Green-Collar Jobs for Urban America

By Van Jones and Ben Wyskida, YES! Magazine. Posted February 26, 2007.

Union electricians hung out with Youth Against Youth Incarceration. A poet parsed words with a permaculturist. Two seniors and a spoken word artist debated the coming election. Community college students communed with a councilmember, while an architect broke bread with an immigration attorney.

On the third Thursday of September 2006, in a college auditorium in Oakland, California, 300 people came together to launch a new movement: a campaign for "green-collar jobs" as a path to economic and social recovery for low-income communities.

A "green-collar job" involves environment-friendly products or services. Construction work on a green building, organic farming, solar panel manufacturing, bicycle repair: all are "green jobs." The green-collar economy is big money, and it's booming. Including renewable energy and clean technology, "green" is the fifth largest market sector in the United States.

In the Bay Area, we have seen boom times before. The dot-com era rose and fell all around us, but for low-income people and people of color that wave didn't even register, boom or bust. The question we're asking here in Oakland -- that 300 people turned out to answer -- is, can the green wave lift all boats?

This question is not an abstraction, and the answer is non-negotiable. With murder rates soaring and employment rates plummeting, Oakland is in a literal do-or-die struggle to build a sustainable local living economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. If this movement succeeds, the effort in Oakland can point the way forward -- to a new era of solution-based politics for cities across the United States. If this movement fails, a city with so much promise could fall further into despair. The stakes are high, and the next six months offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to write a new story for Oakland.

The murder capital of California ...

Oakland is the working-class home to almost 500,000. One of the most racially and culturally diverse cities in America, Oakland boasts the nation's fourth largest port, and for decades was an industrial manufacturing hub.

The march of globalization and the changing world economy ended this prosperity. As small businesses shut down and good manufacturing jobs disappeared, there weren't many jobs left. The industries that stayed are largely pollution-based, feeding Oakland with one hand and poisoning it with the other.

In the poor parts of Oakland, neighborhoods of mostly black and Latino residents, 40 percent of young people suffer chronic respiratory ailments. There are no supermarkets. Ten thousand people on parole or probation lack opportunities for meaningful jobs.

Violence reached a boiling point on September 6 when Nicole Tucker, a 27-year old single mother with a beautiful four-year-old daughter, was shot to death in her car. Her family remembers her as a hardworking and loving parent who put herself through school and was saving to buy a house. The media cruelly remembered her as the one who broke the record: Nicole was the 95th homicide of 2006, passing Oakland's total for all of 2005 in just the first week of September.

Much of Oakland has been left behind, and it's falling deeper and deeper into despair.

...Or the global green city?

Against this backdrop, there is hope for a different Oakland.

In 2005, residents reached out to former Congressman Ron Dellums, a visionary black progressive who had ?retired from politics. They pleaded with him to run for mayor.

Dellums was done with politics, and he stood before a crowd of hundreds ready to say "thank you, but no." Looking out at the crowd, Dellums changed his mind. He knew people needed hope. He ran.

In his campaign, Dellums embraced big ideas and committed to making Oakland what he called a "model city": a place where visionary ideas like universal health care and education for all take hold, working on a local level and standing as a model of what is possible for the rest of the country.

Embracing ideas put forward by community leaders, including our organization, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Dellums promised to make Oakland "a Silicon Valley" of green capital, pledging to make the growth of the green economy central to Oakland's comeback. The choice of a "green" economy isn't random&ndashOakland has some real advantages:

• Oakland is one of the sunniest, windiest cities in California, poised to be a leader in solar and wind power.
• The "green wave" of investment is hottest right here in the Bay Area.
• Settlement of an energy lawsuit left Oakland millions to spend on sustainability, and a bond issue left our community college system ready to invest heavily in a bold greening program.

Dellums was running against a pro?development, pro-gentrification bloc bent on making Oakland a bedroom community for San Francisco. More condos for the rich and more of the same for the hardest hit neighborhoods in Oakland. But inspired by the "model city" vision, and Dellums himself, the people said "no" to more of the same.

On June 5, 2006, Dellums was elected mayor. He got just 126 votes more than he needed to avoid a runoff. Progressives and people of color, locked out for so long, now had a chance to lead.

A "green jobs, go local" plan

See more stories tagged with: oakland, green collar job

Van Jones is executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California. Ben Wyskida is communications director at Ella Baker Center.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »