Food deserts have become a concern du jour our city's political establishment, as the Big Blue Beast from Bentonville uses their existence as an excuse to bigfoot the retail market in Chicagoland. In previous posts I've argued that while food deserts are a problem, inviting in a corporate actor that tends to drive down wages and liquidate competitors (thus potentially just displacing food deserts) not to mention send profits back out of state isn't necessarily the best solution. Why not use some of that $70-million-for-the-Olympic-bid style muscle to raise funds for a program to encourage local entrepreneurs to step up and fill the need in the market, with proper quality and wage controls?
Brianna Sandoval of The Food Trust, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, discussed the need for understanding the needs of food retailers. In the Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a $120 million funding pool created by public-private partnership provides incentives to operators to open shops in areas where they might not otherwise have done business. Businesses have to be located in low or moderate income census tracts and areas considered underserved based on size of businesses and proximity from other stores.
Programs also aim to improve access to healthy food in existing stores. In one case study, a local store increased sales from five types of fruits and vegetables to 20 types, and moved the fresh food to become the centerpiece of the renovated store. In another example, small refrigeration units for fresh fruit salads were added to a network of 40 corner stores. This change also resulted in new jobs as entrepreneurs moved in to provide the packing and distribution of the fruit salads.
All of these programs demonstrate the financial pay-offs of integrating community food systems into a city or region's economic development plans.
These are the types of solutions that would win the support and involvement of local residents--not to mention that they would likely come from locals if they had a real opportunity to participate in governing their city. Instead, they are just encouraged to beg for whatever meager jobs megacorporations are willing to dole out (that is, when those megacorporations aren't just fabricating that support).
Whenever the weather cooperates, Blue Island resident Marci Frederick rides her bicycle from her home to her job as director of the library at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights. The 49-year-old has been in a few small car crashes in her lifetime, so she prefers the serenity of a bike ride to the frustrations of a car any day. But without a strong trail infrastructure nearby that allows her to ride on bike paths or trails, Frederick mapped out her own route, where she purposefully avoids a more direct path along West 127th Street, a high-traffic road she stopped riding on after battling intense traffic and a chasing dog.
In order to get to work, she crosses four sets of railroad tracks and winds her way down around nine different streets before arriving at Trinity about 40 minutes later. While she's generally happy with her current work commute, Frederick is one south suburban resident who is eagerly awaiting the opening of the Calumet-Sag Trail, a proposed 26-mile multi-use path that will be built along the banks of the Calumet-Sag Channel and Calumet River. The trail will run through many of Chicago's southern suburbs ("the Southland"), from Lemont all the way east to Burnham. The trail also will connect with other existing trails, including the Centennial Trail, creating a 150-mile trail system around the Chicago Southland.
With the trail, estimated at a cost of $20 million, Frederick and other Southland bike commuters will be able to ride their bikes to work with more ease, and recreational trail users will finally have a continuous path to exercise on and enjoy nature.
"As a first step towards making the Southside bike friendly, I think it's a great thing," Frederick says. "If it gets people out on trails so that they can appreciate what bicycling does and how much more efficient bicycling is than driving, I think that's great. For myself, the prospect of a practically door-to-door commute on the trail is wonderful."
The Environmental Working Group's Facebook page pointed fans to some good reporting today. If you have some spare time this week, consider checking out some of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's great reporting on toxic chemicals and the frustrating efforts to get these chemicals properly regulated. According to the newspaper's reports, "Chemicals in the packaging, surfaces or contents of many products may cause long-term health effects, including cancers of the breast, brain and testicles; lowered sperm counts, early puberty and other reproductive system defects; diabetes; attention deficit disorder, asthma and autism. A decade ago, the government promised to test these chemicals. It still hasn't."
One of the infamous chemicals reported on -- Bisphenol A (BPA) -- is found in food and beverage packages and many more household products. There is some good news for those of us who live in Chicago and are babies: In May, Chicago became the first U.S. city to ban BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.
But the chemical still lurks in several other products nationwide, and to make things worse, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials have said they don't have enough power to regulate the chemical. The Journal-Sentinel reports that "because BPA was classified years ago as an indirect food additive, it is not subject to the kind of scrutiny that other chemicals are." And according to reporter Meg Kissinger's latest report, published yesterday, "In its ongoing investigation of BPA, the Journal Sentinel has found government regulators have routinely deferred to industry officials on questions of safety, even though hundreds of studies have linked the chemical to problems such as cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hyperactivity, sexual dysfunction and asthma."
Read the newspaper's full archive of chemical safety stories here.
Recently I posted an article on my Facebook wall about the scandalous release of a set of emails from some key scientists revealing their dishonest practices in the measurement and reporting of anthropogenic global warming. Along with the article I posted the message "it's about damn time people started asking legitimate questions." Said leaked emails revealed that these scientists essentially cheated. They tweaked data to make it say what they wanted it to say.
I'm not here to talk about whether or not global warming is happening. I'm not a scientist, you're not a scientist (probably), and I'm not going to present any hard data to analyze. I'm here to talk about the nature of the global warming discussion. You see, the comments on the article on my Facebook wall quickly digressed into vitriol with liberals vehemently attacking me for posting the article at all, calling any discussion of the leaked emails - whether they be doubting the existence of global warming or not - stupid, irresponsible, and even intentionally ignorant.
The quality of our water -- arguably the most precious natural resource -- is becoming increasingly screwed over by corporate bureaucracy, human laziness and ineffective governmental regulation. In a rather poignant report, the advocacy group Environment Illinois recently weighed in on the state's water quality in 38-page report titled "Wasting Our Waterways: Toxic Industrial Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act." Mechanics plowed through the report to see how Illinois' water supply ranks.
Members of Greenpeace recently uploaded a video on YouTube that shows activists fighting for climate action across cities in the U.S., including St. Louis, Raleigh, Chicago, Baltimore and L.A. Activists marched in support of International Day of Climate Action, held October 24, where environmentally-minded individuals gathered at key spots in cities worldwide to support the need for an international climate treaty and to raise awareness about climate change. In Chicago, dozens of activists gathered around the Fisk Generating Station at 1111 W. Cermak Rd. in Pilsen. The coal-fired plant is one of the worst polluters in Chicago.
At least watch the video until it hits our fair city (around the 2:01 mark) -- you'll hear activists ask how Obama's energy and global warming plan could let a coal-powered factory like Fisk, which is proven to contribute to the neighborhood's asthma problem, stay open. "Chicago claims to be a green city even though we have two coal-power plants located in predominately Latino neighborhoods," activist Moises Moreno, of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, says in the video. "The coal factories, we feel, haven't been held accountable for the violations they've committed."
According to a Greenpeace rep, photos and videos from these events were delivered recently to delegates in Barcelona at the final UN Climate meeting. Activists are hoping their message is heard before critical discussions begin next month in Copenhagen.
The city's Chief Environment Officer, Sadhu Johnston, was interviewed by the American Society of Landscape Architects. Some interesting stuff that reminds you of just how hard it is to get anything done in a democracy:
Chicago is now famous for installing millions of square feet of green roof across the city. How critical are these green roofs to the city's program for a sustainable stormwater management?
They play an important role. However, we couldn't give credit to a new development for installing a green roof until we passed our storm water ordinance a couple of years ago. Now, every new development is required to calculate stormwater runoff and figure out how they can keep at least a half-inch of that first rain onsite for utilization and bioswales, green roofs, or other green infrastructure, like permeable pavements. Green roofs can play a significant role in stormwater plans for each site.
You hear that, hippies? You wanna save the earth, you better start brushing up on those 200-page stormwater ordinances.
Oak Street Beach is probably one of Chicago's toniest beaches in the summer, mainly because of its prime downtown location and the Oak Street Beachstro. It's almost always packed to the rim with tourists in the summer and usually pretty clean. Looks like things change in the fall -- fewer people, yet their Miller Lite cans remain. (And lots of algae).
As we mentioned yesterday, President Obama's "conversation/listening" tour rolled into Chicago Thursday, with members of his Cabinet stopping by the city to discuss ways of making this area more sustainable. Sustainable is a loaded term these days, but to members of Obama's Cabinet, it means sitting in less traffic, having easy access to places, such as daycares and grocery stores, via public transportation, "green" building and a more rapid train system throughout the country. Mechanics listened in on the discussion, organized by the Metropolitan Planning Council, Thursday afternoon and jotted down some notes. The tour is headed to Denver, LA, Seattle, Atlanta and then back to D.C. So, Mechanics readers, what do you think: What would make Chicago a more sustainable city? Here are some thoughts from Obama's Cabinet:
In July, speaking at an Urban and Metropolitan Policy Roundtable, President Obama announced an initiative to take a long, hard look at metropolitan development -- ways cities have failed and how planning officials can look beyond the concrete and streetlights to improve the quality of life. "For too long," Obama said, "federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development. And we've been keeping communities isolated when we should have been bringing them together."
At the roundtable, Obama recalled his time spent living in LA, New York, Boston, and Chicago, adding, "I received my greatest education on Chicago's South Side, working at the local level to bring about change in those communities and opportunities to people's lives...And that experience also gave me an understanding of some of the challenges facing city halls all across the country."
This Chicago-centric experience has lead to a "conversation" tour, kicking off tomorrow in Chicago, where members from Obama's Cabinet will visit cities and regions across the country to discuss sustainable and responsible development.
The Metropolitan Planning Council, a non-profit dedicated to creating "sustainable and prosperous" growth in the Chicago area, is hosting the luncheon, "Connecting the Dots: Metropolitan Chicago's Path to Prosperity," tomorrow from noon to 1:45 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency Ballroom (West Tower), 151 E. Wacker Dr.
Mechanics took a Toxic Tour in the spring to learn about the factories that have been polluting Little Village for years. While environmental groups have been fighting to spread the word about the plants' dangers, little has been done to ensure environmental standards are being upheld, especially at the older plants that date back to the early twentieth century.
Looks like there might be some good news on the horizon.
Care about the state of the five Great Lakes? The folks at the non-profit Alliance for the Great Lakes are launching a new campaign/ Web site, thisismywater.com, devoted to just this topic. From an e-mail sent today:
The Alliance is launching a new project, and tomorrow we need your help.
We're taking to the airwaves to raise awareness about the importance of the Great Lakes, the threats they face, and how everyone can help. The first wave of our new "This is My Water" campaign kicks off next week on radio stations throughout the Great Lakes region.
Along with the radio announcements, a new website shows where to find information about water quality, water conservation, beach health and invasive species. From the website, people can learn ways to help improve the lakes in their personal lives, with business or government, and with the Alliance.
Inhabitat posts on the Mayor's initiative to "green" our 1,900 miles (over 3,500 acres) of alleyways, thus improving storm water run off and retention issues, remove impermeably services and urban heat island effects, among other potential advantages.
The inititative is a refinement of Chicago DOT's existing alley program which focused on creating more permeable surfaces. Chicago alleyways, which outnumber those of any other city in the world, are lacking in proper sewer connections causing serious flooding issues. Rather than simply opting for expensive sewer hookups, the city started retrofitting alleys with permeable pavements and pavers.
Our alleyways are one of my favorite things about Chicago. I have some very fond memories of running through and playing in alleys as a very little kid, and partying and otherwise escaping through alleyways as a man-child. Our alleys are a great asset and a great urban space; it's good to not just take them for granted, but always be thinking about what all that space--3,500 acres is a lot of acres--can be used for.
