When Bennie Lee was only 13 years old he became a leader of the Apache Vice Lords, an African-American street gang on Chicago’s west side. In and out of prison for years, Lee eventually landed on death row in the aftermath of a deadly riot at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois. Lee was acquitted, set himself straight, and is now helping the formerly incarcerated imagine a life on the outside.

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After punk singer Steven DeCaprio learned how to legally acquire tax-

defaulted property in Oakland, California, by squatting, he decided to grow a

movement of political “squatter-activists” to take over the land. The group, known

as Land Action, seeks to provide access to land for purposes of social justice and

environmental organizing.

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A decade ago, a tornado wiped out the small town of Greensburg. But the town decided

to rebuild -- as a totally green community. Ten years out, has green rebuilding program been

successful, and is this a model that might be used by other towns? Or is going green harder

than it seems?

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Mary Poole has been a nurse, an arborist, a jewelry-maker, and a mom. But she’s never

been a politician or an activist. At least not until one heartbreaking photo from halfway around

the world changed everything for her. Now she’s on a mission to make her hometown of

Missoula, Montana, home to refugees fleeing conflict globally. But not everyone in this

conservative state is happy about it.

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Over the last 40-plus years, Detroit has seen its economy falter and its population dwindle, leaving thousands of homes empty and starting a downward spiral of neighborhood decay. In this episode, join host Brian Babylon as he digs into how Loveland Technologies has used city support and funding from JPMorgan Chase to build an innovative crowdsourcing platform to help heal Detroit’s neighborhoods.

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Chattanooga, Tennessee, has a lightning-fast, publicly-run broadband network that has

attracted a lot of tech talent to the city. But as the city builds an economy around technology,

one thing is becoming apparent: There’s a gaping divide between those who are tech-savvy,

and those who aren’t. In some neighborhoods, as few as one in five households has an internet

connection. Can Chattanooga bridge its digital divide?

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Spirit on Lake looks a lot like any other apartment complex built over the past few years. But something very specific sets it apart from nearly every other apartment building in the nation: It’s an affordable-housing development aimed at gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors. It was the brainchild of someone who deeply understands the unique challenges of this community – because as an 82-year-old transgender woman, she’s part of it.

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Majora Carter embraces the idea of “self-gentrification” in her native South Bronx. She founded a park in a spot slated to become a waste-transfer facility. She hires local gamers to test software and provide customer service for major tech outfits. And now she’s opened the first boutique coffee shop in Hunts Point, a marginalized neighborhood that, once upon a time, she swore she would leave forever.

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It’s no secret that climbing rents are driving many creative entrepreneurs out of popular urban centers. When Seattle book publisher Ed Marquand stumbled across a dearth of cheap real estate in a struggling small town not far from the big city, he thought he may have found a solution to the problem. But will Marquand be received as a knight in shining armor, or a colonizer come to conquer and pillage?

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Atlanta wanted an end to its public housing projects-- no more pockets of

poverty, crime, and despair. In the 1990s, the city started tearing the projects down,

replacing them with mixed-income neighborhoods. The shining success story of this

effort? East Lake, which turned “Little Vietnam” into a safe, beautiful community.

We’ll meet the people who made it happen. When so much can go wrong, how did

East Lake get it right?

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