Joy Park did not become an environmental justice neighborhood by accident.

It was shaped that way—layer by layer, decision by decision, generation after generation.

Race and political power shaped where people could live. Segregation and redlining narrowed those choices further. Industry grew around the neighborhood, bringing jobs and opportunity—but also pollution and environmental burdens. Waste was brought here. The city dump was here. As the economy changed, investment left, homes were lost, and vacancy grew.

And the pattern did not stop.

Today, Joy Park continues to face decisions about waste, plastics, industry, housing, infrastructure, and development.

These can look like separate problems.

They aren’t. They’re layers of the same story.

At Big Love, we sometimes call it the stinky onion.

Pull back one layer and there’s another underneath.

The challenge is that most of these layers aren’t easy to see.

Structural racism can be buried in a zoning code.
Disinvestment can show up years later as a vacant house.
Environmental pollution can exist in air we cannot see or smell.
The health consequences may not appear until years later.
A decision made somewhere else can shape what happens on your block for generations.

Residents live with the layers. Policymakers and institutions have a responsibility to understand them.

Too often, the people making decisions see only one piece of the picture.

A new facility is called economic development.
A waste process is called innovation.
A neighborhood is called underdeveloped.
A vacant lot is called an opportunity.

But what happens when we pull back another layer?

Who made the decision?
Who benefits?
Who bears the risk?
Who gets protected?
Who gets heard?
Who gets to stay?

The stinky onion reminds us that today’s conditions have roots.

If we want a different future, we have to be willing to uncover the layers that brought us here.

Sometimes the hardest part of understanding what is happening in a neighborhood is the story being told about it.

A facility can be called economic development.

A plastic-burning process can be called advanced recycling.

A new industrial project can be called innovation.

A vacant lot can be called an opportunity.

A neighborhood that has experienced decades of disinvestment can be called underdeveloped.

But a different story can emerge when you ask the people who live there.

What does this actually mean for us?

This is where we have to talk about greenwashing, exploitation, and gaslighting.

Greenwashing can make harmful activity sound like an environmental solution.
Exploitation happens when a community carries the costs while someone else captures the benefits.
Gaslighting happens when residents’ experiences are dismissed, minimized, or contradicted—even when they are the people living with the consequences.

These aren’t just words. They can shape what gets built, what gets permitted, what gets funded, and whose concerns are taken seriously.

Because changing the language doesn’t necessarily change the relationship.

Calling something advanced recycling doesn’t change where its pollution goes.

Calling something revitalization doesn’t answer who gets to remain.

Calling something economic development doesn’t tell us who benefits—or who bears the risk.

So we keep asking:

Who benefits?
Who bears the risk?
Who gets protected?
Who gets heard?
Who gets to decide?
Who gets to stay?

The answers matter.

Because if the story doesn’t match the experience, we have to be willing to question the story.

Joy Park residents know their neighborhood because they live it.

They know which streets feel safe and which don’t. They know where children play, where families gather, where food is hard to find, where the heat feels unbearable, and where something just doesn’t feel right.

They also know what they want.

Safety. Healthy homes. Clean air. Fresh food. Trees and shade. Healthcare. Opportunity. Investment. A neighborhood where their children can grow up and stay. A real voice in what happens here.

But when you’re fighting to survive, it can be hard to fight what you cannot see.

Some of the forces shaping a neighborhood are buried in places most people never have a reason to look: zoning codes, historical maps, environmental data, health data, industrial permits, housing patterns, and decades of policy and investment decisions.

Lived experience tells us where to look. Research helps us understand what we find. Together, they help us uncover the layers.

The goal isn’t to prove that residents are right.

The goal is to understand why people are experiencing what they are experiencing—and what can be changed.

That means listening before arriving with an answer. It means treating residents as experts in their own lives. It means moving at the speed of trust, organizing with people rather than for them, and staying long enough to understand the whole picture.

Sometimes that means planting trees.

Sometimes it means growing food.

Sometimes it means collecting environmental data, challenging a permit, telling a story, creating art, or organizing neighbors to demand a different decision.

The work follows the layers.

Because the issues facing Joy Park don’t exist in separate boxes.

Food connects to health.
Trees connect to heat, air, and public space.
Housing connects to wealth and displacement.
Environmental pollution connects to health.
Public safety connects to investment and opportunity.
Development connects to who gets to decide—and who gets to stay.

When the layers connect, our solutions can connect too.

You told us what matters.

We followed the layers.

Transformation is foundational to how Big Love works.

We don’t believe every problem needs a separate solution. We look for connections—and for ways to stack functions, creating solutions that do more than one thing at a time.

That is why our programming is interconnected.

Food forests address food access while creating shade, habitat, gathering spaces, ecological restoration, and opportunities for learning.

Tree equity brings cooling, cleaner air, stormwater management, beauty, and healthier public spaces.

Environmental health work combines resident knowledge, data, education, monitoring, and organizing to make invisible environmental burdens visible.

Site fights turn resident concerns into collective power—challenging harmful development, demanding accountability, protecting public health, and creating meaningful opportunities for residents to shape what happens in their neighborhood.

Art, storytelling, and cultural work preserve history, connect generations, strengthen neighborhood identity, and create new ways for residents to shape the story of their community.

Organizing and policy work turn those priorities into lasting change, from community benefits to stronger protections and greater resident voice in decisions that affect Joy Park.

Each piece does more than one thing.

Together, they help move us from an extractive economy—one that takes value from communities—toward a Caring Economy that creates and circulates value within them.

We aren’t just trying to remove the bad layers.

We’re transforming what is possible.

We believe transformation requires more than stopping what is harmful. It requires building something different.

Our solutions grow from what residents have told us matters—and from looking at the connections between the layers.

🌱 FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

We transform vacant and underused land into food forests that provide fresh food, habitat, shade, gathering space, ecological restoration, education, and connection.

🌳 TREE EQUITY & CLIMATE RESILIENCE

We expand tree canopy and resident stewardship to create cooler, healthier, more connected neighborhoods while addressing heat, air quality, stormwater, and public space.

🏭 ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & SITE FIGHTS

We combine resident knowledge, environmental data, monitoring, research, education, and organizing to challenge harmful development and demand accountability—including fighting industrial projects that would add another layer of environmental burden to Joy Park.

🏘️ HEALTHY HOUSING & DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT DISPLACEMENT

We believe neighborhood investment should improve the lives of the people already living here—not make it harder for them to stay. Development should create healthy, affordable homes, opportunity, and community wealth without displacement or exploitation.

🎨 CULTURE, ART & STORYTELLING

We use art, storytelling, and cultural traditions to preserve history, strengthen neighborhood identity, connect generations, and ensure that Joy Park’s story is told by the people who live it.

👥 RESIDENT POWER & YOUTH LEADERSHIP

We build the leadership and collective power people need to participate meaningfully in the decisions that shape their lives—from neighborhood development to environmental policy.

These solutions are connected.

A food forest can build food sovereignty and climate resilience.
A tree can cool a block and improve health.
A site fight can stop harmful development and build resident leadership.
A story can preserve history and create political power.

👥 INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNITY BUILDING

We build spaces and opportunities where children, young people, adults, elders, and families can learn from one another, share knowledge, preserve culture, and build collective power.

That connects beautifully to the Labor Day Parade, storytelling, food forests, art, neighborhood organizing, and environmental work. It also reinforces something important about Joy Park: the future isn’t something we hand to the next generation. We build it together across generations.

I would also change the corresponding language in the previous section from “connect generations” to “build across generations” where appropriate.