Recent Issues of RP&E
Educating for Equity
About this Issue
This summer's United States Social Forum was singularly successful in its use of popular education, holding over a thousand workshops in three days. This issue of Race, Poverty and the Environment opens with a quick look at the forum and then delves into the many complex ways people are using education to strengthen the movements for social justice.
Green Visions
The "green economy" is now exploding into a billion-dollar sector—with more growth predicted. Before we find ourselves left behind and left out, those of us working to uplift urban America see now as a good time to ask: who is going to benefit from this massive economic growth?
— Van Jones
The fact is, grassroots movements are emerging in this country and all over the world. The only way we can restore the earth and green the economy is from the bottom-up. It’s the way the body organizes. It’s the way nature organizes, it’s the only way we can organize something that will sustain and endure. The only way we can do it is through connectivity of small groups that are on the ground, that care. That is the source of renaissance.
— Paul Hawken
The bioeconomic model of development is a strategic response to the dependent and unsustainable model that imperialism would otherwise impose on the population….
— Clifton Ross
My experience and my knowledge of history have taught me that social change comes when people from all walks of life unite and fight. What we are trying to achieve here in Los Angeles is not just the creation of professional jobs, but a working-class solution to poverty. There are no shortcuts or mysteries to achieving this vision. A progressive political alternative is possible by involving communities most impacted by poverty… unions that represent working families in Los Angeles, organizations advocating for a healthier environment, and socially responsible business leaders.
— Oreatha Ensley
Because Berkeley’s solid waste operation is locally based, the jobs generated by the city’s waste stream remain local. The city has its own fleet and unionized crew, as does the Ecology Center and the Community Conservation Centers (CCC). A model “green-blue” partnership, ours is an environmental endeavor that provides local, well-paying, green-collar jobs.
— Martin Bourque and Amy Kiser
JUST Jobs? Organizing for Economic Justice
One doesn’t have to possess an advanced degree in economics to see that there is something definitively out of alignment when it comes to job creation in the United States. Multinational corporations with no national, much less local, allegiances are given billions of dollars in tax subsidies in a shell game, which moves an ever-shrinking number of manufacturing jobs from city to suburbs, and state to state. Big box retail stores are destroying locally-owned small businesses in shopping districts across the country, and the largest employment growth is taking place in low-paying service sector jobs. Real wages are stagnant and fundamentals, such as overtime pay, health insurance, retirement benefits, job security, even regular paid vacation, are swirling away at hurricane speeds.... more
Moving the Movement
Ben Jesse Clarke, Editor
This issue of Urban Habitat’s journal, Race, Poverty, and the Environment, presents an analysis of transportation equity that can help build the movement for civil rights and environmental justice. Featuring contributions from leading practitioners in the field and a cross-section of voices from the grassroots, it reveals a transportation and land use system that harms urban quality of life; damages the planetary environment; promotes wars for resource domination; and supports racism and class-based segregation. Published on the 50th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, this issue also draws on historical victories in transportation equity—such as the initial desegregation of public transit—to help identify the pressure points in the system which present opportunities for progress.
In every urban center in the country there are organizations challenging unequal access to transportation, coalitions fighting the burdens which international goods movement places on poor communities, and groups struggling for systemic reforms. This issue presents many case studies of successful local organizing from the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and other communities of color.
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