Voices of Equity in Planning
Equity is a guiding principle for all who participate in the process of planning as advisors, advocates, and decision makers. This video series features the voices of planners who have been centering equity in their work to correct racial injustice, mitigate disparity, and improve the quality of life for marginalized people in all communities.
Videos were made possible by the generous gift of time from members of APA's Social Equity Task Force, appointed in 2018 by then-President Cynthia Bowen, FAICP.
Equity: The Planner's Responsibility
Planners offer a unique perspective on the junction of governmental policy, private interest, and serving the public interest in communities.
Equity Doesn't Happen By Accident
Planners must be aware of the historical structures, institutions, and policies that perpetuate racial inequalities, and organize themselves to resist those structures or risk being complicit in the process.
Equity is Our Central Duty
Integrating equity into planning work isn't easy. Planners need political and insitutional cover so they can operationalize equity – turning conceptual understanding into changes in planning practice.
The Staying Power of Equity
The responsibility to create inclusive, equitable spaces is having a visible moment in our culture today, but the issue of equity has long been the purview of planners. Although planners' legacy includes redlining, exclusion, and displacement, there has also always been an equity movement within planning.
APA Social Equity Task Force
The Social Equity Task Force was appointed in 2018 to identify ways planning practitioners are struggling with social equity and inclusive growth issues, and to identify actual tools and techniques that could be used — in a variety of settings — to implement effective change in this area.
The group, mobilized under the leadership of Chair Carlton Eley, delivered a comprehensive report to the APA Board of Directors in April 2019. The report was accepted by the Board and referred to APA's Equity Diversity Inclusion Committee for review and integration with APA's existing Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.
APA is grateful to all Task Force members for their contributions to our learning.
APA Social Equity Task Force members Victor Rubin; Marcella Bondie Keenan; Kirk Harris; Susan Wood, AICP; Jess Zimbabwe; Carlton Eley, AICP; Wes Grooms; Cynthia Bowen, FAICP; Jonathan Bell; Kadie Bell Sata, AICP; and Majestic Lane gathered at APA Chicago in 2019. Photo by Michael Johnson.
Social Equity Task Force Members
Carlton C. Eley, MSURP | Chair
Jonathan Pacheco Bell, MAUP, MLIS
Tracey S. Corbitt, AICP
Kimberly Driggins
Georgia Forbes, AICP
Charles "Wes" Grooms, MUP, PhD
Monica Guerra
Kirk E. Harris, MPA, JD, PhD
Marcella Bondie Keenan
Majestic Lane
Mehri Mohebbi
Lynn M. Ross, AICP
Victor Rubin, MCP, PhD
Kadie Bell Sata, AICP
Susan Alice Wood, FAICP
Jess Zimbabwe, AIA, AICP