Watch: DBC Symposium on Emerald Cities Plan Brings Together Officials, Labor, Civic Leaders On Expanding Green Jobs in Urban America
J. Phillip Thompson and Gerald Hudson, speaking at DBC Event
The initiative is being promoted by a broad, national consortium of business, labor, community, environmental, social justices, technical assistance and research organizations. DBC is a strong supporter of the initiative, which is based on the idea that the creation of green jobs in America’s urban centers has the potential of reducing poverty and unemployment in cities.
The symposium featured presentations by two members of the executive committee of the Emerald City Collaborative: Gerald Hudson, executive vice president of the Service employees Union International Union, and J. Phillip Thompson, professor of urban planning and politics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The meeting was convened by Roger Green, the executive director of the DuBois Bunche Center and was held on Oct. 24, at Medgar Evers College.
Roger Green, DBC's Ececutive Director
The creation of these jobs, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hudson said, would initially entail training workers for jobs aimed at reducing reduce energy loss. After that, these trained workers would be able to gain access to union apprenticeship programs and other training programs and they would be better prepared to become part of all of the well-paying building trades. However, a critical part of the plan to find ways to ensure that the labor groups make opportunities available – through training and through access to apprenticeship programs – to workers who are African American, Latino and Asian.
President Obama has made the development of so-called green jobs as a centerpiece his administration’s strategy to solve many of the nation’s environmental and economic problems.
And the administration has sought to advance the theme that its energy-related goals are based as much on their environmental merits as they are on their ability to create jobs in the nation’s urban centers. And speakers at the event hosted by DBC made it clear that highlighting both goals can only broaden the constituency for the Emerald Cities initiative, bringing together the traditional green groups and blue-collar laborers who are part of the nation’s manufacturing workforce.
City Council members Larry Seabrook and Maria del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx
The meeting drew a number of public officials, including City Council members Leticia James of Brooklyn and Larry Seabrook and Maria del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx as well as Assemblywoman Annette Robinson. And it also included a number of leaders of community and civic groups, including Arva Rice, the president and chief executive of the New York Urban League, as well as officials of the Building Trades Council, Asian Americans for Equality, We Act For Environmental Justice and others.
The first goal of the Emerald Cities imitative is to ensure that a comprehensive retrofitting of the nation’s urban building stock is accomplished.
For Facts About the Emerald Cities Collaborative: http://www.emeraldcities.org/resources_files/ECC%20FAQ%2020090704.pdf
To see the Emerald Cities Collaborative’s Web Site: http://www.emeraldcities.org/
Presentation by Gerald Hudson, Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union
Presentation by J. Philip Thompson, Professor of Urban Planning and Political Science at MIT
