Greening the ghetto Majora Carter

if you’re here today and I’m very happy

that you are you’ve all heard about how

sustainable development will save us

from ourselves

however when we’re not at Ted we are

often told that a real sustainability

policy agenda is just not feasible

especially in large urban areas like New

York City and that’s because most people

with decision-making powers in both the

public and the private sector really

don’t feel as though they’re in danger

the reason why I’m here today

in part is because of a dog an abandoned

puppy I found back in the rain back in

1998 she turned out to be a much bigger

dog than I’d have anticipated when she

came into my life

we were fighting against a huge waste

facility but planned for the East River

waterfront despite the fact that our

small part of New York City was already

handled more than 40% of the entire

city’s commercial waste a sewage

treatment palletizing plant a sewage

sludge plant for power plants the

world’s largest food distribution center

as well as other industries that bring

more than 60,000 diesel truck trips to

the area each week the area also has one

of the lowest ratios of parks to people

in the city so when I was contacted by

the parks department about a $10,000

seed grant initiative to help develop

waterfront projects I thought they were

really well-meaning but a bit naive I’d

lived in this area all my life and you

could not get to the river because of

all the lovely facilities that I’d

mentioned earlier then while jogging

with my dog one morning she pulled me

into what I thought was just another

illegal dump there were weeds and piles

of garbage and other stuff that I won’t

mention here but she kept dragging me

and lo and behold at the end of that lot

was the river I knew that this forgotten

little street end abandoned like the dog

that brought me there was worth saving

and I knew it would grow to become the

proud beginnings of the community led

revitalization of the new South Bronx

and just like my new dog it was an idea

that got bigger than item

imagine regarded much support along the

way and the Hunts Point Riverside Park

became the first waterfront park of the

South Bronx it had in more than 60 years

we leveraged that $10,000 seed grant

more than 300 times into a 300 million

dollar park and in the fall I’m actually

going to exchange marriage vows with my

beloved thank you very much

that same pressing my buttons back there

which he does all the time but those of

us living in environmental justice

communities are the canary in the coal

mine we feel the problems right now and

have for some time environmental justice

for those of you who may not be familiar

with the term goes something like this

no community should be saddled with more

environmental burdens and less

environmental benefits than any other

unfortunately race and class are

extremely reliable indicators as to

where one might find the good stuff like

parks and trees and where one might find

the bad stuff like power plants and

waste facilities as a black person in

America I’m twice as likely as a white

person to live in an area where air

pollution poses the greatest risk for my

health I am five times more likely to

live within walking distance of a power

plant or a chemical facility which I do

these land use decisions created the

hostile conditions that lead to problems

like obesity diabetes and asthma

why would someone leave their home to go

for a brisk walk in a toxic neighborhood

our 27% obesity rate is high even for

this country and diabetes comes with it

one out of four South Bronx children has

asthma without asthma hospitalization

rate is seven times higher than the

national average these impacts are

coming everyone’s way and we all pay

dearly for solid waste costs health

problems associated with pollution and

more odiously the cost of imprisoning

our young black and Latino men who

possess untold amounts of untapped

potential

50% of our residents live at or below

the poverty line twenty-five percent of

us are unemployed low-income citizens

often use emergency room visits as

primary care this comes at a high cost

to taxpayers and produces no

proportional benefits poor people are

not only - still poor they are still

healthy unhealthy fortunately there are

many people like me who are striving for

solutions that will

compromise the lives of low-income

communities of color in the short-term

and won’t destroy us all in the long

term none of us want that and we all

have that in common so what else do we

have in common first of all we’re all

incredibly good-looking graduated high

school college postgraduate degrees

travel to interesting places didn’t have

kids in your early teens financially

stable - never been imprisoned okay good

but besides being a black woman I am

different from most of you in some other

ways i watch nearly half of the

buildings at my neighborhood burned down

my big brother Lynn he fought in Vietnam

only to be gunned down a few blocks from

her home I grew up with a crack house

across the street

yeah I’m a poor black child from the

ghettos these things make me different

from you but the things we have in

common set me apart from most of the

people in my community and I’m in

between these two worlds with enough of

my heart to fight for justice in the

other so how did things get so different

for us in the late 40s my dad a Pullman

porters son of a slave bought a house in

the Hunts Point section of the South

Bronx and a few years later he married

my mom at the same at the time the

community was a mostly white

working-class neighborhood my dad was

not alone and it’s others liked him

pursued their own version of the

American Dream white flight became

common in the South Bronx and in many

cities around the country redlining was

used by banks wherein certain sections

of the city including ours were deemed

off-limits to any sort of investment

many landlords believed it was more

profitable to torch their buildings and

collect insurance money rather than a

cell under those conditions dead or

injured former tenants notwithstanding

Hunts Point was formerly a walk to work

community but now residents had neither

work nor home to walk to a national

highway construction boom was added to

our problems in New York State Robert

Moses Speer had an aggressive highway

expansion campaign one of its primary

goals was to make it easier for

residents of wealthy communities in

Westchester County to to go to Manhattan

the South Bronx which lies in between

did not stand a chance

residents were often given less than a

month’s notice before their buildings

were razed 600,000 people were displaced

the common perception was that all a

pimps and pushers and prostitutes were

from the South Bronx and if you are told

from your earliest days that nothing

good is going to come from your

community that is bad and ugly how could

it not reflect on you so now my family’s

property was worthless save for the hope

that it was our home and all we had and

luckily for me that home and the love

inside of it along with help from

teachers mentors and friends along the

way was enough now why is a story

important because from a planning

perspective economic degradation but

gets environmental degradation which

forgets social degradation the

disinvestment that began in the 1960s

set the stage for all the environmental

and justices that were to come

antiquated zoning and land use

regulations are still used to this day

to continue putting polluting facilities

in my neighborhood why are these factors

taken into consideration when land-use

policy is decided what costs are

associated with these decision and who

pays who profits does anything justify

that look what the local community goes

through this was planning in quotes that

did not have our best interests in mind

once we realized that we decided it was

time to do our own planning that small

park I told you about earlier was the

first stage of building a Greenway

movement in the South Bronx

I wrote a one in quarter million dollar

federal transportation cramp to design

the plan for a waterfront Esplanade with

dedicated on Street bike paths physical

improvements helped inform public policy

regarding traffic safety the placement

of waste and other facilities which if

done properly don’t compromise the

community’s quality of life they provide

opportunities for to be more physically

active as well as a local economic

development think bike shops juice

stands we secure 20 million dollars to

build first phase projects this is

Lafayette Avenue and that’s redesigned

by Matthews Neilson Landscape Architects

and once this path is constructed it

will connect the South Bronx with more

than 400 acres of Randall’s Island Park

right now we’re separated by about 25

feet of water but this link will change

that and as we nurture the natural

environment its abundance will give us

back even more we run a project called

Bronx and mycological stewardship

training which provides

job training in the fields of ecological

restoration so that folks from our

community had the skills to compete for

these well-paying jobs little by little

we’re seeding the area with green collar

jobs then as both the people that have

both a financial and personal stake in

their environment the started an

expressway is an underutilized relic of

the Robert Moses era built with no

regard for the neighborhoods that were

divided by it even during rush hour it

goes virtually unused the community

created an alternative transportation

plan that allows for the removal of the

highway we have the opportunity now to

bring together all the stakeholders to

re-envision how does 28 acres can be

better utilized for parkland affordable

housing and local economic development

we also built the city’s New York City’s

first green and cool roof demonstration

project on top of our offices cool roofs

are highly reflective surfaces that

don’t absorb solar heat and pass it onto

the building or atmosphere green roofs

are soil and living plants both can be

used instead of petroleum-based roofing

materials that absorb heat contribute to

urban heat island effect and degrade

under the Sun which we in turn breathe

green roofs also retain up to 75% of

rainfall so they reduce the city’s need

to fund costly end of pipe solutions

which incidentally are often located in

environmental justice communities like

mine and they provide habitats for our

little friends so so cool

anyway the demonstration project is a

springboard for our own green roof

installation business bringing jobs a

sustainable economic activity to the

south cross

I like that too okay anyway I I know

Chris told us not to do pictures up here

but since I have all of your attention

we need investors and a pitch it’s

better to ask for forgiveness than

permission

anyway okay Katrina prior to Katrina the

South Bronx in New Orleans Ninth Ward

had a lot in common both were largely

populated by poor people of color both

hotbeds of cultural innovation think

hip-hop and jazz both the waterfront

communities that hosts both industries

and residents in close proximity to one

another in the post Katrina era we have

still more in common we’re at best

ignored and maligned and abused at worse

by negligent regulatory agencies Pranita

zoning and lacks governmental

accountability

neither the destruction of the Ninth

Ward nor the South Bronx was inevitable

but we have emerged with valuable

lessons about how to dig ourselves out

we are more than simply national symbols

of urban blight or problems to be solved

by empty campaign promises of presidents

come and gone now will we let the Gulf

Coast language for a decade or two like

the South Bronx did or will we take

proactive steps and learn from the

homegrown resource of grassroots

activists that have been born of

desperation out in communities like mine

now listen I do not expect individuals

corporations or government to make the

world a better place because it is right

or moral this record this presentation

today only represents some of what I’ve

been through like a tiny little bit

you’ve no clue but I’ll tell you later

if you want to know but I know it’s the

bottom line or one’s perception of it

that motivates people in the end I’m

interested in what I like to call the

triple bottom line that sustainable

development can produce developments

that have the potential to create

positive returns for all concerned

the developers government and the

community where these projects go up at

present that’s not happening in New York

City and we are operating with a

comprehensive urban planning deficit a

parade of government subsidies is going

to propose big box and stadium

developments in the South Bronx

but there is scant coordination between

city agents agencies on how to deal with

the cumulative effects of increased

traffic pollution solid waste and the

impacts on open space and their

approaches to local economic and job

development are so lame it’s not even

funny

but at because on top of that the

richest the world’s richest sports team

is replacing the house that Ruth Built

by destroying two well-loved community

parks now we’ll have even less than that

stat I told you about earlier and

although less than 25 percent of South

Bronx residents owned cars these

projects include thousands of the new of

new parking spaces yet zip in terms of

mass public transit now what’s missing

from the larger debate it’s a

comprehensive cost-benefit analysis

between not fixing and help unhealthy

environmentally challenged community

versus incorporating structural

sustainable changes my agency is working

closely with Columbia University and

others to shine a light on these issues

now let’s get this straight I am NOT any

development hours as a city not a

wilderness preserve and having and I’ve

embraced my inner capitalist and but I

don’t have probably all have anything

you haven’t you need to

good so I don’t have a problem with

developers making money there’s enough

precedent out there to show that a

sustainable community friendly

development can still make a fortune

former fellow tedster bill McDonough and

Amory Lovins both heroes of mine by the

way you don’t have shown that you can

actually do that I do have a problem

with developments that hyper exploit

politically vulnerable communities for

profit that it continues is a shame upon

us all because we’re all responsible for

the future that we create but one of the

things I do to remind myself of greater

possibilities is to learn from

visionaries in other cities this is my

version of globalization

let’s take Bogota poor Latino surrounded

by runaway gun violence and drug

trafficking a reputation not unlike that

of the South Bronx

however this city was blessed in the

late in the late 1990s with a highly

influential mayor named Enrique Benny

Lusa he looked at the demographics few

Bogota knows owned cars yet a huge

portion of the city’s resources was

dedicated to serving them if you’re a

mayor you can do something about that

his administration narrowed key

municipal thoroughfares from five lanes

to three outlaw parking on those streets

expanded pedestrian walkways and bike

lanes created public plazas created one

of the most efficient bus mass transit

systems in the entire world for his

brilliant efforts he was nearly

impeached but as people began to see

that they were being put first on issues

reflecting their day-to-day lives

incredible things happened people

stopped the littering crime rates

dropped because the streets were alive

with people his administration’s attacks

several typical urban problems at one

time and on a third-world budget at that

we have no excuse in this country I’m

sorry but the bottom line is they’re

people first agenda was not meant to

penalize those who could who could

actually afford cars but rather to

provide opportunities for all Bogota

knows to participate in the city’s

resurgence that development should not

come at the expense of the majority of

the population is still considered a

radical idea here in the US but Bogota

is example has the power to change that

you however are blessed with a gift of

influence that’s why you’re here and why

value the information we exchange use

your influence in support of

comprehensive sustainable change

everywhere don’t just talk about it at

Ted this is an a this is a nationwide

policy agenda I’m trying to build and as

you all know politics are personal help

me make green the new black

help me make sustainability sexy make it

a part of your dinner and cocktail

conversations help me fight for

environmental and economic justice

support investments with a triple bottom

line return help me democratize

sustainability by bringing everyone to

the table and insisting the

comprehensive planning can be addressed

everywhere I’m glad I have a little more

time listen when I spoke to mr. Gore the

other day after breakfast um I asked him

how environmental justice activists were

going to be included in his new

marketing strategy his response was a

grant program I don’t think he

understood that I wasn’t asking for

funding I was making him an offer

what troubled me was that this top-down

approach is still around but don’t get

me wrong we need money but grassroots

groups are needed at the table during

the decision-making process of the 90%

of the energy that mr. Gore who reminded

us that we waste every day

don’t add wasting our energy

intelligence and hard-earned experience

to that count I have come from so far to

meet you like this please don’t waste me

by working together we can become one of

those small rapidly growing groups of

individuals who actually have the

audacity and courage to believe that we

actually can change the world we might

have come to this conference from very

very different stages in life but

believe me we all share one incredibly

powerful thing we have nothing to lose

and everything to gain job bellows