COMMUNITY-FOCUSED DEVELOPMENT
The Challenge
South Bronx has had a history of development driven by outside figures, from the footprint of Robert Moses in the mid-20th century to FreshDirect’s recent incorporation in the past few years.
External stakeholders such as these have shown a pattern of concentrating negative, pollutive impacts in the South Bronx in exchange for profits enjoyed elsewhere.
Communities in South Bronx have been disenfranchised from New York’s earliest colonization in the 17th-century, when the indigenous Lenape people were overrode by incoming Dutch settlers.
In more recent industrial years, decades of industrial development by way of highways, power plants, waste transfer stations, and truck transportation routes have similarly disenfranchised local residents forced to face the impacts of concentrated pollution.
Many of these patterns were incited by New York City’s Parks Commissioner Robert Moses in the 1950s, and since then have been augmented by the growth of industrial hubs such as the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the world’s largest wholesale market which attracts thousands of diesel truck trips through the South Bronx on a daily basis.
In 2019, the online grocer FreshDirect augmented the concentration of air pollution in Mott Haven by constructing a 500,000 square foot warehouse, despite extensive protesting from South Bronx Unite. The warehouse now serves as a destination for the hundreds of diesel trucks which commute through the South Bronx on a daily basis.
Our Response
In South Bronx, the saying “Pollution brings more pollution” has been a constant reality throughout its history. By allowing development to be driven by external figures, pollution will only continue to be concentrated where property values are low and the community’s voice in suppressed. South Bronx Unite is pushing for community-focused development which brings the local residents’ voices to light, advocating for projects that are led by the community, for the community. By leveraging methods for co-design and participatory design through guided development workshops, residents can find a framework for their ideas to take shape in proposals that are then piloted by SBU’s community land trust, the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards.
