Alysha Gray, a graduating senior at Saint Louis University, wants to transform some of the 569 vacant land parcels in and around her neighborhood, St. Louis Place in North City, into movable urban farms.
“You can plant the gardens, and if city officials decide they want to use it for residential or commercial space then we can pick it up and move it to another vacant parcel of land,” she said. “I want to build community pride in my old neighborhood.”
Gray recently attended the annual Clinton Global Initiatives University (CGIU) Meeting, a conference sponsored by former President Bill Clinton that allows young people to work together to come up with solutions to local, regional, national and global issues. Gray was asked to exhibit her project, City Greens, a sustainability initiative that focuses on urban agriculture and urban development in North St. Louis City, where she’s from.
More than 1,000 students presented projects in different categories at the conference, which was held at Washington University. Gray, an economics major, presented in the poverty alleviation category. The project is still in the research and planning phase, she said.
Last summer, she interned with the Federal Reserve, where she researched urban decline in former industrial cities. She had the opportunity to design her own research project, and she chose Old North St. Louis because it’s an area that has been successfully revitalized, she said.
Looking at the numbers, she could only get so far, she said. When she got back home, she started surveying her neighborhood.
“I was standing on one side of the street that was Old North St. Louis, and I looked across the street to St. Louis Place,” she said. “The difference was astounding. I wanted my neighborhood to be as stable, for my family and for all the residents. That’s where the idea came from.”
The idea also came from time she spent with her mother in the garden. Her mother would always ask for her help.
“It was a nice way to bond with my mother,” she said. “And it would be a nice way to bond with my community and to work together for our neighborhood to look better and be better.”
So far, Gray has created a timeline for the project and is in the process of building a team. She learned from the conference that it’s better to have a diverse group of people work together.
“I’m trying to build a team and connect them with city officials, the alderman and the residents,” she said.
Through the conference, she learned of new funding sources and met people who were doing similar work in other cities.
“I found allies on a national level, people who I could look to for advice when I run into road blocks,” she said.
The lesson that she found most interesting was the importance of having a detailed plan before presenting to the residents.
“I thought it would be better to plan with residents,” she said, “but through the conference, I’ve learned that it’s better to go in with the answers to the questions. It hurts your credibility when you have more questions than answers.”
Before the conference, Gray and her mother started talking with residents on her street, and they were excited about it. Gray moved to St. Louis Place the summer before her eighth grade year and attended McKinley Heights Middle School. She later graduated from Metro High School.
“I remember being nervous about moving there because I had never heard anything positive about the neighborhood,” she said. “I heard how poor the schools were, and the infrastructure was crumbing.”
However, her viewpoint changed after she lived in the neighborhood, she said.
“I was able to understand the beauty and rich history,” she said. “Not just the cultural history but the physical beauty – the beauty of the architecture and how the area was organized. I am proud to call it home.”
