Media & Policy Center: Environment
Our work on the environment has focused on the environmental, social, and public policy issues at work in American cities. Our PBS series, Edens Lost & Found, looked at how city life is impacted and can be enhanced by reclaiming urban parks and gardens that have been left to decay, building educational service programs on the environment into schools, supporting the work of local family farmers, and improving mass transportation opportunities. A new program now in development, Being Creative in Philadelphia, will continue these themes by looking at how artists and entrepeneurs can work together to produce a better urban environment.
Our first season of Edens looked at four American cities — Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and Philadelphia. We are planning a second season, Edens Lost & Found Overseas, that will highlight best practices from around the world. We are also developing a series of regionally televised Town Hall meetings that examine the issues discussed in Edens from the local perspectives of those regions. The first Edens Lost & Found Town Hall Meeting will be held in Philadelphia in February 2008 and will be broadcast on WHYY (PBS) in March 2008. This combination of approaches — the merging of global media with local interaction — is a fundamental part of our strategy for being an effective agent of change, and turning the ideas of ourselves and our partners into action.
"The ordinary Americans profiled in this PBS series, book, and Web site aren't just improving their own neighborhoods by building parks, cleaning up rivers, and installing public art. Inspiring examples from Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle show how people can rediscover the natural attributes that made their cities desirable to settle in the first place." — Jennifer Hattam, Sierra Magazine












