Local Knowledge: Gentrification in Brooklyn and Queens
Presenters: Laguardia Community College students from Astoria, East New York and Greenpoint
Rising rents, the lack of affordable housing and displacement of longtime residents by new upscale development are the primary reasons for gentrification in New York City. The process of gentrification has already dramatically changed ethnic enclaves and communities of color like Williamsburg Brooklyn and Harlem. Currently, neighborhoods as unique as Astoria, Queens or Greenpoint and East New York Brooklyn are at a crossroads. Will longtime residents continue to be pushed out of or will the city government help these residents protect the character of their communities? LaGuardia Community College students in Urban Sociology conducted research about contemporary issues impacting their communities. Students will present their findings and policy recommendations, and about how they helping to engage others in the community about the issue.
Youth Engaging Communities in Planning Issues: Alleyways, Radio Waves, and an Intergenerational Buffet
Presenters: Youth and Adults from International District Housing Alliance (Seattle, WA), A-VOYCE/Asian Community Development Corporation (Boston, MA), Chinatown Community Development Center (San Franscisco, CA), Asian Americans for Equality (New York, NY)
This panel brings together youth from Chinatowns across the nation, focusing on the different ways youth can generate community involvement in and public attention to the variety of planning issues that appear in their community. Youth from these organizations engage themselves and their communities in alleyway clean-ups and tours (CCDC), create community voice through a radio show (ACDC), and reach out across cultures and generations to build community (IDHA). Learn from this geographically diverse group about the approaches they use to engage and organize residents and other stakeholders in developing solutions to issues in their respective communities.
Rebuilding New Orleans: A Perspective from Young Student Leaders
Presenters: Communities in Schools- New Orleans and Youth from O. Perry Walker High School (New Orleans, LA)
Students and adult allies will present a) the current status of the rebuild in New Orleans, b) the work that has been done and programs that have been created by the city, c) what student leaders and the adult allies have specifically done themselves to advocate and work on rebuilding New Orleans, and d) the importance of including young people's voices in the rebuilding of New Orleans. Following the presentation, participants will engage in an open and honest discussion about rebuilding efforts in New Orleans with the audience.
Presenters: Academy of Urban Planning students (Brooklyn, NY), Gia Hamilton, The Leadership Program (New York, NY)
What are stereotypes? Where did this stereotype originate from? How do stereotypes affect our community and school? Learn how juniors from the Academy of Urban Planning embarked on historical research about stereotypes and organized the 1st annual Day of Dialogue Student Conference to promote tolerance and awareness. Tips and strategies will be available on creating a Day of Dialogue at your school.
CITI Youth: Mapping the Five Boroughs
The CITI Youth Program trains student interns to create and provide informative visuals at various community board meetings throughout New York City, making it easier for community board members to gather information needed to make important decisions. Interns make maps at that help to make decisions for things such as permit approvals and land use issues. The CITI youth website is a resourceful tool giving information on buildings, lots, districts, and council members. In this session, CITI map technicians will introduce this resource to other interested attendees, providing a hands-on tutorial in the AUP computer lab so that they can incorporate this strategy into their own efforts.
Mapping for Social Change
Presenters: Amanda Huron, CUNY Graduate Center(New York, NY), Ashley Bonilla, Lourdelis Garcia, Gustavo Medina, YPN - NYC (Brooklyn, NY)
Good mapmaking can be a powerfully persuasive way to effect social change. It can help people understand their own communities in new ways, and help communicate ideas both within communities and out to the world at large. Maps are especially powerful because you don't have to be able to read or write very well in order to be able to make or understand a map. In this sense they are especially useful for organizations that want to reach people who speak different languages or have low literacy levels. Come share ideas about making maps as part of social change work, and learn about different mapmaking techniques. Youth Speak! Community Change through Youth-Led Action Research in Stockton, California
Presenters: Youth in Focus (Oakland, CA)
Imagine a world where youth are at the decision making table with adults using their own research to shape what their communities should look like. Well in this session, you will get to hear how youth in California’s Central Valley have collected the voices of their community through surveys, focus groups, and photography to inform and improve their city’s resources to better meet the needs of its youth. Using their youth-led action research project, members of Youth Matters in Stockton, California will discuss how they were able to bring about change to their communities and implement youth voice into the planning of a Youth Empowerment Zone, a comprehensive youth service and empowerment center.
Edible Charrette on Affordable Housing Presenters: Youth and Staff from A-VOYCE/Asian Community Development Corporation (Boston, MA)
In this interactive workshop, learn about zoning laws, affordable and market-rate housing and the trade-offs between the two, working with gumdrops, gummy bears, marshmallows, and tooth picks! Youth presenters will put these discussions in the context of Boston’s housing market.
Health Disparities Research and Advocacy Project
Presenters: Youth and Staff from ASPIRA YES! (South Bronx, NY)
ASPIRA’s many Service Learning projects aim to engage youth with community decision-makers and regional stakeholders, including publicly appointed and elected officials as well as other community leaders, in bringing about positive, proactive solutions to longstanding problems facing their community. The Health Disparities Research and Advocacy Project initially set out to engage South Bronx youth - innocently enough – in an epidemiological approach to examining the issue of health disparities with a particular focus on ferreting out the complex reasons for such disparities through a multi-phased, scientifically methodical examination of the issue. As a result of various observations made by the youth involved during the initial basic research phase of the project, the project quickly morphed into an examination of the validity of the municipal database that is used to document the health outcomes of the urban communities within New York City.
Development Decisions Matter: An Alternative Vision of Development
Presenters: Community Organizing for Responsible Development (CORD) (Toronto and Ontario, Canada)
Concern over lack of broader community involvement in a major development project lead to the formation of the group called CORD Since its inception, CORD has done extensive mobilization of youth, seniors, union members, community groups and local activists to forge an alliance around a set of key demands for good jobs, local hiring and training and community services as a result of the development, and related to the continuing process of economic revitalization in the area. Since January 2007 CORD has undertaken 3 successful actions/events with increasing community capacity after each event resulting into successful gains. It is because of CORD that City of Toronto placed requirements to include local hiring/training as condition of Woodbine Live! approval - "the first time that a local, community oriented employment strategy had been bundled into a major private development".
Neighborhood Explorers Program at MCNY
Presenters: Museum of the City of NY (New York, NY)
The Frederick A.O. Schwarz Children’s Center at the Museum of the City of New York will talk about their Neighborhood Explorers Program, a one or two semester-long residency for high school students that teaches them to become active participants in shaping their community. Students identify a neighborhood problem and then, using principles of architecture, planning, and preservation, design a solution.
Youth Voice in Comprehensive Planning
Presenters: Youth and adults from CMAP (Chicago, IL), Emery Secondary School and the Center for Cities & Schools (Emeryville and Berkeley, CA), Children, Youth and Environments (Denver, CO)
Comprehensive, long-term and regional plans are plans that tell politicians where they should put housing, jobs, roads and trains. They also sometimes tell them how they can protect the environment and even make life better for their residents. Many of these plans try to help guide these decisions for 10 or more years. In at least three places around the country city and state planning agencies are asking for the ideas and opinions of young people as they write their comprehensive plans: the Bay Area, the Chicago Region and Denver. But why and how do these agencies get the “youth voice?” Young Planners and Adult Allies from each of these places will talk about the reasons that different agencies ask youth to get involved. We will also describe how they go about talking to youth, listening to youth and making sure that their ideas are included in comprehensive plans. Finally, the panel will discuss what is working well and how we might improve in the future.
Katrina Leadership Project
Presenters: Youth and adults from the Katrina Leadership project (New Orleans, LA)
The Katrina Leadership Project is an innovative approach to student leadership. KLP plans to take forty Hurricane Katrina-stricken high school students to Washington D.C. to develop and prepare them for local, state, national and/or international leadership. KLP's five focuses are student leadership for social change, transformational educational experiences, technological empowerment, community project development, and global affairs. By making Washington D.C. our classroom KLP will expose the New Orleans students to opportunities that aren't available in their recovering communities. Our goal is to invest time and energy into these students leadership skills as athletic camps invest in their athletes