Michael Higgins Jr.
I am a Brooklyn-based community organizer by day, and an amateur geographer and urban historian when I am off the clock. My work on land use and tenant organizing in New York City has given my many thoughts about how our city’s systems should work and how the development of other cities can be improved. I hope this space helps clarify my thoughts on the intersections of race and class among other structures in the reconstruction of urban American politics and allows me to learn some things in the process. Thanks for reading.
PAST WORK & PROJECTS
Organizations
AUR developed a series of walking tours on local zoning in East Flatbush to support public education about a contextual rezoning plan for Brooklyn Community Board 17.
As staff, Michael supported leadership development and outreach strategy for multiple local tenant associations in the neighborhoods of Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.
As staff, Michael curated facilitated political education workshops and campaign development connected to emerging policy shifts to public housing stewardship models by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).
Coalitions and Campaigns
As staff, Michael supported the launch and developent of GNCJ, a coalition formed in 2017 composed of local community-based organizations, public housing leaders, environmental advocates, industrial business owners and artists in anticipation of the rezoning of the blocks surrounding the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The commitments won by GNCJ shaped the creation of the Gowanus Oversight Task Force.
CERTIFICATIONS
Michael is an alum of the SOUL Training for Trainers workshop in 2017 and the National Youth Organizing Training Institute in 2022.
Michael is an alum of BOLD and completed the Amandla Praxis organizer training in 2022.
An Urban Renewal 