What follows is the introduction to Johanna Bozuwa’s 140-page, Democracy Collaborative-published look at Building Resiliency through Green Infrastructure: A Community Wealth Building Approach. (Short on time? The executive summary is just four pages.)
Creating climate-resilient cities takes more than a series of infrastructure investments; more than sea walls and permeable pavement. It takes investment in people. Those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are those without living wages or access to political power—very often communities of color. As the seas continue to rise, climate resiliency strategies need to not only build the infrastructure but also tackle the underlying reasons why those who bear the disproportionate burden of climate change are those with the least ability to recover. Doing so means applying a framework of community wealth building to climate resiliency planning—a vibrant place-based economic system where democratic ownership and control creates more equitable and inclusive outcomes.
Cities have recently integrated more green infrastructure strategies into their climate resiliency planning, which could be a key intervention point for applying the concept of community wealth building in practice. Harnessing nature’s innate ability to manage water, green infrastructure captures and diverts stormwater before it reaches the sewer system through a strategically planned network of natural features, such as vegetation and soil. While green infrastructure’s primary function is to limit stormwater runoff, its benefits, like more walkable communities and cleaner air, also have the potential to facilitate healthier, more prosperous communities—if done so intentionally.
In particular, a buildout of green infrastructure projects could create new opportunities for social enterprises, mission-driven nonprofits with a fee-for-service component, and worker cooperatives, democratically owned-and-operated businesses, to thrive. Both social enterprises and worker cooperatives are community-based enterprises that go beyond making a profit and can play a critical role in building community wealth. Green infrastructure’s decentralized nature, relying upon projects of varying size that need continual tending and maintenance, creates access points for smaller firms and opens up a space to experiment with business models focused on providing community ownership and control.
This report investigates the state of worker cooperatives and social enterprises in the green infrastructure field in order to understand the possibilities and strategies for these community wealth building enterprises to seize the opportunity to provide positive jobs in their communities. It focuses on four case studies of enterprises already operating in the field in a variety of economic and environmental contexts. It provides practical insights to practitioners as well as local governments and anchor institutions—large, place based nonprofits like universities and hospitals—to deepen and expand community wealth building enterprises.
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QUOTATION
“What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”
~~Georg W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2012—Rush Limbaugh censorship efforts attracts EFF attention:
As noted yesterday, the Rush Limbaugh Show is attempting to silence criticism of his treatment of Sandra Fluke by getting our video compilation of it pulled from YouTube. We re-uploaded the video to Vimeo (the embed above), and can obviously keep posting it in multiple places if Limbaugh's lawyers persist.
But there is still the question of YouTube—the Google outfit that has erroneously pulled the video. The great folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the nation's staunchest defenders of online freedoms, have taken notice.
While initiating frivolous legal processes to intimidate and silence critics is hardly new, Limbaugh actually seems to be taking a specific page out of the playbook of Michael Savage, his on-again/off-again compatriot and fellow conservative talk radio fixture. In 2007, Savage turned to copyright law in an ultimately futile attempt to silence the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who did precisely what the Daily Kos has done here: post online a minutes-long montage of outrageous statements made by a radio host in order to criticize the host's behavior and expose it for a public audience. In Savage's case, he unsuccessfully sued CAIR for copyright infringement ... Limbaugh has (for now) chosen the more expeditious DMCA takedown route. Just as with Savage's ridiculous attempt to keep his own words from being used against him failed, though, so will Limbaugh's.
EFF runs our Rush Limbaugh video through a Fair Use legal analysis, and like I said yesterday, it's not even close. It's about as clear a Fair Use situation as you can get. It's so cut and dry, actually, that there should be no reason for Google to play along with Limbaugh's censorship efforts.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Impeachment has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice. Greg Dworkin & Joan McCarter discuss. Trump doubles down on defiance. Russia's KY deal. Miners for Trump was an IRA fake. Political union: yes, it’s a real thing!