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Wells-Goodfellow Neighborhood Green Space Project - St. Louis, Missouri
August 2017
The Green City Coalition (Coalition) -- a partnership between the Metropolitan Sewer District, the City of St. Louis, Missouri Department of Conservation, and the St. Louis Development Corporation -- is leading the conversion of approximately 9 acres of vacant land into greenspace for stormwater management and recreation purposes. The Wells Goodfellow neighborhood in St. Louis has the highest proportion of vacant land in the city, and also struggles with combined sewer overflows, basement backups, and street flooding that affect the Bissell Point Watershed broadly.
Related Organizations: City of St. Louis, Missouri
Resource Category: Solutions
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Equity Foundations: USDN Capacity Building Program
2016
In September 2015, the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), in partnership with the Government Alliance on Race and Equity and the Center for Social Inclusion, launched a professional development program for sustainability directors and their staff for advancing racial equity into sustainability planning and development. The program became available online and includes a holistic curriculum of five webinars, videos and worksheets to support local government staff in applying an equity lens to sustainability projects.
Related Organizations: Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN)
Resource Category: Education and Outreach
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Neighborhood Gardens Trust - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Neighborhood Gardens Trust has been operating as an entity that protects community gardens in the City of Philadelphia since 1986. Working with community gardeners, local leaders, and neighborhood organizations, NGT is a land trust that helps these individuals or groups secure ownership or long-term lease contracts for these gardens to prevent redevelopment or reuse of the land. The organization focuses the majority of its land acquisition and assistance services in lower-income areas throughout Philadelphia, with a specific emphasis on serving underrepresented communities. Since its founding, NGT has protected 48 community gardens throughout Philadelphia, and is on track to protect at least 70 by 2022.
Resource Category: Organizations
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Community School Parks Program - Los Angeles, California
2012
The Community School Parks program is a partnership service agreement and shared use policy that enables community members in under-resourced neighborhoods to access school parks and playgrounds during off-school hours when they would normally be closed to the public. People for Parks, now a program of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust (LANLT), opened the first Community School Parks in 2012 and has expanded the program since with the partnership with LANLT and the development of the shared use policy with the LA Unified School District that enables expanded access to school parks. These Community School Parks (CSPs) provide opportunities for youth, families, and neighbors within the community to connect, recreate, and enjoy green and open space in a safe environment. The program targets dense neighborhoods, typically low-income and communities of color, that are park-scarce and would not otherwise have access to open space within walking distance. In addition to Community School Parks, LANLT works to create new green space in communities of color, engaging community members from concept development through to implementation and park stewardship.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Georgetown Climate Center Managed Retreat Toolkit
July 15, 2020
Managed retreat, or the voluntary movement and transition of people and ecosystems away from vulnerable coastal areas, is increasingly becoming part of the conversation as coastal states and communities face difficult questions on how best to protect people, development, infrastructure, and coastal ecosystems from sea-level rise, flooding, and land loss. Georgetown Climate Center’s new Managed Retreat Toolkit combines legal and policy tools, best and emerging practices, and case studies to support peer learning and decisionmaking around managed retreat and climate adaptation.
Related Organizations: Georgetown Climate Center
Authors or Affiliated Users: Georgetown Climate Center, Katie Spidalieri, Annie Bennett
Resource Category: Solutions
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City of Minneapolis, Minnesota Neighborhoods 2020: Community Engagement Working Group
December 2018
The City of Minneapolis’ Neighborhoods 2020 initiative is a process to restructure how the City serves and supports neighborhood organizations. As part of this process, Minneapolis formed a Community Engagement Policy Work Group, which created a framework for a Citywide Community Engagement Policy. This framework outlines the processes and stakeholder commitments necessary to improve the City’s engagement with community members, and places an emphasis on a thoughtful, integrated community engagement policy that extends to all members of Minneapolis.
Related Organizations: City of Minneapolis, Minnesota
Resource Category: Solutions
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Jade District Greening Initiatives - Portland, Oregon
2019
The Jade Greening Initiatives refer to two concurrent initiatives to plan and implement targeted tree planting and greening in the underserved Jade District of outer southeast Portland, Oregon. Residents in the district experience significant economic and health disparities due to historic public disinvestment, its location surrounded by major transportation corridors on all sides, and lack of tree canopy and accessible green space. With assistance from community-based organizations, community members and businesses worked together to set priorities for neighborhood development and greening. Collaboration, planning, and design of new greenspace were supported through the EPA's Greening America's Communities Program and the Oregon Solutions Program.
Resource Category: Solutions
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LA Green Zones Program: Groundtruthing
2018
The Los Angeles County, California, Department of Regional Planning (DRP) developed the Green Zones Program in 2015, to attain equitable development for the next 20 years, and to help update the Los Angeles County General Plan. Centering on environmental justice and community engagement, the program aimed to ensure that residents of all income levels can enjoy the development of the County under the changing climate and severe heat. The program addressed the contamination problems in the unincorporated communities, and also secured affordable housing to avoid displacement of the existing residents due to development. The Green Zones Program Framework contained four elements: land use policy, community engagement, environmental justice screening map, and prevention and mitigation. "Groundtruthing" was the main procedural tool utilized by the program to collect and study the potential environmental hazards information in the communities. It emphasized the importance of collaboration with community members and community-based organizations. Groundtruthing was not a one-time event, but a continuing effort between the government and the local communities.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Making Public Participation Legal
October 2013
A publication of the National Civic League, this report offers legal frameworks and tools for state and local governments to use in order to enhance public participation within their communities. The paper presents the argument that the vast majority of public meetings are run with little citizen input, interaction, or deliberation. It includes model ordinances such as “A Model Municipal Public Participation at the Local Level,” “A Model State Public Participation,” and “A Model City Charter Language for Citizen Advisory Bodies.” These tools can be used to increase the scope and duration of public participation, garnering a greater range of collaboration and insight.
Related Organizations: National Civic League
Resource Category: Solutions
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Citizen Science: Mapping Urban Heat Islands in Richmond, Virginia
The urban heat island mapping project in Richmond, Virginia is a collaborative project that brings community members together to collect temperature variation data in order to design community-scale adaptation plans. Richmond is a highly populated city that has encountered increased urban heat island effect in recent years. While current technology such as satellites can provide city-scale urban heat data, a more detailed, block-by-block examination of temperature variation in each community has to be studied to understand which communities are most vulnerable to the extreme heat. "Citizen-scientists" were gathered to help measure temperatures in their own city, and related human activities or land use. The citizen-scientists included students from the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University; the Virginia Academy of Science; the City of Richmond’s Sustainability Office; and Groundwork RVA, a nonprofit focused on empowering local young people in the communities.
Related Organizations: City of Richmond, Virginia, Groundwork RVA
Resource Category: Monitoring and Reporting
