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Transforming Transportation – From Below” is a new commentary by newsletter editor Jeremy Brecher. It describes how around the country, “People are acting at the local and state level to create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and equalize transportation by expanding and electrifying public transit, electrifying cars and trucks, and making it safe to walk and bike.” It characterizes this work as “a crucial part of building the Green New Deal from Below.”

In one of many examples, the piece describes how in 2022, Chicago tore up a parking lot 400 feet from a transit station and put up an affordable housing complex. The $40 million, seven-story “transit-oriented development” project, built by a non-profit developer, will help low-income and working-class residents stay in the gentrifying Logan Square neighborhood. The units are all affordable, with half available for Section 8 voucher holders. “This is exciting news for our community,” local Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa wrote. “35th Ward, Logan Square, and Northwest Side neighbors marched, organized, and won this needed affordable housing to address displacement of working class families from our neighborhoods.”