By Alanna Kinnebrew

When urban renewal made its way through Atlanta around the 1960s, it was initially viewed as a progressive policy that would give cities funding to clean up their impoverished areas and invest in affordable housing and urban infrastructure projects. Instead, there were devastating consequences for poor, minority communities who were disproportionately impacted and left with little to no alternative due to the lack of housing options. These communities were cut off from opportunity—and, it was not by choice. Government agencies, such as the Federal Housing Administration, encouraged redlining practices by promoting segregation efforts and refusing to insure mortgages in and near African American neighborhoods. The image below displays a map of Atlanta around the 1940s and shows the most “ideal” locations for white Americans to live in and around the city. The color coding was used as a grading system for neighborhoods so that mortgage lenders and realtors knew how to identify locations with a high population of African Americas and thus deem them “hazardous” as highlighted in red.

These decades old housing policies had a long-standing effect on American society and the results can still be seen across the country today. As Robert Caro wrote in The Power Broker, his biography of urban planner Robert Moses: “The regard for power means the disregard for those without power.” And lower-income black Atlantans had little power. Years later, Interstate 20, the east-west corridor that connects with I-75 and I-85 in Atlanta’s center, was deliberately plotted along a winding route in the late 1950s to serve, in the words of Mayor Bill Hartsfield, as “the boundary between the white and Negro communities” on the west side of town. In the years since, investment and growth have favored the majority white neighborhoods to the north of I-20, and poverty has concentrated in the predominantly black neighborhoods to the south creating a disconnect that hurts families’ opportunities and puts more polluting cars on the road as they commute north for jobs.

This history shows just how important it is to take measures that will not only educate but also transform what has been seen as the “norm” for so many decades. As a country, there is currently an overwhelming demand for equity on all fronts for people of all races, religious backgrounds, and sexual orientations. The black community in particular has been impacted by systemic racism for centuries, and there is a growing understanding that a part of this can be contributed to the need for equitable development for our most under-resourced and vulnerable communities.

Equity Evaluator Tool

As some organizations do their part to advocate against racial inequality, they are stepping in and pushing for more equitable development practices that put a community’s needs first, specifically in Atlanta. One such organization is Southface Institute which has partnered with the TransFormation Alliance (TFA) to develop the Equity Evaluator Tool. The tool serves as a means to help prioritize the needs of local communities now without sacrificing the future needs of these same communities. With a focus on equitable transit-oriented development (eTOD), the goal is to go beyond just providing more affordable housing, or increasing the number of units, and instead focusing more on what local communities actually need. The needs that are emerging include mixed-use development with multi-modal access to jobs, neighborhood serving stores, and other amenities that also serves the needs of low- and moderate-income people. It also places emphasis on MARTA since this is transit-oriented development.

What is the Equity Evaluator? The evaluation tool is an application that consists of two components: a worksheet/scorecard and a set of guidelines to walk anyone through the process. It appropriately contextualizes development proposals and plans based on the community’s needs, and is based on a robust analysis of neighborhood and community indicators mainly focused on median income, job access, walkability, and connectivity.

Whom is it for? In all, the Equity Evaluator Tool was truly created for the community and its residents. Anyone who is going to the neighborhood planning meetings and engaged in neighborhood associations and who also want to be more hands-on when it comes to the development of proposals. Its intent is to provide them with the framework to better assess the proposals and be more effective community and civic advocates. Developers can utilize the tool as well when it comes to their engagement with the community and while at Neighborhood Planning Meetings, they can use this as a means of having deeper dialogue about what is needed within the community. Lastly, institutions and other organizations can also use the tool as a framework for engagement and an added layer of evaluation if they are putting out requests for proposals for development in a particular neighborhood: understanding that they will be able to address current needs as well as the needs of the community in the future.

The Flourishing Neighborhood Index

Another organization by the name of the Lupton Center has also recognized an ongoing problem that is in part an inability to connect people. This is not all-encompassing of people in general but rather connecting those with skill and expertise with those who may be lacking said expertise. The other part of the problem lies with this misconception that both parties have towards one another. Because of this, the Lupton Center has created a specialized tool that connects people with the right narratives. For example, there have been many occasions in which there were ineffective projects executed that have not been aligned with the neighborhood and its needs. The importance lies in the fact that the Lupton Center set out with the intent of ensuring that the voice of the neighborhood is in front of every development effort, and that is what the index has accomplished. It shows how neighborhoods and individuals within the neighborhoods can play a major role in the decisions being made about the built environment.

              What is the Flourishing Neighborhood Index? The index is a tool that measures the health of your community across economic, social, and structural indicators. The importance of this index is that the community members themselves collect the data FOR the neighborhood, FROM the neighborhood. It is seen as more exact than census, regional, or zip code data because it comes from a more granular level and empowers the residents to then use their own skills and expertise which have been heightened through community engagement partnerships. Within the tool, there are 12 key indicators which are displayed in figures 2 & 3 below (click the images enlarge the picture); these indicators point to what flourishing looks like in a community.

What is the intent of the Flourishing Neighborhood Index? The index helps to identify priorities and objectives, develop a long-term plan, and coordinate around immediate steps. There are three phases that are used to help transform a neighborhood. Phase 1 consists of the assessment. In this phase, you become an expert on your neighborhood. You gain valuable insights into the state of your community through guided evaluation, personal coaching, and a set of data-rich, interactive maps that tell the unique story of your neighborhood. Phase 2 is alignment. In this phase, stakeholders are united around a common vision. By utilizing neighbor-to-neighbor surveying, staff training and mentoring, and in-depth analysis of index data, the voice, vision, and capacity of the community is expressed. The final phase, phase 3 is that of activation. Communities are now ready to execute a 24-month strategic plan. The development and implementation of a long-term plan takes place in which the neighborhood’s social, structural, and economic needs are planning to be met. Throughout the process, the community is able to harness the Lupton Center’s expert counsel, ongoing group learning and video coaching, and data visualization and mapping tools to measure and evaluate impact. 

What both of these organizations have shown is that through community engagement practices, the overall goal is to pinpoint some issues that are being faced and then produce a bilateral relationship between community members and the organization in order to ensure that both parties are coming together to address and resolve said concerns reaching the common goal of safe and healthy communities. There are insurmountable stressors that these communities face every day, so it is important to build strong relationships based on communication, trust, and a mutual respect from each other so that the end goal is achieved.

Conclusion

Engaging communities and collaborating with local residents are key components towards efforts to alleviate or even avoid environmental injustices that are being faced in many communities. The Flourishing Neighborhood Index is a prime example of how engaged citizens can play a major role in the considerations, discussions, decision-making and/or executions of projects or programs that directly affect them. Since their initiation, both tools have proven that they are not only educating the communities they serve, but are also providing a roadmap for others to have the same success stories no matter where the neighborhood is located.

Through community engagement, organizational and government leaders can broaden their scope of responsibilities to include themselves in the process which will allow them to become more involved to collaborate, support, and empower citizens and stakeholders. Community engagement models not only set the stage for transformations that will positively impact communities of concern, but also bring multiple parties on one accord. This requires stepping away from a top-down approach to local governance where traditional reins of power are solely dictated by governing officials, and instead making a shift and placing more trust in civic engagement with the citizens in the community to effectively address and ultimately resolve the issues that are being faced. As a result, healthy partnerships can be built that thrive off of trust and builds stronger alliances.