https://reasonstobecheerful.world/greening-abandoned-lots-philly/
"Linda Lloyd has lived in West Philadelphia her whole life. The 67-year-old, a
retired municipal employee, has always taken pride in her community and tried
to keep her neighborhood in good shape. But it hasn’t always been an easy task.
“Before, it was pretty bad here,” says Lloyd, who moved to her home on
Wyalusing Avenue in 1989. “The poverty. It was drug-infested. We struggled a
lot.”
Like many Black Philadelphians, Lloyd grew up surrounded by stark poverty. For
decades Philadelphia was America’s poorest big city, suffering the highest
poverty rate of the 10 most populous metropolises in the United States.
Historic, racist urban policies such as redlining meant that poverty was — and
still is today — unequally felt: 24.5 percent of Black residents now live below
the poverty line, double the rate of white residents. Criminal gangs thrived in
and preyed on Black districts.
But over the past years, shoots of hope have begun to emerge in Lloyd’s
community thanks to a groundbreaking project revealing an under-appreciated
upside to creating and maintaining urban green spaces: preventing violent
crime.
In the past, Lloyd’s block was filled with blighted lots, usually overgrown
with weeds and effectively serving as dump sites for trash or abandoned
automobiles. They were hubs for drug deals and criminal gangs across the city,
spaces that created fear among residents.
Then the clean-up began."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
