By Alex Lunine, Resilient Communities Program Manager

Apr 28, 2023

Growing up on a fairly quiet street, my summers were filled with wiffleball and basketball in the middle of the road. It’s no surprise that as we have become more and more dependent on our cars and shifted further towards virtual work, we have lost some of our connection between our community and nature. Concrete maintains a stranglehold on our streets and yards, while increasingly blistering summers and poor air quality limit our freedom to access our city’s amenities and outdoors. What we need is a drastic change to what we, as a community, prioritize in our public spaces, and that starts with you.

Map of Fairfield Communities

Sustainable Solano is looking to help grow an urban forest here in central Fairfield (see map above), where we have identified a lack of walkable infrastructure and a desperate need for tree canopy cover. By shading our yards, sidewalks, and streets with tree cover, we can mitigate the impacts of urban heat islands (making our 100+ degree summer days much more livable and reducing your energy costs), purify our polluted air, and make it more pleasant for our community to walk, bike and play outdoors more often.

SuSol has several programs that focus on creating green spaces within our cities, including waterwise, sustainable yards and community gardens that support neighborhoods through creating access to fresh garden produce. Through our programs, we seek to create resilient neighborhoods where neighbors can come together to create spaces that are abundant in habitat and tree cover and where neighbors can share resources. We’re inviting Fairfield residents, particularly those in the areas labeled in the map, to come together with their community around this type of project.

We can help support these efforts through our programs! If you want to transform and beautify your block with trees and greenery, please fill out this interest form so we can see if the site is a good fit for our programs. SuSol brings together community members in free educational workshops that are used to install these gardens, which are planned and led by a professional designer. There is a commitment from the property owner, but the programs help to fund these projects. If you’re interested for your yard or community, let us know, and please share this with your neighbors so we can grow beautiful, breathable, and walkable communities.