The Vision
At its core, the GLD was a visionary approach from Luis Garden Acosta, as a response to not only bearing the brunt of infrastructural harms to environment and health, but also to bearing the brunt of development that was purely profit-driven, void of any and all investment/commitment to community.
It seeks to flip the narrative, it was planted and has been sown as an anti-gentrification/"placekeeping" initiative (much before the emergence of that term), that deeply acknowledges and approaches community-led planning and development as a deeply intersectional, interconnected process - one that looks at art, culture, health, education and environment all simultaneously as a way to ensuring and nurturing a sense of belonging and ownership - in order to both improve material conditions and to stay rooted in community.
