Each time it rains, even if it’s just a light rainfall, the streets of Cahokia Heights, Illinois, flood. But that’s not all. Those floodwaters bring in a nightmarish brown tide, a disgusting slurry that engulfs the area, dragging with it the stench of human excrement and decay. With such constant and high floodwaters, people have […]
Infrastructure
Posted inInfrastructure, Transportation
Baltimore Needs Modern Transit, but a New Project Rehashes Historical Trauma
At a Sept. 10 Baltimore City Council meeting, longtime Reservoir Hill neighborhood resident Angel St. Jean took the podium to tell the story of her community over the past decade. “Step by step, chip by chip, our voice has been taken away,” she said. For years, residents in the 85% Black neighborhood have worked together […]
Posted inInfrastructure, Partner Content, Public Safety
A Boy’s Bicycling Death Still Haunts a Black Neighborhood 35 Years Later
The story originally published on Healthbeat, a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for its newsletters here. DURHAM, N.C. — It’s been 35 years since John Parker died after a pickup collided with the bike he was riding on Cheek Road in east Durham before school. He was 6. […]
Posted inEminent Domain, Infrastructure, Partner Content
Black Women Say An Amtrak Project Threatens Their Baltimore Neighborhood’s Homes — and Children
Originally published by The 19th Angel St. Jean has seen big improvements to the Reservoir Hill neighborhood of Baltimore since she moved there 11 years ago. The historic, now majority-Black community had long been considered “perpetually up and coming,” she said, and parts of it had been underdeveloped for some time. In recent years, however, […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Infrastructure, Partner Content, Rural Issues
How Alabama Turned to Restrictive Deed Covenants to Ward Off Flooding Claims From Black Residents
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News. SHILOH COMMUNITY, Ala.—Their land is bound forever. The deeds of three homeowners — Pastor Timothy Williams, Aretha Wright, and Page Jones — all living in the historically Black Shiloh community of south Alabama, tell the tale. Restrictive covenants attached to their deeds limit the ability of current and […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Infrastructure, Transportation
The Port of Baltimore Tore This Community Apart Long Before the Key Bridge Collapse
Around 10 p.m., Eric Johnson left his church service in Turner Station and drove across the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore County. He didn’t know it’d be his last trip across the 47-year-old bridge that had defined much of his adult life, but he was certainly glad it was. Just over three hours later, […]