Our Story
Rust to Green New York State was founded in 2010 by five professors at Cornell University who saw an opportunity for a service learning project to get students out of the classroom and working on real-world issues, in turn providing resources and a professional knowledge-base to encourage sustainable urban development. A 2007 Brookings Institute Report identifying American cities with the most potential for growth in the next 50 years listed seven rust-belt cities in New York state (The NY7) and with the support of funding from the USDA Hatch Grant through Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, our initiative is now underway.
Inspired by Participatory Action Research theory, we establish active and periodically evaluated relationships between participating communities and our interdisciplinary research team in order to empower change from within. R2GNYS aims to seek out and map the common positive narrative threads these neighborhoods weave, as well as the striking features that make them unique, working towards creating a network of shared knowledge that will enable strong, sustainable, and resilient growth for the 21st century.
Currently Rust to Green Civic Research Fellows are collaborating with the communities of Binghamton and Utica. For details of our active projects in these cities, please visit our individual NY7 pages.
Rust to Green New York State is an emerging network and action research initiative. We are academic, citizen and community partners collaborating to explore and advance green futures for New York’s rust-belt cities. Rust to Green NYS identifies and designs innovative ways to assist cities in realizing their potential to become livable and resilient places.
