In June 2007, Leonard Pitts, a legendary columnist for The Miami Herald, launched a year-long look at programs that are elevating the dire circumstances facing many African American children in America today. He called his series simply, "What Works." In his reporting, Pitts chose to focus on the strategies yielding positive results instead of on the underlying ills creating the crisis in the first instance. And in so doing, he underscored the notion that there can be deeper teaching moments in "words of solution" than in "words of sorrow, sarcasm, censure."

This particular type of teaching moment resonated in early February at an inspiring workshop on equitable development at the 9th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Seattle. Speaker after speaker drove home the point that, as a catalyst for community resilience and an incubator for consensus-driven redevelopment that maximizes environmental restoration, public health protection, economic revitalization, and equitable profit-making, there is no more accomplished and innovative force today than the grassroots movement, which has fiercely embraced Brownfields revitalization and turned it into a powerful platform for social and environmental progressivism. ...

You need to register to view the rest of the article. Click here to subscribe.