The project is collaborating with residents, city agencies and other institutions
Originally published in The Baltimore Banner.
Walk through the Old Goucher neighborhood in North Baltimore, and husbands Kelly Cross and Mateusz Rozanski will tell you how several of the tree-lined streets weren’t always filled with such greenery. The couple planted hundreds of trees and took out over 100 tons of concrete in the neighborhood over the past decade.
At first, they simply wanted to beautify the neighborhood, but soon realized that those projects were bringing other positive changes. Even if they didn’t have the official data to prove cause and effect, they know it feels cooler, and trees and other plants thrived where they removed concrete and improved access to water.
Through a $25 million federally funded project called the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) led by Johns Hopkins researchers, residents and government agencies are hoping to use projects like the couple’s to conduct meaningful urban climate science.
