Planning as if People Matter

Planning as if PeoPle Matter

Marc BrenMan and ThoMas W. sanchez

Metropolitan Planning + Design Series editors: Arthur C. Nelson and Reid Ewing

A collaboration between Island Press and the University of Utah’s Department of City & Metropolitan Planning, this series provides a set of tools for students and professionals working to make our cities and metropolitan areas more sustainable, livable, prosperous, resilient, and equitable. As the world’s population grows to nine billion by mid-century, the population of the US will rise to one-half billion. Along the way, the physical landscape will be transformed. Indeed, two-thirds of the built environment in the US at mid-century will be constructed between now and then, presenting a monumental opportunity to reshape the places we live. The Metropolitan Planning + Design series presents an integrated approach to addressing this challenge, involving the fields of planning, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, public policy, environmental studies, geography, and civil and environmental engineering. The series draws from the expertise of some of the world’s leading scholars in the field of metropolitan planning and design. Please see Islandpress.org/Utah/ for more information.

Other books in the series:

The TDR Handbook, Arthur C. Nelson, Rick Pruetz, and Doug Woodruff (2011)

Stewardship of the Built Environment, Robert Young (2012)

Forthcoming:

Reshaping Metropolitan America, Arthur C. Nelson

Good Urbanism, Nan Ellin

Marc BrenMan and ThoMas W. sanchez

Planning as if PeoPle MatterGoverning for social equity

Washington | covelo | London

© 2012 Marc Brenman and Thomas W. Sanchez

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this

book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the pub-

lisher: Island Press, Suite 300, 1718 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009

ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of the Center for Resource Economics.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brenman, Marc.

Planning as if people matter : governing for social equity / Marc Brenman and Thomas W. Sanchez.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61091-011-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-61091-011-7 (cloth : alk. paper) —

ISBN 978-1-61091-012-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-61091-012-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Political

planning—United States. 2. Social planning—United States. 3. Equality—Government policy—

United States. 4. Social justice—Government policy—United States. I. Sanchez, Thomas W.

II. Title.

JK468.P64B736 2012

320.60973—dc23

2011051594

Printed using Berkeley Oldstyle

Typesetting by Blue Heron Typesetting

Printed on recycled, acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Keywords: American Community Survey, citizen participation, civil justice, code of ethics, corporate

diversity, diversity, e-democracy, e-government, environmental justice, housing, human rights, infor-

mation and Communication Technology (ICT), land use planning, Leadership in Energy and Environ-

mental Design (LEED), Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), participatory planning, poverty,

public health, public interest design and planning, resilience, segregation, social alliances, social capi-

tal, social equity, social responsibility, unemployment, U.S. Census

Marc Brenman dedicates this book to his wife of twenty-eight years,

Barbara Bither.

Tom Sanchez dedicates this book to his parents, Ralph and Patricia

Sanchez, who have been a constant source of love and support, and also

to Nora and Erin, his pride and joy.

xi

PrefaCe

As this book goes to print, the public participation and policy world con-

tinues to change around us. Few were prepared for the obstructionism

of the Tea Party and others who want to destroy the social safety net;

the Arab Spring, which has toppled some established dictatorships in the

Middle East and is struggling to create local forms of governance; or the

Occupy Wall Street movement, which may be a flash in the pan or a pre-

cursor to broader change like the early anti–Vietnam War demonstrations.

We are pulled in many different directions: global climate change has

social equity implications; the rise of the People’s Republic of China is

knocking the United States off its pedestal and calling into question the

“City on a Hill” paradigm that has dominated the history of the Global

North since World War II; economic constraints and decline in the Unit-

ed States cause us to question what we can pay for without asking what

needs doing; the first African-American president buoyed our spirits and

has dashed our hopes; US politics and infrastructure appear to be in a

shambles.

Planners and other public administrators are beset with ethical prob-

lems in a declining job market. Will new graduates ever be able to get

work? Will established workers be able to keep their jobs? Who dares to

tell the truth about what they see? Who dares to probe for the truth with-

out presuppositions?

xii | PreFace

In a period when information both yearns to be free and is worth

what we pay for it, who can be trusted? What is the veracity of anything

on an Internet fueled by advertising, pornography, and gambling, and

spied on in the name of data mining and national security? Computing

technologies make analysis of data quicker, but quality of life declines, un-

less measured in the availability of large flat-screen televisions and smart

telephones. Is that our fate, like in some science fiction movie, where ev-

erything is image and there is no privacy?

In this book, we have tried to provide some perspectives that we hope

have value beyond passing fancies, and that are rooted in the human expe-

rience. The richest among us can fend for themselves. They always have.

Those with the least deserve our attention. We recommend that planners

and public administrators critically examine the process of governance,

and this book is our effort to highlight some of the pressing issues.

We are not levelers; we enjoy many of the benefits of the good life. But

we have an obligation to serve, to go beyond doing no harm to actively

doing good. We believe that the planning and governance professions

have within them the seeds of such an effort. What will make those seeds

grow? We hope that this book will provide some of the right tools.

aCknowledgMents

Marc Brenman acknowledges the education and advice provided by a

wide range of civil rights advocates and experts. These include Richard

Foster, Robert Garcia, Paul Grossman, Elizabeth Keenan, Seth Kirby, Rich-

ard Marcantonio, Toby Olson, and Stephanie Ortoleva.

Tom Sanchez acknowledges Daren Brabham, Jacob Parcell, and Aaron

Smith Walter for their very helpful comments.

Both Marc and Tom acknowledge the unfailing support and wise ad-

vice of Heather Boyer of Island Press.

xiii

1

governanCe and equity: Planning as if PeoPle Matter

1

Very little has been written that spans governance, planning, and so-

cial equity. As practitioners and teachers in the fields of social jus-

tice and public administration, we want to help fill this gap. Great needs

continue to exist. Poverty statistics from the 2010 Census show that real

median household income declined between 2009 and 2010, and the

poverty rate increased between 2009 and 2010. Over 23% of the popula-

tion experienced a poverty spell lasting two or more months during 2009,

and 7.3% of the population were in poverty every month in 2009 (Short

2011). It has been noted that the United States has now created a larger

gap in the distribution of wealth than that in the Great Depression of the

late 1920s and 1930s. Today the top 0.001% of the US population owns

976 times more than the entire bottom 90% (Winter 2010). Many people

are angry about the increasing disparity, as shown by the Tea Party move-

ment, the “Occupation” of Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and the demon-

strations against Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

Government regulates infrastructure systems that keep cities econom-

ically vibrant, clean, safe, and livable, and it must ensure that systems and

services are available to citizens evenly—otherwise social inequality will

result. Planners and public administrators fall between elected officials and

the people, because they oversee the placement and use of public capital

facilities and systems such as streets, sidewalks, and bridges; open space;

2 | PLannInG as IF PeoPLe MaTTer

drinking water and sewage treatment facilities; stormwater systems; and

municipal buildings and services such as police and fire. Uneven infrastruc-

ture delivery, especially in health and transportation, led to the concept of

environmental justice. As defined by the EPA, environmental justice (EJ)

is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless

of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development,

implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and

policies.” A 1978 study by Dr. Robert Bullard of the history and pattern of

waste facility siting in Houston on an African-American community’s class

action lawsuit (Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management Inc.) to block

the siting of a sanitary landfill, marked a growing awareness that health

and environmental hazards like toxic dumps were disproportionately sit-

ed in communities of color and low-income people (Bullard 1999). In

fact, in 1983 the Government Accountability Office reported that three

of four hazardous waste facilities in the southeastern United States were

in African-American communities. In 1987 the United Church of Christ,

under the leadership of Dr. Charles Lee, published the groundbreaking

study “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States.” The new environ-

mental justice movement joined the rising concern for environmental

degradation with civil rights concerns to respond to environmental rac-

ism, link grassroots struggles, and make agencies aware of environmental

justice concerns. Over five hundred organizations participated when the

UCC’s Commission for Racial Justice convened the first People of Color

Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, resulting in a set of guiding

principles for the EJ movement. By the time President Clinton issued his

Executive Order on Environmental Justice in 1994, EJ came to encompass

fairness in the distribution of both the benefits and the burdens of pub-

lic decision making, and provided a new lens for structural inequality.

In the executive order, planners are charged with overseeing the con-

nection of their work to nondiscrimination. Similarly, the National Envi-

ronmental Policy Act requires a series of analyses before projects can be

built with federal funds. These analyses include one on socioeconomic

impacts. Socioeconomic status (SES) is the sum of a person’s circumstance

GoVernance anD eQUITY: PLannInG as IF PeoPLe MaTTer | 3

or context in society, which may be expressed or measured using criteria

such as income, educational level attained, occupation, health, and value

of dwelling place. A good definition of planning is hard to find. The Ameri-

can Planning Association definition states that planning is “a dynamic pro-

fession that works to improve the welfare of people and their communities

by creating more convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient, and attractive

places for present and future generations” (American Planning Association

2012). It involves design and physical and social arrangements, the built

environment, and uses of a given area and set of relationships. It involves

consideration of infrastructure, needs, and resources. Planners work to-

ward the deliberate improvement of the spatial organization and design of

human settlement and human movement. It does necessitate working for

a future that is better than the present, rather than maintaining the present

conditions into the future. Planners engage with the human experience, as

well as the material reality, of constructed space.

While aiming for social justice is aspirational, it is not possible to do

justice in the abstract—real people are affected. Thus planning has the ad-

vantage of being a direct linkage to the public. Medea Benjamin, cofounder

of Global Exchange and Code Pink, has said that social justice means

moving toward a society where all the hungry are fed, all the sick are cared

for, the environment is treasured, and we treat one another with love and

compassion. These are not easy goals (quoted in Kikuchi no date).

Social equity is an aspect of environmental justice but it goes well

beyond environmental issues. It has been defined as “the fair, just, and

equitable management of all institutions serving the public directly or by

contract, and the fair and equitable distribution of public services, and

implementation of public policy, and the commitment to promote fair-

ness, justice, and equity in the formation of public policy” (National Acad-

emy of Public Administration no date).

Today social equity not only is a problem of conscious public policy,

but can also be seen as a failure of governance processes administered by

the leaders of our implementing institutions. Individuals, institutions, and

governments make decisions every day, consciously and unconsciously.


Lack of action often constitutes a decision. The social relationships among

groups of people are an important aspect of the infrastructure of cities.

City decline begins with the erosion of social capital, justice, and deliv-

ery of basic social and public goods. The Kerner Commission, which was

created in response to the race riots of the 1960s, called for, among other

things, a national fair housing law, and found that the United States was

becoming “two nations—one black, one white—separate and unequal”

(US National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968). The Na-

tional Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the formal name of the

Kerner Commission) issued a report in March 1968 that painted a stark

picture of American society dividing into two worlds. The commission

placed much of the blame for the riots on conditions in African-American

ghettos, neighborhoods separated not by law but by practice (US National

Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968).

There are numerous governance successes, such as the Voting Rights

Act of 1965. Such successes fill needs, usually as identified by those who

have suffered inequality. Our focus is more on where there are continuing

or neglected needs. One way of identifying these needs is to have met-

rics to determine what equality and fairness look like, and to provide a

comparison. We provide a number of metrics in this book. Several are

required due to the complexity of the issues, in the same way that numer-

ous tests are needed in the medical community to determine the health of

humans. We look at metrics for issues such as income equality, poverty,

literacy, access to health care, education, proportion of citizens incarcer-

ated, quality/availability/affordability of housing, and homelessness. Plan-

ning for social equity requires such yardsticks and a firm concept of hu-

man rights. To have legitimacy, a government must protect and preserve

human rights.

Thus one of our major thrusts in this book is for an effective govern-

ing process. Effectiveness is the extent to which the objective of a project,

plan, or initiative is achieved, or is expected to be achieved, taking into

account their relative importance, the magnitude of the challenge, and the

resources and time devoted to it.


We recognize that even in a democratic society, the Civil Rights Move-

ment and other movements to increase the rights of constituent and

discriminated-against groups have sometimes had to bend or even break

restrictive, unethical, and immoral laws. However, in this book one of

our basic assumptions is that effective and positive change can be ac-

complished without breaking laws. Sometimes laws have to be tested and

changed, and those who administer them have to be creative. For laws to

have force and effect, they must be created with all the people in mind,

and enforced by duly constituted official governmental bodies. Otherwise,

they are hortatory, or just full of positive feelings. Not all enforcement is

of equal value and effectiveness. Sometimes there are laws that do not de-

serve to be enforced, such as the Jim Crow laws that grossly disadvantaged

African-Americans in the southern and border states from the 1880s to

the 1960s. The Jim Crow laws, such as segregation in day-to-day activities

like education, eating, and riding public transportation, perpetuated the

forced inferior status of African-Americans that grew out of slavery.

The planning, legal, and judicial systems should be independent of

the government, so that it can serve the interests of its citizens rather than

a particular political party. In this way the civil rights of its citizens are

protected against a predatory and even a nominally beneficial executive

structure (Abdellatif 2003).

We believe in a strong civil society. The concept of civil society com-

monly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors, and institutional forms, vary-

ing in their degree of formality, autonomy, and power. Civil societies are

often populated by organizations such as registered charities, nongovern-

mental organizations, community groups, women’s organizations, faith-

based organizations, professional associations, trades unions, self-help

groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions, and advocacy

groups. It includes the arena in any community of voluntary collective ac-

tion around shared interests, purposes, and values distinct from those of

the nation.

We believe in collective as well as individual action. The individual in

a civil society has a social responsibility. Social responsibility is the duty of


people and organizations to behave ethically and with sensitivity toward

others and toward social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues.

There is much debate about where social responsibility comes from—a

social contract, a Darwinian concept of group survival, even theories of

an altruistic gene. Social responsibility becomes embodied in planning in-

stitutions and planners, on the theory that it is better to plan than to let

events happen randomly, anarchically, or with malice.

If governance is representative of the people constituting a society,

then it will reflect a range of cultural values. Cultures can come into con-

flict, and have implications for governance processes. Conflicts, dispari-

ties, and suffering in society become events for which being an active, car-

ing person is a primary mode of participating in public life, and in which

issues are simultaneously both local and national. If a person has chosen

to be a member of the planning profession or a governance structure, she

or he has already chosen to be involved. Successful planning emphasizes

the importance of effective involvement.1

The planning profession has long had ethical codes, as have other

professions. In addition to the examples we give, more resources can be

found at http://www.planning.org/ethics. These ethical codes have not

necessarily prevented harm, due to disregard for the condition, needs, and

perspectives of traditionally discriminated-against people. We therefore

offer concrete recommendations in the ethics chapter for what new ethical

codes might look like that take into consideration social equity principles.

One of our recommendations is to move ethical rules from aspirational to

adopted and followed.

The planner needs to understand the dynamics of the larger soci-

ety. But lest this sound overwhelming, that larger society is composed of

smaller, manageable parts. The smallest unit is the individual, and we en-

courage those who participate in planning and governance to undertake

self-education and commitment to this new ethical approach to social jus-

tice. The legal approach to social justice mandates nondiscrimination by

all parties. The benefits approach to social justice provides subsistence


and incentives to those in need. The ethical approach underpins action by

providing a built-in evaluative mechanism, a conscience for infrastructure

before it is built and when it is modified or repaired.

In a time when politics is polarized, the individual cannot wait to act

until political guidance is received. Martin Wachs (1985, p. 55), one of

the deans of transportation planning, quotes Norton Long: “The ques-

tion is not whether planning will reflect politics, but whose politics will it

reflect? Plans are in reality political programs. . . . In the broad sense they

represent political philosophies, ways of implementing different concep-

tions of the good life.”

In this book, we expand on themes of our first book, The Right to Trans-

portation. We are going beyond a particular aspect of planning related to

physical infrastructure to the notion of social infrastructure—which like

public capital facilities and systems requires design, construction, mainte-

nance, and evaluation. And like physical infrastructure, social infrastruc-

ture experiences shocks and disruptions that test its strength, durability,

and resiliency. Also like physical infrastructure, social infrastructure helps

to keep cities and other public areas economically vibrant, clean, safe, and

livable. Social infrastructure is uniquely the responsibility of government.

As discussed above, government’s role in infrastructure is to build and

maintain social interconnections and services that no individual or small

group could do alone. Government represents the people and must ascer-

tain its will. In a democracy it does not follow all whims of small groups,

but must balance benefits and burdens. It is not entirely utilitarian, be-

cause minority rights are preserved through due process, basic fairness,

and nondiscrimination concepts. These do not happen by themselves, but

take real people to implement. These people are often planners and public

administrators.

We are concerned about the quality of life of all people in the United

States. However, we recognize the limitations of what government can do,

what the people will tolerate—even for their own benefit—how much

inertia there is in social situations, and how obstacles like racism can pre-


vent doing what’s right. While we generally trust in collective wisdom,

we know that crowds have not always made wise choices. Education is a

constant requirement. It is possible to succeed, at least at the margins, at

least in some places and at some times. As President Calvin Coolidge said,

“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.”

Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (1993) point out, “The search for a

universally applicable account of the quality of human life has, on its side,

the promise of greater power to stand up for the lives of those whom tradi-

tion [read economic and political forces] has oppressed or marginalized.

But it faces the epistemological difficulty of grounding such an account in

an adequate way, saying where the norms come from and how they can be

known to be the best.”

We have a commitment to social improvement, and hope that we

show a realistic ability to separate the possible from the utopian. To ac-

complish the task we have set for ourselves, we are providing elements

of the previously missing framework and methodology. We believe that

inequality is unsustainable, and that equity has an important role in sus-

tainable development. Our inability to promote the common interest in

sustainable development is often a product of the relative neglect of eco-

nomic and social justice within and among nations (van Wyk 2009).

Sustainability is a method of using resources so that they are not de-

pleted or permanently damaged. It is a set of practices used by people

or groups designed to promote the long-term sharing of resources with

future generations. This includes reducing demands on the environment,

promoting economic opportunity, and increasing social equity. It includes

meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs

of future generations. To determine if something is sustainable, three ele-

ments must be considered: economics, environment, and social equity.

These are known as the “three Es”:

• Economic—factorsorcriteriamightbe,butarenotlimitedto,jobs,

cost, business, trade, production, manufacturing, human hours,

and so forth.


• Environment—factorsorcriteriamightbe,butarenotlimitedto,

air quality, water quality, land use, open space, safety, ecology, and

so forth.

• Socialequity—factorsorcriteriamightbe,butarenotlimitedto,

diverse populations, low-income people, traditionally discrimi-

nated against people, people with disabilities, indigenous popula-

tions, number of people positively affected, weighing benefits and

burdens on local populations, increased lifestyle efficiency, and so

forth.

In planning, social equity is often neglected. One can speculate that

this is because social systems are immensely complex and dynamic. “As

agents of the capitalist state, planners are inherently unable to deal suc-

cessfully with problems that result from capitalistic accumulation. At best,

they can throw up a smokescreen of good intentions behind which capital

is free to pursue its relentless pursuit for private gain without concern for

the intricate web of communities and people’s lives” (Friedmann 1982).

We need to consider the actual level of power (or lack of power) that plan-

ners have. Although planners often consider themselves to have relative-

ly little power, they help predict, evaluate, analyze, and make decisions

about infrastructure matters that can have major effects. The designed life

of a civic project in the United States is about forty years. With the current

decline in revenue, many are being forced to last much longer than that.

The physical environment and economic systems are far more easily mea-

sured and managed, and therefore are regarded as more easily controlled.

Recently, the concept of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

(LEED) has become popular in evaluating and awarding building con-

struction, to measure sustainability and resource conservation. We recom-

mend adding “equity” as another “E” to LEED—to bring about greater

awareness of the effects of development on equity in our communities,

and of the strengths of true diversity.

Not everyone agrees that racial and other social divides should be

bridged or eliminated. Walter B. Miller (1973) stated that right-wing ideo-


logues have this assumption: “A major device for ordering human rela-

tions in a large and heterogeneous society is that of maintaining distinc-

tions among major categories of persons on the basis of differences in age,

sex, and so on, with differences in religion, national background, race, and

social position of particular importance. While individuals in each of the

general categories should be granted the rights and privileges appropriate

thereto, social order in many circumstances is greatly facilitated by main-

taining both conceptual and spatial separation among the categories.”

Traditionally, the way we plan for transportation, housing, and educa-

tion has worked to maintain that separation. Transportation projects have

thrown up physical barriers between schools and school districts, result-

ing in physically enforced segregation by race. Similarly, transportation

projects such as the Interstate Highway System of the 1950s and 1960s

made it much easier for whites to flee older central cities, leaving Afri-

can-Americans behind. Lack of public transportation makes it harder for

people from central cities to get to jobs. Housing segregation has resulted

in part in lower values and lower property taxes, thus providing fewer

funds to public schools attended by people of color. When new housing

has been built in the suburbs, schools were often located in the center of

the new developments, thus continuing the vestiges of former segregated

systems. While we do not dispute the desire of some group members at

some times to maintain separateness, we believe that in general, enforced

separation leads to one group being advantaged over another, and that

this disadvantage grows and manifests in numerous ways. These include

lower access to fresh food and the creation of “food deserts,” decreased ac-

cess to jobs, fewer amenities such as parks and open space, deteriorating

water and sewer systems, lower quality and fewer hospitals and medical

facilities, and absentee landlords.2 And so we encourage people from di-

verse groups to work together to face, meet, and overcome social needs

and challenges. Diversity theory indicates that there are many benefits to

previously separated groups coming together.

In the United States, problems of inequity in planning were evident

during the time of “urban renewal.” Between 1948 and 1973, urban re-


newal displaced a million people in 2,500 neighborhoods in 993 Amer-

ican cities. Of those neighborhoods affected by the far-reaching federal

program, approximately 1,600 were predominately African-American

(Fullilove 2004). This, in effect, concentrated and segregated low-income

residential areas of the city. Into the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, more exclu-

sionary zoning, highway construction, urban renewal, and public housing

developments further segregated neighborhoods within cities and limited

opportunities for blacks and other people of color. Interstate highway

construction often cut through African-American communities, and the

new freeways erected barriers to integration.

Cautions

We draw evidence, studies, and lessons from a wide variety of fields, in-

cluding housing, transportation, education, sociology, law, ethics, and in-

tergroup relations. We have tried to carefully select those that we think

have applicability to social justice. For some, arguments could probably

be made that their findings are not transferable to the topics covered in

this book. Unfortunately, there is relatively little available directly on our

subjects that meets accepted social science standards. This may be in part

because it is difficult to separate out moral, ethical, and faith-based be-

liefs from evidence-based ones. Where possible, we’ve tried to rely on evi-

dence. In some areas, the evidence base is thin. We have relied relatively

little on law-based arguments, since the law is a social construct that var-

ies from time to time and place to place. While we refer to civil rights

and nondiscrimination, we have not dwelled on its misfortunes and lack

of enforcement, since that is the province of law enforcers, not planners.

Nevertheless, we do sometimes cite the law, particularly international hu-

man rights law. At times, we rely on individual experience.3

One example of a cautionary tale is President Clinton’s Initiative on

Race. He had good-hearted, bright people initiate a discussion about race

in our nation, but it foundered badly. Perhaps the nation was not ready for


such a discussion. Perhaps it will never be ready. Perhaps more is required

than conversation. Certainly, many civil rights advocates are weary of talk

and want to move beyond it to real accomplishment.4

Definitions of Terms

We try hard in this book to define the terms we use, especially those par-

ticular to the fields of planning, social equity, and justice. Equity is an

inherently vague and controversial notion. Especially concerning race, the

attempts at definition themselves are fraught with controversy. Language

changes over time and place. Some usages are permitted only within a

group, and not by outsiders. An example is the so-called N-word. Mis-

use is often punished in the media, and the Right attacks “political cor-

rectness.” Some issues are extremely difficult to talk about in the United

States, such as class. Ilana Shapiro (2002), of the Project Change Anti-

Racism Initiative and the Aspen Institute, stated:

Race and racism are notoriously difficult to talk about in the US. Conver-

sations often are politically and emotionally charged, fraught with dissent-

ing opinions and experiences, and mired in complex, interrelated issues.

The many terms used to describe groups (e.g., “race,” “ethnicity,” “cultural,”

“minority”), issues (e.g., “prejudice,” “oppression,” “racism,” “intolerance,”

“race relations”) and approaches (e.g., “prejudice reduction,” “anti-racism,”

“healing and reconciliation,” “diversity management,” “multiculturalism”) are

laden with unspoken assumptions. They allow people to talk past each other

without really communicating. It is not necessary to reach consensus, but it

is essential to understand the nuances of our language if we seek productive

conversations and unified action on racial issues.


A Work in Progress

The nature of planning, social justice, and equity is that they are fluid and

dynamic processes, heavily dependent on culture, history, demographic

and social changes, geography, and power dynamics. Therefore, we can-

not hope to provide final answers to the very difficult and long-standing

problems that exist. Inevitably, something we say will seem like an anach-

ronism by the time you read this. Like everyone else, we are prisoners of

our time and place. To help avoid being left behind by history, we try to

provide a variety of examples and possible solutions. Unlike many others,

we have not heavily emphasized social media and electronic solutions,

although we talk about their potential in the communication process in

chapter 6. In and of themselves, we believe them to be tools, which can

be used by people for good or ill. They are not a panacea. Their utility is

still playing out. Sarah Reginelli, principal planner for the City of Albany,

New York, said, “On a recent family vacation, I was struck by my dad’s

well-organized and well-stocked tackle box. When I asked him if having

50 different types of lures was really necessary, he replied, ‘If you only use

one type of lure, you only catch one type of fish’” (Rodgers 2011). That

one sentence sums up the way planners should be thinking about com-

munities. If the goal is to attract as many different members of the public

as possible, then a tackle box is a more appropriate metaphor than a tool-

kit. We should be using diverse methods to attract diverse populations.

We see this book as having both tools and tackle, hopefully leading to

increased awareness and encouraging action.

The Structure of This Book

This book is intended in part to highlight how planners and public admin-

istrators can incorporate social justice principles into their governance ac-

tivities. We start by providing a summary of demographics trends (chapter


2) and explain how these changes have important implications for policy

and the future of social justice in the United States. The next two chap-

ters on ethics in the public realm (chapter 3) and diversity and inclusion

(chapter 4) discuss concepts fundamental to social justice. Public involve-

ment and participation (chapter 5) is integral to social equity and democ-

racy, and we mention several important traditional and emerging aspects.

Next we talk about the evolution of communications technologies (chap-

ter 6) and how they may play a role in governance related to social equity.

Drawing from the foregoing chapters, chapter 7 focuses on interventions,

which are integral to effecting change and social action. Finally, in chapter

8 we conclude with a summary and mention some particular challenges

that our society will continue to confront.

Planning as if People Matter

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Transcript of Planning as if People Matter