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Martens chapter 5
Big argument
“Robert Nozick, one of Rawls’ fierce critics, underscores the importance of Rawls’ work when he observes that “political philosophers now must either work with Rawls’ theory or explain why not” (Nozick 1974, p. 183).”
“The fact that transportation researchers have referred more to Rawls’ theory of justice than to any other theory of social justice is another reason to do so (see Rooijakkers 2012 for an excellent overview”
“ I will first briefly describe the main components of Rawls’ theory of justice. Then I will explore three possible ways of incorporating accessibility within his theory. Each of these approaches has been pioneered in the domain of health care.”
How the chapter will proceed:
“I will clarify the (im)possibilities of incorporating accessibility into a Rawlsian framework”
Then I will explore three possible ways of incorporating accessibility within his theory. Each of these approaches has been pioneered in the domain of health care.
I will clarify the (im)possibilities of incorporating accessibility into a Rawlsian framework. I end the chapter with an overview of key concepts from Rawls’ theory that will aid in the development of theory of fairness in accessibility.” p. 77 (on ipad)
Justice as fairness (The section of Rawls’ theory of justice that martens thinks is important to the discussion of accessibility and fairness)
“For my purposes, two core elements of Rawls’ theory are most important (see also Green 1976)”
“…conssits of the procure Raws has developed for arriving at the principles of justice.”
“…consists of the set of principles of justice thst, Rawls argues, emerge if the proceusre of arriving at principles is properly executed.” p.78
social contact theory - “The purpose of the original position and related veil of ignorance is to insure strict impartiality in the choice of the moral principles that are to shape the basic structure of society.”
“Rawls then analyses what principles of justice the contract parties in the original position would choose.”
“A theory of justice should address this basic structure, rather than allocations of particular bundles of goods, because the basic structure itself shapes all subsequent decisions and action”
“As Rawls makes clear, principles suitable for individual allocations may not be suitable for the long-term functioning of a society’s major institutions, and vice versa (Rawls 2003, p. 11”
Rawls distinguishes five primary social goods” p.79
“a basic set of rights and liberties, including freedom of throught and association, freedom defned by the integrity of the person, and so on
freedom of movement and free choice of occupation against the background of diverse opportunities.”
“powers and prerogatives of offices and positions of responsibilty, particularly those n the main political and economic institutions.
“income and wealth, understood broadly as all-purpose means for achieving directly or indirectly a wide set of ends, whatever they might be.
“The social bases of self-respect. These are those aspects of the basic structure that are normally essential if citizens re to have a lively sense of their own worth as moral personal and to be able to realize their highest-order interests and advance their ends with self-confidence.
“These goods are primary because they are things that persons need in their status as free and equal citizens, and as normal and fully cooperating members of society. They are social primary goods as they are the product of human cooperation and not a natural fact.” p. 80
“They differ from ‘natural goods’, such as health and vigor, intelligence, and imagination.’”
Rawls argues that the distribution of these natural goods is not so direcly shaped by the basic structure of society. As such, they are morally arbitrary. ‘The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust… These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way institutions deal with these facts’ (Rawls 1971, p.102).
“A just society would be one in which every person received a fair share of the primary social goods, hereby compensating for the arbitrariness embodied in the natural lottery.”
Rawls’ principles of justice
each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all (principle of greatest equal liberty).
social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity (principles of fair equality of opportunity); and second, they are to be in the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). p. 81
Expanding justice as fairness to include transportation
“The principles of justice put forward by Rawls relate to the basic institutions of society and not to each and every allocative decision ”
(in Rawls’ own reference to his theory of justice) “he explicitly states that he is interested “in only one instance of its application”, namely its application to the basic structure of society”
Martens believes that in developing his theory of fairness in transportation, it will require a “fundamental expansion of Rawls’ theory”.
Accessibility as an additional primary good
“Like income and wealth, accessibility is a social good: ”
“The first and most obvious way to incorporate additional goods into Rawls’ theory of justice is by extending the index of primary goods.”
“Even if it were possible to ‘simply’ add accessibility to the set of primary goods, it would still leave ill-defined how accessibility should be distributed.”
Expanding the notion of fair equality of opportunity
“Daniels’ solution is elegant, as it avoids the need to add another good to the set of primary goods and leaves Rawls’ powerful overarching framework intact. Yet, on a closer reading, Daniels’ approach does not succeed in its goal”
“It either creates a so-called ‘bottomless pit’ or it requires the introduction of highly problematic interpersonal comparisons. ”
“Daniels accepts and follows Rawls approach of developing a fundamentally a-spatial account of social justice,”
How both Rawls and Daniels’ theories fail in relation to the oversight of space in formulating a theory of fairness
“It is only because Rawls ignores the fundamental spatiality of the human condition that he can disregard the morally arbitrary influences of space on equality of opportunity, to paraphrase Rawls’ own words. Likewise, Daniels can only assume the universal role of health policies in restoring fair equality of opportunity by ignoring the structuring impact of space”
Rawls’ solution
“Rawls has hardly explored the implications of his framework for goods that fall outside his set of primary goods. However, in his Restatement, he briefly takes up this challenge. ”
“interpersonal comparisons ”
Recurring issue for these theories that do not introduce judgements
“In light of these differences, let me now try to transpose the Rawlsian approach to health care to the domain of transportation through three simple examples”
“Note that in this fictive society, income and wealth are arranged according to the difference principle and the position of the worst-off group is judged based on a composite index consisting of income and wealth and accessibility, in line with Rawls’ extension to health care.”
“Thus, as long as transport investments improve the accessibility levels of the least-advantaged group and generate sufficient economic growth to at least maintain the income levels of that group, no weighing between the different components of the index (income and wealth versus accessibility) is necessary, and contractants in the original position could agree to these investments”
Conclusions
“Even if only the situation of the least-advantaged group is taken into consideration, improvements in accessibility will have to be weighed against improvements in income and wealth”
The outstanding issue that doesn’t exist in a perfect society
“First, Rawls’ theory suggests that accessibility should be seen as one of the benefits of social cooperation and that its distribution should thus be guided by principles of justice.”
“What I refer to is the fact that accessibility is, in its very essence, an asset that is jointly produced by all”
“Second, Rawls stresses that agreement about principles of justice is fundamentally different from agreement about matters of practical policy-making.”
“principles of justice should be designed so that persons can be expected to honor the principles over an entire life time”
“Third, Rawls’ focus on primary goods is related to the fundamental interest of persons in shaping and, where necessary, adjusting their own life plans.”
“Fourth, Rawls’ notion of the ‘worst-off representative man’ or the ‘least-advantaged group’ will prove to be valuable in the explorations that follow.
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Bringing Transport into Black Geographies: Policies, Protests, and Planning in Johannesburg (wood, 2023)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2022.2151407
Why I read this paper: For despite the explicit centering of Black people/Blackness/Black existence with place and space, I am surprised to see so few literature regarding not just Black mobility, but Black modality. Because transportation was used as an explicit method of segregation. The Black geographies is a relatively new subdiscipline that appears to have not gained its legs until the mid 2010s, so there is some catching up to do. Because I am interested in, as I’ve come to learn, the “geographies of Blackness”, I want to understand how a Black geographies researcher thinks about transportation, even if my focus is on Black Americans and this article is grounded in Johannesburg.
Crux of paper:
“This article contributes to the burgeoning dialogue in Black geographies by adding a focus on transport.” (p. 1)
The three aims of the paper:
This article aims to bridge the lacuna between Black geographies and African studies.
Second, the article is motivated by calls to bring recent debates on the urban into Black geographies.
This article therefore aims to integrate the theoretical approaches of Black geographies with African and urban studies.
This paper focuses more on the practice through integrating black geographies and transportation, but does draw upon the theoretical foundations that have shaped the discipline: whiteness in geography, the creation of in the black geographies, and finally a link to the history of transport planning in Johannesburg. During Apartheid era, transportation was used as a tool for social division and “discipline” in Johannesburg. In the postapartheid era, transportation is being used now for “social and spatial transformation.” (p. 2)
Wood focuses on three "tactics" to speak to the "tensions between race, space, and transport":
Study the policy and legal system
Consider community action and protest
Examine informal transport systems that emerge in response to urban disinvestment and marginalization (p.2)
The article is grounded by three examples, each one relating to the three tactics above:
Legalization of separate buses in by the 1934 Spencer Commission
Public response to racial inequities through the 1957 Alexandra bus boycotts
Planning of the informal mini-bus/taxi industry in the 1980s
Key/New terminology:
“Black geographies” (McKittrick 2006; Gilmore 2007) - refers to “black agentic practices of analyzing and actively creating space and place” (Bledsoe 2021, 1017)
“geographies of blackness” (Madera 2015; M. Wright 2015) - are the “geographic studies of black experiences in space” (Bledsoe 2021, 1017).
Arguments:
This article aims to bridge the lacuna between Black geographies and African studies.
Second, the article is motivated by calls to bring recent debates on the urban into Black geographies.
This article therefore aims to integrate the theoretical approaches of Black geographies with African and urban studies.
The Whiteness of Geography:
This section delves into the creation of geography and its inherent discomfort with race, or really anti-racism (as racism certainly exists within the discipline). Wood notes that the disciplines foundational racism has kept there from being meaningful engagement with the Black geographies, which exists in reaction to the missing gaps of knowledge regarding Black geography, mobility, and the intersection of race, space, and place. However, in 2016 the Black Geographies Speciality Group was formed at AAG and the subdiscipline has become more prominent amongst geography researchers.
The timing of the rise of this subdiscipline is very useful.
Defining the Black Geographies:
Did not take many notes on this section, for it is background knowledge I’ve come to understand thanks to a semester-long dive. But some definitions do stand out:
“For the most part, Black geographies examines place making and the everyday lived experiences of racism across U.S. cities… Scholars draw on the historical and political processes that led to the production and reproduction of the Black ghetto (Rose 1971), the slum (Bunge 2011), and the (neo-)plantation (Woods 1998; McKittrick 2011)” (p.4).
“Black geographies draw on geography as the central analytic through which to understand Blackness, whereas geographies of Blackness consider race as the focal point from which to consider engagements with space.”
I think am more interested in the latter half/geographies of Blackness…
Bringing Transport into Black Geographies:
“Although transport geography has remained a predominately White discipline, mobilities, forced as well as restricted forms of movement, are inherent to Black geographies.” (p. 6)
Black transport is an understudied topic within the black geographies. Wood is using this space to make the case for greater study, through Johannesburg. Page 6 provides a subsection of lit review of automobility (facilitation of and restricted movement), public transport (and transport racism/transit racism), and tourism/travel mobilities that black transport geographies studies through racialized mobilities. Wood provides linakges here in the foundation of these works for they draw upon “Cresswell’s (2010) politics of mobilities and the entanglement of movement, meaning, and power (Alderman and Inwood 2016; Hinger 2022)”, as well as the “intersections between transport justice and social exclusion.” Alderman and Inwood’s (2006), “Mobility as antiracism work: The “hard driving” of NASCAR’s Wendell Scott” provided two concepts that Wood highlights:
“black mobility” to reflect on the ways in which movement is controlled by racist regimes
“antiracism mobility” to highlight the everyday “countermobility work.”
Black Geographies and Transport in Johannesburg
Wood makes a note of adding South Africa’s rather complex handling of Blackness and that of greater Africa, as well. “African blackness”, Wood notes, “…out to be taken up more seriously and rigorously in the conceptualizations of blackness.” The Black geographies does focus on Blackness through a North American, mainly U.S.-ian lens, but with greater inclusion of Latin American Blackness. Following this, South Africans are said to engage in “mutliple consciousness” built off of DuBois’ “double consciousness” that described the Black American experience. South Africa’s own experience with apartheid, which only ended in 1994, made it a great case of understand South African Blackness transport in this paper.
Again, Wood focuses on three "tactics" to speak to the "tensions between race, space, and transport" and grounds them with three examples:
Legalization of separate buses in by the 1934 Spencer Commission
Natives (South African Black people) were separated from Europeans (future Boers), and the transport system was designed for European movement. Interestingly enough, in the 1940s, buses were deigned for Black South Africans and the trams were called… European Trams. Natives were allowed to board them, but only when European traffic wasn’t heavy. By 1978, Buses that carried Black passengers were almost always full and financially viable (78 buses and 16 million passengers). Buses that carried White passengers were typically half-empty and drained financial resources (365 white buses and 30 million passengers).
Public response to racial inequities through the 1957 Alexandra bus boycotts
Bus boycotts started in the 1940s in Alexandra, an economically struggling neighborhood in Johannesburg. Also dubbed the “Dark city” for its frequent blackouts. The Public Utility Transport Corporation (Putco) tried raising bus fares by a penny, leading to boycotts. The inhabitants of Alexandra were already living in economic distress and living on the outskirts of the city. Putco tried it again in 1957 and in responses 70,000 residents walked 20 miles from Alexandra to Johannesburg’s CBD. Other neighborhoods communities joined in. It lasted until Putco agreed to subsidized the fare. This boycott stands out because in 1957, “Blacks held no right to vote, no representation on municipal or national bodies, no right to assemble, and no outlet for consultation with any authority.” (p.10). Furthermore, Black movement was restricted by law and Black residents could not move closer to the city. The bus boycotts are considered the foundation for the antiapartheid movement.
Planning of the informal mini-bus/taxi industry in the 1980s
As of 2022, over 16 million South Africans use informal transport (minibus taxis) to get around. The sector took off in the 1980s and afforded opportunities for economic mobility for Black South Africans who were generally shut out of other professions. The minibuses were a preferred model by Black residents as they were cheaper and more efficient than the government ran buses. Also, the usage of certain modes (bus vs. tram) was highly politicized. The popularity of the minibuses began to cut into the bottom line of municipal ran services, thus in 1982, the minibus — specifically a 16-seater — was allowed to enter the market. On the surface, this looks like stabilization of the service but in reality it was designed to deregulate the informal market and create internal competition. Unfortunately, it worked. There have been multiple attempts at formalizing the service with the government since 1999, but they’ve been mostly failures.
Wood concludes their aim at intergrating transpot with the Black geographies, but shares the limitations of Black geographies scholarship today:
First, there is a tendency to associate Blackness with urbanity.” (p.11) Wood believes that dig into how the city shapes Blackness and how Blackness shapes the city. The existence of transport racism (and the white rural and, arguably, the white spatial imaginary of the suburbs also feeds into this) and the banishment to the outskirts of the city is a part of understanding this issue.
“Second, there is a propensity to rely too heavily on historical studies as evidence that Black bodies belong in the city.” (p.11) Wood argues that:
it is ahistorical given the history of coloniality and slavery
It constrains contemporary scholarship
But also, it is a “necessary means, however, through which to counteract Whiteness and racism.” The addition of transport is included to help in understanding the relationality between the examples
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Racism and urban planning (thomas, 2023)
Chapter excerpt from: Infrastructure, Well-being, and the Measurement of Happiness
Why I read this article: Because of Manning Thomas’ research focus on Black Americans and urban planning, I have decided to continue follow the path of her work as it relates to, again, Black Americans, planning, transportation, and more recently, planning education. Manning Thomas also talks about racial equity in planning slightly differently than most planning researchers in that she manages to weave in the history of racism in planning with an eye towards other disciplines that may provide innovative ways of thinking about meaningful integration of Black Americans and their complex needs. In this chapter, she discusses the concept of “human flourishing”, which is defined as a “way to conceptualize well-being and happiness” from VanderWeele (2017;2021). Planners do think about the concept of happiness and well-being, but they’re more likely be measured through a quantitative index (see: WalkScore, BikeScore), which tells just one aspect of the story. Manning Thomas ruminates on how well-being and happiness has been systematically excluded from Black communities through urban p
Crux of the article: “This chapter discusses how US urban planning practices have supported institutional racism through redevelopment and other land-use decisions and thereby affected the ability of many minority-race people, particularly Black people, to flourish.” (p.64)
Key terminology:
human flourishing - “a way to conceptualize well-being and happiness” from VanderWeele (2017;2021). VanderWeele argues that there are four additional categories that support having a happy and fulfilling life: “health (physical and mental), a sense of meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships.” Spiritual happiness or spirituality is another way of achieving happiness.
On this, Manning Thomas shares that “an array of possible dimensions that contribute to human flourishing allows us to pinpoint which might be most relevant to the fields of urban planning and urban studies, but also to consider broader implications related to racism.” (p.64)
Racial segregation and its effects: This section does into both the historic effects of racism in planning and how it shows up, formally and informally due to the insidious nature of racism. Given that this is an overview of the history of urban planning in the U.S., of which I am very familiar, I did not spend a lot of time on this section. However, there are some sections that I did take away: formal vs informal systems of discrimination and expulsive zoning.
On zoning: Thomas makes the case for the strength of land-use policies being used as a method of (racially) exclusionary zoning by white middle class and wealthy Americans, and passively supported by planners
Informal vs formal systems of discrimination:
informal - racial harassment and intimidation (overt) and making neighborhoods inaccessible to black would-be homebuyers (covert…and then became overt) formal - public housing and creating concentrations of black neighborhoods, federal highway act of 1956
On urban redevelopment: Manning Thomas' own research with planners who worked during this era (1960s) said they felt bad[ly] that "federal legislation provided so little compensation and assistance for those distance, but also proud of resulting new developments." (p. 70) (…So, they're sorry that the effects of the expanded middle class did not trickle down to displaced Black people?) However, her interviews with some Black planners illuminated as desire to use their position to protect specific, older neighborhoods that had meaning for Black Detroiters. (p.70)
This is an interesting point here about the advocacy of some black planners, once they get into the field. Manning Thomas goes on to speak about the rise of advocacy, including Equity Planning in the 1970s, which formed from concerns regarding racism in the profession. However, she noted that these efforts were not nationally recognized and had limited scope. Although, in the 1990s, diversity planning (mainly around gender equality and gender-based advocacy) takes shape. Are we looking at a 20 year cycle of advocacy, however incremental?
Implications for human flourishing: The three outcomes connected to urban planning (as determined by Manning Thomas): happiness or life satisfaction, physical and mental health, and close social relationships.
The other two — meaning/purpose and character/virtue — are not typically discussed within planning. But, she does provide commentary on them.
As noted before, planners do take the first three into account — they show up through questions of neighborhood satisfaction and quality of life. Where Manning Thomas deviates is in questioning for whom? “whose happiness, and whose satisfaction, are we measuring and value as a society?” (p. 76) This directly ties in with the focus on racism and its connection to urban planning. Historically, Black happiness and well-being has never been considered. Furthermore, planners and planning literature does not typically account for different racial groups and their satisfaction with their neighborhoods and amenities. The parsing out of what is safety to Black families? What does this neighborhood need, according to the community, versus what the city plan suggests are recent questions for Black communities. Planning has supported white, middle-class interests and wants to the detriment of Black people. Additionally, access is not enough. As Manning Thomas notes, the presence of a park in a neighborhood does not immediately address well-being, for its presence can be undermined due to poor air quality, which is disproportionately present in Black neighborhoods.
Mental and physical health are important factors for planners to consider due to the effects of institutional racism on the body and mind, which present themselves as additional stress factors. Racial disparities in health ties into this subject. Manning Thomas notes that this subject is not typically undertaken by Planners; it lives in the public health and medicine space. But, this is an area that should be understood by planners because of the effects on people who are impacted by the surroundings neighborhood/city planning provides. Noise — be it from wide streets, presence of highways/freeways and cut-throughs in the neighborhood — can have devastating consequences on the psyche, over time. Going back to the issue of safety, the threats from living in unsafe environments, no matter the presence of the amenity, can create chronic health issues.
Social networks. The breakdown of social networks causes acute distress for those left behind and may contribute to feeling like an outsider in one's own community due to neighborhood level demographic change. This is an element that presents itself more in literature about gentrification and displacement.
Character/meaning and virtue. Manning Thomas speaks here of character and virtue, meaning and purpose and these traits can be nurtured by planners. This is an almost a foreign subject, in planning literature for traits like character and virtue are not typically discussed. She points out human flourishing can be an aspect that Planners undertake, using economic development's sub-field of workforce development. Another is through community development and, particularly in Black communities, the strength of faith-based institutions being the backbone of neighborhood stability and personal humility.
Manning Thomas ends with stating that Planners do have a role to play in expanding their knowledge of the five aspects of human flourishing and integrating it. It is not outside of our scope. Where she sees a drawback, however, is through residential segregation, which continues almost unabated in the U.S. She argues that for most planners and academics are not “consciously aware” of the effects of land regulation and racial and class segregation. The issue of land -- land use regulations -- continues to be a sticking point in issue regarding institutional racism in U.S. society and how this plays out at the neighborhood-level, where racism permeates.
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My back is still the bridge (baldwin et al.,2021)
My back is still the bridge (Baldwin et al., 2021)
Volume 46: The White Problem in Planning - https://issuu.com/carolinaplanningjournal/docs/vol_46_whiteproblem_in_planning/s/14595933
Abstract: This paper is an invitation to planning professionals to confront the roots and the impact of institutional and systemic racism in the planning profession, and begin to explicitly address these issues in their work. This paper features reflections and analysis in response to the question, “Does Planning have a White Problem?” The authors are four Black women who are leaders in the fields of urban planning, transportation, and public policy. Together they leverage their experience, observations, and writings to provide a pathway forward to recognize, reconcile, and repair the fractures in the planning profession as a result of its White Problem.
Why did I read this paper: I was attracted to this paper for several reasons. One, it was co-written by black women and genderqueer transportation professionals who champion transportation justice or mobility justice. Two, it was written from the perspective of black women and the burdens we carry in our workplaces. Three, the experiences of Black women planners are almost never talked about. This is a unique text. Fourth, this article explicitly calls out the insidious nature of whiteness that places black women in the place of being both technical and community experts, without explicitly providing protection mentally and emotionally. Her emotional labor to carry predominately white workplaces into a greater understanding of diversity is an expectation. Finally, the authors provide a series of recommendations to alleviate and remove — not shift — these burdens from Black women planners and calls about white planners, and the field itself, to be brave in the face of institutionalized racism.
Main argument: “The White Problem in Planning manifests in different ways. In this paper we demonstrate how it shows up as it relates to history, education, words, and a lack of empathy and consideration.”
Additional argument: The need for Black women to do the technical work and emotional labor in this industry is a problem — a white problem.
Whiteness in planning and linkages to settler colonialism: “Starting with settler colonialism, the United States has manifested a destiny built upon white centered ideas of who belongs in a space, who can move freely between spaces, who should have access to certain spaces, and who should be relocated to another space” (smith 2012).
(I rarely see settler colonialism come up in planning… although it’s one of the various elephants in the room)
The White Problem in Planning manifests in a variety of ways:
History - Who tells the story? Whose histories are recored and shared? Race is at the core of our work in transportation planning; we cannot pretend otherwise.
Planning education - Guardrails of the profession
Who defines the heroes of the profession? Who gets erased? “Planning heroes are typically white men”.
On education output:
Planners have become increasingly focused on equity work.
Black geographies scholarship is deeply impactful, but still not mentioned in planning spaces as much as it could be to deepen understandings about space and race (Brand and Miller, 2020)
At a minimum, planing must be more intentional about incorporating critical race theory into the field.
“Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step by step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order (Delgado and Stefancic 2017)”. Understanding and confronting power and anti-blackness in every aspect of planning education is essential to overcoming the white problem in planning
Words - Unshared language
Safety” “vulnerable populations” — who defines safety? Whose safety is prioritized? Who is made vulnerable by this definition? Safety and vulnerability has been used as a way to hurt and kill Black people due to the appearance or suggestion of a threat
Infusing equity into this work is difficult when white people must always be comfortable in order to feel like they can participate in the process.
The white problem: They do not allow or recognize the trauma associated with being BIPOC in this country
Below are a series of words that often show up in planning and equity spaces that present themselves as progressive, but actually are “discriminatory and exclusionary”
Empower: No white person can empower BIPOC communities.
Engage: Work with or occupy? “Collaborate” is presented, here, as the preferred verb as it is inherently equal/no leverage over the other
Enforcement - (do i need to explain this one)
Mobility - often defined by planners while using forms of transportation systems to get from place to place. Disabled people define it as the ability to get from room to room…
Walkability - often excludes people using mobility aids, such as wheelchairs, crutches, etc.
Safety - explained above
Lack of empathy and consideration:
On the facilitator, Wes Lowery: His book “they can’t kill us all” reports on the aftermath of Ferguson and the tension of telling this story as a Black man. The authors of this article were asked: “How does the ethnic background and racial makeup of the people who hold power in planning spaces relate to the ability of the industry to be empathetic and responsive to the needs of various communities?”
Response: “We experience a tension between being a professional and implementing planning principles and being Black, with the understanding of how Blackness is perceived”
Calls to action:
Create and cultivate brave spaces
Planners with privilege/those who are privileged should show up as a their full selves and express vulnerability.
Courage is needed to bravely exhibit open vulnerability. That means taking risks, making mistakes, taking responsibilities for wrongdoing, and continuing to try
Confront power and privilege
For any planning policy or process being considered those involved should ask two questions:
Who will be the most impacted by this? Are the most impacted people part of the group making the decision?
Examine and end institutionalized racism in all areas of the industry
Now it is more important than ever that planners understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not interchangeable terms.”
On inclusion: It is more than everyone feeling like they belong
“This is 2020. If that is your definition of inclusion, you are behind. To catch up, realize that true inclusion requires a shift in power. Diverse people are beyond just needing a seat at the table, we need to be at the head of the table, too.
“Inclusion means that people can show up as their full selves, with dignity, and with the ability to guide, lead, and wield power with anti-racism fully centered (Butler, 2020)
Revise the planning curriculum
This examination of curricula should be grounded in the wisdom, voice, and innovative ideas of current BIPOC students, alumni scholars, and practitioners.
Explore the extent to which the curriculum includes scholarship of BIPOC academic and references history of urban development from communities from the continents of Africa, Central America, and South America.
Preparing students for professional practice could also include the wisdom and experience of BIPOC planners and community members
Centering BIPOC voices and experiences early in the education of the urban planner is an antidote to the whiteness problem of urban planning
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the social justice (of) movement: how public transportation administrators define social justice (wellman, 2016)
purpose of this study: “The purpose of this study is to further the study of transportation equity and the relationship between social justice considerations and public administration research.” p. 117
Rather than targeting African Americans, it is suggested that contemporary American transportation policies disenfranchise the poor with strong racial overtones. p. 118
within the previous decade, 24% of African Americans, 17% of Latinos, 13% of Asian-Americans, and 7% of Caucasians lacked access to a private automobile (Sanchez, et al., 2003, p. 9; U.S. Department of Transportation, 2004)
Research questions:
(primary) Do transit administrators believe social justice is a factor in the administration of transit agencies? p.123
“To what extend are transit administrators aware of the concept of social justice as applied to public transit?
How do transit administrators define and measure social justice?
A note from Wellman: A very important point of consideration beyond the scope of this research and worthy of future investigation is the extent to which transit administrators are simply interpreting or carrying out policies mandated to them by legislative bodies or other policy elites.
Methods:
phone and four face to face Interviews w/30 mid-upper level administrators
site: United States, organizations and agencies
gleaned from a database maintained by the Lehman Center for Transportation Research at Florida International University
Note: Agencies from metropolitan areas with more than 4 million inhabitants were removed on the presumption that social justice concerns in such places would be multi-factorial and beyond the scope of this research.
96 agencies were left which met the above criteria and were sorted geographically; then 30 agencies were randomly selected according to their Census Division
In spite of the fact that few authors have explicitly linked social justice and transportation, the argument that other arenas of public policy, such as housing, economic development, community development, and environmental protection policies, are inequitable between and within communities has been made by a plethora of scholars and activists (see Boschken, 2002; Bullard & Johnson, 1997; Bullard, Johnson, & Torres, 2000; Harvey, 2009; Litman, 2007; Logan & Molotch, 1987)
this article was published in 2015, meaning that the paper was written as early as 2013. social justice and transportation was going through a renaissance as this time.
what is equity? Equity, similar to justice and fairness, is concerned with how the benefits and costs of public policy are distributed (Litman, 2007, p.2)
the issues of researching transportation equity:
Transportation equity has often been ignored because:
1. the difficulty of identifying and measuring its variables (Litman, 2007, p. 2: Paaswell & Recker, 1978)
The issue of needing quant analysis. How do you measure quality of life? Issue also shows up in the racialized roots of travel behavior (barajas, 2021)
2. because it is a problem that primarily affects the poor and many academics prefer to focus on issues of race and gender (Oldfield, Chandler, & Johnson, 2004; Johnson, 2004)
3. because it is often not in the interest of the policy-making class of elites (Bullard, et al., 2000; Domosh & Seager, 2001; Sachs, 1992)
Wellman tends to lean on Robert Bullard and principles of environmental justice in formulating his thoughts on transportation equity/social justice in transportation
Class conflict in transportation equity has been explored extensively
Class conflict, inequality, and social stratification occupy a central role in determining policy and service delivery decisions in public transportation policymaking p. 141
Bullard on racial inequality and environmental justice
Robert Paaswell and Wlfred Recker, Problems of the Carless (1978)
Mary Chichocki (1980), Mona Domosh and Joni Seager (2001) on class conflict and transportation equity through feminist methodologies and the restrictions of women’s mobility lack of transportation options in patriarchal societies
awareness of social justice p. 126
Not surprisingly, transit agency administrators interviewed overwhelmingly indicate that they approve of, and pursue, principles of social justice, and that such concepts are part of their working environment — but the questions are more focused on when social justice was mentioned at work and why the interviewee thought social justice was important
It is important to note that "fairness" was overwhelmingly preferred to "social justice" by interviewees and was used interchangeably by them throughout (FIRST CHAPTER, SECOND CHAPTER)
“social justice” was perceived by some to be a loaded/political term; other preferred fairness as a more encompassing synonym
why they pursue social justice in their agency? four core issues were cited:
interviewees' race, gender, or ethnicity
perspectives on environmental justice
pursuit of economic development (and by extension, access and mobility)
awareness of the stigma of being a user of public transportation (particularly the stigma applied to bus riders
Rawlsian "justice as fairness," in which a public policy is just or fair if it benefits the least well off first(Rawls, 1971), seems to be embraced by public administrators working in mass transit
race, gender, and ethnicity of interviewees p. 126
Some women interviewees cited their gender as mediator. One talked about the nexus of her gender, age, ethnicity, and political ontology and how it sets them a part (this one primiarly worked with older white male republicans who do not reflect their agencies’ riders)
None of the male interviewees referenced their gender as a basis of orientation toward social justice
economic develpment and mobility
Public transportation is access.... It's movement. It's an opportunity that should be afforded to pretty much everybody who needs and/or wants it. (interviewee from the south) public transportation is, a springboard to independence and it is a necessity for everybody.... It's access to jobs, it's access to better life, it's access to independence… (interviewee from new england) Public transit allows people, many of whom have no other access to get to these [work] facilities and to utilize these programs and to be a part of the community… (interviewee from the southwest)
stigma of riding the bus
Interviewees who self-identify as a racial or ethnic minority were far more likely to cite the stigma of being a mass transit user in most metropolitan areas as a motivator for pursuing social justice and fairness
"perceptions of stigmas of people...[that] just because you ride the bus you’re a lowlife (interviewee of color from deep south)
"there is a stereotype...about the population of bus riders, that they are, you know, socially and economically deprived” (interviewee of color from southwest)
defining social justice and its components
questions: but what do they believe social justice is, contains, or stipulates? How do they define it? the ubiquitous need for public transportation's availability and equal access
World Cloud Visualization of Word Frequency to Define Social Justice
how to define it? p. 134
An interviewee from California, notably a transportation planner by training, defined social justice as ensuring objectivity in decision-making
An East Coast interviewee, similarly, warned that areas that are "less diverse racially, or wealthier...receiving a higher level or even the same amount of service as an area" with more transit dependents would be socially unjust
Wellman notes from the definitions provided in this section
neighborhoods that are wealthy should not receive better or even the same level of service as neighborhoods that are poorer
regardless of income, racially diverse neighborhoods deserve better - not equal, and certainly not less - access to public transportation
Some transit administrators define social justice as strict adherence to the requirements of Title IV - that is, to retain federal funding, agencies should not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality in the provision, level, or type of service provided
A Southwest transit administrator described social justice as "almost like a way of life.... Social justice is like having things permeate your community that promote fairness and equity for all."
social justice discussed at work p. 136
wellman notes three groupings:
those whom actively discuss social justice in the workplace
those for whom social justice is reactively discussed in the workplace
those who do not discuss social justice at all
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urban planning and the african american community: in the shadows (manning thomas & ritzdorf, 1998)
Chapter 15: coming together: unified diversity for social action (manning thomas)
why did i read this chapter: Interested in how racial justice and equity planning has been integrated into curriculum and organizations. This chapter leans more towards how it shows up in planning schools, but does provide a good amount of information on how it manifested in organizational theory and corporate research
multiculturalism: a term that typically includes race, ethnicity, gender, and nationality—has emerged in planning education, but with little clarity, cohesion, or purpose p. 259
cites a study where 32 planning faculty citied planning for multicultural diversity in the metropolis as a needed skill
manning thomas argues that the integration, and even the definition of such, is applied unevenly
at the time of publication (1998), women in planning was just beginning to be acknowledged. minority representation in planning programs, as faculty and students, had stagnated. intl students were critiquing the right way/the “western” way and wished for reciprocal teaching that emphasized commonality and global linkages p. 259
nonplanning literature on diversity
“Relevant guidance comes from both the organizational literature, which focuses on the workplace, and the educational literature, which addresses the classroom” p. 261 (SECOND CHAPTER)
lit on multicultural orgs (large and growing)
largely based on corporate experience, clarifies the positive results of diversity n the workplace and suggests stages of growth in that process. Roosevelt Thomas identifies three stages:
affirmative action
‘valuing differences’
‘managing diversity’
(modifies the core culture of the org so that it works fro everyone and increases workplace productivity)
Cox & multicultural organization promotes in three stages p.261-62
monolithic minority
plural organizations (more heterogenous, but still rely on assimilation)
multicultural organizations (characterized by diverse workers, inclusion of minorities in networks and social activities, absence of prejudice and discrimination, and low levels of intergroup conflict)
Wurster, race and planning
By the early 1990s, however, the volume of literature on issues of planning and race appeared to diminish
however there was an increase of gender and planning
Part of the weakness in dialogue about the relationship between race and planning education relates to the stagnation in numbers of minority planning faculty and to the decline in the number of planning programs at historically Black institutions p. 266
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urban planning and the african american community: in the shadows (manning thomas & ritzdorf, 1998)
Chapter 7: Urban planning, equity planning, and racial justice (krumholz)
Why am i reading this chapter: To add more support for equity planning section of literature review. this section will provide the historical basis for racial equity that we’ve seen resurface today.
What is equity planning: “Equity planning is a conscious attempt by some professional urban planners to devise and implement redistributive policies that move resources, political power, and participation toward low-income groups.” p. 109
“Equity planning is not a new or isolated approach in urban planning. It is part of an alternative planning practice that, in the United States, goes back to the turn of the century.” p.110
includes “material feminists” who sought communal kitchens…to liberate women from drudgery
Alice Constance Austin, sought to transform southern california into a planned and egalitarian landscape
Patrick Geddes
Clarence Stein and Henry Weight, reduce land coverage and housing density to achieve social and health objectives
Rexford Tugwell, Greenbelt Town Program and the healthier planned communities as a part of the great new deal
Paul Davidoff, Herbert Cans, and Chester Hartman, the 1960s Model Cities program, War on Poverty
Traditional planning: “use a generally middle-class value system that emphasized aesthetics, efficiency, and the value of real property…”
“Equity planners challenge or reject this role. They assert that planning should aim to provide a better future for all city people, not just select groups.” p.110
“Equity planners also argue that the beautiful and efficient cities of which all urban planners dream cannot be realized so long as cities are dominated by racial segregation, poverty, and slums.”
(traditional planning) tries to be apolitical as possible to ‘serve the community as a whole’ with a focus on land use for a ‘better future’ p.115
Issues of racial justice were, until recently continued to be (book was published 1998), largely peripheral to mainstream planning practice. p. 111
Journal of the American Institute of Planners (JAIP) published articles on black issues and by black authors
March 1969, “The cities, the blacks, and the poor”
1971, the code of ethics of the American Institute of Planners was modified to reflect concern for poor and otherwise vulnerable populations.
by 1990s, American Planning Association (APA) 20-30% of all conference papers included equity issues
Planning and Community Equity collection, a first for APA (1990s)
in 1995, fewer than 10% of APA members were racial minorities and fewer than 4% were black
Society has a basic social responsibility to help preserve the conditions necessary. Planners do as well. p. 115
Reasons for move towards equity planning: p. 116
1. A powerful initial reason for urban planners to move in the direction of greater equity is to ensure that all children grow up with adequate nutrition, that civil order prevails, that public education prepares a person for a working life, and that all people can achieve a decent basic standard of living
2. The second reason that equity planning has a powerful claim on the profession is one of political reality: Shifting populations of color have resulted in a rapid increase in the number of Black elected officials and a significant increase in the number of Black political jurisdictions
This means that urban planners are more likely to be working in jurisdictions where a majority of the population is made up of people of color and working, as well, for Black or Latino elected superiors. (SECOND CHAPTER FOCUS)
3. Simple justice is a third reason that the pursuit of a more equitable, racially just society should appeal to urban planners and others
Rawlsian perspective: “As the philosopher John Rawls makes clear, a just society is the kind of society that free, equal, and rational people would agree to establish in order to protect their own self-interest.”
Examples of successful equity planning:
1969-1979 Cleveland City Planning Commission: Cleveland's most significant transportation problem in a different way; the need was to improve the mobility of Cleveland's transit-dependent population—those families without automobiles. In 1970, this was about 45 percent of all poor families in Cleveland. Led to the establishment of the Cleveland RTA (1975), which argued that transit should be expanded for the city’s transit-dependent population. Planners argued against the expansion of rail transit and were successful. p. 118
There are more, but this a good one
Role of the equity planner: p. 121-23
1. Historically, the equity planner's role has been, first of all, to defend and protect the interests of the clients, most often poor communities, usually of color.
2. Second, the equity planner provides as wide a range of alternatives and opportunities as possible, leaving individuals free to define their own needs and priorities
3. Third, the equity planner must recognize the crucial role played by legal, political, economic, and social institutions in promoting and sustaining inequities
But there is a larger world that must come to share a concern for racial justice (equity planners can’t save the world, alone), thus, p.123
equity planners must develop a regional, state, and national agenda that raises the needs of the most deprived as a matter of justice and conscience but also as part of a broader, lower-middle-class agenda
this will be a balancing act for the middle-class have more power than the racially & economically disenfranchised
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on Transit Paradise Lost: What Transit Agency Administrators Say Hinders Them From Pursuing Social Justice and Fairness (2016)
Wellman’s essay delves into the experiences of transit administrations and their personal thoughts on how/why social justice is being thwarted by their agencies and other actors.
Wellman starts out by grounding this article in literature broadly on (social) justice, social mobility, and social oppression before moving into transportation policy and planning. In this, his approach to social justice appears to be most informed by Robert Bullard and James Rawls. This linkage here is crucial because while it is clear, to me, that Wellman is approaching social justice from a Rawlsian perspective, Rawls’ theory of justice does not speak to transportation at all. Wellman is sensitive to the U.S.’ history of institutionalized racism and he is arguing, both through his own research and through the information gleaned from his interviews, that the aforementioned institutionalized racism is an ongoing threat to social justice in public transportation. From Bullard, Wellman links social mobility to physical mobility and the absence of mobility intersects with institutionalized racism. Regarding social oppression, Rita Hardiman and Bailey Jackson’s (1997) define this as, “when one social group, whether knowingly or unconsciously, exploits another social group for its own benefit . . . resulting in a condition of privilege for the agent group relative to the disenfranchisement and exploitation of the target group”.
Following Hartman and Jackson's definition of social oppression, Wellman argues that "social oppression can be seen in disparities between the costs and benefits of transportation policy in the United States" through the focus on suburban drivers at the expense of urban public transit users…” (p. 203). He also follows Deka’s argument that transportation planning’s over-reliance and over-focus of quantitative variables “such as accident rates, speed of travel, and the number of automobiles able to move on roadways during rush hour” comes at the expense social justice in transportation because planners are expected to follow the same path of measurability. In the decades since, Deka’s argument has become a critical argument in planning literature arguing for greater focus on justice, activism, lived experience. Finally, cash strapped transit agencies are often forced to focus on lucrative riders.
The last point is not new information, rather is another reason for structural inequity in transportation. Coupled with this issue is the age-old question of whether public transit is supposed to pay for itself or if it is a public good. I won't go further here but whose time is considered valuable and whose time considered expendable cannot be overstated as a problem in planning.
Wellman is coming into a topic and focus that has little in the way of literature. There is, and has certainly been, literature on the Planner and there is certainly literature on theories of social justice and the various deviations and intersections (egalitarian, accessibility, capabilities, sufficientarianism, etc.), but there is surprising little literature on contemporary social justice and transit administrations. Wellman has written quite a bit on this subject himself, and so far he seems to be alone. Interestingly in the section of social justice, he agrees with Deka, who wrote in 2004, that “little academic effort in the Western hemisphere has been made to link concepts of social justice and transportation policy.” I do not necessarily agree with this. Arguably, this topic grew in the mid-late 2010s, and this article was approved in 2016, so Wellman just missed the growing wave with his assertion?
Through his methods, Wellman invokes Rawls to understand the following about transit administrators through a few questions: “Are such individuals working to eliminate inequitable sharing of costs and benefits of transportation policy? Are such individuals working to guarantee fairness among citizens to the fruits of government policy? Furthermore, does transportation policy benefit the least well-off first?” Crucially, why do Americans experience such an awkward transportation policymaking network that does not allow for the full enjoyment or consumption of societal resources absent the purchase of a car?” all of which lead to his singular question: "What hinders transit agency administrators from more fully pursuing social justice or fairness?”.
Wellman answered that question through a series of 30, unstructured interviews with administrators of transit agencies in various positions across the United States. Crucially, this study used qualitative methods. Why? According to Harding (1987), qual research is "better suited for examination of problems such as mobility faced by women, minorities, and the poor" due to the ability to delve into their thoughts and experiences. Qualitative research can illuminate some of the silences that lurk behind quant research because data can only provide so much. From the series of information regarding how the study was structured, I couldn’t help noticing that the interviews were overwhelmingly white (80%) and male (74%) with white men making up 63% of the interviewees.
The transportation planning field is largely white and male, but I was still a bit disheartened to see that I will have to do serious work in getting not only an all-Black list of interviewees, but also one that is more gender-balanced.
As asserted by the interviewees, “The pursuit of social justice by transit administrators is almost always thwarted, interviewees assert, by their city or region’s elected or unelected policymakers—ranging from political to business and religious leaders who consciously or subconsciously fail to support the mission of public transportation agencies to provide physical mobility to those too poor, young, old, or unwilling to utilize private transportation.” Further, there are three primary ways this shows up + sub-reasons:
Stigmatizaton of transit users
-- “My kind of people don’t ride transit”
-- “Keep the urban element out”
-- Competition from the state
Funding mechanisms and budget reductions
-- Budget cuts typically impact transit agencies, first
-- Attitudes against the efficacy of transit agencies (due to negative attitudes about transit)
Zoning and development decisions
-- Making it impossible to use transit
-- Highway vs transit dollars debate
-- Free parking, easy to access parking
Also, those with power to hamstring transit administrators typically drive and have little interest in using transit, nor do they see the necessity of it. At the same time, Wellman and the interviewees argue that “policymakers and administrators can play a role in reducing the stigmatization of transit ridership simply by utilizing public transportation themselves and making it easy for agency employees and clients to as well.” It is a simple tool, but one that is overlooked at best and shunned at worst.
In the end, the transit administrators believed in the power of social mobility, justice, and using transportation to overcome social oppression but “also indicated on many occasions that they feel powerless to change or challenge it.” Institutionalized racism was a consistent finding from the interviews, shadowing meaningful change to the paradigm, and finally, the aspirations transit administrators and urban policymakers were disconnected due to:
Disconnect in communication
Disinterest by policymakers to make access to public transit more equitable
Disinterest in challenging automoblitiy
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on racial equity in planning organizations
Solis’s focus for this paper is to argue that, “planners’ pursuit of racial equity by proposing that public planning departments’ internal rules and norms also reproduce racial inequity.” Through this, Solis breaks down her argument into three sections:
“I first discuss how the centrality of race in the United States requires planners to recalibrate how they envision their role in changing their communities”
“I draw on organizational theory to show that planning departments are organizations with racialized rules and norms.”
“I then offer racial equity in planning organizations (REPO) as a framework to think about and address these problematic inner workings.”
Focusing on racial inequity and the organizational structure of agencies/orgs stands out amongst racial equity literature that either focuses on DEI reports after the fact or literature that provides an overview of how racial equity is codified by law (and then used long range plans). Solis provides hopeful information, namely that “80% of long-range transportation plans of the 50 largest U.S. cities mention equity (DuPois et al., 2017). Ninety percent of small and large U.S. cities’ climate adaptation plans also mention equity (Schrock et al., 2015).” Therefore, it is clear that municipalities are working towards integrating equity into their plans and principles. However, the most salient point against these seemingly positive statistics is Solis’ argument that the “Planners’ apparent embrace of equity reflects the field’s tendency to approach the concept as a goal the profession can advance through its plans within and across cities.” While she does not go into the various streams of philosophy of equity that either supports her stance or the stances of U.S. cities — this is not the paper for that — this point is also my issue with how transportation equity is approached by municipalities and organizations.
Bolstered her own experience working in organizations in San Francisco, New York City, and Austin, TX, Solis introduces a framework called REPO (racial equity in planning organizations). Solis states, “As a framework, REPO holds that the inner workings of public planning departments can manifest racial inequities and that these inequities ultimately hamper their organizational efficacy in advancing their equity goals.” She goes on to add, “Second, to advance REPO, planners must assess their organizational strengths and weaknesses with regard to a racial equity initiative”, and “Third, REPO involves organizational learning. In this sense, an organization must formally commit to REPO; it is not a one-off initiative with a single champion.”
Solis provides a table following Ray (2019) called “How organizations' internal rules and norms reproduce racial inequity”,
The REPO framework reads to me as reflexive work that planning organizations need to be doing. And that this work resides before ahead of, and outside, work through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices. In my experience, outside of strategic planning meetings, which tend to happen once every three years, there is little done regarding reassessing how the internal structure of an organization creates or inhibits success. I see the REPO framework as a veiled critique of how organizations lean on DEI to “infuse” equity and expect radical change. Solis admits that REPO is a newly formed framework, but also shares that there is a serious gap in planning literature that “investigate[s] racism and racial equity within planning departments.” Again, this article stands out from planning literature in its focus on racial inequity and organizational theory and has the potential to drawn in researchers who are thinking about racial equity in practice, but have also become wary of the over-reliance (?) of DEI.
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on transport justice: designing fair transportation systems (introduction/chapter 1)
Martens opens the chapter/introduction by using Los Angeles as a case fro “seeking transportation justice” through a well known advocacy coalition: The Bus Riders Union. In this case, he identifies three (3) “domains of choice: and tradeoffs that must occur when discussing transportation planning and/or policy. They are:
place (of residence)
level of income
abilities and skills
With the Los Angeles example, he notes the grassroots campaign waged by the Bus Riders Union argues that, “place of residence should not determine a person’s quality of life.” Yet, Martens argues, “transportation systems, by their very nature, are bounded in space.” (p.18) The interplay between place and space will be a reoccurring topic throughout the book due to the very issue of space being absent from seminal texts on justice. Second, he picks up the issue of pricing for transportation services/modes. From here, he asks a series of questions relating to how planners are to deal with the disconnect between what people can afford, what people have access to, and how policies shape our way of lives through transportation. He also sets up a future critique of subsidies through questions like, “Should all travelers pay the full costs of their journeys? Or are there valid reasons to not subsidize travel? … And if it is justified to subsidize travel, should all travel receive a subsidy or should subsidies be targeted to particular groups?”. Finally, he ends with Los Angeles and ability or the fact that “persons different fundamentally in their abilities to use various modes of transportation.” (p.19) Accessibility, too, will be a key theme through the book.
The win for the Bus Riders Union was a monumental case in transportation justice and has been studied endlessly by transportation planners. But Martens’ core question for the book does not ask whether “transportation planning should be based on the principles of justice,” instead he asked, “…on which principles of justice should it be based.” (p.20) Through this question, Martens sims to “develop a new paradigm, or comprehensive theory, for transportation planning, based on the principles of justice.” (p.20) and “develop a “theory of fairness in the domain of transportation.” (p.21) To do this, Martens intends to first draw a distinction between procedural & substantive theories and empirical vs normative theories. Procedural vs substantive (Faludi, 1973) can be described as basically theories of planning vs theories in planning (p.21). Procedural is defined as “relat[ing] to the process and methods of decision-making” and substantive - “pertain[ing] to the (interdisciplinary) knowledge relevant to the content of planning (like understanding land use dynamics (Yiftachel 1989)). Empirical or explanatory theories can be defined as “seek[ing] to understand the ‘real world’ as it is.”, while prescriptive (normative?) “provide[s] abstract and general guidance on how the world should be; in others words, they provide guidance for action and intervention.” (p.21)
Martens’ new theory, which will developed over the course of the book, will be both to be both substantive and prescriptive. The theory developed in the book will “contrast with most prescriptive planning theories developed over the last decades, which have focused on the process rather than the content of planning”. (p.21) This theory is aimed at transportation planning advocates, while Martens is focused on practitioners: “The principles are to help practitioners analyze the state of a transportation system and identify interventions that move the system closer to the fair ideal.” Following the theory, Martens will then develop an “abstract set of principles of justice for transportation planning. The principles are to help practitioners analyze the state of a transportation system and identify interventions that move the system closer to the fair ideal. ” (p.23). Ultimately, Martens declares the book is “meant for different audiences.” (p.23)
Before concluding, Martens makes space for accessibility for the concept of accessibility will be constant throughout the book. He opens with Hansen’s classic definition and usage of accessibility as it captures, “the spatial distribution of activities about a point, adjusted for the ability and the desire of people … to overcome spatial separation” (Hansen 1959, p. 73)”. Martens notes that aside from the classic definition, scholars (interdisciplinary) tend to make a distinction between “person accessibility” and “place accessibility”. Martens will focus on person accessibility as, “A justice perspective on transportation planning directs the attention to persons, as justice requires the fair treatment of persons, not of places.” (p.24). Finally, there are three key points on accessibility to keep in mind (p.24):
“accessibility captures a potential for interaction”
“accessibility can be measured in terms of its volume or quantity”
“and a person’s accessibility depends on both context(transportation systems and land use patterns) and personal attributes (such as vehicle ownership, income level, abilities)”
Below is an outline of the book chapters:
Chapter 2: “A critical exploration of the principles of justice underlying the traditional approach to transportation planning.” martens concludes that this approach “falls short of providing a convincing set of justice principles to underpin transportation planning.” (p.26)
Chapter 3: An outline of what to expect for a theory of justice in transportation + draw on Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice (1983) to “present an argument outlining why justice in transportation deserves a treatment separate from other domains of gov’t intervention.” (p.26)
Chapter 4: An argument that the “importance of transportation does not derive from the potentiality for movement it enables, but from the accessibility to destinations it confers on persons” (p.26)
Chapter 5: John Rawls’ Theory of Justice…and why Rawls’ theory “cannot deliver principles of justice for transportation or transportation planning.” p. 26 However, it is still a useful text and there are concepts of justice that can be derived.
Chapter 6: Draws upon Ronald Dworkin’s “theory on equality of resources” where resource scarcity is an “intrinsic element of reasoning about justice and fairness.” (p.26)
Chapter 7: The notion of sufficiency and capabilities, drawing on Amartya Sen and Norman Daniels
Chapter 8: Heart of the book
Chapter 9: Case study of Amsterdam with the application of Martens’ principles of justice
Chapter 10: Final observations
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on new routes to equity: the future of transportation for the black community
This report is designed to highlight the “on-going challenges affecting African Americans in the transportation system and provide policy recommendations for how shared mobility, electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles can equitably serve the Black community.” The expansive transportation tech space kicked off 7 to 10 years ago almost rapidly with shared mobility changing the transportation landscape seemingly overnight. Innovations in transportation have long created disparate impacts across Black, Brown, and low-income communities. Patterson states clearly that a “major concern is whether these mobility options equitably benefit the Black community or perpetuate and exacerbate transportation inequities.” (p.4)
Patterson outlines the mobility-related concerns that impact Black Americans, broadly. Starting with an overview of the history of racism in transportation and subsequent advocacy that helped give birth to the Civil Rights Movement, the report introduces the lasting legacy of “Negro Removal” or the blatant destruction of Black communities to further highway expansion for white suburbanites: inequitable, lasting, generational access to transportation opportunity, health, and safety. Next, Patterson breaks down a series of recommendations from the lens of transportation equity and environmental justice. Finally, she provides a series of policy recommendations for these modes under the realms of Access, Sustainability, and Safety. The purpose of this report is to “highlight(s) on-going challenges affecting African Americans in the transportation system and provides policy recommendations for how shared mobility, electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles can equitably serve the Black community.” (p.6)
The three key issues that Patterson seeks to address are the issues around access, sustainability, and safety for Black Americans and transportation. Access is defined here as “peoples’ ability to use mobility options and to reach goods and services” (p.7). Black Americans lead the nation with zero-car households (20% of households do not have access to a car). Black Americans are also disproportionately transit riders, being the second largest group of riders after whites, despite making up just 12% of the U.S. population (p.8). Additionally, 14% fewer jobs were located near Black Americans (measured from 2000 - 2012). These statistics stand out harshly against the U.S.’s auto-dominated landscape. Access to job opportunities are difficult to obtain in much of the country, and this is being exacerbated by Black households moving to the suburbs in search of affordable housing due to being priced out of job rich, and transit rich, cities. Patterson goes onto share Black households being disproportionately unbanked (17%) and underbanked (30%). Given that newer forms of transportation, not including explicitly electric vehicles (yet), rely on apps and bank accounts, there is a great risk of Black Americans being left behind in transportation’s tech revolution without intervention.
Under sustainability, Patterson pulls in some statistics on environmental inequity that mirror that of Bullard’s 2004 article on urban transportation equity. First, 24% of African Americans live near highly trafficked roads (p. 10) and African Americans are more likely to live near busy roads more than whites. Living near constant sites of pollution from PM2.5 can cause devastating damage to the lungs, brain, and heart. Furthermore, there is interpersonal safety. Black drivers are stopped more than white drivers and Black drivers are more likely be killed during a traffic stop. Black communities also carry the scars of urban renewal leaving Black Americans more vulnerable to traffic injuries and death than white Americans. With the various inequities Black Americans face with the current transportation system, getting ahead of compounding inequities is crucial.
Patterson provides policy recommendations for each of the three transportation options. While there are a few recommendations that are mode-specific, such as requiring zero-emission electric vehicle fleets, most argue for an integration of multiple, communal, and shared services. Two recommendations that speak to this are “Integrate public transit fare payment methods with shared mobility services” (p.13) and “Prioritize deployment of autonomous vehicles as a public electric, shared mobility option over private ownership.” (p.14). Integrating PT fare payment with shared mobility services not only gets at the first mile/last mile issue that exists for Black folks who are increasingly living outside of the city’s transit shed, but also doubles as a low cost option. Current fare payments that allow for third-party apps are paid by debit/credit cards. This can be a hardship for some. By allowing transit riders to continue their ride by transferring to a shared mobility service, it removes the occurrence of double-dipping (or being forced to choose what you can/cannot pay for). Additionally, by allowing transit payments on shared mobility, shared mobility will cease to exist as an option outside of existing service.
Other policy recommendations speak to transportation equity’s roots in environmental justice, notably recommending zero-emission AV fleets that are deployed as a public shared option (over private ownership) and requiring carbon-free energy sources for EVs. This report is sensitive to the integration of transportation tech that does not hurt Black livability and exacerbate automobility, thus adding to inequities of transportation access, sustainability, and safety that it touts.
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on Black in Place, chapter 1
Chapter 1:
Thompson Summers engages in both the history of Washington D.C., the “riotproof city” and the formation of two opposing theories: the white spatial imaginary and the black spatial imaginary. Before going into how these imaginaries are formed, she lays the groundwork of the social disorganization theory (Glazer and Moynihan) that described black american families as “disorganized” due to the lack of a patriarchical, nuclear family structure. Furthermore, Black women, often the heads of household, were categorized as deviant. The black family is defined as the opposite of the ideal, moral family structure as defined by whiteness. Glazer and Moynihan effectively created a racial theory that colors how Americans at large view black majority communities which that black folks are still trying to discard, today.
She invokes George Lipstiz’s theory of the white spatial imaginary which "reinforces structure advantages of whiteness through restrictive spatial exclusivity.” We see this through the creation of the suburbs, white flight, and the racialization of the (Black) inner city. It is at odds with what Thompson Summers calls the “black spatial imaginary” where black residents and politicians of the 1960s and 1970s "envision spaces that were black built and black run” as the way to rebuild the commercial corridor of H Street.
The “riotproof” city bleeds into both spatial imaginaries. On one hand, white politicians believed that the Civil Rights protests that were happening in the Deep South would never reach D.C. because of the city’s political elite being ran by Black politicians. But D.C. did riot. And riots happened even along H Street where, to the shock of residents outside of H Street, “looters” did not torch businesses that were black-owned and white-owned, but black-allied. Those who rioted specifically went after shops that operated in a known black, working class and poor community but were hostile to its consumers and upheld the tenets of segregation. But this opportunity for nuance was lost to time. Why did D.C. riot? The same reason why other cities rioted: Black citizens reached their breaking point and that breaking point was at the intersection of race and class and political and economic conditions. As Marion Barry, the future mayor of D.C. stated, 1960s D.C. consisted of “two worlds: one white, one black.” and Black people were tired.
The concept being riots is not new information but it defines the history of H Street and there are periodic references to it throughout the book. Thompson Summers states, “the riot was the turning point for the racial and spatialization of blackness along H Street.” As Washington Post journalists Jaffe and Sherwood note, “In many ways, D.C. never recovered from the uprisings… people will always define the city’s history as ‘before the riots’ and ‘after the riots.’” p. 60
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on Addressing urban transportation equity in the United States
Robert Bullard is considered the father of environmental justice research. Transportation equity was born from the civil rights movement and the environmental justice movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In this article, Bullard lays out the compounding issues that inadequate, inaccessible, and underfunded transportation creates for black and low-income communities. First, he provides an overview of the history of transport equity, situating it in the civil rights era and then in the early 90s with the introduction of Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. Then he systematically unfurls the devastation to black and poor people socially and economically through transit racism, the lingering effects of segregation, worsening health outcomes, and suburban sprawl. He outlines a series of federal spending programs designed to address the underfunding of urban transportation and bolster transportation equity, but these programs come after decades of disinvestment. Bullard ends the article by sharing his ideas for policy action and intervention.
(Minor quibble, he appears to use transportation justice and transportation equity interchangeably)
Starting with the Freedom Riders campaign of the 1960s, transportation injustice has been a constant theme of African American life. Even after the promise of the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. discrimination against African Americans through the transportation system (all modes) persisted with Bullard calling discrimination a “tax” upon “poor people and people of color who need safe, affordable, and accessible public transportation.” (p.1186). At the time of this article (2004), 80% of spending for transportation went to highways with approximately 20% for public transit. In the 1990s, the federal government began to pay closer attention to transportation spending, including creating federal programs aimed at following the recommendations listed within the Civil Rights Act. From 1998 - 2003, the TEA-21 (Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century) program spent a record $217 billion on infrastructure.
Starting with the Freedom Riders campaign of the 1960s, transportation injustice has been a constant theme of African American life. Even after the promise of the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. discrimination against African Americans through the transportation system (all modes) persisted with Bullard calling discrimination a “tax” upon “poor people and people of color who need safe, affordable, and accessible public transportation.” (p.1186). At the time of this article (2004), 80% of spending for transportation went to highways with approximately 20% for public transit. Today, it is a XX%/XX% split. In the 1990s, the federal government began to pay closer attention to transportation spending, including creating federal programs aimed at following the recommendations listed within the Civil Rights Act. From 1998 - 2003, the TEA-21 (Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century) program spent a record $217 billion on infrastructure.
Bullard uses the 1990s boom in transportation spending and this new eye to creating equitable access to opportunity to provide three categories of inequity to understand how they happen:
Procedural inequity - “Attention is directed to the process by which transportation decisions may or may not be carried out in a uniform, fair, and consistent manner with involvement of diverse public stakeholders.” (p.1148)
ex: Bullard asks, “Do the rules apply equally to everyone?” We know the answer is no. But, unless discrimination is explicitly defined, it is hard to fight in court.
Geographic inequity - “Transportation decisions may have distributive impacts (positive and negative) that are geographic and spatial, such as rural versus urban versus central city.” (p.1148)
Bullard uses the example of living on the “wrong side” of the tracks
Social inequity - “Transportation benefits and burdens are not randomly distributed across population groups.” (p.1148)
Bullard argues that intergenerational inequity also falls under this category as transportation decisions have had far reaching consequences across generations.
In the next section on “Erasing Transportation inequities”, Bullard shares in quick blocks of paragraphs the multitude of ways that state DOTs have actively, outwardly, and almost proudly resisted moratoriums on highway building and spending transportation fund on anything but highways. Not to be outdone, state and regional transit agencies have also done their part to spend transportation dollars inequitably. MARTA has been sued numerous times by community-based organizations using Title IV, where they declared MARTA delivered inadequate service to its Black riders for white riders. The MBTA came under fire for the same issue for MBTA riders in the minority-majority city of Boston effectively subsidizing the rides of the more well-off users of the commuter rail. Inequity has been sown into transportation systems for people of color, no matter the mode.
As stated earlier, the federal government began to build programs to address transportation inequity in the 1990s. First was the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 aka ISTEA. ISTEA mandated that infrastructure projects comply with the Clean Air Act and most importantly, it required transportation plans to comply with Title IV. The first of its kind. After ISTEA came TEA-21. TEA-21 expired in 2003, but received an extension through Winter 2004. Transportation advocates rallied around TEA-21 for it to be reauthorized with additional components: “…strong public support, public participation, and a demand of accountability for transportation agencies in the development of transportation projects.” p. 2004. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act aka INVEST in America or IIJA (2021 - present) is the most current transportation funding federal support bill. IIJA includes the greatest amount of funding for public transit in U.S. history ($105 billion). Additionally, $110 billion is for roads and bridges, with earmarks for safer pedestrian and cycling networks, and $15 billion for electric vehicles.
In the final sections of the article, Bullard links transportation inequity and suburban sprawl to compounding issues for African American health. This links back to Bullard’s own background in environmental justice. Bullard argues that suburban sprawl has had clear negative effects socially and environmentally. Some of the social effects of suburban sprawl include limited mobility, economic disinvestment, social isolation, and urban/suburban disparities that “closely mirror racial inequities (p.1201). On environment, he argues that sprawl has created automobile dependency, urban infrastructure decline, and threats to public health and the environment (p.1201). At the time of this article, “the hospitalization rate for African Americans is three to four times the rate for whites. African Americans are three times more likely than whites to die from asthma.” (p.1204).
Bullard concludes with a series of policy recommendations to programs. Given much of their salience to today’s issues, despite the expiration of a few programs, they are outlined below (p.1206 - 1209):
Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century ("TEA-21 “): “TEA-21 reauthorization will need to address improved performance and accountability, mobility and choices, safety, economic prosperity, energy efficiency, and new transportation investments that meet the needs and challenges of creating healthy, livable, and just communities.” (p.1206)
Increase Funding to MPOs: Increase funding and allow MPOs “greater flexibility” in tailoring their funding needs to their communities. (p.1207)
Public participation: “Ensure greater stakeholder participation and public involvement to receive effective transportation decision making.” (p.1207)
Disproportionate and Adverse Impacts: “Ensure the use of performance measures to assess equity impacts (benefits and burdens) of state DOTs and MPOs transportation planning, investment decisions, and policies impact on Title VI protected classes, minority populations, and low-income populations.”
Research and Evaluation: “Improve research, data collection, and assessment techniques to analyze disparities that exist when it comes to transportation benefits. Incorporate GIS/mapping tools.”
Interagency Cooperation and Planning: “Promote interagency cooperation in transportation planning, development, and program implementation to achieve livable, healthy, and sustainable communities. An interagency approach offers great promise in addressing social equity and environmental justice concerns.”
Environmental Justice and Certification Review: “Incorporate environmental justice as a benchmark for MPO recertification to ensure that compliance of federal funds for transportation projects include public input and public involvement in the transportation decision making process.”
New Guidelines for Financial Disclosure for Transportation Planning: Encourage MPOs to develop new guidelines in publicizing their transportation improvement program documents.”
Employment Transportation Projects Partnerships: “Implement employment transportation projects that are community-based and consist of training and educating community residents for transportation jobs, and conduct transportation job fairs in low-income minority communities because they are transit dependent and rely on others for their mobility.”
Baseline Assessment Tools: “There is a need for increased knowledge in the development of improved baseline transportation equity assessments that estimate current levels of inaccessibility and adverse impacts”
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on Black in Place
Why I read Black in Place
Black in Place is a book centered on the presence of Washington D.C. as the Chocolate City aka a city who is politically, socially, and economically thrown for its majority Black/African American population and the various processes that are contributing to its conscious undoing through the focus on H Street, a formerly Black, working class commercial corridor. Central to this book is the time period, the 2000s into the 2010s. During this time, the subjects of gentrification, diversity, and authenticity are being roundly critiqued.
Isn’t gentrification good?
Don’t we want diverse communities?
How can vibrant, multicultural corridors ever be a bad thing?
Really, those questions are distractions. I don’t think anyone would argue against any of that (except for gentrification), but I would ask, “Are Black people invited?”
I think Thomspon Summers would say Yes (No). Not yes or no; Yes (No). Yes, in that diversity (the context of the book being racial/ethnic) includes Black Americans. Yes, in that well, we’re in the “Chocolate City” with Black people involved in every socioeconomic group and the highest political offices, so naturally Black people are involved. But also, no. No because gentrification is “inherently contradictory” in that it invites diversity but suppresses it at the same time. No because as H Street changes over, Black-owned and Black-catered businesses are disappearing. No because the new development breeds a new (old) order that demands overt protection from *perceived* threats. Yes because Blackness is cool. No because Black bodies — not people; bodies — are a threat.
Thomson Summers’ chief contribution, the “blackness aesthetic emplacement” defined as, “a mode of representing blackness in urban capitalist simulacra, which exposes how blackness accrues a value that is not necessarily extended to Black bodies." p. 3 is really outside of the bounds of my research. However, I connected with the book because of a broader interest in how we think about diversity and blackness, during this time period, even if my field of focus is transportation planning. I was also intrigued by how Thompson Summers weaved in the machinations of whiteness and, as George Lipsitz calls, the “white spatial imaginary” vs the “black spatial imaginary”. I, too, would like to delve into whiteness as a study to explain the reactionary force that is transportation justice while also staying with Black thought and experience as the central theme.
Thomspson Summers utilized a variety of qualitative methods in her approach. These include
Below are the themes of the book that I took away, as well as key arguments that Thomspon Summers describes throughout. Starting in 2011, she delved into archival research, which includes 9 months of observation and document analysis through transcripts, neighborhood blogs, and listservs to “understand how diversity was framed and discussed and how the attachment of race to space takes place.”. Next, she immersed herself in 3 years of participant observation (2012-2015) by chatting with current and past residents, bartenders, waitstaff, and casual visitors on H Street. She also joined restaurant tours of the corridor. Thomspon Summers used cuisine, transportation, security, and historic preservation as anchors for her research.
Chief contribution to literature/main focus: the black aesthetic emplacement.
Thomspon Summers explains that Black in Place is dedicated to “Examining various practices of black aesthetic emplacement, I consider how blackness is aestheticized and deployed to fortify public order, organize landscapes, and foster capital. I theorize black aesthetic emplacement as part of the white hegemonic structuring and signifying of notions of blackness to increase the desirability of a particular location.” p. 3 (The location being the H Street, NE corridor). She illustrates the point of the blackness aesthetic in reference to the owners of Chocolate City Beer using a red, raised fist in the gentrifying H-Street corridor. Here she posits that “race operates as an aesthetic language and a visual logic within the neoliberal epstieme.” thus blackness “assumes the form of a distinct aesthetic that is influenced by, but not reduced to, race relations.” p.4.
H Street, before the 1990s, was a commercial corridor that served working class to low-income Black consumers. We learn later in the historic overview that H Street was one of the few corridors that Black Washingtontonians could frequent, due to segregation. In the 2000s, H Street becomes the new site of a diverse, creative, commercial corridor for all. On the trajectory of H Street, Thompson Summers “explore[s] the tensions between a post–Chocolate City and constructions of blackness within the context of contemporary neoliberalism”, including the critique of what it means to be a post-Chocolate City, in that post means beyond or absent.
Throughout the book, she provides several continuous critiques of gentrification as cultural displacement and the concepts of diversity and authenticity. In gentrifying corridors like H Street, “…poor and working-class Black residents experience cultural displacement, in which they feel unwelcome and uncomfortable in the areas where they have lived and roamed for years.” p. 12. She specifically calls out placemaking, a process for shaping public spaces that focus on “making places” livable, walkable, and most importantly as a cog in this wheel of displacement. Placemaking is critiqued under the section Black (im)mobility as an extension of how economic policy and mayoral politics contributed to the reimagining of H Street to the almost unrecognizable. Adonia Lugo shared her experience as a participant observer trying to share in Parking Day in a historically Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, only to be told to move along by the police. There are nuances there within her experience, mainly how the residents view Parking Day and how it, too, is wrapped up on the new multicultural urban experience of the late 2000s/early 2010s, but I think this tangent marries well.
For all five chapters, I will provide summaries in subsequent posts. However, I may skip over sections that I either feel are not new information or are not integral to my research.
Chapter 1
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on Social geographies of race: Connecting race and space
This article focuses on analyzing race from a spatial perspective, which was still an emergent practice at the time of publication (2011). Neely and Samura offer a framework for theorizing racial space, including four characteristics of space: contested, fluid and historical, and interactional and relationship, and defined by inequality and difference. This article begins with three research questions: 1. What about race can we understand better through the lens of space 2. "How is racial inequality organized spatially?" 3. "How do spaces come to be known and used in racialized terms?" Their aim with this article is to tie together their own explorations of race and space across several disciplines into a method that is "...clearer and more analytically useful." (p. 1934). To accomplish this, first they draw on a targeted literature review of spatial studies. Next, they provide characteristics supporting a theory of racial space: contested, fluid and historical, and interactional and relationship, and defined by inequality and difference. Of this, Neely and Samura note four key issues that contribute to theory of racial space: segregation, (dis)placement, spatial contestations, and place attachments. The authors are focused on collapsing the academic divide of race and space and defining how the two are intrinsically linked.
Neely and Samura situate contemporary critical spatial studies beginning in the 1960s due to several social and cultural revolutions and the emergence of identity politics. In their analysis, three key authors are noted for laying the groundwork for the discipline and their theory of racial space.
Yi-Fu Tuan (1977) - First geographer to study human engagement with space and place.
Henri LeFebvre (1991) - Using marxist theory to a framework for “studying spatial processes that makes necessary linkages between culture and political economy” with spatiality taking center stage. LeFebvre explains the inherent power of providing/denying space to limit economic and/or political power.
Doreen Massey (1993)- Warns against the “de-politicization or neutralization” of space, stating that space is “‘a complex web of relations of domination and subordination, of solidarity and cooperation’.
The key characteristics of space, as defined by Neeley and Samura:
Contested - The terms “space” and “spatial” are contested terms; they’re political and their definitions change with who’s defining them. To explain further, Neeley and Samura lean on Low and Lawrence-Zuniga explanation of contested spaces: “‘geographic locations where conflicts in the form of opposition, confrontation, subversion, and/or resistance engage actors whose social positions are defined by differential control of resources and access to power”. (p.1938). Both the contested nature of space and its definitions reminds me of my own struggle with articulating the differences between justice and equity. There are a multitude of similar, yet subtle differences in definitions depending on the experiences of the actor who is using it.
Fluid and historical - The “constentations” cause the definitions or meanings to change over time, thus “Space has come to be seen not as a fixed cultural thing, but rather as a multi-vocal, fluid process.”
Relational and historical - Space is also defined by “relational and interactional processes” in that space “also involves social actors (individuals, groups, institutions) who create, disrupt and recreate spatial meanings through interaction with one another.”
Difference and inequality - “the political struggles over space play out through structures of difference and inequality that define and organize spaces according to dominant interests” or, as Neely and Samura state, “The meanings and uses of space have much to do with defining who does and who does not have the power to define and control space.” which is a crucial point in the overlap in racial and spatial studies.
Connections to my research interests:
As Neely and Samura start to narrow in on their own theory of racial space, they introduce Caroline Knowles whose concept of the active archive provides linkages between “sociality and the history of enmeshed in space.” So, as I understand it (hopefully I am understanding this correctly) space contains multiple histories and when overlain with race, we have the construction of how the construction of race collides with the history of that construction the space those (of that race) physically and culturally reside. For better or for worse. Hence, why it is disingenuous to try to disentangle space from race.
Knowles’ framework is integral to Neely and Samura’s own understanding of race and space and Knowles’ outline of the four way that racial and spatial processes interact are:
“The contestations over our built environment
The everyday embedded and performed social lives of people
The movement (place and displacement) of people
The social relationships engaged in by individuals and groups.”
Arguably, this framework was the most transparent, for me.
Omi and Winant’s theory of racial formation brings Neely and Samura’s build-up in theory in line with practice, more than the original authors who laid more of the straight theoretical groundwork (LeFebvre, Massey, and Tuan). Omi and Winant call attention to the “shifting meanings of race across time and space and to the political and state ‘projects’ that define what race means and determine how race is used to control and exploit humans beings.” As such, their theory of racial formation, “…connects the ideological realm to the social and political realms, and it posits that these connections are on-going historical, political and dialectical processes between materiality and culture.”
With this, Neely and Samura outline how they see race and space interact:
“Race and space involve political struggles over their meanings.” and “Conflicts over resources and access to space…may play out over racial lines.” For example, they referenced the racial political struggles of Post-Katrina New Orleans, a racialized (Black) city as it struggles with redevelopment for whom vs the “oppositional” place-making activities happening in the Ninth Ward.
The trajectory of race and space over time. For example, the charting of rise of the Black ghettos in the early 20th century to understand how Black Americans have been isolated, spatially (Denton, 1993).
“Space and place are interactional and relational” or “Meanings of space and race are continuously made and remade through interactions between groups and individuals” at all levels. Here, I am reminded of Lipsitz’s work and his declaring whiteness as an oppositional force to Blackness/“Black” space (i.e. the ghetto) and the “white spatial imaginary”. I’m interacting with this idea through Thompson Summers’ Black in Place. Cheryl Harris is highlighted here for her connection of the usage of property to explain the construction of whiteness. It’s rather interesting that the concept of whiteness here called out the most during this section.
“Race and space are defined by inequality and difference.” in that, “power relations are often inscribed into material spaces and played out through racial interactions.” Among the many examples listed, one includes a study by Laura Pulido (2000) focusing on the embedding of racial inequalities and reinforcement white supremacy in the management of toxic waste in Los Angeles. Another example includes Daniel Delaney’s suggestion to look towards the “local geographies of race” to understand racial segregation in the U.S.
Ultimately, Neely and Samura’s foray into a theory of racial space is to argue that “a spatial perspective reveals another analytical and practical pathway through which the racial order can shift and be changed” for looking at race through a spatial lens allowed them to better understand the structural hands at play.
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