Engaging in the Conversation of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Mobility
Equity has taken a prominent spotlight across conversations about our way of life, and the transportation and mobility industry is no exception. Smart Growth America’s Equity Summit, coming January 11-13, 2022, will allow attendees to listen and engage in diverse perspectives that interconnect with each other, furthering this nationwide conversation and action on equity.
The summer of 2020 was a reckoning within American society that reverberated globally on the topic of race and equity. From a tragic event in Minneapolis, Minn., a global mainstream conversation emerged, scalable into our communities. People asked questions based on experiences, protests, learning, and reflection. We saw some common questions:
- What is equity?
- Why are there biases in our way of life and thinking that disproportionately disadvantages only segments of our community?
- Where can we look to dismantle historical biases in our communities and way of life?
In general, equity is the fair treatment for all individuals regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or identification with any historically underserved or marginalized group or community. Racial equity is focused on righting historic injustices toward Black and Brown communities. Many systems in the U.S. were designed with apparent racist intent. Incorporating racial equity into policies and practices can remove barriers and create opportunity for Black and Brown communities.
Why Does Equity Matter?
Historic inequities in housing, transportation, and land use have led to large racial wealth gaps, health disparities, and environmental injustices in the U.S. Black and Brown communities more often suffer from inequitable investments in infrastructure, green and recreational spaces, and climate resilience measures. Racial inequity is also bad fiscal policy for cities, artificially reducing overall tax revenues and wealth. The legacy of policies such as the Homestead Acts and redlining results in unequal distribution of wealth, health outcomes, and economic opportunity. Housing valuation is just one form of these inequities, because financial equity in homes is the main way Americans build wealth. The price of homes in a community determines the opportunities available in that community. Many businesses are started using the financial equity in the entrepreneur’s personal home. When home values increase, communities see a new generation of wealth, but the undervaluation of Black homes and communities fuels the racial wealth gap and reinforces the uphill climb faced by Black-owned businesses.
Equity, Transportation, and Mobility
Transportation has a significant effect on the way our communities are shaped and the economic prosperity that they generate. The only way to move around prior to the 20th century was on foot, so power and wealth were concentrated in our city centers and others were pushed out from the center of economic activity. However, the economic activity required a workforce, which required many laborers to live close to the economic center in crowded and squalid conditions.
Not wanting to cohabitate in these spaces, those of means leveraged transportation innovation to move outside the economic center, but maintained speedy and accessible means to reach the economic center to continue to expand their wealth and power. From the streetcars of the 19th century to the urban highways cutting through our community fabric, this mindset proliferated into transportation systems planning from the late 19th century to the present day. Black and Brown communities had their communities divided in the interest of speed and convenience for the affluent and were systematically shut out of the decision-making table. In addition to accommodating the urban highways at the expense of vibrant Black and Brown communities, municipalities went further by replacing vibrant communities with parking lots and garages.
Why a Conversation About Equity?
Up to this point in our industry’s history, the focus on transportation, mobility, and parking management has focused on the vehicle and how to efficiently move and store it. However, our communities and the way we move are evolving. Additionally, the way we think about mobility needs to evolve to be cognizant of the person over the vehicle. People of different walks of life, abilities and disabilities, and community aspirations and goals move about our communities for different reasons. Furthermore, there is a need to recognize systemic barriers, processes, guidelines, and standards in our industry and how we peel out the divisive and oppressive aspects and recast them to be inclusive for all. Lastly, there is a need to right the wrongs in our communities and enhance opportunities for safe, accessible mobility choices, especially towards communities of color that have been historically sidelined from accessing those safe, accessible mobility choices.
Smart Growth America’s Equity Summit
Smart Growth America (SGA), a nonprofit organization focused on advocacy, thought leadership, and technical assistance, gears its work toward a vision of a country where no matter where you live or who you are, you can enjoy living in a place that is healthy, prosperous, and resilient.
SGA deeply believes that improving racial disparities is at the core of a smart growth approach. But what does that mean? How does it work in practice? And how can smart growth advocates do it better? In January 2021, SGA held a three-day virtual summit to discuss how to center improving racial equity in smart growth work. The summit featured short keynotes explaining important basic concepts, and three separate deep dives on promoting more equity in housing and land use, why strong Black and Brown businesses are key to neighborhood vitality, and how to right the wrongs of past damaging transportation decisions and promote restorative justice.
Returning again on January 11-13, 2022, SGA is reconvening the equity summit that is aimed to delve deeper into the intersectionality of equity within transportation, land use, and economic development in our communities.
To learn more about the Equity Summit and to register, please visit smartgrowthamerica.org/equity-summit/. ◆
Transportation for America’s TransportationCamp 2022
Transportation for America is an advocacy organization made up of local, regional and state leaders who envision a transportation system that safely, affordably and conveniently connects people of all means and ability to jobs, services, and opportunity through multiple modes of travel.
Every year, transportation enthusiasts get together on a Saturday to share their ideas and map out new possibilities. With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as well as the Build Back Better Act, the 2022 virtual TransportationCamp will be more important than ever.
TransportationCamp DC is an annual unconference and important tradition for the transportation community. It is a time for advocates, practitioners, business leaders, professionals, students, and anyone else who might call themselves a “transportation nerd” to gather for this unconference – where attendees plan and lead the sessions themselves – to take stock of where we’re going and how we got here.
Join us January 8, 2022 for another year of TransportationCamp DC to discuss ways to make our infrastructure safer, more equitable, more sustainable and everything else you can imagine.
To learn more about TransportationCamp DC and to register, please visit t4america.org/transportation-camp/
shutterstock / iam2mai
