State of the Land Report: April 2023

State of the Land Report The State of the Land Report is our monthly update where we will be educating and sharing out about everything you need to know about vacant land policy in the City of Pittsburgh! State of the Land Updates Bethel AME Church to be reunited with unjustly seized land in the Lower Hill In the 1950s, the newly established Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) marked a large section of the Lower Hill District as “blighted*” despite the presence…

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State of the Land Report: November

Welcome to the November State of the Land Report! The State of the Land Report is our monthly update where we will be educating and sharing out about everything you need to know about vacant land policy in the City of Pittsburgh!  Advocacy Network Thank you for subscribing to our advocacy network, if you have not already done so please subscribe here.We must ensure that the process of land recycling and maintenance is conducted equitably, transparently, and through an anti-racist framework.…

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State of the Land Report: October

Welcome to the October State of the Land Report! The State of the Land Report is our new monthly update where we will be educating and sharing out about everything you need to know about vacant land policy in the City of Pittsburgh! In this report we will share with you everything you need to know about policy updates, new legislation in the works, land access strategies, facts about vacant land, need to knows about maintenance of City-owned vacant lots…

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Reducing Toxics in the Home Environment: Lead

The last week in October (25th-31st, 2020) is National Lead Poisoning Prevention week! During this time, there's a great deal of focus on reducing the threat of lead hazards in our environment. As you may know, lead is a naturally occurring chemical element that exists at low levels in a variety of earth materials. It is also a potent neurotoxin with negative impacts on a variety of systems within the body: in fact, there is no level of lead that…

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Black Neighborhoods Matter

 Black Neighborhoods Matter Connecting Community Health, Vacant Land, and Racial Justice  We are experiencing a watershed moment in our country’s history. In the wake of a global pandemic, expanding financial insecurities, and continued police brutality and homicides, Black, Brown, and allied communities are rallying to demand constructive change within government and our institutions. Across the country, communities are crying #DefundPolice -- a critique of the abnormal sums of money cities and states invest in policing and surveillance, while other systems,…

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Grounded Statement on Racial Violence

Grounded works to promote equitable access to quality greenspace within marginalized communities. We acknowledge that our work is not separate from the larger concerns of racial violence, stigmatization, and oppression. The context for our work, and the communities we work alongside, emerges from a long history of racial segregation, targeted divestment, redlining, and disenfranchisement of land from Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. We envision a region of thriving communities working together to sustain equitable change. The baseline for…

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Bill 299_Press Release

Pittsburgh City Council CityFarms Project Resolution 2020-0299 Recommitted by City Council   Pittsburgh, PA:  April 28, 2020, Pittsburgh City Council recommitted Resolution 2020-0299. This bill would have authorized the Mayor and the Director of the Department of Public Works to enter into a Project Cooperation Agreement or Professional Services Agreements with Grounded Strategies for the purposes of implementing a CityFarms pilot project on city-owned vacant land. The resolution is expected to be updated to include an RFP process. Grounded Strategies,…

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The Role of Greenspace in Pittsburgh’s Transportation Equity Conversation

Currently, the City of Pittsburgh's Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) is developing a Mobility Vision Plan for the next 50 years! While on its surface this may not seem like an environmental justice issue tied to vacant or disinvested land, the implications of this plan are incredibly far-reaching. As the main entity tasked with managing the city's transportation infrastructure, DOMI governs many aspects of your movement through your day-to-day life. In addition to the roads most of us use…

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Community Keystones

Blog by Sean Cuff, Policy Fellow In early August, I interviewed CommunityCare Steward and long-time Larimer resident Tab Duckett outside his adopted lots near Thompson and Joseph Streets. He and his lawnmower have been fixtures of the community, and represent the outsized role neighbors have had to take on to keep their blocks maintained. He was born and raised in the neighborhood. In between at least ten horn honks, waves, and “hey there’s” with passersby, we talked about how the…

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RVP Reflection Series: What did Masoud see?

Throughout my experience at the Reclaiming Vacant Properties (RVP) conference in Atlanta this year, I encountered a storm of new, fresh, and different ideas about how to address many of the concerns generated by cycles of disinvestment within 'rust belt' cities. Beyond these techniques though, I think the far more valuable treasure gleaned at this event comes in the form of contacts and relationships with other folks performing similar work in parallel with Grounded across this country. Their insights, challenges,…

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Planting Seeds for the Future

Pittsburgh, as the nation within which it resides, has a storied past awash with inequality. Both here and in the United States at large, a great deal of this inequity stems from the fact that the means of production (mainly land) are controlled by a small number of people relative to the total population. Historically, this has been the case for just about as long as this country has existed. As our worries mount in the face of climate instability,…

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GSI…. but why?

Background Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a city defined in large part by water: from the 3 large rivers that help to outline the city's center, to the snowfall that periodically graces this area's winters, this element shapes human life in the region. Historically, the waterways running through the Pittsburgh area have been used for transportation (both of people and goods), sustenance (through farming and fishing), and recreation, among other pursuits. However, the influence of water in this region is not only…

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