What’s with the Name?
Block, Street & Building (the original design-firm run by Bryan Moats and Greg Moore) was originally built upon the basic notion that the health of a nation is derived from the health of the individual, both inside and outside it’s borders. The same is true for the state, county, province, and town. If the social or physical wellness of the individual is in jeopardy, so is the wellness of the governing bodies and the conceptual whole as well.

When searching for a name that fit this perspective, we came across the set of principles written in the Charter of the New Urbanism. The principles are divided into three sections, all eventually focusing in on the place where people dwell and work:

• Metropolis, city, and town
• The neighborhood, the district, and the corridor
• The block, the street, and the building

While the principles and the details that flesh them out were written primarily with the built environment in mind, the needs that inspired the principles are the same. Like ourselves, the Congress of the New Urbanism believes that the divestment in local economy, increased separation by race and income, greater environmental degradation (especially in communities of color or low-income,) the loss of agricultural and wild lands, sprawl and other conditions are, as the CNU puts it, “one interrelated community-building challenge.”

This is where we got our name – from the belief that the community is found in the block, the street and the building. And that is where we get our strength as individuals when it comes time to represent ourselves and others.

Why Environmental Justice?
You may have noticed a tremendous amount of information out there lately about how the climate is warming and how the polar bears are dying and the rate of extinction is higher than ever before and malaria may once again be a problem even developed countries will have to deal with…and so forth. The environmental movement as such has never been so vibrant and influential as it is now. But the Environmental Justice movement has generally been out-shouted by the more colorful and gleeful side of the movement: being green. The concept of “Being Green” is one great new way of saying “Buying Green”, as in, you are only as green as what’s in your shopping bag.

However, there seems to be a lag when it comes to putting together being a green person and being an environmentally just person. But what is Environmental Justice? What does it look like? Can you buy a low-flush toilet and be environmentally just? Can you fight Environmental Racism by recycling? Who is being Environmentally Unjust? How do you spot it in your own neighborhood? Did somebody just say racism? I thought this was an environmental site?

The people who made the Invisible-5 Audio Project summed it up very well:

Environmental Justice is the right to a decent, safe quality of life for people of all races, incomes and cultures in the environments where we live, work, play, and learn. Environmental Justice emphasizes accountability, democratic practices, equitable treatment and self-determination. Environmental justice principles prioritize public good over profit, cooperation over competition, community and collective action over individualism, and precautionary approaches over unacceptable risks.

And Environmental Racism?

Environmental racism refers to any environmental policy, practice or action that negatively impacts communities, groups or individuals based on race or ethnicity, and creates the need for environmental justice.

I’ll add more about us soon. Thanks for dropping by!