The Greening of Detroit, the nonprofit organization working to grow a greener, leafier city since 1989, is best known for its work promoting, planting, and caring for trees.
Matthew Piper, writing on Model D, writes that over its 25-year history, the Greening has expanded its canopy to cover work in areas like youth and adult education, workforce development, vacant lot maintenance, dendroremediation, ecological restoration, and urban agriculture.
Green infrastructure, blight elimination, green jobs, urban ag, what to do about all those vacant lots -- these terms and phrases come up contiuously in conversations about the present and future of Detroit. But this language is nothing new. In fact, it's language the Greening has been using for a quarter century.
"We have 25 years of experience and of trial and error in these areas," says Rebecca Salminen Witt, the Greening president, while standing at the Greening of Detroit Park between Jefferson and Larned, just east of downtown. "We really do feel that we've been practicing for this moment in Detroit. It's very exciting."
