On deconstruction - physically to help our region revitalize - and personally - at the hands of others.

Submitted by Sudhir Kade on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 00:34.

Deconstruction is a wonderful opportunity to create revenue from what would typically be waste material that would be directed to landfill otherwise. The typical cost of demolition of a typical home in an underprivileged community often exceeds $8000. In addition, demolition needs to be accompanied with the use of excessive water - which is another form of waste - to ensure toxins like lead, asbestos, or mercury do not spew into the surrounding air, soil and water. When deconstructing, this toxicity spread and water use is circumvented. There is certainly room here to fashion business models that play with the opportunity here to save demolition costs, re-use this material that would otherwise go to landfill, and add the skilled and unskilled labor to make this whole-process loop more cyclical (waste = food) and generative and less destructive. The result is a more robust and healthy and sustainable process. The question to raise, however, is how much of this content belongs to whom - and the originators of much of this process and its conceptualization have not been credited for their work. I specifically refer to Joe Stanley and myself - who first collaborated on the project 'Envision East Cleveland' - delivered in 2005 to East Cleveland City Hall and then-mayor Saratha Goggins- which first spoke in broad but holistic terms about the way quaility of life can be defined by a six-sphere model that values Arts and Culture, Education, Economy, Environment, Health, and Technology and detailed key strategic elements pertaining to each of these domains. The overarching concept of Joe's - a TND - Traditional Neighborhood Development model that is pedestrian, enriches the tax base due to increased population density, cultivates stewardship due to closeness and proximity and local pride, and so forth. The deconstructed materials can be fashioned into a variety of valued products, which creates another 'green jobs' opportunity for a diverse crew of new employees. A Piece of Cleveland is one organization, led by Chris Kious, that engages in the process at present. There will likely be a need to exand for this and several other organizations to do this kind of work - several green entrepreneurs would thus be empowered and uplifted to drive local economies. My colleague and graduate of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Joe Stanley, has written a wonderful capstone project (attached) plan than integrates urban farming with a smart deconstruction plan. The advantages of such a strategy are numerous. Workforce development is facilitated on numerous fronts -the crews trained to do the deconstruction itself can and should be employed from diverse backgrounds, not excluding those from correctional facilities, chemical dependency centers, or mental health institutions just to name a few key social services agencies that could source workers, given partnership with smart second chance programs to ensure accountability and integrity of workers. This is what 'Green for All' reallly means - genuine social justice that does not neglect the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. It was recently announced that 500 million dollars, from the national level, would be set aside for just such programs. Once the home is fully deconstructed the resulting land lot can either be redeveloped via new green construction, better still, via urban gardening to generate considerable revenue a new 'market gardener' opportunity. The OSU agricultural extension offers a training program for such green entrepreneurs. Again this form of farming can be simultaneously therapeutic for those with mental illnesses like dementia and others often at the root source of many chemical addictions. Veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have also been proven to benefit. This particular niche in the green jobs process, serving at the nexus of environmental and social justice - is where I'd like to focus my own entreprenurial consulting firm - Kade Social Ventures. Toward that end I've diligently researched best practices in this realm- to leverage the best in green justice opportunity for the underprivi9leged, for some time. In just recent times, Neighborhood Progress, Inc in tandem with the CUDC land lab released a systems-based, systems-thinking oriented pattern book. CUDC land lab, headed by Terry Schwarz (advisor and mentor of Joe Stanley (see attached capstone project) and NPI (specificallly, with Bobbi Reichtel have collaborated to issue this pattern book and a set of strategies for high-level implementation for an overarching city sustainability strategy - for some time now. But what is uncanny is how closely many essential pieces of this strategy matches concepts and an approach which deeply values holistic quality of life enhancement for all stakeholders of the city and region we live in. Many of these core ideas and strategies have been discussed and debated for many years now on www.realneo.us - authored by seveal of us on this community. Specifically, the more sustainability-oriented strategies that detail the interconnectedness of all these natural systems and a deep valuing them were written intially by myself and other realneo colleagues, the truest originators of many of these concepts. Searching my name under realneo.us - for example - all the way back to 2005 reveals that a distinct pattern of Usury - taking ideas and concepts not one's own and pasing them as such has been occurring for some time and this is absolutely unfair. Credit should be given where credit is due. In this case it is I and Joe Stanley who have been 'thrown under the bus' - so to speak - in the interest of creating a 'City-approved' strategic plan that is, by-and-large - OUR core content and conceptualization. The CUDC land lab and Terry Schwarz won a $30,000 CIL (Civic Innovation Lab) award for their work and proposal to do a complete urban farming, ecologically uplifitng, and spiritually enriching means to ontransform blighted or vacant property - specifically land bank property - to create organic-quality, locally sourced produce. If you track back and look at the blog posts on realneo - see 'Sudhir Kade's Blog' you see the history of the evolution of much of this thinking and appreciation of the interconnectedness of all natural systems. So again, I believe credit has not been given where credit is due. And this is another form of usury. The CUDC land lab + NPI pattern book and plan borrow liberally from realneo and 'Envision East Cleveland' conceptualization and content. I still have the original emails distributed to an organization I attempted to recruit , bring together,and grow a network - called Net Impact Cleveland - comprised of core members Linda Robson (now head of CWRU sustainability projects), Victoria Mills (now Executive Director of the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership), Adele DiMarcos Kious (now principal and lead of Currare - a sustainability consultancy), Lyndy Wertman, (Wright Fuel Cell Group), Katherine Ready (then Net Impact President - CWRU), Emily Davis (then Net Impact core member, CWRU), Stephanie Strong (formerly with Entrepreneurs for Sustainability and Now with the Green Academy at CCC), John Hanson (then head of Buckeye Sustainability Institute and Principal consultant for ENSAFE),and Rachel Wilkins of BAWB (Business as an Agent of World Benefit) - who I first met via my Systems Thinking, Action Research and Sustainability course at Weatherhead - in an oportunity to apply Appreciative Inquiry toward sustainability outcomes. Again this was my idea and conceptualization and I shared openly with all these specific members my vision for holistic quality of life transformation, anchored with the

MODEL 'Ring Cone Theory'

which originally won the Thompson Hine Award back in 2004. But what I didn't realize, or fully come to understand, is how connected many of these folks were already, or the degree to which Ideas I would share in paper or in-person format would be disseminated to core members of this group, and through them - to the counterpart organizations they already belonged to. These new ideas, core concepts and such shifted the strategic direction of many of these organizations and partner organizations thereto. We talked in groups about so many core strategic opportunities in these Net Impact meetings - about tapping the potentials yet untapped by ANY of these organizations all these members belonged to first and foremost. Tomorrrow I'll continue to explain how Deconstruction can be useful, but I hope this gives many of you the beginings of the idea of what's happened with me. What continues to happen with me, and how these previously unreported abuses are accelerating, of late. The story of abuse by many in tandem, perhaps not of their fault but directives served to them needs to be told as well. It is a tale of mental and physcial abuse. I have proof of it. And it will be told. At times I feel like I've been infected with some health-damaging, or carcinogenic agent, I believe intentionally. Maybe its just anxiety, or stress. Whether this is panic or real it will be determined, absolutely. And those stimulating stress, panic, anxiety are making the condition worse and I don't want it to affect my fundamental health, organs and such. But sometimes it feels like this may be happening. So if need be, I will medical help to help me fight down and correct this if possible. I will not fall victim to some 'natural-seeming' end or accidental one for that matter. God will serve us appropriately, when all is said and done. Today I was asked if i knew what 'consumption' was (like the sailors..) by a fellow from Canada at the Winking Lizard - are such questions directed to indicate or hasten one's ill health? NLP is a real thing.  And I aim to prove that abuses can and should not continue, without being labeled as paranoia or anything else. This is, a modern day persecution.  And I deserve my right to be treated with respect and love - not this way. To be continued, now.