades. In partnership with the Food Policy Council of Mendocino and the City of Ukiah, the agency participated in the LFLP program in 2017.

Community leaders here also chose a multi-prong approach to bolster their existing efforts. That involved assessing the need for a centralized commercial kitchen for local food production, and finding ways to efficiently distribute fresh, specialty produce from small local farmers to retailers through the Mendo Lake Food Hub.

With the technical assistance provided through the LFLP program, community leaders conducted a study and identified the need for the community to tap into the existing network of local kitchens throughout the area. That resulted in the 2020 launch of the Caring Kitchen Project, which prepares and delivers meals to the older adult population, medically vulnerable, and other disadvantaged residents. They were also able to clearly identify major hurdles that impacted their distribution process — mostly “finding ways to keep local foods local,” said Patty Bruder, executive director of North Coast Opportunities. 

“The challenge for us was that we all had really grandiose good ideas that sometimes are hard to implement in a rural community,” said Bruder. “So, being able to kind of pick off pieces of our ideas and work on them and build into that bigger picture that we want to have happen was helpful.”    

In June, the EPA and USDA announced the 2021 participants. The 13 partner communities, selected out of 97 applicants, hail from California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington. 

For more information on these communities and to follow their progress, visit the LFLP website here.

The post Leveraging collaboration to tap into the potential of local foods appeared first on Shareable.

It’s also a class her mother, Kimberly, says Allyssia risked missing during the first two weeks of the new school year. The family’s Internet service had been cut off in late August because Kimberly could no longer afford the $9.95 monthly cost. 

That all swiftly changed when the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tenn., in partnership with the Hamilton County School District, stepped in to install free Internet access for the Rios-Gonzalez family. With full and free broadband in her home, Kimberly says a weight in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic was lifted. 

“It has taken off so much stress,” she said. “I don’t have to worry about my daughter not being able to sign in to school every day and not being able to go to class.” 

Digital divide, by the numbers

Bridging the digital divide is a strategic priority in the Chattanooga metropolitan area, where 28,500 students come from low-income households, and the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the gaping holes within our social safety nets. 

The program that benefits the Rios-Gonzalez family, known as HCS EdConnect, ensures these students will have full and free internet access throughout a school year that has been restructured to meet parents’ needs and comfort levels amid the pandemic. 

Nationwide, grade schools, colleges and universities set off on a race to launch full remote-learning programs to keep students from falling behind. The shift has resulted in many local city leaders and education officials to confront a stark reality about our educational system: Not all students, particularly those living within low-income households, have equal access to the internet. 

“With the pandemic, it’s been brutal for families that don’t have broadband access in the home,” said Christopher Mitchell, director of the community broadband networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 

A Pew Research Center analysis of 2015 Census Bureau data showed that about 15 percent of U.S. households with school-age children (ages six to 17) don’t have high-speed internet in the home. When broken down by income, nearly a third (35 percent) of households with school-age children earning below $30,000 a year don’t have WiFi at home, compared with six percent of similar households earning $75,000 or more a year. 

That gap becomes even more pronounced when viewed through the lens of race. 

Among Black teens alone, about 25 percent said they often or sometimes cannot do homework assignments because they didn’t have reliable access to a computer or internet connection, compared with 13 percent of white teens and 17 percent of Hispanic teens, the Center report showed. 

And about one in five Black teens said they opted to use public WiFi due to the lack of a home connection.  

By any means (and policy) necessary

Once the pandemic took hold, parents did what they could. They opted to sit outside the doors of closed public libraries, or sometimes in parking lots, to access an internet connection. For those without computers, they took class via their smartphones; and some even completed homework assignments on their cell phones. 

And yet, said Angela Siefer, executive director at the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), no family or child should have to rely on public WiFi or cellular hotspots to access the Internet. 

“There’s growing awareness around the need, but are we at enough awareness to get us to a broader solution?” said Siefer. “Those solutions need to include a federal measure.” 

NDIA has maintained a list of initiatives spearheaded by local and state governments to narrow the digital divide. However, most of the efforts to address the needs during this crisis have been on the local level, Siefer said. 

In Chicago, about one in five children under age 18 lack broadband Internet access, according to an April report by Kids First Chicago and the Metropolitan Planning Council. 

That equates to more than 110,000 kids; and when broken down by neighborhood, Black and Latino communities are impacted at a disproportionate level. 

In June, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Chicago Connected — a new program to close that gap. 

With a $50 million budget, the program is a partnership between Chicago Public Schools, local community-based organizations, nonprofits, and Internet service providers like Comcast Corp. The city’s goal is to provide free high-speed internet access and digital training to more than 100,000 local students and their families. 

Chicago Connected isn’t just ambitious — it also has staying power: It’s been fully funded for the next four years. Along with funds from the CARES Act, the city’s philanthropic community stepped up as major financial backers, including hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin, and former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. 

“It was very important for those in philanthropy to provide that level of support and that this was not going to be a six-month or one-year thing,” said Hal Woods, chief of policy at Kids First Chicago, which is helping the school district to facilitate the program. “They wanted to see a sustained public-policy initiative for both the city and the district as well.”

Out in front

By building its own fiber municipal network in 2010, the Chattanooga area has become the poster child for digital inclusion. The city’s ultra-high-speed internet, offered to all of its residents at an affordable price, has been hailed as the fastest service in the United States. 

But the city offers more than just access: Families can also build their tech knowledge through digital literacy courses provided by Tech Goes Home Chattanooga. The program, run by the Enterprise Center, offers 15 hours of digital-skills training. Once completed, participants can also buy a new Chromebook and access internet service at their home at a low cost. 

For the new school year, the city’s Electric Power Board has made a standard 100 Mbps fiber internet connection with no data caps available for free to the students and their families, if they qualify for the federal free or reduced-priced school lunch program. 

That accounts for about two-thirds of the students in Hamilton County. 

To fund these programs, the district pulled in partners across the city including local foundations, Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga, raising $6 million for the initial infrastructure. 

Through these partnerships, the county is pushing to raise an additional $2.2 million for equipment and infrastructure needs, to provide services to families for the next 10 years. 

“The work we have been doing has taken on a sense of urgency due to the pandemic,” said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke. “And people understand that the future of our families and children in this city are at stake.” 

Fight for the future

Building its own fiber network didn’t come without a legal fight: Comcast sued the city in an attempt to stop the city’s fiber network project altogether. The cable TV and data-services giant argued that it wasn’t fair for a government entity to compete with private enterprise. 

Chattanooga won the battle over development of its network, but the telecom lobby succeeded in getting Tennessee to bar the city from expanding its fiber-optic system beyond its electric footprint. The Federal Communications Commission tried to step in and block the state from doing that but ultimately lost in court.

Comcast declined to comment on the 2008 lawsuit. 

Even within the region it can service, Chattanooga’s municipal internet service is having an impact. In the depths of the pandemic, the electrical board has set up at least 130 WiFi hotspots outside of its direct service area, to help the larger community remain connected.  

Many other states have found themselves in the middle of similar legal battles over the years, which requires a greater and solid political response to truly close the gap in our digital world. 

“What is missing is the political will to do large broadband expansions,” said Mayor Berke. “We face a critical question at this point, and that is — is high-speed broadband a part of our infrastructure? We don’t expect the private market to provide infrastructure. Right now, COVID is exposing the fact that broadband is looking a lot like infrastructure.”  

Check out this related Shareable article: How the sharing economy may close the digital divide 

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Private and public institutions have seized this moment to reset conversations around how to rebuild amid the fallout of the crisis. In early July, the Democracy Collaborative, in partnership with the Anchor Collaborative Network, hosted a week-long Community Wealth Summit focused on leading institutions, government agencies and nonprofits in examining the economic recovery through a racial equity and community wealth building lens. 

“Community wealth building has never been more relevant to the fate of this country and its economy than it is now in this COVID-19 era,” said Ted Howard, executive director and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative — a Washington, D.C.-based research and development lab focused on building a democratic economy. 

The community wealth building model pulls together the talents, capacities and institutions within a community to rebuild capital by creating and empowering locally owned businesses. Utilizing this model of starting at the local level should ultimately produce economic prosperity that is broadly shared, as well as racial equity and ecological sustainability. 

More than 100 representatives, ranging from local governments to colleges, joined the virtual learning summit with the drive to push forward the community wealth building model and to discuss current ongoing collaborations within their communities. That included efforts happening among their residents, businesses, community-based organization, hospitals, colleges and local government entities. They also explored the successes, the many challenges they’re facing during the current crisis, and what they deemed will be the new normal beyond the pandemic.

During the course of the week, participants also heard from key stakeholders and partners at community organizations, representatives from local economic and community development offices, and anchor institutions. All shared local efforts their communities have underway to mitigate the fallout from the pandemic. 

Take Washington, D.C. as an example. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office swiftly stepped in and created a $25 million microgrant program to offer relief to local businesses impacted by the pandemic. They received more than 7,000 applications in seven days. Also, in response to the national protests against racial injustice, the D.C. Council approved $1.32 million to fully fund the Racial Equity Achieves Results (REACH) Act, amending the Office of Human Rights Establishment Act of 1999. 

• The REACH Act — unanimously approved by the Council’s Committee on Government
• Operations — requires the district to develop and provide racial equity training for government employees. It also amends the district’s code to require the budget and planning office to design and implement a racial equity tool to aid in eliminating disparities among government employees. In addition, it requires the mayor’s office to include racial-equity-related performance measures in the development of an agency’s annual performance plans.

“Each of us really has a responsibility to our communities to do everything within our powers to ensure equity, fairness and justice is happening in communities that have historically been under-resourced, marginalized and perhaps seen disinvestments over the years,” said Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who authored the REACH Act and presented a part of the district’s recovery efforts at the summit.

During the week-long summit, one of many key questions was: Will new economic and societal systems have to be built in order to recover and achieve true systemic change, impact and power? 

“We’re not reinventing new systems, but we’re re-envisioning those systems in our communities [with the goal of building wealth for all],” said a participant during one of the many working sessions. 

Howard echoed that point. “We are now at a fork in the road,” he said. “Either head toward ever more concentrated local economies and Amazon recovery, if you will, or laying the groundwork for community wealth building for a truly demcoratic economy moving forward.” 

The post Empowering local communities to build own wealth to recover from pandemic appeared first on Shareable.

New bike lanes and a network of “slow streets” popped up in cities including Oakland, New York, and Minneapolis, creating space for pedestrians to easily social distance and get around on foot. However, Thomas says the move came without genuine community engagement, and residents and urban planners of color had questions about safety in these public spaces — especially amid protests against over-policing and brutality within Black communities. 

Thomas, a former transportation planner, likened the decision and the implementation process to many of the discriminatory practices that came from redlining, established in 1937 following another national emergency — the Great Depression. 

“As with redlining, Black people and many communities of color have been convinced that they don’t belong in the process and have to accept what they are offered,” said Thomas, founder of Los Angeles-based nonprofit Thrivance Group. 

For practitioners, community activists, educators, and planners, Thrivance offers educational tools and resources and runs panel discussions to promote sustainable changes in planning processes.

Deemed a far right-leaning practice, redlining impeded homeownership and the building of wealth by restricting where Black families could live. Generations were shut out of the housing market and forced to rent in communities redlined as “risky” prospects for investors, which led to underinvestment in the housing stock, utilities, local economies, and services. Redlined districts were chosen as sites for new freeways, highways, and industrial facilities. These policies combined to disenfranchise and impoverish Black communities and to reinforce segregation. Redlining also has its roots in disinvestment and displacement within communities and has connections to gentrification. 

Thomas had one caveat about slow streets: she said they had long been part of a dream progressive agenda among transportation planners to transform urban areas into safe havens for bikers and pedestrians. Closing streets to cars mostly supports those privileged enough to stay at home during these unprecedented times, without consideration of Black, Indigenous, and LatinX people traveling these same streets to get to essential jobs, often in the gig economy. Merge that approach with the legacy of redlining, communities of color continue to be marginalized.

Hugely popular with white urbanites, the slow streets are likely to stay, without a true public process. “This is what I call purplelining,” Thomas said. “And it suggests that anti-blackness and racism are so embedded in planning practices that you really can’t tell who’s doing the harm.” 

This is what I call purplelining and it suggests that anti-blackness and racism are so embedded in planning practices that you really can’t tell who’s doing the harm.

Thomas joins a host of planners, architectural designers, and community activists who are shining a light on race and anti-blackness in city planning. Black, Indigenous, and LatinX communities have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic fallout, which has been compounded by nationwide protests against police brutality. 

On June 18-19 2020, Thomas led a live digital 23-hour “teach-in,” titled The Un-Urbanist Assembly, confronting the legacy of anti-blackness in the built environment. More than 8,000 people joined the event to celebrate urban planners of color who’ve been at the forefront of pressing for change, to examine the legacy of racism in city planning, and to discuss toxic urbanism and why planners are culture-bearers. 

“I went into this thinking this is my version of protest, and I will use my voice and body to denounce what we know as urbanism,” Thomas said. “When we’re talking about defunding and abolishing systems, let’s talk about what that means for urban planning.”

Thomas told the group that the purplelining in her hometown Oakland — one of the first cities to institute slow streets — matched a redlined map of the city from 1937. “I instantly knew this was a new wave of gentrification,” she said. “I hated to see this happen in my home.”    

Resisting purplelining and bringing about healing would “require a degree of reckoning with the past, a plan to heal the existing trauma that stems from the past, and must be careful to resist the tendency to be motivated by and responsive to white comfort,” she said. 

That would entail moving away from planning processes that focus solely on what white urbanites want. Cities needed to support and invest more in the economies within communities of color including the street vendors who’ve served as a means for essential items, she said. There should be more focus on long-term planning that redistributes wealth throughout communities and divests from law enforcement and other entities that perpetuate systemic racism. Most of all, the voices of Black, Indigenous, and LatinX communities should be valued and lead the discussions on future planning. 

Comfortability and convenience are not sustainable ways for urban planning and design. We should be imagining a world that divorces from our current understanding of what we mean when we say space.

“Comfortability and convenience are not sustainable ways for urban planning and design,” Thomas said.  “We should be imagining a world that divorces from our current understanding of what we mean when we say space.”

The post Whose streets? Black communities sidelined as slow streets reboot redlining for gig workers appeared first on Shareable.

That’s an especially urgent question as demographics shift. Single-individual households now make up 28 percent of all households, a dramatic increase since 1965, when they were 15 percent. At the same time, loneliness is on the rise.

It’s also a question that was asked almost 40 years ago when urban historian Dolores Hayden wrote “What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?” an essay that resonated through social science and urban design communities and has experienced a resurgence of interest in recent years. In introducing the concept of the non-sexist city, she exposed how architectural design, capitalism and urban planning over centuries had isolated women physically, socially and economically.

“‘A woman’s place is in the home’ has been one of the most important principles of architectural design and urban planning in the United States for the last century,” she wrote in her essay. Since then, other academics have taken her critique farther, pointing to how urban design has also divided minorities and kept other communities disconnected. These concerns are more pressing for disadvantaged communities today. African Americans, for example, are more likely than any other ethnic group to live alone, putting people in those households more at risk for loneliness and feeling socially isolated.

Hayden “brought critical awareness to the design of cities and a new lens with which to see the built environment as an extension of western societies’ systems of oppression,” says Drea Howenstein, a professor of art education and architectural design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. That oppression in the built environment is not impossible to counteract, some experts say, but it requires civic engagement and in some cases a revolution.

Material feminists led the way

In her book “The Grand Domestic Revolution,” Hayden introduced her readers to the material feminists — whose leaders included Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Livermore and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. For six decades, between the end of the Civil War and start of the Great Depression, these feminists redefined the idea of what home meant for them and their families by pushing back against the domestic servitude that they deemed isolated women. They championed for architects and urban planners to reconsider the impact of their developments on family life. They even proposed what “the ideal, feminist” city would look like, creating new neighborhood designs and building developments that had shared day care centers, public kitchens and community dining clubs.

Take Melusina Fay Peirce. She organized women to fight for paid housework, and in her campaign, she developed the ideas behind “cooperative housekeeping,” in which women would create cooperative associations that would charge their husbands retail prices for their services — ranging from cooking to sewing. She even envisioned a broader plan for cooperative residential neighborhoods that had kitchenless houses and a centralized headquarters for cooperative housekeeping. “Material feminists dared to imagine women’s economic independence from men and to plan for the complete environmental and technological changes such independence implied,” wrote Hayden.

Hayden’s work came at a time when women were entering the workforce in droves. In her essay on the non-sexist city, she herself envisioned an urban and suburban plan that centered on supporting the activities of employed women and their families. “It is essential to recognize such needs in order to begin both the rehabilitation of the existing housing stock and the construction of new housing,” Hayden wrote.

Could a non-sexist city also be a non-racist city?

Hayden has spurred community activists, educators and researchers to focus on creating urban spaces that foster community and equity for all. But that’s still a challenge, especially for communities of color that have had to navigate redlining policies that barred them from accessing mortgage lending, racially restrictive covenants preventing them from purchasing homes in white communities, and other legacies of segregation.

“When we go back in time, the 1950s and prior, this is when we threw freeways through neighborhoods,” says Dan Pitera, executive director of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture. “Redlining and other racist policies were in place to create the situation we have now,” he added. “And we live in a capitalistic society — and equity doesn’t exist in capitalism.”

Unlike Europe — including Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands — the U.S. has been slow to move toward alternative housing options like co-housing, a concept that allows a collective sharing of services like common kitchens, dining rooms, laundry services and day care.

In the U.S., “we have barely cracked the surface,” says Lori Brown, professor of architecture at Syracuse University. Brown, who’s also co-founder of ArchiteXX — a nonprofit focused on gender equity in architecture, notes that there are a few examples of communities adopting co-housing.

“But we need to fund more of that, and it will require a different kind of socializing on how we think about domestic space,” she says. “Unless you’re living in a community supportive of your demographics, it’s so easy to become physically isolated and lonely in life.”

Co-housing and other community alternatives

Brown notes that living in isolation can weigh on a person’s mental health and overall wellbeing, whereas co-housing can forge common bonds. Residents in Denmark’s first co-housing community, built in 1972, described Saettedammen, where 71 people live, as an “extended family.”

Hayden proposed a plan to create small participatory groups known as Homemakers Organizations for a More Egalitarian Society (HOMES). They involved tearing down fences between backyards and creating shared space as well as systems of shared work like meal preparation, day care, gardening. Hayden also imagined the groups using shared appliances, tools, cars, and an approach to shared work that eliminated sex stereotypes and treated men’s and women’s labor equally.

One of the first steps Hayes envisioned for those groups was organizing to persuade cities to allow them to modify zoning laws so they could open up their backyards. Such change requires civic engagement, says Pitera: “Civic engagement is set of systems that are put in place that will remain way beyond the project.”

The DCDC has worked to build civic engagement since its inception in 1994, including in its partnership with the Detroit-based nonprofit Young Nation on The Alley Project (TAP). TAP is a community-driven project that has transformed a southwest Detroit neighborhood alley into a graffiti art center.

DCDC worked with Young Nation, the youth and the residents in the neighborhood to turn the alley into a walking gallery with the garages serving as the canvases. Two vacant lots were transformed into art displays with space for families to gather and play. A main garage was redesigned into an art studio for the youth to explore their creativity in other art mediums.

“Our partnership with Young Nation is example of a civic engagement system that we have plugged into — and it continues to grow,” Pitera says. “That’s the difference between civic engagement and civic participation; civic engagement can’t be turned on and off.”

Experts say it’s critical to have an inclusive urban and housing design framework that brings people together. It won’t be easy to build, but a non-sexist and non-racist city would foster equality and an accountability to one’s neighbors while creating an environment with shared resources, diverse perspectives, and public spaces built for sustainability.

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This article is part of our special series on social isolation. Download our free ebook on the series here.

Find all of the articles in the social isolation series here:

• How our loneliness hurts us all, and what we can do about it
• How community involvement can counter our loneliness crisis
• Q&A: How civic governance innovation can increase engagement
• How Citizen University is building an army of civic leaders
• Why we need a change in climate
• How the simple act of sharing a meal is creating community change
• Why countries worldwide are watching how the UK’s newest Minister is handling the loneliness crisis
• How Seoul is confronting its deadly isolation epidemic with sharing
• How sharing can bring Japan’s elderly and youth together
• Why creating community-led project spaces can ease social isolation
• Can an app cure loneliness and isolation?
• Q&A: Steve King on loneliness, the social side of coworking and the future of work
• 10 innovative projects from around the world that reduce loneliness
• How Libraries of Things build resilience, fight climate change, and bring communities together

We held an event on April 10, 2019 about social isolation. Read the event recap and watch the video from the event here.

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