Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Sanitation solutions: How giving people trash bins made Baltimore cleaner

    Baltimore’s green bin program shows there are relatively simple steps cities can take to tangibly improve the cleanliness of neighborhoods. The solution is also working in Philadelphia, through which people who live in the city are lidded trash cans and bins to store their garbage.

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  • Building a Black-Owned Food Ecosystem in Detroit

    Programs like Motor City Match and Grown in Detroit help entrepreneurs launch Black-owned food businesses in Detroit. The businesses sell healthy foods in neighborhoods often lacking in nutritious options or in the infrastructure needed to support startup businesses. The supportive programs offer grants and training that have nurtured dozens of new businesses, which themselves have formed a supportive network among their peers.

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  • With investors knocking, Charlotte HOAs are starting to change their rules

    One reason the market for middle-income housing has grown tight in Charlotte is a shortage of available homes for sale because corporate investors have bought so many developments for their rental income. To preserve affordable housing and encourage healthier communities, some homeowners associations are using restrictive deed covenants to try to limit corporate owners' encroachments. In one neighborhood, it seems to have worked, but there are legal complications that must be considered as other HOAs seek to copy the tactic.

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  • Atlanta Tried Housing Police in Disinvested Black Communities to Increase Trust. Is it Working?

    The Secure Neighborhoods program lets select police officers buy houses at subsidized prices if they move into a mostly Black, historically disinvested neighborhood. The aim of the program is to make police officers part of a community, build community trust, and discourage crime. While violence and auto theft in the chosen neighborhood have dropped, and some community members say the program improved relations, others complain that the gesture has been fairly superficial and just adds to gentrification pressures.

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  • Heat dome hit these Vancouver neighbourhoods hardest — could planting more trees save lives?

    The “Greenest City Action Plan” aimed to reduce the effects of extreme heat by planting 100,000 trees. Shade from trees acts as a thermal buffer during extreme heat and cold and a lack of trees disproportionately impacts low-income communities. The program surpassed its goal by planting trees in parks and along streets, as well as by buying small plots of land to create “pocket parks” with trees providing shade. The city subsidized trees for homeowners, who were banned from cutting down mature, healthy trees on their properties, and ran education programs to increase resident buy-in.

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  • How Zurich Blazed a Trail for Recycled Concrete

    Zurich, Switzerland's largest city, is paving the way for sustainable building. Concrete is a major contributor of climate change due to the process it requires to make it. Zurich is making steps to reduce its use. A school building was constructed in 2002 with 80 percent recycled concrete. Three years later city officials passed a requirement that required all publicly-owned buildings to be made with recycled concrete and in 2013 ordered the use of CO2 reduced cement. According to a study the effort has saved 17,000 cubic meters of virgin materials.

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  • How Building Community Value puts local development into the hands of Detroiters

    Students of the Better Buildings, Better Blocks class are getting a lesson in real estate development. Not only do participants have the chance to build a business, they will also be doing it in their own neighborhoods and therefore investing in their own community. The course was hatched as an idea to work toward bridging the racial wealth gap and allowing Black community members in Detroit to access real estate development projects.

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  • Richland Carrousel Park helps trigger 30 years of economic redevelopment in Mansfield

    A community effort in Mansfield, Ohio, helped ensure the success of the Fourth and Main Street Area Urban Renewal Plan to revive the deserted downtown. The center of the plan was creating a park complete with a carousel, but it also included adding parking, demolishing vacant buildings, and cracking down on illegal activities in the area.

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  • PA cities have a sewer-system problem. Green infrastructure can help — but comes with its own risks

    In many cities, rainwater is drained through "grey infrastructure" things like pipes, streets, etc. In some cities, this system is combined with the sewage system. Rainwater drains into the sewage system, is then cleaned, then emptied into the river. However, with strong storms some sewage systems overflow. A problem that will worsen with climate change. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, rain gardens are one solution to overflowing sewage systems. Cities like Harrisburg are turning to green infrastructure, things like rain gardens, roofs with gardens, and parks, to ease the burden on gray infrastructure.

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  • More Mini-Parks Mean Better Mental Health

    PHS LandCare, with support from the city, develops small vacant lots into mini-parks that bring people out of their homes and engage with their community. A 2018 study found that people living near LandCare lots reported a decrease in feelings of depression and a reduction in feelings of poor mental health. The city's role is important to the program’s success, especially in providing money to hire contractors to maintain the green spaces, especially local residents and formerly incarcerated people. Sites must be in low-income neighborhoods and near business areas, schools, and recreation centers.

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