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The
community based organizations (CBOs) that comprise the
Community Revitalization Alliance are leaders in
problem-solving and implementing innovative rural and urban
strategies and projects which epitomize sustainable land use
at the intersection of community development, environment
and health.
The
Community Revitalization Alliance will be launched in
collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and other partners at the Agency’s national brownfields
conference BF 2008 in Detroit. Our launch event is an
invitational luncheon 12 noon on Tuesday May 6, 2008 at
Detroit’s COBO Convention Center where the conference is
convened. Leaders in the public and private sector and key
high-level governmental officials will be among the featured
speakers and supporters at the luncheon.
We are
co-hosting two other high profile events at the conference.
There will be an Environmental Justice Caucus on Sunday
evening May 4, 2008 and on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 9:00 a.m.
at the Convention Center, we are featuring a workshop
focused on tools and strategies to address equitable
development and gentrification. Both events are open to
all.
More
information on how you can attend the luncheon and
information on our other events will be posted on this
website in early April 2008. You can register for the
conference, May 5-7, 2008, and get more information at
www.brownfields2008.org
The
Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC connects a growing
number of community development corporations, environmental
justice groups, civic associations, faith based
organizations, developers and practitioners in these fields
from around the nation. The work of the Alliance is guided
by an expanding interdisciplinary advisory committee. Our
advisors are multi-stakeholder leaders in community and
economic development, labor, environment quality, health,
social justice, advocacy and law. Sustainable Community
Development Group, Inc. hosts and manages the Alliance.
Our mission
is education and implementation at the national level that
leads to sustainable redevelopment of brownfields, vacant
and other distressed properties in underserved urban and
rural neighborhoods. Our goals include providing insight
and ideas to decision makers and influentials in the public,
private, academic and community sectors; bridging gaps
between sectors that are working on issues; ensuring that
the voices of on-the ground diverse constituencies are
better understood; ensuring that these voices, views and
best practices drawn from community experiences are
integrated into the discourse and decisions.
This
multi-stakeholder coalition is a change agent – these are
voices that are heretofore rarely heard at the highest
levels of public policy. From the perspective of the
Community Revitalization Alliance, there is a direct
relationship between environment and health and the needs,
health and vitality of a community. That is our unifying
message: Community quality of life, environmental justice,
public health and stewardship should be at the center of
governmental decisions and programs that involve and affect
communities.
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