The Optimist View: Reflections on activism from Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons
“If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright.” - Amanda Gorman BY: AMELIA BUCKLEY As we celebrated the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week, many Americans contemplated the profound impact of his Read More...
How a former KKK meeting place became a center for healing
In Laurens, South Carolina, an organization called Echo Project is converting what once was a Ku Klux Klan meeting place into a community center and racial reconciliation museum. Shockingly, the building became home to a White supremacist store in 1996 that sold Klan robes and Confederate Read More...
How car-free streets unite communities: A firsthand account from Oakland
The Optimist Daily has never been shy to support urban planning that favors pedestrians over motorists. Not only does it make the streets safer, but it can also clean up the air in a city dramatically. But beyond all this, perhaps the biggest benefit of clearing the streets of cars is that it turns Read More...
Architecture firm reimagines the mall as a green community space
While commercial centers such as shopping malls don’t necessarily evoke a community feel, a Thai architecture firm seeks to flip the script by reimagining the typical Southeast Asian mega-malls as green community hubs. The design firm, called Architectkidd, has recently completed the first of Read More...
Optimist View Special Feature: Uplifting Stories by Ione Butler
“If you want to improve your mood, a great place to start is by shifting the narrative.” - Ione Butler, Author Uplifting Stories As we all hunker down to await the end of this pandemic, connecting with our usual holiday cheer is tough. Quarantine fatigue is getting us down, but the Read More...
This app helps people keep their communities free of litter
Clean-ups might make public spaces a little bit neater but they’re far from actually solving the problem of litter in the long-run. The Litterati app wants to change that by giving people a platform to upload information about the litter they collect outside and share it online. Now, you might Read More...
Why community gardens are perfect for cultivating health in your neighborhood
A community garden does much more than just grow local fruits and vegetables. It also activates a public space where members of the community can gather and form meaningful relationships that contribute to a better life. Whether you want to create a community garden or join, here are a few benefits Read More...
6 dirty power plants in New York to transition to cleaner technologies
Power plants that rely on fossil fuels are already bad enough, but what makes these polluting plants even worse is that they are disproportionately located near communities of color. In a study from the University of Washington and Stanford University, researchers found that Black, low-income Read More...
This study gave homeless people $5,660 each. The results are beautiful
In 2018, a Vancouver-based charitable organization called Foundations for Social Change started a groundbreaking research project that gave cash payments of $7,500 CAD ($5,660 USD) to 50 homeless people. The idea was to check on recipients over the course of a year to see how they were faring. Read More...
What life is actually like at NYC’s hotels-turned-temporary shelters
With the coronavirus pandemic leaving hotels without guests, a few hotels in New York City’s Upper West Side have welcomed homeless residents temporarily. It is a great initiative, but it recently attracted negative press after the New York Post reported that “crime and chaos” had overtaken Read More...