Sustainability and Environmental Justice

Planning, analysis and organizing in support of environmental justice

The Pratt Center supports grassroots organizations and movements that push the New York City region toward environmental sustainability and equity by opposing policies and practice that unfairly burden low- and moderate-income communities.

In the 1990s, the Pratt Center began working closely with an emerging cadre of leaders in the urban environmental justice movement. These organizations are based in the low-income communities of color that now bear a disproportionate share of the environmental burdens (waste transfer stations, power plants, truck routes) created by infrastructure that serves the entire region. Unless new patterns are established, these inequities will be amplified by residential and commercial growth taking place throughout the region.

We therefore provide technical assistance in mapping, planning, architecture, design, and community development to NYC environmental justice groups. Especially along the southern Bronx River watershed, we have helped a set of grassroots organizations in their remarkable work to reclaim the communities around the river as a model community characterized by environmental and economic justice.