Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Alison Rose Jefferson on African American History demonstrates how Black communal practices and economic development around leisure confronted politics of racial exclusion in recreational spaces. She shares unique stories of leisure sites, and their rich history.
EcoJustice Radio talks with UCLA Prof Jon Christensen, who studies the threat of green gentrification around the country — parks and infrastructure improvements that increase rents and displace residents — and how cities respond to protect communities.
After seven years of study, federal officials have recommended a $453-million plan that would restore an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River but leave much of its banks steep and hard to reach. Advocates will continue to press for a more ambitious alternative that would bring more people to the river, improving parks and recreation as well as ecosystems.
The LA River, an over-engineered concrete “water-freeway,” is undergoing a long-term greening and revitalization. A 32-mile greenbelt, developed through numerous projects, promises to improve the health of the ecosystem and the value of the river as a regional public amenity, while managing flows and protecting properties.
Gigantic steel, concrete and wire trees rise from manicured serpentine gardens, human-blessed symmetry reaching skyward. At the bay’s edge, two sustainably-designed domes invite visitors to explore world biomes and horticultural paradises. A public amusement park, ecological urbanism designed to invite the populace to rediscover the earth, a visit to Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay evokes a green wonderland, human-designed, artistically crafted, growing “wild” and sort-of-natural.
Much as The High Line transformed an old freight line into an urban greenway, the proposed conversion of the six-decades-disused trolley terminal on the Lower East Side into a park called Delancey Underground, will inevitably be known as the Low Line.