The current global health emergency and the ongoing uprising against police violence in the United States have once again laid bare the nation’s enduring crisis of white supremacy.
People working to make Milwaukee’s harbor cleaner plan to install a trash interceptor in the Kinnickinnic River. The idea is to catch floating trash before it reaches Lake Michigan. And the group Harbor District, Inc., won a federal grant to bring the project to life.
During a global pandemic when millions of people rarely leave their homes, our public parks, plazas, trails, greenways, and even sidewalks have become critical havens. In cities large and small, these public spaces are sustaining people in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few months ago. The importance of a robust, connected, and nature-rich public realm — a true civic commons — is clearer than ever.
For decades, American leadership has failed to invest in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Now, with a prolonged health crisis battering our economy, the consequences of inaction are dire.
