Middle School Students join Tree Speech
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Seven students at Middle School #7 in the Heights have joined Tree Speech. Let's give them a warm welcome! They are:
@SunshineTheTree (downtown)
@unbinillium (heights)
Cheers & stay warm! Anne
SJC BLOG
This Saturday: Hack into Sustainability!
/Join Sustainable JC this Saturday at the Hackathon JC: Hack into Sustainability event presented by the Jersey City Office of Innovation! The event will take place at the &Co co-working space in downtown Jersey City. The HackJC Sustainability hackathon is a day-long community tech event with local civic hackers, government staff, developers, designers, urbanists, community organizers and others passionate about making Jersey City better. The goal of this collaborative brainstorming event is to use publicly-released data with technology, to design projects, apps, products and processes to improve Jersey City.
SJC is super excited about this and hope you are too :-)
The Agenda includes Panels, Tech Demos and Speakers throughout the day ! Newly released data, maps, research articles and other resources will be made available - see agenda and resource list here.
Consider coming with a team or joining one at the event ! Teams will be challenged to make a proposal to the City at the end of the day and Awards will be presented for the best ideas ~
Here are some of the Challenge Statements that will drive the day :
- What are some ways that we can align priorities, encourage partnerships and modify behaviors to promote water stewardship?
- How could Jersey City use water data to promote sustainability?
- How can we use crowd sourcing mapping tools to identify flood zones and promote green infrastructure?
- What reporting or visualizations could be added to OpenTreeMap to assist administrators and members of the public in managing and advocating for trees?
**Sustainable JC will be hosting the OpenTreeMap booth with special guest NYC Open Sewer Atlas Team. Come over to meet us and if you haven't done so already, please sign up for the Jersey City OpenTreeMap before you arrive :-)
This event is completely free and open to the public! There will be prizes, food and music to keep participants going all day! Please Register here.
Andcowork (&Co) is located at 201 Montgomery Street, 2nd Floor, Jersey City, NJ and is a 5 minute walk from the Grove Street PATH Station. On-street parking is available.
Ruralie.com shoutout to Anne Percoco, Tree Speech, and Open Tree Map!
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“Her recent project, #TreeSpeech (of which I’m a participant) plays with the question of perspective directly. For this work, Percoco solicited city residents to tweet on behalf of a neighborhood tree. In adopting the non-human point of view, Percoco is encouraging participants in what she calls a “whimsical experiment in empathy.” There are dozens of tree/human chimeras tweeting around the city, discussing issues of ecology and environment, neighborhood gossip, in addition to raising awareness of the city’s tree canopy.And that canopy includes weed trees like ailanthus altissima.
According to opentreemap.org, a site used to catalog trees (including the participants in TreeSpeech), there are over 2,000 of these trees in Hudson County, NJ. The number may be much higher, as reporting is incomplete. The county is also home to 660,000 human residents.”
by Emily Helck
Jersey City Innovation Office Taking on Sustainability - Focus Groups on WATER Coming Up!
/The Jersey City Innovation Office has recently targeted matters related to Sustainability and have taken their show on the road ! Many of you may have noticed the I-Team's neighborhood presence, where they have been asking folks across the City what sustainability and resiliency planning topics matter most - you may have even provided them with valuable feedback ! The I-Team is now ready to take a deeper dive, after having assessed that WATER is not only a common interest and concern to most people, but that WATER is also a common theme related to other sustainability topics like Green Infrastructure and Energy Efficient Buildings. How do we conserve, redirect and reuse this valuable and finite resource ?
Needless to say, Sustainable JC is very pleased about this effort and we look forward to supporting a policy and planning framework that will make Jersey City a more sustainable place to live and work. WATER is an important and big topic - it will take many stakeholders, across all sectors, willing to effectively collaborate toward some shared and achievable goals. We can do this Jersey City !
The I-Team wants to hear your views regarding WATER, and have scheduled a series of Neighborhood Focus Group Sessions all around Jersey City. Please attend if you can, more information about times and location below -
http://us12.campaign-archive2.com/?u=bc5d2b04f74f6e86fb0980324&id=80154813cd&e=d54a4042a1
Thank you Innovation Team for taking this up, much appreciated ~
Jersey City Master Plan: How to get involved!
/Jersey City is currently in the process of updating its Master Plan. The current plan, adopted in 2001, is in need of a comprehensive reexamination in order to meet the needs of current and future residents. This is a major initiative that will have significant impacts on City life for years to come. The Master Plan acts as a blueprint for the future of the city; transportation infrastructure, housing, public space, land use, neighborhood and economic development--all of the building blocks city life--will be impacted by updates to the Master Plan.
How much will be invested in implementing green infrastructure in coming years? How much will be invested in affordable housing in all wards across the city? How will this plan effect economic development in areas outside of downtown?
Jersey City, to say the very least, is a city in flux. It is crucial community members get involved to make their voices heard to influence the updates to the Master Plan. We must work together to build a city that is beautiful, sustainable and equitable for all!
The city has begun holding Kickoff Sessions to discuss the revision process and gather community input.
The first session was held on September 15th at City Hall.
The next session will be held tonight, Wednesday, September 21, at the Bethune Center in Bergen-Lafayette at 6:30 p.m.
The final session will be held on Tuesday, September 27th at P.S 28 in the Heights at 6:30 p.m. 
I strongly encourage you to attend either of these sessions if you are available! I cannot stress how important it is to offer feedback at the stage.
You can also offer vital input by completing this survey.Fill it out! Have your friends and neighbors fill it out! It takes just a few minutes.
This is important.
