GUEST ARTICLE – Historic Preservation Fund has for decades quietly put millions annually into renovating America’s public assets With two of the three largest ports in the U.S., this state is investing a historic $240 million to renovate all five of their seaports In downtown Chicago, Illinois, a beautiful mixed-use high-rise revitalizes the blighted site of a former auto repair repair shop Restoration Economy: Seattle, Washington’s comprehensive new downtown activation and revitalization plan is signed into law A family of native beavers is seen on restored habitat in London, England after being hunted to local extinction over 400 years ago As methylmercury farm runoff poisons rivers in Oregon and Idaho, this new $5.6 million project hopes to restore a watershed 27 acres of ugly parking lot redeveloped into green new neighborhood connected to transit and 350-mile San Francisco Bay Trail $49 million Purdue University partnership with Abt Associates and USAID to help nations meet their climate restoration commitments Three University of California – Santa Cruz research projects advance climate resilience via robotics, microgrids and game theory UK government invests $73.8 million in 100 regeneration projects to turn brownfield land into 6000 much-needed new homes Rewilding leaders and supporters all across Scotland are celebrating an additional £5 million from the Nature Restoration Fund New global partnership to boost resilience for half a billion people by restoring 125,000 square kilometers of tropical coral reefs More revitalization comes to Brooklyn’s post-industrial waterfront with this beautiful adaptive reuse of the Domino sugar factory As a “great wave of adaptive reuse” sweeps nation, energy-efficient Women & Children’s Center revitalizes a failed mixed-use tower New $44 million, 5-year partnership plans to restore rapidly-disappearing whitebark pine all across the western United States Australia commits $15 million to regenerate the Great Barrier Reef by restoring degraded coastal wetlands, mangroves and seagrasses While the U.S. government was on the verge of shut-down, the Brownfields revitalization program inspired bipartisan harmony Gas pipeline burial to expand fish migration by 20 miles. California neighborhoods will see salmon for first time in over 50 years. Restoration Economy: $10 billion investment will accelerate much-needed renovation and replacement of decrepit American bridges The $50 million Rural Outdoor Investment Act is introduced to U.S. Senate to help revitalize rural recreation economies nationwide Four small firms win $500,000 in Climate Resilience Prizes to advance technology-based solutions for vulnerable communities Rockefeller Foundation is now supporting regenerative agriculture to boost climate resilience in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand After centuries of violent suppression, the revitalization of Indigenous languages in the U.S. and Canada is gaining momentum $76.4 million is awarded to research to make electrical grids more disaster-resilient, and to reduce wildfires sparked by grids As climate crisis forces insurance companies to abandon coastal areas, another U.S. state launches an Office of Risk and Resilience Kansas City, Kansas leaders celebrate strong developer interest in redeveloping defunct mall and other key abandoned properties Restoration Economy: A unique public-private partnership celebrates restoration of 3200 acres of clear-cut redwoods in California Feds reactivate plan to restore grizzly bears to the Northern Cascades after it was tragically sabotaged by Trump on 2020 This $235 million will advance environmental justice and transform polluted, vacant & abandoned properties into community assets 42 distressed or low-income neighborhoods in Pennsylvania win $1.22 million for long-term community revitalization initiatives
