MARC News

Area leaders discuss Green Impact Zone

July 1, 2009

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II explains the area encompassed in the Green Impact Zone. See more event photos››		Angela Glover Blackwell of PolicyLink discussed successful models from other communities.

The Mid-America Regional Council invited area civic leaders, elected officials and community members to an information session on June 30 about the development of the Green Impact Zone. The venture is a cooperative effort to focus federal stimulus funds on projects in a targeted area of Kansas City, Mo. — bounded by 39th Street on the north, 51st Street on the south, Troost Avenue on the west, and Prospect to 47th to Swope Parkway on the east.

The Green Impact Zone, proposed by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, will put people and dollars to work to strengthen neighborhoods, create jobs and improve energy efficiency and overall sustainability. Rep. Cleaver introduced the concept as a model for combining federal dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with private investments and local ingenuity to strengthen neighborhoods, promote sustainability and provide citizens with lasting, marketable job skills.

A coalition of various community partners including MARC, the city of Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City Power & Light and numerous neighborhood associations and civic groups are actively working together to ensure residents will benefit from the sustainable practices being planned within the zone.

Among the project’s goals:

• Weatherize every home in the zone
• Train jobless residents to do the weatherization work
• Work with Kansas City Power & Light to deploy a “smart” electricity grid in the zone
• Develop a sustainable land-use plan for the zone
• Support green initiatives and demonstration projects in the zone

The project has captured the attention of PolicyLink, a national research and advocacy organization that promotes economic and social equity by focusing attention on successful use of local, state and federal policies to benefit everyone, especially people in low-income and minority communities.

At the briefing, Angela Glover Blackwell, chief executive officer of PolicyLink, met with area leaders to explore ways to connect the Green Impact Zone with more national resources and discuss successful models from other communities that could be applied in Kansas City. Blackwell, a renowned community-building activist and advocate, founded PolicyLink in 1999. A lawyer by training, she began pioneering new approaches to neighborhood revitalization in Oakland, Calif., as founder of the Urban Strategies Council and went on to serve as a senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation. She is co-author of Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground: New Dimensions on Race in America. Blackwell will also be the keynote speaker for MARC's 13th Annual Regional Assembly on Sept. 16, 2009.

For more information, contact Dean Katerndahl at 816/474-4240.

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