Twenty years of life

"In Twenty Years of Life, Suzanne Bohan exposes the flip side of the American dream: your health is largely determined by your zip code. The strain of living in a poor neighborhood, with subpar schools, lack of parks, fear of violence, and few to no healthy food options is literally taking years off people's lives. The difference in life expectancy between rich and poor neighborhoods can be as much as twenty years. In a bold experiment to challenge this inequity, the California Endowment is upending the top-down charity model by investing 1 billion dollars over ten years to help distressed communities advocate for their own interests. The key is unleashing the political power of residents, who are pushing reform both locally and in the state's legislative chambers. If it works in fourteen of California's most challenging and diverse communities, it can work anywhere in the country. In this revealing and inspiring book, Bohan tells the stories of former convicts who now work to prevent gun violence; kids who convinced their city council to build skate parks; and students who demanded fairer school discipline policies. We meet urban farmers who fought for the right to sell their produce and a Native American tribe that is restoring its health by first restoring its ancestral land. Told with compassion and insight, their stories will fundamentally change how we think about the root causes of disease and the prospects for healing"--