MAKING PLACES FROM FORGOTTEN SPACES
From Vacant Lots to
Community Wealth
A People-Centered Model for Brownfield Redevelopment and Creative Placemaking
NJIT TAB Summit
Making Places from Forgotten Spaces
Bilal Walker
Chief Program Officer, Urban Seeds Grow
Principal Consultant, Al-Munir LLC
WHO WE ARE
Urban Seeds Grow / Al-Munir Farms
ORGANIZATION SNAPSHOT
Founded 2020 | Newark, NJ | Nationally Recognized | 501(c)(3)
KEY AREAS OF OUR WORK
NEWARK AT A GLANCE
311,000+
US Census 2023
26.3%
US Census
Top %
Invest Newark
~21%
US Census
NJDEP
64%
Newark Alliance
Sources: US Census Bureau · Invest Newark · Newark Alliance · Newark Kids Count Report · Newark 360 Master Plan · Newark Office of Sustainability · Urban Institute / National Association of Realtors
Environmental Justice burden
on NJDEP EJ screening
Vacant parcels citywide
Urban Seeds Grow (USG) is a community development nonprofit founded in 2020 to create the institutional infrastructure necessary to advance equitable, place-based systems change.
Through strategic partnerships, community-led planning, and innovative investment, USG develops permanent community assets that improve economic mobility, public health, education, environmental sustainability, entrepreneurship, arts and culture, and neighborhood resilience.
Population
Poverty rate
Homeownership rate
(NJ avg: 64%)
Black: ~44% · White: ~73% nationally
Residents food insecure
Economic Mobility
Public Health
Faith and Community
Education
Housing
Environmental Stewardship
Brownfields and Placemaking
A brownfield is defined under NJ state law (N.J.S.A. 58:10B-23.d) as “any former or current commercial or industrial site that is currently vacant or underutilized and on which there has been, or there is suspected to have been, a discharge of a contaminant.” It is a local, state and national priority to put these sites back into productive reuse. Facilitating successful real estate investment projects on brownfield sites is critical to improving the environment and economy of New Jersey.
NEWARK'S HISTORY
The Newark Rebellion of 1967
The Spark That Revealed a City Already in Crisis
WHAT HAPPENED
On July 12, 1967, Newark police officers beat and arrested John Smith, a Black cab driver, in front of the Hayes Homes housing projects in the Central Ward. Word of the beating spread quickly, and a crowd gathered outside the Fourth Precinct.
What followed were five nights of uprising: protests, National Guard and State Police deployment, and unrest that spread across the Central Ward.
When it ended on July 17, 26 people were dead, more than 700 were injured, and the city had absorbed an estimated $10 million in damage much of it along Springfield Avenue, where entire blocks of Black- and Jewish-owned businesses burned.
WHAT LED THERE
The rebellion did not come from nowhere. Decades of redlining, segregated public housing, employment discrimination, and routine police abuse had already stripped opportunity from Newark's Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods.
Mayor Ras Baraka's 2021 public safety report, prepared with community historians, situates July 1967 inside that longer history not as an isolated riot, but as the eruption point of grievances decades in the making.
Both the federal Kerner Commission and New Jersey's Select Commission on Civil Disorder reached the same conclusion: racial and economic inequity not “riffraff” caused the unrest, and would cause it again if left unaddressed.
The vacancy, the poverty, the environmental burden, none of it starts in 2019. It starts here.
Sources: City of Newark, Reimagining Public Safety in Newark (2021) · Kerner Commission Report (1968) · NJ Select Commission on Civil Disorder (1968)
THE ROOTS OF DISINVESTMENT
From Uprising to Vacant Lots
The Rebellion Didn't Empty Newark's Blocks. It Accelerated a Process Already Underway.
Capital Flight
White residents had been leaving Newark since the 1930s. After 1967, that departure became a flood and residents took the city's tax base with them.
Business Closure
Storefronts across Springfield Avenue and the Central Ward, many burned in the rebellion's aftermath, were never rebuilt. Newark residents lost jobs the local economy has not fully replaced.
A Reputation That Repelled Investment
For decades after 1967, Newark's name became shorthand for urban unrest discouraging the private investment that might have rebuilt the Central Ward.
Land Left Behind
Demolished and abandoned buildings some burned for insurance money by absentee landlords left lots that sat vacant for the decades that followed.
Vacant parcels in Black and Brown neighborhoods are not a natural phenomenon. They are the accumulated residue of eighty years of decisions about which Newark neighborhoods deserved investment and which did not.
Urban Seeds Grow's work does not fill empty land. It repairs a specific, documented harm.
Sources: City of Newark, Reimagining Public Safety in Newark (2021) · Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law (2017) · Robert Self, American Babylon (2003)
"This Is Not a Coincidence."
Newark, 1930s - HOLC Redlining Grades
Mapping Inequality · University of Richmond · mappinginequality.richmond.edu
Newark, Today Vacant Parcels
Invest Newark
Sources: Mapping Inequality, Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond (mappinginequality.richmond.edu) · Invest Newark · Richard Rothstein, "The Color of Law" (2017) · Robert Self, "American Babylon" (2003)
THE CASE STUDY: JANNAH ON GRAFTON
One Lot. One Decision. A Neighborhood Institution.
BEFORE
ACTION
THE OUTCOME
WHAT GREW
Crops
Bok choy, kale, green peppers, medicinal herbs, rotating seasonal produce
Community Literacy
Access Free health literature and resources
Health Services
Partnership with healthcare providers bringing HIV testing and contraceptive distribution directly to the lot
Cultural Programming
Open mic nights, art galleries, farm-to-table dinners, yoga and meditation, neighborhood events
Youth Apprenticeships
Paid roles, agricultural training, Rutgers credential pathways
Community Partnerships
Prudential, La Casa de Don Pedro, Newark Science & Sustainability, Urban Agriculture Cooperative, Rutgers Cooperative Extension, RWJF
6
years of operation
10,000+
lbs produce distributed
200+
hrs youth training/employed
$1 Million
in corporate partnerships and property value
$100,000
invested
20,000
Visitors
A 24x80 foot vacant lot on Grafton Avenue. Rubble from a demolished building. For over two decades the lot became a hotbed for illegal dumping, substance abuse, and violence crime.
In 2019, Al-Munir organizers approached the CON and presented a proposal for an Adopt A Lot lease. The proposal was approved with community members reimagining it into an urban farm and outdoor healing arts center Prudential & Newark Community Health Center
A permanent city-designated redevelopment site with a formal Redevelopment Agreement and a construction obligation.
Mixed-Use - Commercial
CREATIVE PLACEMAKING
Creative Placemaking Is Not Just Art on Walls
It is: Building Identity. Building Ownership. Building Belonging.
NEA Our Town
Defines creative placemaking as community-based art rooted in place-specificity, collaboration & participation (Journal of Urban Affairs, 2022)
ArtPlace America
A decade-long $150M+ collaborative investment by ten foundations, six banks, and five federal agencies
Project for Public Spaces
Global leader documenting how people-centered public spaces reduce crime and build identity
Kresge Foundation
Major funder linking arts integration to health, economic, and civic outcomes in disinvested communities
Also seen across the field: Community murals · Community kitchens · Outdoor classrooms · Cultural festivals · Faith spaces · Oral history projects · Music · Dance · Artists embedded in planning processes
01
02
03
04
05
The “Paradise in the City” mural by Yasmin DeJesus anchoring the ethnobotanical farm at Grafton Avenue
The NJ Black Heritage Trail Jersey Club Marker at Branch Brook Park recognizing Newark's global contribution to dance and music culture
Farmers markets as cultural activations not just food distribution
Free community libraries stocked with Black authors at both farm sites
Open mic nights, art galleries, yoga and meditation, neighborhood cookouts all at the farm
01
02
03
04
05
Artists as community planners, not decorators
Cultural programming as neighborhood infrastructure
Music, storytelling, and food as organizing tools
Physical spaces shaped by and for the people who live in them
Placemaking that preserves community identity rather than replacing it
WHAT CREATIVE PLACEMAKING ACTUALLY IS
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN USG'S PRACTICE
Economic Opportunity
FINANCING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
No Single Grant Builds a Neighborhood
Earned Revenue
Programming fees, wholesale food sales, rental income, farmers market revenue
Mission Investors & Impact Capital
Social impact bonds, program-related investments (PRIs), catalytic capital
Corporate Giving & CRA
TD Bank, M&T Bank, Bank of America, and others
Foundations
Robert Wood Johnson, Victoria Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge, JPMorgan Chase, Prudential
CDFIs
Mission-aligned lenders providing below-market debt capital
Tax Credits
New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) — up to 39% of project costs; Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC)
Federal Funds
EPA Brownfields Assessment & Cleanup grants, USDA Community Facilities Direct Loan, USDA Urban Agriculture grants
State Funds
NJEDA, NJHMFA (housing finance), NJ DEP Brownfields grants
City Funds
Municipal Redevelopment Authority, CDBG, HOME Investment Partnerships
$19.47
leveraged for every EPA Brownfields dollar invested (EPA, FY2025)
$45B+
in cleanup & redevelopment leveraged by EPA Brownfields since 1995 (EPA, June 2026)
228,900+
jobs created through EPA Brownfields investments (EPA, 2026)
Sustainable community development requires layered, patient capital not a single grant. Every source reinforces the others; no single exit collapses the project. This patient capital also has to compete with absentee speculators who hold many of Newark's vacant parcels off the market anticipating appreciation, not neglect a form of land hoarding that works directly against community-centered redevelopment.
Sources: EPA Brownfields Program · NJEDA · NJHMFA · US Treasury NMTC Program · National Low Income Housing Coalition · Urban Institute / Newark investigative reporting
Building Ecosystems, Not Just Buildings
THE MIXED-USE VISION
What Gets Built
• Affordable housing units
• Hydroponics & aquaponics growing systems
• Greenhouse infrastructure for year-round food production
• Community kitchen
• Retail & food business incubator space
• Workforce training center
• Community health clinic partnership space
• Outdoor classroom
• Community gardens
• Meeting & gathering space
• Faith partnership space
Why Mixed Use -The Research Case
National Low Income Housing Coalition
USDA / Food Research and Action Center
EPA / American Forests
Urban Institute · USDA
Brookings / Main Street America
Brookings / Urban Institute
Everything connects. Affordable housing without food access is incomplete. Food access without economic opportunity is incomplete. Every element of this development reinforces every other element.
NEWARK'S CHALLENGE
The Weight of Vacancy
A NEWARK BLOCK 1980S
Vacant parcels, illegal dumping, and disinvestment concentrate in the same neighbourhoods. Newark's 21% homeownership rate is the local face of a national pattern: Black homeownership sits at roughly 44%, virtually unchanged since the 1968 Fair Housing Act, versus 73% for white households.
UNKNOWN #
Invest Newark
14,000+
NJDEP Brownfield Inventory
Well above average
CDC PLACES
3x
CDC PLACES / EPA EJScreen
64%
Newark Alliance / RWJF
Highest in NJ
US Census / BLS
+5-10°F
EPA / Newark Sustainability
<10%
American Forests
50%+
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Sources: EPA EJScreen · CDC PLACES · Newark Master Plan · NJDEP Brownfield Inventory · US Census Bureau · RWJF County Health Rankings · American Forests · Urban Institute / National Association of Realtors
Vacant properties across Newark
Known contaminated brownfield
sites statewide among the
highest per capita in the nation
Childhood obesity, linked to food
deserts and lack of safe
recreational space
Higher child asthma hospitalization
vs. national average, driven by
industrial air pollution & urban heat
Residents report food insecurity
South Ward youth unemployment
Urban heat island effect vs.
surrounding suburbs
Tree canopy coverage in many
neighborhoods among the
lowest in NJ
Of income spent on housing by
many Newark renters
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Residents Are Not Stakeholders. They Are Co-Developers.
WHAT ENGAGEMENT IS NOT
WHAT REAL ENGAGEMENT LOOKS LIKE - USG PRACTICE
The difference between a project that a community tolerates and an institution that a community owns is determined entirely by who was in the room at the beginning and whether they had real power when they were there.
— Bilal Walker
Questions & Conversation
NJIT TAB Summit · Making Places from Forgotten Spaces
“The future of redevelopment is not simply reclaiming land it is restoring opportunity. When we invest in people first, vacant spaces become places of belonging, entrepreneurship, health, and hope. Every redevelopment project should leave behind more than a building; it should leave behind stronger communities capable of shaping their own future.”
Bilal Walker
www.al-munirconsulting.com
Urban Seeds Grow / Al-Munir LLC
urbanseedsgrow@gmail.com · 973-856-0791 · al-munirconsulting.com