1 the GREAT CHALLENGE by Michele Buono SIGFRIDO
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THE GREAT CHALLENGE by Michele Buono SIGFRIDO RANUCCI, IN THE STUDIO This evening’s investigative report is also a proposal: to tap into the richness that exists in our cities’ run-down places that are seen as nothing more than incubators of class conflict. But how? We’ll start by looking at some positive examples. We travelled around the world. Let’s look at some concrete ways to help improve quality of life. THOMAS MIORIN – REBUILD-ENERGIESPRONG ITALIA Italian families spend 42 billion euros a year on bills. That is money we could use to redevelop the neighborhoods on the outskirts of our cities. We spend about 30 billion a year on maintenance, to keep the buildings on our cities’ outskirts inefficient and addicted to continual maintenance. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA The Netherlands. Energiesprong is an independent task force, promoted and funded by the government. Its aim is the innovation of the housing construction market. On the strength of its proven development model, it made a proposal to twenty-six affordable housing organizations. RON VAN ERCK – PROJECT MANAGER, ENERGIESPRONG NETHERLANDS We upgrade your existing homes and cut energy consumption. You pay us with what you save on energy bills. That's how we finance the work we do. SJOERD KLEIN VELDERMAN - ENDULE CONSTRUCTION We have to upgrade 96 homes and it’s taking us two weeks to do each. That’s too long! But there was a setback. We found asbestos. Normally, it takes us one day. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA Everything is built at the factory: entire finished façades complete with insulated framing and roofs complete with fixtures. JAN WILLEM SLOOF – RENOLUTION GROUP We've designed a snap-in-place mechanism that allows us to hang the new façades on top of the old ones very quickly. MICHELE BUONO Can you do the same thing with larger buildings? JAN WILLEM SLOOF – RENOLUTION GROUP Of course. We work on ten-floor apartment buildings, with the same energy efficiency guarantee. They become homes with an energy consumption of practically zero. SIGFRIDO RANUCCI, IN THE STUDIO Transforming a crisis into an opportunity! That is what the Dutch government did, and it set the whole housing industry in motion. By 2050, according to the EU, in order to lower our CO2 emissions, we [Italians] will have to make 18 million apartments more efficient. Well, we’ve seen how it can be done. We could start right away and even finish on time, we could get the entire housing sector and its allied industries involved. The idea remains the same: to learn to recognize and make the most of the wealth we already possess. But how? A large part of life happens within urban areas. Everyone is concentrated there, but most people live on the cities’ outskirts, areas 1 which are viewed more as problems than as sources of potential. However, given the proper direction, they could become an asset, an enormous resource. How? Our Michele Buono travelled around the world in search of positive examples. He established links between skills, needs, and funding, then put all those things together into a huge project, which he took to the European Commission. And they took us seriously! Our story starts far away. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA April 2015. Freddy Gray, age 25, died in a cell a few hours after this. BOY’S MOTHER He's my only son and I don't want him to end up like Freddy Gray. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA Over one hundred cars destroyed, entire buildings torched, windows broken, looting. It happens pretty often around here. In 1968, it went on like this for ten days after Martin Luther King [Jr.] was killed. LEON PINKETT – BALTIMORE CITY COUNCILMAN These communities are sending out warning signals but no one is listening, so now they’re raising their voices. For our part, we have funded a lot of projects to improve these neighborhoods, but we’ve gone about it the wrong way. Now it’s absolutely necessary that we assure the people who live here that better times are coming for them, too. KALEB TSHAMBA - ARCH SOCIAL CLUB, BALTIMORE This is still a poor neighborhood. It will improve when we succeed in attracting shops and businesses. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA Putting an end to poverty is the project Baltimore’s government has embarked on, and Kaleb and his partner have responded by fixing up their business, at this Pennsylvania Avenue intersection. A lot of things have happened on this street corner, but, over one-hundred years later, the Arch Social Club is still here. VAN ANDERSON - ARCH SOCIAL CLUB, BALTIMORE There was a time you might have run into Billie Holiday here. She lived in these parts. It was the era of segregation, and the founders of the club purchased this building to offer the black community a place to gather without risking ending up in prison. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA To sing this song, however, was out of the question. It was forbidden, but she wasn't the sort to let herself be intimidated. KALEB TSHAMBA - ARCH SOCIAL CLUB, BALTIMORE “Strange Fruit” was a protest song, and Billie got death threats, because she kept on singing it. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA The “strange fruit” were the black men hanged from trees and lynched after slavery had ended. Billie Holiday eventually left for New York to seek her fortune. The rest is history. All that remains of her here is her picture on the Arch Social Club in Baltimore and these two old friends, who keep the club alive. 2 VAN ANDERSON - ARCH SOCIAL CLUB, BALTIMORE This area’s just for drinking. If you want to dance and listen to music, the orchestra is in the back room. LEON PINKETT - BALTIMORE CITY COUNCILMAN It’s our job to make private businesses understand that it’s smart to invest in these neighborhoods. How? By first investing in them ourselves. But these projects have to come from the grass roots up, from the community. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA Knowing how to draft a development plan is essential. JENNIFER GOOLD - NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN CENTER, BALTIMORE That's our job. Government funding tends to end up in areas that are already developed, because there they understand the procedures. We focus on those areas where people don't even know that these calls for tenders and development projects exist. VAN ANDERSON - ARCH SOCIAL CLUB, BALTIMORE They helped us to obtain the funds we needed to renovate the club and they put architects and engineers at our disposal. JENNIFER GOOLD - NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN CENTER, BALTIMORE The value of the buildings themselves and the human wealth that exists in the poor neighborhoods of Baltimore offer enormous social and economic potential. All we have to do is unlock it. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA These are architects, engineers, landscape architects, city planners – and they’re volunteers. MICHELE BUONO Who funds you? JENNIFER GOOLD - NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN CENTER, BALTIMORE The city government, private foundations, and we receive a lot of donations. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA The idea that urban quality is a driver of social and economic growth is the starting point. LEON PINKETT – BALTIMORE CITY COUNCILMAN We don't want a single community to be left behind. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA So, they've strengthened the infrastructure that organizes residents’ requests by neighborhood. ROSCOE JOHNSON - DRUID HEIGHTS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION 3 Community development corporations are non-profit organizations that allow residents to get directly involved and to establish relationships with departments or private foundations. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA Neighborhood residents meet every 3 weeks to make proposals and follow up on the progress of ongoing projects. So, you identify the strong points of a neighborhood and develop them. RICK GWYNALLEN – RESERVOIR HILL IMPROVEMENT COUNCIL A school for the 21st Century will be ready by January 2018. A good quality school! That’s the important thing. It will definitely attract a lot of kids from other neighborhoods, and that is a way to break down barriers. We’re convinced of this. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA The Department of Planning brings in additional money for the improvement of streets, sidewalks, lighting and gardens. Then there's an after-school program, so that no one gets left out, and kids can make decisions about redevelopment, too. That way the neighborhood will belong to them, and it's unlikely they’ll want to burn it down. JOHNNY MACON - ARCHITECT Today we’re going to look at plans for the park. Who wants to go first? Go ahead. CHILD 1 My favorite is the one where we can ride bikes and skateboards. JOHNNY MACON - ARCHITECT All right, so, this one here. CHILD 2 It would be better to put the basketball court here. That way they’d lay cement and they’d finally get rid of all the trash. CHILD 3 I like the project with the low walls near the benches, so you can tell right away which part’s the playground and which is for playing soccer. CHILD 4 Careful! Here it’s not level. JOHNNY MACON - ARCHITECT Okay, okay... JOHNNY MACON - ARCHITECT This way they learn the procedures and I, as a designer, learn about aspects I would never have taken into consideration without their help. MICHELE BUONO, OFF-CAMERA Once the revival of these neighborhoods was underway, the residents asked for a public transportation plan. ZACH KISSELL – MARYLAND TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION 4 That project was crucial! Because not long after, a federal call for tenders was announced, with a submission window of only two months, and we already had a plan! A plan that everyone had agreed on! In the end, we obtained ten million dollars in funding.