- There's things that we've seen
create roadblocks for people,
and we want to just try to make sure
that those roadblocks are addressed in some way.
(uplifting music)
- I'm here in Beechview at the Seldom Seen Greenway,
which is home to projects making use of vacant lands
like this one, and in the process supporting land sinks,
which help pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
How can we look at land that's underutilized,
and use our imaginations to see ways
to make the most of that land,
and in the process serve as a climate solution?
Today I'm talking with Tom Mulholland
with Grounded Strategies about his work,
working with communities to make the most
of vacant lots throughout Pittsburgh.
Just Tom, in general,
how do you introduce yourself to people?
- I'm Tom Mulholland, I use He/Him pronouns,
I'm a senior project manager at Grounded Strategies.
- What does Grounded Strategies do?
- We work in underserved communities to support residents
in reclaiming vacant land and address issues
related to hyper vacancy.
So that kind of looks a lot of different ways.
There's a lot of different ways that we address that goal
or that we do that work.
Sometimes it's, you know, just supporting
an existing grassroots effort.
So we offer resources and technical assistance,
and things of that nature to help people
who already have kind of a vision in mind.
We also work in communities where that kind of desire
to do something in green space and open space
is more nascent.
In that case, we can help with planning,
we can do like co-design work and we can facilitate,
like the implementation of those projects.
- When did you realize that you were interested in land use?
- [Tom] I kind of was always into drawing and writing
and stuff in high school.
And then in college, tried to intentionally
make that happen more around myself, organizing zines.
I like to make little comics and that sort of thing.
The fun part was making stuff
and doing it with other people.
I think that that continues into why I gravitated
towards this organization and then was sustained
in the work, that can be really,
we do a lot of different stuff
and it can be like a lot sometimes.
But it's all very creative and it's all helping people,
like make real the thing that they had in their mind.
And that's always just really rewarding.
- What excites you most about the work that you do?
- Just the people.
So, like I get to work with a lot
of really great community leaders.
I get to be a part of working with these inspiring people
all over the city, which is really great.
And then I get to contribute
to all these different projects.
The variety of people and projects
that I get to participate in.
- What's the relationship between some of these farms,
like Sankofa Farm for example?
'Cause obviously you're doing different things,
but you're working together.
Like what's the piece that they're doing,
and what's the piece that you're all doing?
- There's things that we've seen
create roadblocks for people,
and we want to try to make sure
that those roadblocks are addressed in some way.
A lot of people are bringing their energy,
but they maybe don't have a shed full of tools
so we can bring that.
A lot of people doing these projects
pay out of their own, what they've they have saved and stuff
to get some compost so like a new paint to refresh the thing
and like that all adds up.
It's one more reason why somebody might hang up their hat
and be like, okay, I can't continue to do this.
We wanna support that network of people
who are doing this work on their own.
So they're not getting burnt out
and people who might wanna enter that space
feel like they're able to do it,
because they're supported by these existing resources.
And we're now the only ones
who offer resources like that too.
Grow Pittsburgh and their Garden Resource Center's
hugely helpful to a lot of people doing that work too.
- Could you talk about like the climate solution
and how your work is a climate solution?
- So yeah, we trial solutions like this.
Let's see if we can establish a wildflower meadow
and do it in a way that it can be replicated
and can be like brought to a larger scale,
contributing significantly to a reduction
in the carbon emissions that would go towards maintenance.
And then also creating habitat
as well as temporary carbon sink
and that sort of thing as well.
- If we're grounded, what is the scale of it currently?
- Demonstration projects
and parcel scale community projects,
there's couple hundred.
We have the vision of this being
hundreds and hundreds of parcels,
if we can show that it's a sustainable approach, yeah.
- [Matt] You mentioned curiosity as being something
on your journey, but could you talk about
what role it's played on your journey to where you are now?
- You have to have that curiosity and humility.
You coming in as a generalist, applying your energy
to help make these things happen.
But you have to understand that doesn't make you an expert.
There's subject matter experts that you can draw from,
and then there's also the community members
that you're working from, who are really the experts
in what is appropriate in a given space
or in a given context too.
It's just a learning process.
There's like the knowledge that you're seeking,
and then there's the knowledge that's gonna be given to you
in that process, regardless.
And you need to take both of those types of knowledge.
- [Matt] Like what's the world that you want to build?
- I wanna see very practically,
increased community ownership of land.
I wanna see within these communities
that have been underserved by municipal state,
national institutions, that there's straighter levels
of land ownership.
Grounded is moving in that direction
and I'm excited to be a part of that movement.
And how do we really facilitate getting more land back
to these communities?
I love to just be a part
of people's creative placemaking stuff.
I love to come out of something new,
having to see a vacant parcel, transform into a space
that's gonna produce like a lot of meaning
for the people who spend time there.
But also, I wanna be a part of very real changes
in power dynamics.
Through that process of transforming the land,
but also transitioning like ownership,
and that sort of thing as well.
- One thing that's so fascinating to me
about your journey overall, is that you kind of talked about
not knowing where you wanted to go on that journey exactly,
or exactly where you wanted to, kind of end up,
but yet there's still that curiosity
that's driving things forward.
So even if you don't know what's at the end of the road,
but I think to have like that guiding star,
which you have in terms of the impact you wanna have,
it's like, it's a pretty powerful thing.
And if you keep following that curiosity you'll get there,
which I think is really cool.
- Hello, I'm Tom Mulholland and I'm helping the world
reach drawdown through land sinks.
Specifically through improving
vacant land management processes.