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Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification

      

Jacy Webster applied for a cap on his property taxes after the value of his home in Philadelphia quintupled amid a flurry of new construction. Credit Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Timothy Williams - March 3, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — Cities that have worked for years to attract young professionals who might have once moved to the suburbs are now experimenting with ways to protect a group long deemed expendable — working- and lower-middle class homeowners threatened by gentrification.

The initiatives, planned or underway in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh and other cities, are centered on reducing or freezing property taxes for such homeowners in an effort to promote neighborhood stability, preserve character and provide a dividend of sorts to those who have stayed through years of high crime, population loss and declining property values, officials say.

Newcomers, whose vitality is critical to cities, are hardly being turned away.

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Rooftop Farm in New York City Grows 50,000 Pounds of Organic Produce Per Year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTC_X1gblRE

watch the full video here:http://permaculturenews.org/2014/01/0...

By Ecofilms

“That view behind me is not a painted backdrop!” said Geoff Lawton to the camera. But the view looked great from where I was standing. Brooklyn Grange is a rooftop farm with a magnificent view looking over the Manhattan skyline.

Sitting on a concrete roof, totaling 2.5 acres and producing more than 50,000 pounds of organically-grown vegetables each year, you need to walk its length to appreciate how vast this rooftop garden truly is in scale.

We had been given one hour to film this place. The sun was setting. We were in the “magic hour” to film and needed to hurry. There was a lot to do.

Geoff walked down the narrow lanes of planted vegetables. Four to six inches of dirt was all the plants were allowed to grow in—very well drained dirt that resembled sharp river sand. It didn’t look like a normal loamy soil to my untrained eye.

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Philly’s New Land Bank: Will It Give Blighted Communities a Boost?

            

Philadelphia is famous for its many murals that capture the city's history and spirit, like this one by artist Carl Willis Humphrey honoring W.E.B. Du Bois. The image is painted on the wall of a historical African-American firehouse. Du Bois was a founder of the NAACP and was commissioned in 1896 to survey African-Americans living in the city's Seventh Ward as part of a study on race, The Philadelphia Negro. He is depicted with a census in hand. Photo by Shrub75/Flickr

The city is home to more than 40,000 vacant properties. Now neighborhoods are hoping a new public entity can help them bounce back from the post-industrial blues.

yesmagazine.org - by Jake Blumgart - December 27, 2013

Blighted properties drain public coffers, contribute nothing to the tax base, and serve as havens for crime and trash. After years of work . . . activists hope that a bill passed this December will finally provide Philadelphians with a tool to confront this colossal problem: a land bank.

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Report: Child Homelessness Up 33% in 3 Years

by Marisol Bello - USA Today

One in 45 children in the USA — 1.6 million children — were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness.

The numbers represent a 33% increase from 2007, when there were 1.2 million homeless children, according to a report the center is releasing Tuesday.

"This is an absurdly high number," says Ellen Bassuk, president of the center. "What we have new in 2010 is the effects of a man-made disaster caused by the economic recession. … We are seeing extreme budget cuts, foreclosures and a lack of affordable housing."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

America's Youngest Outcasts 2010 (124 page .PDF file)

http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/media/NCFH_AmericaOutcast2010_web.pdf

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Taking the Tiny House Movement Tinier

by Kirk Johnson - The New York Times - December 3, 2011

      

Glenn Grassi used his skills as a set designer in the construction of his portable 84-square-foot microhome, trying to maximize the space available.  Matthew Staver for The New York Times

LOUISVILLE, Colo. - For many Americans who bought more home than they could really afford in the giddy days before the crash, the big-house dream has become a nightmare in the ashes of foreclosure and regret.

So after all that, how does 84 square feet sound?

Glenn Grassi, in building his prototype one-room microhome - 7 by 12 feet stem-to-stern, including a wood-burning stove, an antique parlor chair that also serves as a seat for the compost toilet beneath it, and a shower under the bed - is hoping it sounds, well, like shelter in the old-fashioned practical sense.

Or like a work of art. He is not exactly sure.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Guardian: Maps and Lists of Occupy Everywhere Sites

 

The below Guardian article provides a map and lists of where Occupy Everywhere protests are emerging.  They are primarily, but not exclusively in the U.S. and Europe, in countries where the economy is in significant decline and inequities are significant.  In most of these places, the youth fear that their future will be worse than their parents, due to the greed of a global elite insensitive to the destruction they have caused economically and environmentally.

 

The list includes 951 cities in 82 countries.

 

To see the story and full list, go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/17/occupy-protests-world-list-map

 

 

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Guardian: Snapshots of the Occupy Everywhere Protesters Views

 

This Guardian photo slideshow depicts how the Occupy Everywhere movement is growing globally. The protesters talk about what is motivating them.  In generzl, they are talking about how their governments have failed to provide the fundamentals of resilience to their generation.  They intend to take these matters into their own hands. 

 

Occupy protests: Rita Maestre, Madrid

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/oct/23/protests-around-the-world-in-pictures

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Police Attack Demonstrators in Occupy Melbourne

The word from the streets of Melbourne is that the police have been very aggressive.  The violence against demonstrators is leading to investigations and legal actions against the city.  The violence by the police, instead of suppressing the crowds, has amplified the numbers of people joining the protests.

 

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/doyle-defiant-as-protesters-plan-legal-action-20111022-1mdvu.html

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IT and Information Sharing Environments for Community Health Resilience

Information Technology (IT) and Information Sharing Environments (ISEs) are crucial to the evolution of community health resilience.  Most people working to improve community health resilience do not understand the nuances of Information Sharing Environments, and how the rapid shifts in IT, mobile devices, social media, cloud computing, peer to peer parallel processing, smart grids, and the linking of millions of people, mobile devices, computers, and sensors are creating a societal mind, which is transforming community health resilience and the health and human security of Americans.

If you have thoughts on these topics, please comment within this collaboratory thread.

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