FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Eric Katzman
The TASC Group
Phone: 646-723-4344
E-mail: eric@thetascgroup.com
Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) Case Study Examines Plan for Transforming Brooklyn’s Broadway Triangle into Hub for Green Job Creation, Renewable & Efficient Energy and Affordable Housing
Case Study Calls for Greater Investments in Local Innovation to Fight Climate Change
New York, NY : The Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) released today the second installment in its series of case studies examining how local communities are creating local solutions to fight climate change. In the second case study, Broadway Triangle: Multi-racial Efforts Towards a Sustainable Neighborhood, CSI examines the plan by the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition (BTCC), a multi-racial coalition of churches, civic groups, businesses and non-profits, to develop vacant land for renewable energy, green jobs, energy efficiency and affordable housing. The Broadway Triangle is a 20-block area situated where the racially-diverse neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and Williamsburg meet.
The BTCC engaged with community members from all three neighborhoods to develop an innovative proposal which would transform the Broadway Triangle into an energy-plus neighborhood: a scalable solution which would build energy-efficient affordable housing units, create a community-owned energy utility and incubate green jobs
Instead of implementing the BTCC’s plan, city officials chose to fast-track an earlier proposed plan without community input – a plan that provided fewer benefits particularly in the communities of color that comprise the three neighborhoods. Although neither of the plans were implemented, the case study demonstrates the need for racially-inclusive, participatory planning as well as the need for public and private investment in local innovation to create economic opportunity and address the growing threat of climate change.
“Local communities are developing holistic, forward-thinking solutions to address the needs of neighborhoods and the nation, including affordable housing, jobs and a changing climate,” says Maya Wiley, President of the Center for Social Inclusion. “The question remains whether we will invest in these inclusive, transformativesolutions or continue down a path of political bickering and inaction.”
A full copy of the report is available here.
To arrange an interview with Maya Wiley, contact Eric Katzman at The TASC Group at 646-723-4344 or e-mail eric@thetascgroup.com.
About the Center for Social Inclusion:
The Center for Social Inclusion works to unite public policy research and grassroots advocacy to transform structural inequity and exclusion into structural fairness and inclusion. We work with community groups and national organizations to develop policy ideas, foster effective leadership, and develop communications tools for an opportunity-rich world in which we all will thrive. Visit www.centerforsocialinclusion.org.
