( CNN ) -- `` If power plants , waste handling , chemical plants and transport systems were located in wealthy areas as quickly and easily as in poor areas , we would have had a clean , green economy decades ago . '' -- Majora Carter , Powershift 2007 . It was while walking her dog that Carter stumbled upon the disused stretch of waterfront that inspired her to act . Majora Carter grew up in the South Bronx at a time when America 's cities were emptying into the suburbs . Many of the buildings in her neighborhood were abandoned by the time she was ten years old . Landlords were burning their buildings to collect the insurance ; light manufacturing industries were moving out of the Bronx ; and waste facilities were moving in to take their place . As pollution rose , asthma rates , poor health and unemployment soared . To outsiders , those who were left were branded with the stamp of the ghetto : as Carter says , `` If you lived here you were no doubt a pimp , a pusher , or a prostitute . '' As a child , Carter spent much of her time planning her escape . `` Education was my way out , '' she reveals . She studied cinema studies and film production at Wesley University then signed up for graduate school at New York University . To save money , she moved home to her parents . Of that time , she says , `` It felt like a defeat but it was also the best thing in the world to happen to me because I got reacquainted with my community . '' Carter saw that her neighborhood -- under-served , ignored and literally dumped on -- needed to fight a positive campaign to assert itself as a vibrant community . `` People wanted things like clean air , they wanted safe places for their kids to play where they would n't get hit by a truck , '' she tells CNN . `` They wanted living wage jobs that did n't degrade the environment or kill them . '' She fought a vociferous campaign against a planned waste facility that would have seen 40 percent of New York 's municipal waste coming to the South Bronx . `` We were already handling 40 percent of the city 's commercial waste here , '' she says . In 2001 , after the defeat of the scheme , Carter founded the non-profit environmental justice solutions corporation , Sustainable South Bronx . Its central tenet is that people should n't have to move out of their neighborhoods to live in a better one . While walking her dog one day , Carter stumbled upon a disused stretch of waterfront . That inspired her to write a tenacious $ 1.25 million Federal Transportation planning grant for the South Bronx Greenway . The 11-mile-long stretch is the first new South Bronx waterfront park in over 60 years and provides alternative transport , recreational space , jobs and environmental enhancements to the local community . In 2003 , Sustainable South Bronx started an urban green-collar training scheme . Many of the course 's graduates were formerly incarcerated ; all were receiving some form of public handout . The scheme now boasts an 85 percent employment rate , in areas like urban forestry , brown-field clean-up , green roof installation and maintenance . Ultimately , Carter would like to see her organization `` worked out of a job . '' She believes that , with the right partnerships , the South Bronx could be transformed into the thriving neighborhood her parents once knew . Carter has now handed the day-to-day management of Sustainable South Bronx to her colleagues , allowing her to spread her messages of environmental justice and regeneration through green industry to others . `` We 've got to decide that we want to live in a world that is sane and happy and healthy , and that everyone deserves that , '' she says .
Carter , who grew up in the Bronx , set up Project South Bronx in 2001 . She wrote a $ 1.25 M Federal waterfront planning grant for the South Bronx . The 11-mile - long project is the first South Bronx waterfront park in 50 years . Carter wants to see the South Bronx become a thriving community again .