Urban planning A tool in our equity toolbox

[Applause]

i want you to take a minute and close

your eyes

and think about the neighborhood that

you grew up in

think about your house or apartment the

robes you use

to get to work or to school is there a

grocery store nearby

how about a library or a park within

walking distance

you can open your eyes maybe the

neighborhood you pictured looks like

this or maybe it looked a bit more like

this

or maybe you had a giant freeway running

right through your backyard

no matter where you grew up the

environment you lived in was planned

urban planning has been necessary since

the dawn of modern cities

while good urban planning can keep us

safe and healthy

bad urban planning can decimate

communities and create racial and

economic divides

tonight i want to talk about a few

examples of good and bad urban planning

and how urban planning is now being used

as a tool to overcome these divides that

we have created

here are two urban centers that you

might recognize

on the left is madrid and on the right

is manhattan

both of these cities are characterized

by dense urban cores

without much interruption except for

large green spaces

so you can see parque retiro in madrid

on the left and central park

on the right in the middle of manhattan

now let’s compare these two cities

to some midwestern cities

here on the left is detroit and on the

right is cincinnati

now what’s the obvious difference

between these two cities and the last

two

in detroit and cincinnati and many other

u.s cities

large urban freeways cut through their

downtown cores dividing their

neighborhoods in half

in 1956 when president eisenhower signed

the federal highways act

cities began using federal money to

build freeways through their cities as

quickly

as they could oftentimes these freeway

projects were used for targeted

demolitions for what the cities deemed

as blighted neighborhoods

these blighted neighborhoods were almost

exclusively communities of color

these freeway projects took these

communities of color that were already

disadvantaged and discriminated against

and literally cemented them in it for

decades to come

so let’s look at a real example this is

black bottom detroit

one of the most successful black

neighborhoods in the midwest in the

first half of the 20th century

pictured here is hastings street their

main drag and you can see it is lined by

thriving shops and businesses

it hardly looks like a blighted

neighborhood however the city of detroit

determined

that the priorities of white suburban

commuters were more important than those

of the black detroiters that were living

in that neighborhood

so they decided to level the

neighborhood in preparation for freeway

this is what black bottom looked like

once the freeway was built and this

is what it looks like now black bottom

is interstate 375

one of the least used freeways in the

city of detroit

many of the 50 000 drivers a day do not

know the history of the land that they

drive upon

was all of this destruction for the

scantily used freeway worth it

the obvious answer is no so what are

urban planners doing about it

this is a michigan department of

transportation rendering of the

interstate 375 corridor future plans

they plan to remove the freeway and

replace it with a boulevard and green

space

this freeway removal project will help

to ease the movement of people from

either side of the freeway

increase the land values for the

residents who still remain in that area

increase the visibility for the small

businesses in that area

and reduce traffic noise many

other u.s cities have already carried

out freeway removal projects such as

this

this is a central artery in boston and

until 1993 the central artery carried

large amounts of traffic through

downtown boston

locals called it the distress way or the

other green monster

after the large wall in the outfield of

fenway park because of its notorious

traffic congestion

the city needed to fix this problem what

was their solution

to dig a one and a half mile long tunnel

under the city

known as a project called the big dig

this is what downtown boston looks like

now you can see

they removed the freeway and replaced it

with large urban parks

over top of these new tunnels the

freeway removal project again

increased land values decreased noise at

surface level

fixed the traffic problems and

reconnected downtown boston to its

waterfront

here are two other brief examples on the

left you can see the alaskan way viaduct

in seattle and its subsequent

replacement with a tunnel and on the

right is the removal of the inner loop

freeway in syracuse new york

now there are typically three big

concerns that come up

when considering freeway removal

projects the first

is that the traffic from these freeways

could potentially cascade

into the surrounding neighborhoods

completed projects have shown that this

just isn’t the case

alternate routes and modes such as

cycling and transit are sought out

and local ordinances can be put into

place to prevent cut through traffic

a second big concern is that by removing

these freeways

the land values in the area could

rapidly decrease while on the surface

this doesn’t seem like a major problem

it can cause

problems for residents who have lived

there for decades and all of a sudden

find that they can no longer afford

their rent and are forced to move

a creative solution to this problem is

to create a community land trust

the community land trust would allow the

minority residents

to continue to maintain control of that

reclaimed land

by allowing them to set sail price

limits for the new developments which

would make the development more

sustainable

a third concern is that residents

usually perceive freeway removal as more

disruptive

and more expensive than just

refurbishing the freeways that we

already have

this also is not the case this is the

park east freeway in milwaukee wisconsin

and until 2003 it cut through milwaukee

neighborhoods and carried traffic right

into downtown

but in 2003 it was reaching the end of

its 50-year lifespan

and the city had to decide whether to

remove it or replace and refurbish it

the city decided to remove it and they

determined that it was over five million

dollars cheaper

to remove the freeway than to replace it

and it created over two billion dollars

in economic benefit for the surrounding

community

in other words it was money well spent

for that area

now in addition to freeway removal

projects transit is another big way

that urban planners can create equity in

our communities

transit comes in many different forms

such as elevated rail subway

street cars and more commonly now bus

rapid transit systems with designated

lanes as shown here on the right

transit is often a better solution than

building freeways because it does not

require the

typical mass disruptions that building

freeways can cause

the transit systems can be built on top

of existing infrastructure and

underground

houston and new york show these

differences very well

on the left you can see the katy freeway

in houston and on the right

is the lexington avenue corridor in

manhattan

now at a glance if i were to ask you

which of these two corridors carried

more traffic in a day

you’d probably say the katy freeway in

houston the katy freeway only carries

about three 300 000 people

a day in stop and go traffic the

lexington avenue corridor however

carries over

1.3 million people per day in a

combination of car and bus traffic

cyclists and pedestrians and on four

subway tracks that run beneath the

street

now part of that is because of

development trends

and the population density in houston

those

suburbs in houston just aren’t dense

enough to support the mass transit usage

that midtown manhattan experiences

however if we prioritize

transit development we can shift these

density trends

towards more sustainable communities

transit-oriented development is becoming

increasingly common in the u.s and

around the world

transit oriented development is the

creation of compact

walkable communities that are mixed use

and centered around

high quality transit systems transit

oriented development creates a unique

opportunity

to provide low-income housing the bay

area rapid transit in san francisco

known as bart has partnered with

developers

to develop land that they already own

around their stations and in these

projects they have created low-income

housing units

bart has already created 900 low-income

housing units with their projects in the

past 10 years

and they plan to double that number in

the next 10 years

these projects have been creating equity

for the bay area

by not only ensuring that low-income

residents have housing available to them

but also by connecting them to

high-quality transit systems

that allow them to connect to more

opportunities around the bay area

we should talk about how we define

equity because as a good professor of

mine

will not let me forget the way we use

words matters

now when we talk about equity we usually

think of it

in a sense of equality or impartiality

but when we think about social equity it

goes far beyond our basic concept of

equality so i’m sure many of you have

seen this graphic before

it illustrates the difference between

equality and equity so on the left

three people of the same heights are

given the same size boxes

to try and see over the fence and watch

the baseball game

while two of them can see over the fence

the third by no fault of his own is

still too short to watch the game

a more equitable solution would be to

give them

boxes of different heights so that no

matter where they started out

they can all see the game equally now

you’re probably thinking

this is great and all but what can i do

to make sure that my city becomes a more

equitable place to live

the key is to get involved the urban

planning process relies on listening to

the communities that

urban planners are planning for so if

you get

one thing out of these 10 minutes let it

be this

your participation is essential to

transforming our communities

your opinions matter and your voice

needs to be heard

so i encourage you check out your city’s

website look at what projects they have

in the works

and go to a public hearing give them

your feedback maybe you’ll learn a thing

about local government along the way

infrastructure and urban planning

provides us with a unique opportunity to

change our landscapes for decades to

come

while we have seen how the lasting

impacts of infrastructure can be

negative when planned poorly

good urban planning is one of the most

tangible tools that we have to create

equity in our communities

while our fight against racial economic

and environmental injustice

needs to be aggressively multifaceted

infrastructure is a great

and easy place to start thank you

[Applause]