Moments in a Movement: APEN 2002 Annual Report

Community organizing is our central strategy to achieve environmental, social and economic justice. Our two local San Francisco Bay Area projects are the 8-year old Laotian Organizing Project (LOP) in Richmond, which also houses the Asian Youth Advocates program for young women, and the year-old Power in Asians Organizing (PAO) working with the pan-Asian immigrant community in Oakland. This report includes case studies and reflections on the work APEN does

University Partnerships With Community Change Initiatives: Lessons Learned From the Technical Assistance Partnerships of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's Neighborhood Improvement Initiative

Examines the specific role of students and faculty in providing responsive research, technical assistance, and evaluation supports to the community. Contains stories and examples from Hewlett's university-community partnership program

Global Trade Impacts: Addressing the Health, Social and Environmental Consequences of Moving International Freight Through Our Communities

Examines freight transportation industry trends; the impact of global trade on workers, the environment, and health in both exporting and importing countries; and organizing strategies and policy innovations for minimizing the damage and ensuring health

New Voices: What Works

Reviews grantees' accomplishments in building community news sites, keys to sustainability, and lessons learned about engagement, staffing, business models, social media, technology, partnerships, and limitations of university, youth, and radio projects

Bridging Bays, Bridging Borders: Global Justice and Community Organizing in the San Francisco Bay Area

We offer this document as our own effort to build the inclusion and understandings that will help both communities and leaders recognize the grassroots wisdom and issues that could help us realize the positive impacts from globalization and minimize the negative aspects that have concerned us all. Another world is possible, but it is up to us to build it

Foreign land claims and acquisitions in Madagascar: What reality? what regulations on the ground?

In 2009, the 1.3 million hectare agricultural project planned in Madagascar by South Korean company Daewoo Logistics exemplified the paradoxical position of the Malagasy State concerning land management. The State was in the same time imposing the development of mega farm and implementing a land reform to secure local land rights. This Daewoo's project, now abandoned, also curtained a diversity of smaller land acquisition processes led by foreign or national investors. This article analyses what are, on the ground, the formal or informal regulations of these investments in the agricultural sector. It exposes the central role the State carries out in the promotion and in the development of these investment projects. It reveals that the State's central position does not allow an effective regulation of the investments but strengthens its control of land access at the expense of the local authorities and communities and to the detriment of a better security for the local land rights. This lacks of openness in land governance results from: the investors' practices, the persistence of a "State?Ownership reflex" and the absence of strong social reactions at the local level

Analysis of Policy Issues Relating to Public Investment in Private Freight Infrastructure, MTI Report 99-03

The Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies (IISTPS) at San José State University conducted this study to review the issues and implications involved in the investment of public funds in private freight infrastructure. After thorough legal research, the project team reached the following conclusions: LEGAL ANALYSIS: The California legislature has the legal power to invest public funds in privately-owned freight infrastructure projects State Highway funds, excepting gas tax revenues, may be used for investment in freight infrastructure projects. Gas tax revenues are restricted to highway use by current interpretations of the California Constitution. A challenge to this interpretation is not recommended. Gas tax revenues may be invested in roadway segments of freight infrastructure projects. RECOMMENDATIONS An analytical system of guidelines should be developed to score and evaluate any proposed freight infrastructure project. Economic development must be included in these scoring guidelines. Public agencies should maintain political contacts in order to control the political short-circuits of the planning process. The California Department of Transportation should develop a Freight Improvement Priority System for the purpose of prioritizing all freight improvement projects

Making Women's Voices Count in Community Decision-Making on Land Investments

The adverse impacts of commercialization and largescale land acquisitions in the global South are often disproportionately borne by women. The loss of access to farmland and common areas hit women harder than men in many communities, and women are often excluded from compensation and benefit schemes. Women's social disadvantages, including their lack of formal land rights and generally subordinate position, make it difficult for them to voice their interests in the management and proposed allocation of community land to investors. While the development community and civil society have pushed for standards and safeguard policies that promote the meaningful involvement of rural communities generally in land acquisitions and investments, strengthening the participation of women as a distinct stakeholder group requires specific attention.This working paper examines options for strengthening women's participatory rights in the face of increasing commercial pressures on land in three countries: Mozambique, Tanzania, and the Philippines. It focuses on how regulatory reform—reforms in the rules, regulations, guidelines, and procedures that implement national land acquisition and investment laws—can promote gender equity and allow women to realize the rights afforded by national legal frameworks and international standards. The paper stems from a collaborative project between World Resources Institute and partner organizations in the three countries studied

Urban fiscal austerity, infrastructure provision and the struggle for regional transit in 'Motor City'

Studies suggest that urban fiscal crises trigger the institutional separation of strategic services from general purpose municipal functions. Traditional reformists have highlighted the economic benefits of regional approaches. Global austerity has created fiscal problems for central cities and suburbs alike, transforming the motives for regional solutions. This paper examines how the City of Detroit engineered a new regional arrangement with the surrounding suburbs to raise debt for the delivery of mass transit infrastructure. It represents a dual 'spatial fix' in the form of (i) a 'state territorial fix' providing fiscally stressed municipalities access to municipal bond markets and (ii) a 'speculative spatial fix' that benefits the Detroit growth coalition by linking regional mass transit to the prospect of land-use intensification. © The Author 2014

Eighth National Garrett Morgan Symposium on Sustainable Transportation, Report MTI 08-03

On April 1, 2008, the Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University hosted a videoconference that brought together experts in surface transportation and students from middle and high schools across the nation to discuss the importance of sustainable transportation. The goal was to introduce students to future career opportunities in transportation and to inspire them to take the high school and college courses that will prepare them for professional careers. Students from California, Maryland and Virginia participated in the 2008 symposium, during which they heard opening remarks from Vice Admiral Thomas J. Barrett, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Five teams of students presented their ideas on sustainable transportation alternatives for the future. These included a magnetic hover bus that can traverse both land and water, a plug-in electric-biodiesel-solar hybrid car, applications of the Stirling engine, a solar-hydropower bus, and an electric car with back-up power from solar panels and an internal windmill. The formal presentations were followed by a moderated question-and-answer session in which student teams questioned each other about their projects and sought the advice of experts about preparation for transportation careers and the critical issues they will face in the future. This publication is an edited summary of the April 2008 event, named in honor of Garrett A. Morgan, a black American inventor honored by Congress for his contributions to transportation and public safety