How can we use art to improve the quality of life in our post-industrial cities?
The Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) launched a multi-year initiative in 2007, called Creative Compass, to help artists gain access to affordable housing and business space and to encourage them to become active contributers to the revitalization of our urban neighborhoods.
For the past two years, CPAC has hosted the conference From Rust Belt to Artist Belt to “explore how industrial cities are using artist-based community development to change the stories being told about their communities.” This year’s conference took place on Sept. 17-18, but make sure to attend their upcoming events and join their network.
Watch the following lecture about how artist Lily Yeh used art to improve the quality of life for impoverished neighborhoods around the world:
“In the most devastat[ed] place – that’s the place most ready for transformation. I see abandoned lot[s] as endless resources for us to create innovative way[s] to create our new future.” – Lily Yeh
This past weekend, Bioneers Cleveland showed the national plenary speakers of the 2009 Bioneers Conference, in addition to hosting workshops and tours focused around sustainability and Northeast Ohio’s local food system.
Here are some of the national speakers from the conference…
Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food:
Bioneers Cleveland will hold its third annual Bioneers Conference next weekend on November 5-7 at the Cleveland Convention Center on Thursday, and at CSU’s Maxine Levin College of Urban Affairs on Friday & Saturday.
Bioneers Cleveland is a ‘beaming site’ (meaning it shows the national plenary speakers on screen) for National Bioneers, which is a 20-year-old nonprofit headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico that prides itself on popularizing sustainable solutions for both people and planet.
This year’s conference will focus on Northeastern Ohio’s Local Food Systems. The conference will examine creating sustainable, healthy food opportunities, and the interconnections between: water, energy, transportation, education, economics, community development, and culture as well as showcase the impact by production, distribution, nutrition, and financial viability of growing, selling and eating local food.
For three days Bioneers Cleveland will highlight many of the projects that have made Cleveland second in the nation for its urban food systems by hosting tours, workshops and plenary addresses from the national conference site in California (via DVD) including Michael Pollan, an award-winning journalist and author of Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food.
I learned so much while attending last year’s Bioneers Cleveland Conference, and I highly recommend that you attend, even if you’re not a sustainability nerd like me.
The following video series is an interview by theRealNews.com called “Autoworkers ‘Challenge the Logic of Capitalism’.” Not only Detroit, but many post-industrial Great Lakes cities house legions of autoworkers and other industrial laborers currently in need of stable work.
Autoworkers have a unique set of skills that could be extraordinarily useful for building the technology necessary for capturing and transporting renewable energy. Sustainability nerds, of course, call this the transformation of ’blue collar jobs’ into ‘green collar jobs.’
Read this article about how the company Infinia has employed autoworkers to refurbish Stirling engines for solar dishes.
The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program wrote a groundbreaking report about the importance of renewing the Great Lakes region, called “The Vital Center: A Federal-State Compact to Renew the Great Lakes Region.”
Below is the presentation given on March 5, 2007, by Bruce Katz (Vice-President of the Brookings Institution) and John Austin (Non-Resident Senior Fellow) to brief House and Senate staff members invited by the Great Lakes Congressional Caucus Leadership, on the federal policy implications emerging from the Great Lakes Economic Initiative, and the Vital Center Report.
Sustainability: social, environmental and economic justice.
This video shows an interview with Carl Anthony, Founder of the Earth House Leadership Center in Detroit, talking about the problems of structural racism in our urban centers. Anthony also talks about how groups in Detroit are working to abate urban sprawl through an inner city land bank initiative similar to Cleveland’s “Reimagining a More Sustainable Cleveland” initiative and a statewide proposal for a transportation bill limiting the construction of new highways into existing farmland. Cleveland could use a transportation bill like that.
Click “Continue Reading” to view the rest of the interview about community empowerment and using federal Stimulus dollars to re-invest in whole metropolitan regions. Continue Reading »
Most people who live around Cleveland are tired of hearing about corrupt public officials doing shady deals, having closed-door meetings and dressing in drag. While it’s fantastic that Mayor Jackson has supported the movement to make Cleveland a model of sustainability, other public officials all around Ohio have yet to get it.
Whether publicly elected officials understand the importance of sustainability for our region or not, one thing is perfectly clear. We need more collaboration between offices and in order to do that, we need reform of our current government system.
In light of this, I was pleased to receive the following email this morning: Continue Reading »
Got*City Game! is a game show filmed in Cleveland, about Cleveland, by Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) students. The project, sponsored by Tri-C, Hiram College and LiveCLEVELAND, will film three teams of two people competing to win Cleveland for a year – which includes, according to their website, “a free lease at the Tremont Place Lofts and FREE tickets and coupons for sports, music, theatre, restaurants, nightclubs…everything that makes downtown living amazing.”
The shows will be filmed this month all over the city of Cleveland as the teams compete in ridiculous (and green) challenges. You can see the finished product in November 2009 with six webisodes (one per week) on www.gotcitygame.tv . With each webisode you can VOTE for your favorite team. The team with the most combined points and votes will win.
Basically, the idea is to show how awesome Cleveland really is and that it can be a great place for young professionals to live.
Last night I went to the official opening of the Evergreen Cooperatives, which are businesses working together with Greater University Circle communities (Hough, Glenville, Fairfax, Buckeye-Shaker, Little Italy and East Cleveland) and some of Cleveland’s anchor institutions to create green jobs for local residents.
Each year, these major institutions–including CWRU, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, among many others–purchase billions of dollars worth of goods and services from suppliers that are outside of our region. Through the Evergreen Cooperatives, these institutions can begin sourcing some of their products and services locally–generating economic development and green jobs where they are desperately needed.
