Terra Firma

Terra Firma is a five-year initiative by Emerald South to beautify, maintain, and activate over 400 acres of vacant lots on Chicago’s mid-South Side. The project’s goals are to Clean, Green, Beautify, Activate, Own and Develop vacant lots, seeing them as valuable resources.

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Hematite Art Park

The Hematite Art Park is a public green space in front of Ishpeming High School (IHS) featuring art from local students, benches, a gazebo and landscaping. For the project, the Marquette County Land Bank in partnership with the IHS and the Ishpeming Community Foundation Youth Advisory Committee.

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Urban Edge

Prior to beginning the project, the lots we worked with had a lot of landfill items that were hard to remove with standard equipment. The first step was the clear those lots out and determine what type of soil we would have work with on the lot

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Friendly Fence

The Friendly Fence implementation on Stahelin was a part of a larger resident-led vision for the street. Stahelin Ave. had a very active community of engagement surrounding the street to help maintain vacant homes, and advocate for the demolition of dangerous properties. The Friendly Fence lot treatment was selected because this specific lot was in…

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Beautiful Borders

Beautiful Border designs are easy to install and manage ornamental gardens featuring perennial flowers that will be sure to wow neighbors while providing environmental benefits like attracting pollinators and beneficial insects, creating habitat for migratory birds and managing stormwater runoff. At 25 feet long by 7 feet wide they’re designed to fit perfectly along the…

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Jericho Road Projects

Jericho Road collaborates with local groups to identify and tackle blight to benefit its additional investments in new affordable housing. Jericho Road works with a volunteer corps to clean trash and debris, plant gardens, and create other beautification features

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Power in Dirt

Power in Dirt was an initiative sponsored by the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office’s stepUP! Baltimore Campaign in 2011/ 2012. The program allowed residents to adopt vacant lots and gain support from nonprofit and city partners like the Baltimore Green Space land trust to beauty abandoned and deteriorated properties. Residents could receive a temporary, 1-year lease…

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Green Saginaw

Green Saginaw is SLBC’s next generation of work in this community in partnership with the Saginaw County Land Bank and the City of Saginaw helping to address non-structural blight and vacant property conditions. Green Saginaw builds on a previous, 5-year investment called the Pollinator Project which worked to replace vacant, blighted properties with more manageable wildflower prairie…

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Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery

Forgotten for over half a century, this historic cemetery-turned-forest has become a stunning landscape. Just barely escaping development on a number of occasions, the cemetery has been taken over by the Friends of the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery, who hired LandHealth Institute to create a master plan for the cemetery’s future. The plan examines strategies…

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CommunityCare

CommunityCare recognizes, rewards, and equips residents to participate in vacant lot maintenance and beautification as community stewards.  More about this project >

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