Tucked next to the 105 Freeway, just east of the Los Angeles International Airport, is the Lennox Community Garden. Once an agricultural hamlet, Lennox is now a densely built neighborhood cornered by two freeways. There is little room for green spaces. But in 2012, residents set out to change that, transforming an abandoned parcel of land owned by the California Department of Transportation into a series of raised garden beds packed with vegetables — a veritable oasis in this urban landscape.

In the San Gabriel Valley, 30 miles to the east, community members are fighting to turn a closed landfill into hundreds of acres of permanent open space. The landfill was closed 25 years ago, and its terraced grassy slopes are already home to mule deer, gray foxes, and a variety of birds. And in Baldwin Hills, a state agency is hoping to purchase land that is currently dotted with operational oil pump jacks, transform it into hiking trails, fields, and parks, and then put it into public use and ownership.

This reuse of industrial space, often spearheaded by communities of color that have historically lacked easy access to parks and gardens, provides an inspiring blueprint for how to reclaim and replenish the land, both for ourselves and the generations to come, Los Angeles-based photographer Stella Kalinina told High Country News. “It’s a regenerative process,” she said. “They are healing the land, healing our cities, and healing people.”

Wishing Tree Park

Wishing Tree Park in West Carson has been 25 years in the making. This site was created to serve as a buffer zone between the Del Amo Superfund Site toxic-waste pits and the community. Between the 1940s and 1970s, Montrose Chemical dumped hazardous levels of DDT in a ravine on which homes were later built. The DDT was removed in the 1990s, and 67 of the houses were torn down, but some heavy metals remain. As an extra precaution, another two feet of clean soil has been added. “The park is going to be a jewel for our community, which has had nothing. So many community members died waiting for this park; kids grew up without this park,” said community activist Cynthia Babich.

“Who knew when we moved in here, 40 years ago, that there was so much underground? About 10 years ago now, 23 homes on my street, in the front, all the yards were taken out because of the (DDT) contamination.

Read the full article about reclaiming LA by Stella Kalinina and Jessica Kutz at The Counter.