Emerald Cities Collaborative

In the wake of the financial crisis, the historic election of President Obama, and the release of the $787 billion in federal stimulus funds, a new partnership emerged among national leaders in urban sustainability, social justice, labor standards, housing development, community organizing, and workforce development. Their common goal:

Green America's cities in "high-road" ways that advance fair opportunity, shared wealth, and democracy within them.

The Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) was founded in November 2008 by MIT DUSP Professor J. Phillip Thompson, COWS director Joel Rogers, and SEIU Executive Vice President Gerry Hudson. National partners include: the Building and Construction Trades Department (AFL-CIO), Center for Community Change, Change to Win, Community Action Partnership, The Corps Network, COWS, Enterprise Community Partners, Green for All, LISC, LIUNA, MIT CoLab, NAACP, NeighborWorks, Partnership for Working Families, PolicyLink, and YouthBuild USA.

ECC's first project is to comprehensively retrofit all of America's urban building stock. Recognizing that market-driven models of green retrofits will likely pass over low-income neighborhoods, weaken labor standards, and threaten quality of work, ECC proposes an alternative energy-efficiency model to be implemented city by city, maximizing gains from shared learning and mutual assistance. ECC plans on launching city-scale building retrofit and inclusive green job training programs in roughly a dozen cities over the next two years.

CoLab's role as a partner in ECC has been to support program development and capacity building at both the national and local levels. CoLab's executive director, project managers, faculty affiliates, fellows, and student affiliates are focused on two activities: (1) deepening the community engagement process and (2) providing technical assistance in the areas of urban planning, finance, and building technology.

(*) CoLab draws upon knowledge gleaned from Leveraging the Stimulus and our community partners on how federal funds have landed in low-income communities to inform the development of Emerald Cities' participatory processes.

(*) CoLab student affiliates and research fellows are working on the ground in Los Angeles and New York City to launch local Emerald Cities Partnerships. Our students and fellows are coordinating stakeholder outreach and connecting partners to one another for competitive funding applications.

(*) CoLab is bringing together a team of professors, green development consultants, and student researchers to provide technical assistance to Emerald Cities' national partners and local affiliates.

(*) CoLab is also working with Community Labor United and the gas and electric companies to implement a neighborhood-scale pilot retrofit programs in four Boston Metropolitan Area cities. These pilots will inform the Emerald Cities approach in other cities.