Black/African-American History Month and Urban Planning

 Over the years, I've written entries during African American/Black History Month, about the nexus of black history and urban and transportation planning. 

-- "Black History Month and the New Jim Crow," 2020
-- "Two ideas about presentation of African American History in the context of Black History Month," 2020
-- "African American History Month and Urban Planning," 2019

While those pieces hold up well, there's definitely new material.

The boogeyman of critical race theory/"race books"/school boards.  CRT started out as an academic approach to the study of law and American legal institutions, although you can use the same term to refer to the study of racism and segregation as an element of American society ("Before you rage against critical race theory, it might be helpful to know what it is," Seattle Times).

Conservatives have made this a huge issue, and making it out to be something reshaping K-12 education.  There are dozens of efforts in State Legislatures across the country to ban the teaching of CRT ("Why are states banning critical race theory?," Brookings).

There are related efforts to ban books ("Read the Books That Schools Want to Ban," The Atlantic).

And the ability of parents to influence school boards, get books banned (and masking) has been a successful wedge issue, which contributed to the success of Glenn Youngkin winning the Governorship in Virginia last November ("How will fights about race and suburban schools change education politics?," Chalkbeat).

The history of federally imposed housing segregation.  Last year I read  The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.

It's a damning overview of how segregation and discrimination has been "baked in" to US housing policy. 

Reading it, no one can deny the reality of structural racism.

Transit equity.  There is the rise in the number of communities taking an equity lens to government policies and programs, including urban and transportation planning ("Baltimore transit equity study spotlights racial disparities around neighborhoods," Washington Post, "Boston’s fare-free bus pilot program sets the stage for transit equity, advocates say," WGBH/NPR).

Although for some time, transit agencies receiving federal monies were already supposed to be doing this, and they weren't.  That's changed.

Free and discounted transit pricing isa related response.

Team Henry Enterprises is contracted to dismantle the pedestals throughout the city that once held Confederate monuments. The first pedestal, where Matthew F. Maury stood on Monument Avenue, came down Tuesday. Photo by Regina H. Boone

Confederate monuments.  The push to remove Confederate monuments continues ("Monuments as public art, historiography, and change," 2020).  

This has been ongoing, and was discussed in the 2019 entry, but it's more pronounced, including the removal of monuments even of the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia ("Confederate pedestals out," Richmond Free Press).  

And the renaming of streets that have been named after prominent Confederate figures ("3 Charlotte streets officially drop names tied to slavery, Confederacy," WSOC-TV), 

Energy and the environment.  Energy equity is another relevant to Black history and urban planning too.  

-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021

The comments thread includes links to a number of relevant aspects of the issue.

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Philadelphia has just created an equity advisory commission ("Philly names Environmental Justice Advisory Commission to address ‘racially biased and discriminatory policies’," Philadelphia Inquirer).