An Activist's vision for developing lives

Pull up to the corner of Seventh and Campbell streets in West Oakland and you'll find a vacant lot, overgrown with weeds and strewn with trash, broken glass, empty spray-paint cans, a tire. Graffiti covers the fences and walls that border the lot, and every few minutes, a BART train rumbles overhead.

But Elaine Brown sees something else, including an urban farm and a high-rise housing development employing the formerly incarcerated....