BIG Sustainable Square Mile System
We Implement Our 8 Principles of Green-Village-Building: a whole-system solution for the whole-system problem common to Black communities everywhere…
Blacks in Green [BIG] is national network born to close America’s racial wealth gap via the new green economy — increasing Black household income and building oases of resilience against the harms of climate crisis where Black people live. Our Sustainable Square Mile™ system implements our 8 Principles of Green-Village-Building™ introduced in 2007 to achieve BIG’s theory of change: that only a whole-system solution can transform the whole-system problem common to Black communities everywhere; that ultimately self-sustaining Black communities everywhere would change the narrative of what it means to be Black in America: and that our communities would thereby become synonymous with beauty, prosperity, comfort, and joy.
BIG works to increase the rate at which neighbor-owned businesses are created and sustained; build the capacity of neighbors to own, develop, and manage the property in their community; and remember and reinvent the conservation lifestyle ~ where households and homesteads produce their own energy, grow their own food, clean their own water, and recycle their own waste. This reignites our Great Migration tradition of walk-to-work, walk-to-shop, walk-to-learn, walk-to-play villages where African Americans own the businesses, own the land, and live the conservation lifestyle ~ the beautiful and ‘do-for-self’ life!
CONTACT US IF YOU’RE CURIOUS ABOUT OUR SUSTAINABLE SQUARE MILE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
BIG: Blacks in Green™ is an environmental economic development non-profit with a vision for self-sustaining Black communities everywhere.
We're tackling pollution and poverty with a system tool we created and call The Sustainable Square Mile Handbook™- with a goal of closing the racial health/wealth gap
by teaching the risks of climate crisis and opportunities of the new green economy.
We serve as a bridge and catalyst among communities and their stakeholders in the design and development of green, self-sustaining, mixed-income, walkable-villages where Black families live;
where every household can walk-to-work, walk-to-shop, walk-to-learn, walk-to-play - and neighbor dollars can circulate locally to limit the greenhouse gases overheating our planet.
The tools we use are our 8 Principles of Green-Village-Building™ and 12 Propositions of Grannynomics™ which we're piloting in our home community on Chicago's south side, and teaching and consulting nationally as a replicable model.
The 8 Principles operate in the realms of wealth building through ownership, renewable energy, recycling, urban homesteading, celebration of heritage, system change organizing, green hubs for lifelong learning, and making an oasis wherever we live- by inventing, investing, manufacturing, and merchandising locally.
In our process, communities of color are financed to design, direct, represent, and benefit fromeconomic development, with success measured by increase in household income, and ownership of local businesses and land.
Can we support you and your stakeholders in creating a walkable-village within the neighborhood where you live?
naomidavis@blacksingreen.org
RESOURCES
Browse our resources to get your paperwork together and successfully apply for grants.