The fantastic PBS history documentary series The American Experience will broadcast an hour about the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps this Monday night at 9PM.  The CCC was a Depression-era program that provided jobs to the unemployed and also created many structures and environmental projects that still exist today.  At one point 5% of the adult male population in the United States worked within the Civilian Conservation Corps.

It would be easy to make a blanket statement that we need a CCC today.  Of course, these are different times and I still hope that we will not reach depths equal to those found during the Depression.  Still, programs like the CCC do have lessons for us.  Many CCC projects stood the test of time.  There are many forests around today that were planted by CCC workers.  Dams and enviro/engineering projects still work from that period.  We have many empty factories, ample brownfields, desolate stretches of urban area and moves to create alternative energy projects.

Just think if the abandoned lands in the City of Detroit and the brownfields left from the auto industry and contaminated shoreline areas could be gathered together in one large initiative.  Young, unemployed workers could “green” these areas with forests, park projects, famers markets and urban agriculture.  I would not say that this would be a solution for the economic downturn.  That is much larger.  But our area would certainly improve and our young people could earn a couple of bucks.

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