Read on Twitter
Starting now. Such an essential conversation: Does planning care about Black lives? #WalkBikePlaces https://twitter.com/PPS_Placemaking/status/1288811386605383682
#WalkBikePlaces @Mitchell_Silver notes that zoning was clearly set up to protect interests of white landowners w/enabling federal legislation. Today's planners have to look back at effects of single-family zoning, tax benefits for homeowners etc.
#WalkBikePlaces BLM has focused attn on need to deal w/racist policy legacy still hurting people today."Everyone should have the opportunity to prosper and live in a decent, safe neighborhood." @Mitchell_Silver
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner: Problematic to situate racism as "something we used to do" in planning. Data we use today supports legacy of racism. Who has access to policy/decisionmaking is still reflecting power differences.
#WalkBikePlaces @theycallmeOboi answers the panel title's question "Does planning care about Black lives?" His answer: No.
#WalkBikePlaces @TheyCallMeOboi, founder of @Equiticity, points to planning's reliance on enforcement for traffic safety. Planning Depts "unwilling to state that law enforcement shouldn't be a Vision Zero strategy." #VisionZero
#WalkBikePlaces Community engagement isn't a one-off open house, it's a relationship. Planning can't do paint-by-numbers engagement, @Mitchell_Silver says.
#WalkBikePlaces @Mitchell_Silver describes a meeting involving older Black women in public housing. 30 years of pain, of being ignored, of not asking what a community really needs, shows up when a planner says they're here with the next new thing.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner identifies fear of authentic engagement because your favored solution might not be the outcome. Have to come in willing to leave w/something different than what you thought coming in the room.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner on social climate analysis. If you go look at an intersection and see someone there who's unhoused, that tells you housing advocates need to be in discussion of solutions. (How often does THIS happen in transportation work?!)
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner: Restorative justice requires ongoing, non-project-oriented engagement.
#WalkBikePlaces @TheyCallMeOboi: If planners only do what makes them comfortable, they're not doing their jobs. Go into rooms you're uncomfortable in, listen to people who challenge you, do much more homework than you've ever done before.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner: So much in planning is to protect the comfort of white people.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner calls for "joy-centered opportunities for engagement" rooted in cultural practices of Black people. Her dignity-infused approach to planning respects and centers this. Such a great description.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner op-ed in @StreetsblogUSA https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/07/27/opinion-urbanism-is-complicit-in-infra-structural-racism-and-reparations-have-a-place-in-the-built-environment/ calls for atonement and reparations, not prayers and empathy. #unurbanism
#WalkBikePlaces @TheyCallMeOboi: The ownership of plans doesn't rest in planning departments; it rests in neighborhoods, in the people who are there every day.
#WalkBikePlaces @TheyCallMeOboi: We do not leave the work of dismantling inequities to well-meaning people; we *legislate* that work, we put it into policy. Need models of accountability to dismantle structural racism.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner points out 2 other problems deeply rooted in planning: ableism and misogynoir. System is criminalizing people for problems rooted in legacy of systemic racism, inequities built into the spaces that have been created within this system.
#WalkBikePlaces @DrDesThePlanner notes the other side from abolition of the problem is erasure of those calling for that abolition. Speaking up for change within the planning community has led to pushback/silencing. We need to get to actionable next steps for change.
#WalkBikePlaces @TheyCallMeOboi: "I am not of the opinion that institutions which harm us have the right to exist."
#WalkBikePlaces @Mitchell_Silver: Now is the time to have these very real conversations.
#WalkBikePlaces Watch for Dignity Institute being launched by @DrDesThePlanner Thrivance Group *tomorrow* if you want training in their dignity-infused approach. Only 275 spots!
#WalkBikePlaces @TheyCallMeOboi says, "Our oppression was and is by design" and calls for the same intentionality in dismantling structural racism.
#WalkBikePlaces What a FABULOUS conversation in the plenary moderated by @_Boy_Wonder w/ @DrDesThePlanner @TheyCallMeOboi @Mitchell_Silver. I think my Zoom chat crashed because I stopped seeing new comments but I know people were engaged, listening, learning.
#WalfkBikePlace Dropping link to a tweet from @gulatinidhi on important point by @DrDesThePlanner I didn't type fast enough to capture in real time https://twitter.com/gulatinidhi/status/1290374455240392715?s=20. #ActOnClimate
If you were following tweets from #WalkBikePlaces earlier today then me tagging tweets #WalkBikePlace likely didn't reach you.... So here's a thread above.
Dark Matter University may interest you if you're following #WalkBikePlaces or #unurbanist https://twitter.com/jgmoore/status/1288329247199813634?s=20. h/t @JGMoore
