Equitable Development Gentrification is not green, regardless of LEED rating or solar display. Green jobs promote social justice as well as environmental repair. Neighborhood organizations and the city can guide green development so it serves all Philadelphians, with programs that protect low-income residents from market-rate taxation and eviction, and make homes permanently affordable by transferring land to community land trusts. Such land rents promote diversity and provide developer incentives for the above. “First Source� hiring agreements require developers to hire a percentage of workers from the neighborhood being reconstructed. Developers can partner with community colleges, nonprofit groups, unions, government, churches, to gain qualified job seekers, tax breaks, expedited permits and variances, and good neighborhood relations. There are two prime scenarios for greening the city and its economy. The first relies on wealthy consumers to stimulate markets for solar and wind products. Their purchases gradually lower the unit price for everyone else. This is how telephone and home computer markets expanded. In this scenario, lower-income workers go to factories to make solar panels for wealthier homes, then return to their modest homes, which lack solar electric or even good insulation.
The second scenario generates jobs, capital and use of alternate technologies directly within the neighborhoods most needing lower fuel and food bills. This follows more the Henry Ford model-expanding the market by getting the product into the hands of workers.
Because the need for affordable food, fuel and housing is every day more critical, this book promotes this direct route to neighborhood power. Capital and land are available to do this, when the people push and government follows.