Dr Majora
Carter has been named one of Newsweek’s “Who’s Next”, New York Post’s
50 Most Influential Women in New York, Vibe Magazine’s “New Power
Generation”, and is a recipient of ten major humanitarian or environmental
awards.
Why?
This self-proclaimed “poor black girl from the ghetto” is transforming
the quality of life for people in her environmentally-challenged
community.
In the 1940s the South Bronx was a pleasant “white” working class
suburb. Affordability meant that African-American families pursuing
the American dream of home ownership moved in. Banks, concerned
by this development, deemed the area unfavourable for investment.
A final decision to carve a path through the borough for an expressway
to link the wealthier suburbs to Manhattan, sealed the neighbourhood’s
fate. What was formerly a walk-to-work borough became destitute
as industry moved out. Homes became worthless and many investors
torched their buildings to gain insurance payouts rather than continue
to be a South Bronx landlord.
Enter Dr Majora Carter. Born, raised, and continuing to live and
work in the South Bronx, she now travels the world in pursuit of
resources to assist her community.
When she started her quest in 2001, a South Bronx family:
- Was twice as likely to breathe air pollution above safe standards,
- Was five times more likely to live within walking distance
of a waste, sewerage or power facility,
- Had a one in two chance of living below the poverty line,
- Had a 50 percent chance of living next to a burned building,
- Was surrounded by waste facilities that handled more than 40
percent of New York’s garbage,
- Watched 60,000 large trucks move along their streets every
week.
It was in that year that Dr Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx
(SSB) to gain a Government grant to design the South Bronx Greenway
with 18 kilometres of bike and pedestrian paths connecting neighbourhoods
to the rivers and to each other. In 2008, her vision has seen more
than $20 million raised to begin construction.
She has continued to alleviate poverty while improving the environment,
introducing clean-tech solutions that have improved public health,
creating green areas and green rooves atop buildings, changing
an under-utilized expressway into a development embraced by the
local community, and stopping the establishment of a new waste
facility.
Dr Carter also founded the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training
program that has created a skilled green-collar workforce with
a personal and economic stake in their urban environment.
Her vision, drive, and tenacity has earned her a MacArthur "Genius" Grant
and places her on NY Governor Spitzer's Energy and Environment
Transition Team and the Clinton Global Initiative’s Poverty Alleviation
Panel.
At the Working Communities International Conference delegates
will learn about Dr Carter’s triple bottom line where the developer,
Government and the community all benefit from “smart” environmental
planning.
Dr Carter is changing the face of South Bronx: an example is the
transformation of an illegal dumping ground into the first park
in South Bronx in more than 60 years.
Farragut present
Farragut future
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