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]