"Poor people of all colors are getting poorer and our communities are getting more toxic. There is a misconception that to grow our economy we will have to do business as usual, because cleaning up the environment, mitigating climate change is just too costly. Well, I say the business of poverty is just too expensive a bill for humanity to pay any longer."
Environmental justice – where creating a sustainable living environment in an area means creating a sustainable economy there as well. Where communities of a low socio-economic status are as entitled to greener, cleaner surroundings as more affluent communities are. As activist and consultant Majora Carter says, “No community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.” This is the vision Carter works relentlessly to achieve.
Hunts Point in South Bronx, New York was Majora Carter’s home growing up. It was a time when large numbers of people were moving to the suburbs and businesses were relocating, leaving abandoned buildings in their wake. Waste and sewage facilities were constructed (South Bronx handles 40 percent of the city’s commercial waste), and the unemployment rate was high. Pollution and poor air quality were causing high incidents of asthma and other health problems. The South Bronx was depressed both economically and psychologically. It was an area to leave, which was Majora Carter’s plan. She returned home after college purely as a cost-saving measure while attending graduate school for an MFA. What she found, however, was a passion and an opportunity to clean up South Bronx and give her community a sense of pride in itself.
Her relationship with environmentalism began in 1997 with her volunteer work for the Point Community Development Corporation, created to develop arts and culture in the community. Carter was working on a sculpture project to bring attention to the lack of trees in the neighborhood when she heard of Mayor Giuliani’s plan to increase the waste facilities in Hunts Point, and decided it was time to take an active role in blocking the plan. She began with community protests, but it wasn’t long before Carter was taking more direct measures. Around the same time, while running with her dog, Carter happened upon a stretch of unused waterfront property on the Bronx River. She saw an opportunity for parks and bike paths, and wrote a proposal for funds to begin the transformation. In 2001 Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx – a non-profit environmental justice group. Eventually, SSBx got the plan for new waste processing plants quashed, and working with local groups, politicians, and the community, helped form the Bronx River Alliance. Majora Carter wanted to shift her community’s attitude of complacency toward their current living situation to one of hope and belief that they could create a more sustainable environment and economy. The result was the first green waterfront park in the South Bronx in decades.
In 2003, Carter and Sustainable South Bronx started the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (BEST) – a green jobs training and placement program. People in the BEST program learn about urban forestry, landscaping and horticultural skills, and green roof installation (where vegetation planted on rooftops can help replace more environmentally harmful roofing materials). Many of the graduates are from the Hunts Point community, had been on public assistance, and now have paying jobs. These days, families can take their children to the waterfront to help maintain and enjoy the park, get to know their neighbors, and be proud of their community again. As Carter says, “Things like parks and green roofs and decent zoning policies and green-collar jobs and public transportation don’t cost a huge amount, but can make a tremendous difference that has long-term economic advantages both locally and nationally.” In 2008, she formed The Majora Carter Group LLC. Carter travels around the country as a consultant, relating her experiences with SSBx to inspire other communities and businesses to work together in tackling environmental issues and creating a green-collar workforce. Simply put, Carter says, “We’ve got to decide that we want to live in a world that is sane and happy and healthy, and that everyone deserves that.”
