Today marks one year since the beginning of the 2009 greenRELAY Youth Training Institute.  Here are some highlights from last summer.

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From greenRELAY, posted by Anson Stewart on 6/26/2009 (42 items)

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Members of greenRELAY decided to attend the Goods Movement Toxic Tour led by East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice last week.  The tour, which focused primarily on the cities of Commerce and Bell Gardens, highlighted the environmental justice implications of international trade and the expansion of the Long Beach Freeway, Interstate 710.

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Wilshire Blvd. and Western St. Bus Riders Union's press conference for Clean Air and Economic Justice Plan.

The BRU had a press conference on June 29, 2009 for the  release of the Clean Air and Economical Justice Plan (CAEJP) policy paper.  The policy paper explains what the CAEJP is and goes into detail about the amount of money nedeed to adopt the CAEJP and how it would cut travel time, increase ridership, reduce global warming, create new green jobs, etc.

While legislators initially rejected the Governor's call to cut Cal Grants, a funeral may now be in order

Members of greenRELAY attended a rally organized by the Community Coalition of South LA this afternoon to protest the state’s cuts to vital social services.  Joining members of the Community Coalition, CBE’s Youth EJ, the Bus Riders Union, and other organizations, we met at the Santa Monica Airport, where Governor Schwarzenegger’s private jet lands as part of his regular commute.

Governor Schwarzenegger has been all too comfortable with life-or-death decisions about the state’s budget.  As reported in the New York Times:

Schwarzenegger reclined deeply in his chair, lighted an eight-inch cigar and declared himself “perfectly fine,” despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. “Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,” Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said. “I’m going to lay back with a stogie.”

Addressing the state’s environmental justice concerns requires effective leadership.  The Governor should not be “perfectly fine” with cutting healthcare and education for the most environmentally burdened communities.

We’ll have a video of the rally up tomorrow.  In the meantime, here are some pictures:

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Pointe Dume Marine Sciene Elementary School in Malibu recently became “the first public elementary school in Southern California to join the Grid,” according to this Examiner.com article. Their $100,000 purchase will lower school utility bills, earn them potential incentive payments and rebates, and allow them the satisfaction that their actions are reducing fossil fuel dependency. Point Dume reaps the benefits of the sun in many ways, but at some schools in LA, the only thing the golden rays help is weed growth.

La Tijera Elementary School in Inglewood  is a “future Measure K project under construction” according to the sign attached to the temporary fencing surrounding the school. Measure K was a bond measure for school improvements, but it seems to have failed at La Tijera. The school has been closed down for years with no sign of renovation. Chain linked fences hold up a ‘student entrance’ sign; weeds veil the writing on reserved parking spots; fireworks adorn the empty lot steps away from a ‘no fireworks’ sign; beer bottles, smashed and strewn across the property, accompany graffiti tags and old cement finger-inscriptions that read “6th grade is the bomb!” The unfortunate irony did not escape me. I received many inquisitive stares from drivers who must have wondered why I stood alone on a apparently abandoned property.

On my way home from the school, I saw this sign which recognizes that an essential part of community pride is a clean, beautiful environment in which to live :

The well-kept neighborhood in which the school resides has tree lined streets  and perfectly manicured front yards. It borders Ladera Heights and Inglewood, and is a predominantly middle-class, Black area. Walking distance from many amenities, including grocery stores, clothing stores and restaurants, it now lacks an easily accessible community school, which is severely disadvantageous because of the essential role that schooling plays in the future socioeconomic success of children.

The discrepancy between the two schools mentioned in this article is appalling. Residential segregation clearly contributes to the issue: one school, in a rich white neighborhood, has no problem raising $100,000, mostly from its PTA, to improve its facilities and simultaneously expose its students to valuable environmental knowledge; the other, in a middle-class Black neighborhood, is shut down with no clear future, and the parents have no choice. Considering the historic position of each group, little room for interpretation exists.

Because schools and neighborhoods are vital centers of social reproduction, they can contribute to how students feel about changing their environment. Aside from the sad fact that La Tijera School has become a hangout place for intoxicated fireworks sessions and other petty crime, it is unjust that its neighborhood children are denied access to a school of their own that teaches them to care about their surroundings and that also has the resources to walk the walk. Children in wealthier communities do not need to depend entirely on district funds and Measure K’s  to improve environmental education. That the quality and frequency of exposure to environmental action and education can be severely limited because of one’s neighborhood or income level puts a lot of LA residents, particularly poorer Blacks and Hispanics who are ghettoized, at a disadvantage in a world that is finally beginning to realize and change the ecological (and social!) damage it has caused.

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"No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning." Cyril Connolly

EastWest of the 405

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” - Winston Churchill

Churchill’s quote reminded me of some of the Youth Training Institute discussion topics, namely the architecture of security and spatial apartheid. I’ve taken some pictures of LA over the years, and I started looking through them to find something to write about. These pictures don’t begin to represent how vast and complex LA is, but they do provide a glimpse of how diverse the landscape/built environment is: beaches, mountains, freeways, tall commercial buildings, and mansions tucked into the hills of state parks are carefully protected from the refineries, the warehouses, the abundance of cop cars, big wheelers, and abandoned train tracks. Many of us work to ensure these realities remain invisible; the structure of LA certainly makes it easy.

I took a walk down Christian Street in Philadelphia earlier in the month.  It’s interesting how the forces of gentrification, the tensions between removal and renewal, manifest themselves in stark juxtapositions and awkward geometries.

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