Diversity and Planning: Challenges and Prospects -- session tonight

I just received this in my e-box. Of course, that makes three things I "should" attend tonight... This session features DC Ward 5 Neighborhood Planner Deborah Crain.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
7:00 pm to 8:30 pm__
1111 School of Architecture
The University of Maryland
/Reception to follow/

Widespread social and demographic changes mean that diversity issues are now major considerations in why, how and what we plan. Our panel of distinguished speakers are here to share their experiences and to discuss the challenges and prospects of working in and planning for an increasingly diverse society.

Panelists Include:

Anne Baum, Community Developer, Department of Housing and Community Development, Prince George's County

Joseph Chang, Planning Supervisor, Community Planning Division, Prince George's County

Deborah Crain, Neighborhood Planner, Office of Planning, District of Columbia

Irayda Ruiz, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Operations, School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Co-Chair, Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Committee, American Planning Association

Moderator: Angel Nieves, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Director, Graduate Research and Training, Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity

Sponsored by the UMD Urban Studies and Planning Program with support from
Office of the Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, The Graduate School , The University of Maryland
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Note that yesterday, the student newspaper at UMD printed up a supplement listing all the salaries of the various UMD staff. In planning, you need to be a dean or working in the Smart Growth arena to make any money.... maybe I need to reconsider wanting to teach.
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Speaking of why this is important:

1. Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 22, No. 2, 99-114 (2002):

From Racial Zoning to Community Empowerment: The Interstate Highway System and the African American Community in Birmingham, Alabama
Charles E. Connerly

This article shows how Birmingham’s interstate highway system attempted to maintain the racial boundaries that had been established by the city’s 1926 racial zoning law. It shows how the construction of interstate highways through black neighborhoods in the city led to significant population loss in those neighborhoods and is associated with an increase in neighborhood racial change. Finally, the article shows how the city’s black community moved from a position of quietly protesting the interstate highway system to one in which a black neighborhood forced government to alter plans that would have destroyed a section of a predominantly black public housing project. In so doing, the article shows how black neighborhoods, over time, moved from a position of adapting to the racial aspects of various planning tools to one in which they sought to modify these tools so that they would benefit, or at least not harm, the black community.

2. From the Post, "Environmental Justice Stalled, Report Finds." From the article:

Even the concept of "environmental justice" itself is the source of disagreement: The term originally meant paying attention to underprivileged populations who might be overexposed to pollution and toxics. The Bush administration has reinterpreted it as an effort to protect all people.

Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied to have funds cut off to the Environmental Protection Agency in the 1990s so it couldn't issue guidance to industry on environmental justice.