The Our City project is the first in a series of topic specific global journalism experiments committed to solving the most pressing problems of our time through local reporting on global issues. Instead of depending on a strategy of journalists from influential institutions fanning out to hot spots around the world to produce authentic reports, this experiment focuses on enabling local storytellers to report on global issues with training and assistance from the Knight Center for International Media at the University of Miami.
More than 40 percent of the 3,000 residents of the 65-block section of Coconut Grove know as The West Grove live below the poverty level and median household income is less than a third that of neighboring Coral Gables. Yet, despite more than 200 abandoned buildings and vacant lots, many residents cannot afford to live in their ancestral homes.