Cleaning Up
Our Streets
MAYOR MATT IS BRINGING URGENCY to one of San Jose’s most visible problems — dirty streets. Clean streets are more than a point of pride for a city. Clean streets are a clear and public display of just how well a city is run. After all, if a city can’t keep its streets clean, it shows it can’t take care of the basics.
San Jose used to be one of the cleanest cities in the world — and Mayor Matt is determined it will be again. A clean street can contribute to a stronger city in so many ways — from helping to reduce crime, to promoting health (the more people walk the healthier they are), to paying dividends like reducing traffic (just moving a fraction of car trips to walking trips by creating cleaner and safer streets helps clean our air and reduce traffic), to promoting economic development and healthy small businesses.
To make our neighborhoods cleaner and restore civic pride, Mayor Matt is proposing we expand programs that work – like Cash for Trash and SJ Bridge (which create employment opportunities for homeless residents as they clean up our streets), while investing in a new program called “Beautify Your Block,” that trains and empowers residents and local businesses to keep their corner of San Jose clean.
To aid these blight busters, we need to upgrade and invigorate our 311 app. With additional investment, it could become our greatest tool for activating and engaging San José’s one million residents and tens of thousands of businesses in the solution to blight. In the near future, residents will be able to snap a picture of blight and receive a photo in response to show the impact they’ve had. As the capital of Silicon Valley, we need to learn from the innovation around us, and utilize technology where we can to move the needle on our core issues.
The Mayor is also prioritizing a clean city by making BeautifySJ – a team of people who respond to 311 calls and dedicate their days to proactive and reactive blight response – permanent.
He is also launching a clean gateways program that prioritizes high-visibility intersections and corridors that suffer from neglect, building out our tree canopy, addressing abandoned and inoperable vehicles and working to eradicate graffiti on public and private property.
BLIGHT IS ONE OF OUR TOUGHEST CHALLENGES — but it is solvable if we focus on scaling common sense initiatives that invite the entire city to be a part of the solution.