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Yesterday, #SpacesAndPlaces, an accredited #NPC19 offsite session held at @impacthub_oak, a group of largely black planners, urbanists & activists discussed ways they are practicing planning in ways that go deeper than engaging with black & PoC communities. They start from there. 
The session featured folks like @oakclt People Power Solar Cooperative, @EOakCollective @bankCBB & more who are doing planning, housing, cultural, environmental and even banking work that is rooted in, values, uplifts, builds from the perspective of the historically marginalized.
It might not seem like a big difference, but it really is. #NPC19
Tired: “Let’s build cities, communities, neighborhoods that work for all.”
Wired: “Cities, communities, neighborhoods are working better for some versus others based on race, gender etc. Let’s change that.”
Tired: “Let’s build cities, communities, neighborhoods that work for all.”
Wired: “Cities, communities, neighborhoods are working better for some versus others based on race, gender etc. Let’s change that.”
The first belies ignorance of historical and current policies and practices that have intentionally and unintentionally created disparate outcomes and experiences based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability and other elements of identity. #NPC19
The second acknowledges those existing disparities and opens the space for a conversation about the sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle violence and trauma resulting from those disparities. #NPC19
Closing those disparities doesn’t necessarily mean taking away access to good jobs, business opportunities, livable and walkable neighborhoods, or any other meaningful aspects of life for those who already have access to those things. #NPC19
But naming those disparities and calling them out from the jump has power to focus and train the mind and train organizations to ask different questions and make dozens, hundreds and even thousands of little decisions differently in ways that most will never even notice. #NPC19
Whether or not you agree on if we still live in such an era, planners, policymakers, leaders, community organizers, all of us living and working in and for #cities today have inherited systems and policies built in those earlier times, reflecting blatant racism, sexism, etc.
If the work doesn’t start by even the most subtle acknowledgement of that historically unjust inheritance in its taglines and marketing materials, it just isn’t very...
...interesting. #NPC19
...interesting. #NPC19
