A chance to fix a neighborhood
There is a huge hole in our economic fabric where clean tech should be. And residents of this community can be trained to fill these "green collar" jobs. Instead of all these economic-growth agencies pushing for stadiums or big-box stores where the average wage is $7 an hour, the city could invest in cleaner transportation systems such as barges and rail lines to connect us to the rest of the city. We could take all the waste grease from the food industry that now gets trucked here for disposal and process it instead into biodiesel fuel. Workers will install "green roofs" on commercial buildings, which will provide cooling and generate oxygen. This summer we are hiring greenway stewards to help maintain our new street-tree network, which will eventually cover 11 miles in the South Bronx. We're going to plant herbs in the tree pits. It'll be beautiful. People can do all of this while making a living wage. They will be participating in the economic and environmental transformation of their own lives. The possibilities are endless.