Position Paper:  A Call to Action — November 2012

By Carl Anthony and M. Paloma Pavel, with Chris Schildt November 2012

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to both incredible wealth and poverty. In May 2012, Silicon Valley-based Facebook went public and raised $16 billion overnight. And yet, one in five Bay Area households earn inadequate incomes to meet basic necessities. This level of poverty and inequality hurts not only these families directly, but also the region’s overall economic competitiveness. Low-income communities and communities of color now live in communities all over the Bay Area, from Antioch to East Palo Alto. This changing regional geography of race and class makes it difficult for these communities to access the services and jobs that improve their access to opportunity.

These economic disparities are fundamentally regional in nature, and must be addressed at the regional level. To turn around these trends, existing actors will need to engage with new constituents to develop an inclusive regional economic development strategy. As the regional governance coordinating body, the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) and its member agencies – the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) – is uniquely positioned to create and implement strategies that promote economic development that benefits all people in the Bay Area.   read more

Position Paper: Planning Healthy Communities for People of Color in California

By Carl Anthony and M. Paloma Pavel, PhD — April 2011

“Compared with a White child in the Oakland Hills, an African American born in West Oakland is 1.5 times more likely to be born premature or low birth weight, seven times more likely to be born into poverty, twice as likely to live in a home that is rented, and four times more likely to have parents with only a high school education or less. As a toddler, this child is 2.5 times more likely to be behind in vaccinations. By fourth grade, this child is four times less likely to read at grade level and is likely to live in a neighbor- hood with twice the concentration of liquor stores and more fast food outlets. Ultimately, this adolescent is 5.6 times more likely to drop out of school and less likely to attend a four- year college than a White adolescent. As an adult, he will be five times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes, twice as likely to be hospitalized for and to die of heart disease, three times more likely to die of stroke, and twice as likely to die of cancer. Born in West Oakland, this person can expect to die almost 15 years earlier than a White person born in the Oakland Hills.”   Excerpted from A. Iton…   read more

LIFE and DEATH FROM UNNATURAL CAUSES: HEALTH AND SOCIAL INEQUITY IN ALAMEDA COUNTY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Book:  Breakthrough Communities    

Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis

Edited by M. Paloma Pavel, PhD, Foreword by Carl Anthony
Published by MIT Press, August 2009

The emerging metropolitan regional equity movement promotes innovative policies to ensure that all communities in a metropolitan region share resources and opportunities equally. Too often, low-income communities and communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of pollution and lack access to basic infrastructure and job opportunities. The metropolitan regional equity movement — sometimes referred to as a new civil rights movement — works for solutions to these problems that take into account entire metropolitan regions: the inner city core, the suburbs, and exurban areas. This book describes current efforts to create sustainable communities with attention to the “triple bottom line”: economy, environment, and equity and argues that these three interests are mutually reinforcing.    more info

Book: Growing Smarter  

Edited by Robert D. Bullard, Foreword by Carl Anthony
Published by MIT Press, February 2007

With contributions by Carl Anthony, Robert D. Bullard, Don Chen, Daniel J. Hutch, William A. Johnson, Jr., Kimberly Morland, Myron Orfield, David A. Padgett, Manuel Pastor Jr., john a. powell, Swati Prakash, Thomas W. Sanchez, Angel O. Torres, Maya Wiley, Steve Wing, James F. Wolf and Beverly Wright

The smart growth movement aims to combat urban and suburban sprawl by promoting livable communities based on pedestrian scale, diverse populations, and mixed land use. But, as this book documents, smart growth has largely failed to address issues of social equity and environmental justice. Smart growth sometimes results in gentrification and displacement of low- and moderate-income families in existing neighbor- hoods, or transportation policies that isolate low- income populations. Growing Smarter is one of the few books to view smart growth from an environmental justice perspective, examining the effect of the built environment on access to economic opportunity and quality of life in American cities and metropolitan regions.

The contributors to Growing Smarter–urban planners, sociologists, economists, educators, lawyers, health professionals, and environ- mentalists–all place equity at the center of their analyses of “place, space, and race.” They consider such topics as the social and environmental effects of sprawl, the relationship between sprawl and concentrated poverty, and community-based regionalism that can link cities and suburbs. They examine specific cases that illustrate opportunities for integrating environmental justice concerns into smart growth efforts, including the dynamics of sprawl in a South Carolina county, the debate over the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and transportation-related pollution in Northern Manhattan. Growing Smarter illuminates the growing racial and class divisions in metropolitan areas today–and suggests workable strategies to address them.

Robert D. Bullard is Ware Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University.

Article: In the Wake of the Storm

Environment, Disaster, and Race After Katrina — May 15, 2006

Supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and co-authored by Manuel Pastor, Robert Bullard, James Boyce, Alice Fothergill, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Beverly Wright) is now available on the web in PDF format.

As the next hurricane season quickly approaches, beginning June 1, the Gulf Coast’s low income communities of color, are still left behind.  These communities “days of hurt and loss are likely to become years of grief, dislocation and displacement,” says Manuel Pastor, co-director of the University of California/Santa Cruz Center of Justice, Tolerance and Community.

With the support of the Russell Sage Foundation, six colleagues from different disciplines and universities, came together to probe environmental inequality and public health disparities in the United States in a new report In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster, and Race After Katrina.  Written by Manuel Pastor (UC/Santa Cruz), Robert Bullard (Clark Atlanta), James Boyce (UMA/Amherst), Alice Fothergill (U/Vt.), Rachel Morello-Frosh (Brown University) and Beverly Wright (Dillard University), the report will shatter any remaining illusions that disaster rescue in the U.S. is an equal opportunity affair, in which all citizens enjoy the same chances for relief.

“We hope to shed light on many in the U.S. who live their own slow-motion Katrinas–near toxics, suffering with or fearing chronic disease,” pledge the six, all senior scholars of environmental justice from across the U.S–one of whom the hurricane displaced.

“The first step of a twelve-step program is to admit you have a problem,” says sociologist Robert Bullard.  “Our findings suggest we’re hooked on hiding hazards among the most vulnerable and disenfranchised.  It’s time to face reality and offer new strategies.”

The authors document the history of disparities evident before, during and after disasters, to put Katrina in a broader context.  By tracking the slow recovery of low income people of color – due to less information, fewer loans, less government relief and racial bias in housing – they warn of disasters-in-the-making.  Additionally, they offer specific recommendations to guarantee environmental quality and incorporate community voices in the Gulf Coast.

In the Wake of the Storm calls for enforcing environmental standards, strengthening public health resources, conducting independent environmental monitoring and balancing green building and equitable development to prevent “hazard shifting” or displacing long-time residents and developing new mechanisms for community participation.

Finally, the authors stress that it is not just poor and minority communities who are at risk: a hazardous facility can be sited in someone else’s backyard, but research shows that the effects soon spill over into other neighborhoods.  Establishing fairness as a guidepost for disaster and environmental planning, they argue, is not just the right thing to do – it may be the best thing for protecting the well-being of all Americans.

Advancing Regional Equity   Conference Recordings CD-ROM with Audio and Power Point Presentations

Over 1,200 people participated in Advancing Regional Equity: The Second National Summit on Equitable Development, Social Justice, and Smart Growth. Sponsored by PolicyLink and the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, the summit was held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 23-25, 2005.

This CD-ROM contains audio and selected PowerPoint presentations of more than 60 panel sessions, plenary dialogues, and skills-building workshops. Summit participants—over half of whom were people of color—came from urban, suburban, and rural communities and shared the progress being forged in promoting quality affordable housing, better schools, living wage jobs, environmental justice, and accessible public transportation.

We are grateful to the numerous foundations that supported the summit. Thank you to everyone who attended—funders, speakers, and participants alike—for sharing knowledge and information that will help achieve a nation where everyone has the opportunity to participate and prosper.

To order please visit www.conferencerecording.com

Sustainable Solutions

Building Assets for Empowerment & Sustainable Development

A   R E P O R T   F R O M   T H E   F O R D   F O U N D A T I O N

click on title or cover image to read book

The 14 initiatives highlighted in this publication illustrate that the global movement for social equity, environmental justice, and sustainable development is growing. We are proud to share the exemplary work of our partners, who are making a difference and charting a new course for our communities, nations, and world. These case studies demonstrate that in many different rural and urban communities, a long-term approach to restoring and protecting natural assets can lead to new livelihood opportunities and renewed social vitality.The reports make clear that a pivotal step in building a positive future is the full participation of all people in the fundamental decisions that affect their daily lives. We believe that these forward-looking initiatives will grow and multiply.This form of community based sustainable development will thrive especially where governments, civil society, and the private sector create enabling policies and new institutional and financial arrangements that make it possible for these courageous efforts to flourish.