Air Quality and Environmental Justice

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Newark, New Jersey consistently ranks among the lowest in air quality and has one of the higher rates of asthma. To address this challenge, Streetwyze was a part of a first of its kind partnership with Ironbound Community Corporation, the Kresge foundation, and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, to launch an innovative program which used the Streetwyze platform to collect real-time data, location-based data, and data visualize what’s triggering residents’ symptoms and inform broader local clean air strategies. The Streetwyze mobile, mapping, and SMS platform helped community members gather, verify and pinpoints reports of air quality and other environmental indicators on an interactive map based on crowd-sourced text, photo and video reports. Residents also mapped community resources from an Asset Based Community Development perspective. Streetwyze data was able to influence cumulative causation policy in Newark locally, as well as across NJ regionally, and local community members are now working with Senator Cory Booker to pass similar policy across Environmental Justice communities nationally.

Key Findings/Stats:

  • 10K+ stories and reports collected by community members.
  • 50% increase in community assets identified (i.e., bi-lingual health clinics, etc.) that are being used by community-members to combat toxic environmental exposure.
  • Environmental Justice cumulative causation policies passed locally & regionally (currently working with Senator Cory Booker to pass federally).