Archive for the ‘Environmental Justice’ Category
We featured Kian Goh at the Unspoken Borders Conference this year, during the Talk20 session. Having Goh be part of the conference was fantastic, particularly because of her direct engagement with the queer community on design issues. One of her projects is featured in our hot-off-the-press publication. She was also recently interviewed by the American [...]
Reflections from recent trips across Southeastern Pennsylvania: Communities are increasingly forced to deal with the long-term impacts of industrialization, where the veneer of economic prosperity ultimately gives away to reveal damaged communities and impaired ecological processes. We visited two sites that are deploying strategies to deal with such post-industrial conditions. One location was Palmerton, Pennsylvania; [...]
Last December, Michigan took a step towards justice when Governor Granholm finally signed an executive directive calling for the recognition and incorporation of environmental justice in state policy. This victory came after launching a three-year long campaign involving a coalition of community groups, businesses, public health organizations and environmental non-profits in Detroit. Other states, like [...]
I recently learned about a book called Defiant Gardens, which includes documentation about gardens planted by Japanese American internees in the internment camps during WWII. I love the way that these gardens provided a transformative and life-affirming mechanism for resistance. Landscape architects, farmers and gardeners shared agricultural expertise. The gardens displayed the sophisticated, collective, skills [...]
I was in Michigan last weekend for a short visit and a knee docter appointment (which I’m happy to report that I passed with flying colors!). Driving through the barren, calming roads of Detroit was a stark contrast to the fast-paced congestion of Manhattan. Most of all, it reminded me that there are many blog [...]
I was very saddened to hear the news that Rob Cedar passed on Monday, March 4, 2007. I briefly worked with Rob during the last stages of the campaign to shut down the Hamtramck medical waste incinerator in 2005. Rob was a very kind, gentle person, and a dedicated environmental justice advocate. He helped organize [...]
Some folks in the environmental justice community point to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s support of the 1968 Memphis Santitation Workers Strike as one of the first campaigns to bring environmental justice issues into public visibility. If you are looking for an event to attend in observance of MLK Day on Monday, January 15, below [...]
Just within the past two weeks, I have been part of conversations with a range of people — with non-SNRE types, around Detroit living rooms, during carpools, and in sangha discussions, that are speaking with passionate concern and urgency about global warming and climate change. The level of public consciousness about climate change has changed [...]
The Detroit Free Press recently published a great feature on Professor Bunyan Bryant, former teacher and mentor to me when I did my stint at U-M. What I have always appreciated about Bryant is his dedication to students, and his passion to push the envelope in academia, challenging traditional notions of epistemology and research. A [...]
This voter guide is based on my personal research and conversations, and is not a complete reflection of all the positions that are up for election this year. Some positions, such as Member of the State Board of Education and several judicial positions, are not included, not because they are unimportant races, but rather I [...]
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An investigation of the systems, infrastructure, and design processes that create or perpetuate socio-economic and environmental stratification of communities, this publication explore issues of the environment (constructed, cultivated or untended), public health, mobility and access, communication, and race, class and culture. Featuring authors from design fields of architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, historic preservation, and urban design.
Published by PennDesign Unspoken Borders Conference
