As we head back to school, both for my elementary school-aged children and the university writ large, I am reflecting on educational journeys. 

What does climate justice action look like? Imagine a world with more trees, green space, community gardens, clean energy, bike lanes, and beautified urban spaces. We are saying yes to cleaner air and water for all and with a special focus on historically disadvantaged communities. We are saying yes to sustainable and equitable development. We are saying yes to uplifting grassroots activist movements and to regenerative agriculture.

I accepted the Center for Regional Change Faculty Director position with great enthusiasm for both the legacy of the Center and its potential to further policy-oriented scholarship throughout California.

For the past several years, the CRC has enjoyed a collaboration with the California Coalition for Rural Housing (CCRH) as a way to support affordable housing developers, advocates, and policymakers at the frontlines of affordable housing production, preservation, and protection across the state. Based in Sacramento, CCRH is one of the oldest low-income housing coalitions in the country, working to promote and preserve affordable housing and sustainable, healthy communities throughout Rural California.

Dear CRC Community,

In addition to the work that the CRC does in the community, we often collaborate with other Centers and Departments on campus to produce research that matters.

If we’re to live up to our own time,

then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.

It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.

It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

-Amanda Gorman reciting “The Hill We Climb”

Dear CRC Community,

Dear Colleagues,

For the past 15 years, directing the Center for Regional Change has been a singular passion and honor. In that time we built the organization into a leader in action-oriented research and engagement on issues of social, racial, economic and environmental justice. We have informed regional and state policies related to youth health and well-being, drinking water, cumulative environmental hazards, transportation, housing, and economic development and helped transform UC Davis into a center of excellence on engaged scholarship.

Dear CRC Community,

Dear CRC Community,

The Center for Regional Change maintains a mission of supporting healthy, equitable, prosperous, and sustainable regions and communities. During this unprecedented time, we have the privilege to work alongside admirable partners who share our collective vision of a healthier California. Yet, challenges to our collective health continue to increase amid the global pandemic, entrenched racial inequities, statewide budget cuts, and increased demands on social infrastructures.

During the Spring Quarter of 2020, the Center for Regional Change (CRC) hosted a series of virtual gatherings for current and prospective CRC Faculty Affiliates interested in discussing their research and possibly collaborating on future research on a variety of topics with other faculty and researchers affiliated with the CRC.

Like so many of you, the staff at the Center for Regional Change have been confronting feelings of rage and sorrow over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others, the tip of a very large iceberg of systemic racism. We also grieve for more than one hundred thousand COVID-related deaths that disproportionally affect people of color and low-income people. And, we are seeking ways we can be in solidarity and support of people of color who are dying in the streets and in their homes and those who are protesting and speaking out to make Black lives matter.

As we embark on a new year, (and indeed new decade), the Center for Regional Change is rolling out several new approaches to the way we tell stories of regional change and otherwise communicate with our partners. You may have noticed a new look for our e-newsletter Region Matters. Have you also noticed our new logo? Developed over the last several months, our new logo strives to represent the variety of regions that we work with, including rural and urban communities, and natural and built environments.

Last week the California Strategic Growth Council convened policymakers, researchers, and community leaders for a symposium on climate change. During the opening panel, USC Professor Manuel Pastor joined Tribal Chairman Valentin Lopez and CRC Regional Advisory Committee Member Carl Anthony. In this dialogue, the panelists shared stories elucidating issues of environmental racism. Professor Pastor pointed out that when examining the siting of environmental disamenities, race dominates income. "It is not about the economy," he said. "It is a function of power."