University at Buffalo Center for Urban Studies

08/21/2026

Urban renewal was not a natural disaster. It was a set of decisions made by people who did not live in the neighborhoods they cut apart.

The people organizing to restore what was taken are the people who live there.

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A new initiative dedicated to restoring Buffalo’s historic vision as a connected city of parks, parkways, and thriving neighborhoods. The Buffalo City in a Park Collaborative was recently founded by Candace Moppins, Rev. Steve Lane, Jim Gordon, and Marcia Ladiana, former board members of East Side...

08/14/2026

People have a right to the neighborhood they live in. They do not have a right to exclude or keep people out, but they do have a right to drive their community’s growth and development. The residents in this community are exercising that right.

Every once in a while a neighborhood concept comes along that is almost too good to believe. For me, that’s the case with the Utica Fields project, which is being floated around by neighbors and villagers along Elmwood Avenue and West Utica. The idea is for the community to reclaim an abandoned st...

08/10/2026

This project is a disgrace to the City of Buffalo. The public sector is subsidizing an luxary apartment building for high income residents, while many East Side home owners cannot afford to repair their houses. Shameful.

The 252-unit apartment building under construction near Canalside in Buffalo will pay reduced property taxes for 30 years per a state deal.

08/10/2026

Frida's Rebel Garden Summer Camp is now in its 5th week, wrapping up on Friday August 21st! The kids have been having a great time learning about garden friends and foes, planting and caring for vegetables in the garden, taking walking field trips around the Fruit Belt, and attending the Afro Sankofa festival at the AKG. On a field trip to Pelion Community Garden we learned all about honey bees, how to use a bee smoker, and the important role that pollinators play in gardens. We also learned how to make quick pickles from produce from the garden and prepared a simple cucumber dish the kids loved. We also visited the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to take a tour and play around in the surgical skills lab to practice using robotic and laparoscopic tools. At the Afro Sankofa festival, the kids got to meet wild and exotic animals and create their own masks. We are all looking forward to two more weeks of caring for the garden filled with important lessons around environmental stewardship, mutual respect for all living things, and the important role community gardens play in helping to combat food insecurity.

07/24/2026

07/24/2026

The Frida's Rebel Garden Summer Camp for 2026 is underway and is going great! Themed, "Green Growing - Cultivating Change," youth between the ages of 9-15 are learning lessons around community and food justice, cultural knowledge, leadership, environmental stewardship, and how to become change makers in their community. Lessons are based in Frida's Rebel Garden, teaching children how to be sacred keepers of the garden space and to take care of the plants, animals, and bugs they share the garden with, as well as how to learn from and respect each other. The kids are having a great time learning to water, w**d, and harvest produce, while also completing art projects to beautify the garden, journaling, learning breathwork techniques, engaging in movement, play, and social-emotional learning through our partnership with Say Yes Buffalo. We can't wait for what's in store for week 3!

Say Yes Buffalo

07/17/2026

The UB Center for Urban Studies team, volunteer W**d Warriors, and our youth summer camp participants have been hard at work getting Frida's Rebel Garden ready for the East Side Garden Walk this weekend - we hope you will come by to see all of our progress!

This Saturday and Sunday, July 18 and 19, the East Side Garden Walk opens over 100 gardens across Buffalo's East Side neighborhoods. The event is free, self-guided, and runs from 10 am to 4 pm both days.

Over 20 years ago, the Center for Urban Studies took a block of abandoned vacant lots on Carlton Street and turned it into a thriving community garden and outdoor classroom in partnership with Futures Academy. What was once written off became one of the most meaningful green spaces on the East Side — a place where students learn to grow food, understand their neighborhood, and connect to the land beneath their feet. This weekend, the garden is open to everyone, and we hope you will stop by to see what 20 years of community care looks like in full bloom.

📍 Frida's Rebel Garden — 155 Orange Street, Buffalo, NY 14204

Check out additional information about the garden walk this weekend:
📰 Frida's Rebel Garden — UBNow, July 14, 2026:
🔗https://www.grassrootsgardens.org/wp-content/uploads/BPS-37-Futures.jpg
📰 East Side Garden Walk — Buffalo Rising, July 2026:
🔗 buffalorising.com/2026/07/the-2026-buffalo-garden-fling/

07/09/2026

For 30 years, we've been saying the same thing.

Stop building neighborhoods for profit. Build them for the people who live there.
Now a new study proves we were right all along.

Service-enriched housing - where residents have access to healthcare, jobs, food, and community support - generates 26% higher returns. Families are 22% more likely to have healthcare. Food insecurity drops 27% for seniors.

The numbers don't lie. People-first development works.

This is exactly what we are building in Upper Broadway-Fillmore. Not for developers. For the residents already there.

Read this. Share it with someone who needs to understand why Broadway-Fillmore is different.

Next City, July 2, 2026 👇
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/resident-services-are-a-high-yield-investment-in-affordable-housing

07/09/2026

W**d Warriors needed at Frida's Rebel Garden! 🌱

With Frida's Rebel Garden Summer Camp and the East Side Garden Walk just around the corner, we need your help to get the garden ready.

We're looking for volunteers to help clean up, w**d, and mulch to help beautify Frida's Rebel Garden.

No experience needed. If you can pull a w**d or water a plant, we'd love to have you - both individuals and groups are welcome.

Come once, or come every week — whatever works for you. Every bit of help counts.

🌟 Sign up here → https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ei8rAzeDACQ8dXm81W9oRdVkZf6uk0Rk-2yLLIHbNoM/edit?usp=drivesdk
📍 155 Orange Street, Buffalo (across from Futures Academy)
🧤 We provide the tools — just bring yourself!

Let's grow something beautiful together. Tag a friend who wants to join! 👇

It takes a village for the garden to look this good! Thank you for jumping in to lend a hand. Frida's Rebel Garden 155 Orange Street Buffalo, NY 14204 Contact for Questions: Kaylee Hoaby, Community Garden Manager [email protected]

07/06/2026

Evanston, Illinois built the first municipal reparations program in America.

$25,000 to Black residents harmed by documented government redlining and housing discrimination. Over $5 million paid out to more than 200 families since 2021.

This week the federal government sued to destroy it — calling the repair "race discrimination."

The same tools built to protect communities from racial injustice are now being used as weapons against them.

New York State has its own active reparations commission compiling findings right now. Written testimony is still open — make your voice heard:
[email protected]

What happens in Evanston sets the precedent for what's possible everywhere else.

Democracy Now!, July 1, 2026 👇
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/7/1/reparations_evanston_illinois