Also in Nature & Environment

Edens Lost & Found

How Ordinary Citizens Are Restoring Our Great American Cities

by Harry Wiland, Dale Bell, Joseph D'Agnese

Foreword by Van Jones

For the Media

Download a PDF of this press release for Edens Lost & Found

For Immediate Release
April 18, 2006

Contact: Jon-Mikel Gates, 802-295-6300, ext. 111, jgates@chelseagreen.com

Part celebration, part inspiration, part activist credo, Edens Lost & Found, the companion book to the PBS series, chronicles the forward-looking transformation of America's urban landscapes and communities.

In Edens Lost & Found, award-winning filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell herald an exciting change in the relationship between ordinary citizens, environmental groups, and local government. Traveling across America, they gather evidence of this new spirit of cooperation between neighbors, planners, architects and builders, city officials, and government agencies which have come together from disparate backgrounds and political leanings to join forces and recast life in American cities.

This extraordinary book highlights the stories of citizens, progressive government agencies and local organizations in four major cities who took action to restore and renew their communities. These everyday heroes are leading the way for a new wave of urban revitalization by turning their neighborhoods into sustainable urban oases. Here activists and engaged citizens are utilizing such innovative greening techniques as rooftop gardening, eco-friendly watershed management, communal food cultivation, and park restoration, re-shaping their landscape and their relationships in the process. Edens Lost & Found shows readers how to become part of this unprecedented movement uniting every quarter of the urban community in a common vision of renewal.

Focusing on Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle-four cities that face vastly different challenges-Edens Lost & Found elucidates the remarkable power of hope, pride, ingenuity, and chutzpah that characterize this collaborative movement.

The Edens Lost & Found television series premieres in May 2006 on PBS, with the first two hours devoted to Chicago and Philadelphia. The second installment of the series, covering Los Angeles and Seattle, will air in October 2006. Donâ??t miss this exciting look at urban rebirth and its inspiring companion book.

Individual productions by filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell have received an Academy Award, five Emmys, one Peabody, two Christophers, and two Cine Golden Eagles, among other awards. Their collaborative award-winning project on care giving, "And Thou Shalt Honor," was broadcast by PBS in 2002 to wide acclaim.

Joseph D'Agnese is the co-author of The Newman's Own Organics Guide to a Good Life. A regular contributor to Discover, his work has been anthologized in The Best American Science Writing, and he has written for the New York Times,Wired, and Saveur, among other publications.

Available May 2006 | Hardcover | $40 | 1-931498-89-X | 8 x 10 | 304 pages