Sunset Park is building a community-led climate future

"On warm summer afternoons, families gather on Sunset Park's sloping lawns to share home-cooked dishes while children fly kites and play volleyball. Framing the horizon are cargo ships on the Upper New York Bay, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the Statue of Liberty. Taquerias line Fifth Avenue alongside Colombian bakeries, El Salvadoran and Ecuadorian restaurants, and Guatemalan groceries. A few blocks away on Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn's first Chinatown bustles with activity."

"For decades, Sunset Park in Southwest Brooklyn has been home to people seeking a foothold in the U.S. Its multigenerational, brick row houses tell the stories of working-class Latino and Asian families striving to build better lives in a city full of possibilities. Yet beneath the neighborhood's vibrancy lies a heavy environmental burden. On Third Avenue, traffic from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway roars overhead and is a major source of air pollution."

Sunset Park hosts multigenerational Latino and Asian families, neighborhood businesses, and recreational public spaces while overlooking Manhattan and the Upper New York Bay. The neighborhood endures concentrated environmental hazards including traffic pollution from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and emissions from aging, intermittently operated waterfront power plants. The city designated parts of the neighborhood as disadvantaged communities due to pollution, poor health outcomes, and climate risks. Local residents pursued decades of grassroots organizing to develop community-owned solar installations and attract an offshore wind assembly hub. Those locally driven energy and planning initiatives aim to counter top-down development and reduce environmental burdens.

Read at Prism