Chapter 5: Bridging the (Eco-literacy) Gap: Using Community Engagement to Build Collective Action

Vacant property, widespread neighborhood blight, and a long legacy of depopulation is a prevailing obstacle in Detroit. Nevertheless, there is immense potential to transform vacant open space into activated, sustainable places that serve as the visionary nexus of social and environmental change, while simultaneously exploring how to respond to and mitigate the impacts of growing climate concerns.

This case study explores the expansion of ecological literacy through a threefold community engagement process: learning, exploration, and action. Using this framework, the project leverages opportunities to advance ecological literacy as an effective tool for climate change resilience. The case study details each phase: the Learn Phase, focused on building and maintaining partnerships between the university and community; the Explore Phase, centered on the project’s process, including exploratory learning methods to develop a baseline of shared knowledge, idea generation, and design application; and the Act Phase, which emphasizes translating knowledge into collective action by using a vacant lot as a canvas for tangible change and impact.

Using legacy soils as a guiding lens, this project strengthens ecological literacy to support neighborhood knowledge, planning, and design as mechanisms for vacant land revitalization. It is pivotal in fostering community-wide connections that equip residents with the skills to address ecological and sustainability challenges – key drivers of climate change resilience – while nurturing the neighborhood’s culture of care.