Great Lakes Building ReUse

As demolition is increasingly embraced as a strategy for reducing blight, large openings and gaps are created in once dense neighborhoods.  Vacant lots create many of the same challenges as vacant properties.  They can exacerbate blight by becoming dumping grounds.  More often than not they lack maintenance and they tremendously impact the previously intact fabric of a neighborhood.  Vibrant parks and gardens and even simpler greening and maintenance programs can greatly enhance the aesthetics of a neighborhood, recreating a sense of community, engaging neighbors and youth, and attracting new business.  Furthermore with increasing land availability as many urban centers experience declining populations, there is an opportunity for dedicating these land resources to the production of local food supplies, educating communities and youth, and improving food security.

Michael Groman, Green Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Michael is the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s (PHS) Senior Director of State and National Outreach.  Building on his former role as Senior Director of the Society’s acclaimed Philadelphia Green urban greening program, Michael is now heading a new venture to extend the Philadelphia Green model, and its learnings, to other municipalities in the Philadelphia region and across the state of Pennsylvania, helping them to create safer, cleaner and greener communities for people to live, work, and play.  On the national scale, Michael is responsible for promoting PHS as a resource to cities that are looking to establish urban greening programs of their own. He’s developing strategic partnerships with complementary national programs and organizations and providing consulting services on a variety of urban greening topics.  He has presented at numberous professional conferences including the American Planning Association, the Urban Land Institute, Keep America Beautiful, the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation, and the National Vacant Property Campaign.  Michael has been with PHS since 1987 and has a Masters Degree in Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

Erin Sharkey, Growing Green, Massachusetts Avenue Project. Growing Green is part of the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) located in Buffalo, NY.  MAP nurtures the growth of a diverse and equitable community food system to promote local economic opportunities, access to affordable and nutritious food, and social-change education.  MAP’s Growing Green program is an urban, organic agricultural training program the develops life-skills and provides meaningful work to low-income, at-risk youth in Buffalo.  Started in 2003, the program began working with local youth on an urban farm, teaching them how to grow food organically and how to build community through food.  In 2006, the program began a youth enterprise, Growing Green Works, selling organic local made food products to help support employment and training of youth all year around.