Architect Carl Anthony has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Planning and the University of California Colleges of Environmental Design and Natural Resources. He is former president of the Earth Island Institute, founder and Executive Director of Urban Habitat Program, convener of the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development and former Acting Director of the Community and Resource Development Unit at the Ford Foundation, where he also directed
the Foundations Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative and the Regional Equity Demonstration Initiative. He is currently finishing a new book, The Earth, The City, and The Hidden Narrative of Race, examining the connections between environmental justice, community development, and the changing face of globalization.
In his book Anthony explores the important but usually hidden connections between the environmental movement, urban/community development and the social justice movement. The basic premise is that the three topics in the bookâs title (the earth, cities and racism) are generally considered separately. Itâs as if thereâs planet Earth, which is a green place that we are protecting, while most of us live in cities where people very often dissociate from the environment-- in fact thinking of cities as the antithesis of the environment. "Race" is usually invisible in both those contexts and it is an unacknowledged fact that many of the environmental problems we have are intimately connected with racism. To create sustainable cities and communities we have to start thinking of these things, not separately, but in relationship to each other. An outstanding, passionate advocate for urban social justice and environmental change, Anthony believes a multi-cultural coalition can lead the way to greener and more vibrant cities that work for all residents.
This illuminating interview including topics such as? the paradox of the U.S. being founded on freedom and slavery, cheap oil replacing slavery as cheap industrial energy, the seminal influence of the civil rights movement of the 1960âs on the environmental movement, how the environmental movement became a âwhiteâ movement, along with examples of the hidden threads connecting race, resources and many of our current ecological challenges.
Recorded May 1, 2008 at Earth House Center in Oakland, California.
Link? http://www.earthhousecenter.org
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Sue Suprianos Steppin Out of Babylon is a radio interview series covering a broad range of important issues in todays world? peace and war, human and civil rights, communication, the media, the environment, food security, racism, globalization, immigration and matters of the spirit.