STRIKING DISTANCE
ITHACA
A web publication for the liberatory efforts of Ithaca & the surrounding area.
ITHACA IS—
Activated. Contentious. Aspirational. Idealistic. Unaccountable. Opaque. Hopeful. Infuriating. Formidable. A canary in a coalmine.
Ithaca needs a publication that can engage with this multifaceted nature, and Striking Distance aims to be just that. Striking Distance is the place to find reports & summaries that document the efforts of grassroots organizations, with a focus on photography & shortform video.
In short, Striking Distance is a movement journalism news site for Ithaca and the surrounding area.
More about movement journalism here. The goal? Closing the distance between you and the community-led groups pushing for a better society.
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SECTIONS
Events listings and write-ups of direct actions, public-facing meetings, and announcements from progressive and justice-oriented movements.
Short videos where Ithaca’s sidelined populations can speak with dignity, on their own terms.
Coming Soon
Commentary & analysis on local issues, drawing connections to national or international efforts and trends.
Context-rich longform pieces that take a deep dive into issues that affect Ithaca and the surrounding area.
Upcoming Community Events
ISSUE AREAS
CLIMATE JUSTICE
In 2019, after a bold effort by Sunrise Ithaca, our city passed the Ithaca Green New Deal resolution. The surrounding Town of Ithaca soon followed suit. Since then, communication about efforts and obstacles have been spotty or scattered, leaving the public unaware, confused, or frustrated about the effort.
Beyond that, as we have seen with the pandemic and the 2008 financial crisis, cataclysms like those that we will increasingly experience from climate disruption always get seized by the already-wealthy to further their own interests and compound inequities in society.
As the pace of climate chaos increases, there is an increased need for context-rich, explanatory coverage of the crisis and proposed solutions—coverage that is grounded in the realities of the communities most affected by climate-related issues and proposed solutions.
Striking Distance hopes to increase public engagement in the co-creating an ecologically-sound future. It aims to do this by highlighting the needs & views of those affected by broad climate decisions and providing well-explained information about climate efforts, including obstacles and failures, not just the formal announcement when a program is announced.
HOUSING & ECONOMIC JUSTICE
Renters make up three-quarters of the residents of the City of Ithaca and 45% of Tompkins County (source). Rents have increased at a faster rate than incomes, on average, and housing laws often go unenforced. Much of this happens in a dark information void.
But housing is just one place where the lack of information harms the public: labor laws go unenforced; government agencies fail to pay benefits in a timely manner, investigate wrongdoing, or place undue hurdles on those who cannot get past them; and insurers deny coverage for people with limited resources and no platform where they can tell stories of their experiences.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg in a society where the economy is everything and social safety nets keep getting gutted.
By illuminating the deep roots of economic injustice in our community, Striking Distance aims to keep core human experiences at top of mind for those who work to address inequities and work toward economic justice.
LAND JUSTICE
Although some organizations offer land acknowledgements to address the fact that we eat, sleep, work on, and extract from lands stolen from Indigenous peoples, few have outlined steps to reconcile the wrongdoing, rematriate the land, or ensure that Indigenous populations have the tools and structural support systems to empower themselves.
Additionally, 98% of rural land today is held by white landowners, and Black farmers have experienced almost a 90% decrease in agricultural land holdings over the past century (source). Of course, this did not happen in a vacuum, and government agencies like the USDA played a crucial role in keeping land in white hands (source, source 2).
This status quo perpetuates itself not because of a lack of possibility—landback action at the municipal levels, BIPOC-run land trusts and farms, reparations, and voluntary land taxes to Indigenous peoples have taken place in various places—but because of a lack of information, and a lack of political will.
Striking Distance will prioritize keeping land justice at the forefront of public conversation, since land injustice underpins many other forms of injustice, and land is foundational to ecology, financial equity, and empowerment.
Or to put it another way: if we are to arrive at a good world one day, it will only be because we honestly addressed historical wrongdoing, and worked in concrete ways to make it right.
STAY UP TO DATE.
This project just launched at the end of 2023. If you’re here already, you know about it early!
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