Harlem Place Project - Integrating Small-Scale Urban Greenspace into Downtown

On Monday, May 3 the UC-Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science & Management graduate student team will present the results of their investigation of the impacts of “greening” small-scale open space to the community.

What are green alleys? What do they look like?

The Bren team has developed a few scenarios, with Harlem Place as a model, to help the community visualize how transformative a green alley can be. Other great cities such as Chicago have green alley programs that have truly redefined what these in-between spaces can be - what would a green alley look like in Downtown Los Angeles?

What are the benefits of green alleys? How does it improve our environment?
The Bren team has designed a calculator tool to give us more information about making even the smallest changes to these spaces - giving us real data to analyze the benefit of green alleys. How does a green alley improve stormwater and air quality? Can it really help us reduce our heat island effect? How cost-effective is it really to make these changes?

Community Presentation & Conversation
Monday, May 3, 2010 starting at 7:00pm
Lost Souls’ Café (124 W. 4th Street, off of Harlem Place)

For more information on this project, check out the student project website by clicking here. A very special thank you to Lost Soul's Cafe and Michael Ferguson of The Loft Exchange for their help and support of this event.

Green Pockets: Neighborhood-Wide Survey Day Saturday, May 1

In partnership with Big Sunday, the DLANC Sustainability Committee is looking to survey the ENTIRE Downtown community for left-over spaces that could be potentially transformed into small gardens. Our Green Pockets project is looking to identify these small opportunities for more greenery around Downtown Los Angeles, map these areas, and help property owners create a more livable urban environment through the transformation of these spaces.

REGISTER WITH BIG SUNDAY TO VOLUNTEER! Click here.

More details on the volunteer day to be provided later this week so make sure you're on our mailing list!

CAR-FREE FRIDAYS: What will you do?

At the April 2010 meeting, the DLANC Board supported the Sustainability Committee motion to support CAR-FREE FRIDAYS, the last Friday of every month. The Sustainability Committee is now reaching out to City Councilmembers Jan Perry, Jose Huizar, and Ed Reyes to partner with us as participants, supporters, and advocates in the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s campaign. As a part of our work towards the development of a more sustainable Downtown Los Angeles for our neighborhood stakeholders, we encourage your participation in our efforts to build community consensus in support of this initiative.

The DLANC Sustainability Committee supports this campaign because it meets our goals of creating a culture of sustainability by providing incentives and raising public awareness about the much needed change in driving behavior and automobile dependence.

CAR-FREE FRIDAY, which began in January 2009, has been highly successful campaign whose goal is to highlight the benefits of riding a bike and to encourage new riders to start commuting by bike at least one day a month (every fourth Friday of the month). While this campaign was spearheaded by the LA Bicycle Coalition and focuses on the promotion of cycling, the DLANC Sustainability encourages the use of all alternative modes of transportation (walking, biking, public transit, telecommuting, as well as car and van pooling) during CAR-FREE FRIDAY.

The LA County Bicycle Coalition has developed a business partnership program to offer cyclists who ride on CAR-FREE FRIDAY discounts at local shops (http://la-bike.org/discounts/cff_shop_discounts.html) around LA County and can hear PSA announcements on local radio stations. Council President Eric Garcetti has been a huge supporter of this campaign, and together we encourage the entire City to pass a resolution for CAR-FREE FRIDAY the last Friday of every month.