Posts tagged Race
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City planners need to talk about race. The lives of our residents depend on it.
Historic discriminatory urban design practices, such as redlining and restrictive zoning, continue to degrade the health of communities of color. In order to build more equitable communities, planners must better understand and acknowledge this legacy of discrimination—and actively work to undo its persisting effects. Keep reading…
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How segregation in American cities shifts from day to night
After World War II, white Americans moved to suburban communities that explicitly barred black people, while many men continued to commute to their jobs in the city. But advances in civil rights, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, meant that workplaces became increasingly diverse. Keep reading…
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National links: Traffic exacts a heavy toll on car commuters’ health
Your terrible commute is probably really hurting your health. New methods of urban planning go beyond static spaces and delve into how people actually use them. Los Angeles might charge drivers by the mile to tame its traffic problems. Keep reading…
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One man zoned huge swaths of our region for sprawl, cars, and exclusion
Bartholomew’s legacy demonstrates with particular clarity that planning is never truly neutral; value judgments are always embedded in the objectives engineers set for themselves. Keep reading…
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DC students are more likely to attend schools that are economically diverse than racially diverse
DC’s racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic demographics are changing, but are these demographic changes reflected in DC’s public schools? Keep reading…
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Homes in black neighborhoods are vastly undervalued, costing black homeowners billions
In the DC Metro area, the average cost of a home in a majority-black neighborhood is $48,490 less expensive than a comparable home in a neighborhood with few to no black residents, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institute. Keep reading…
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Cemeteries are a matter of land use—and also a matter of justice
One of the most complicated (and perhaps uncomfortable) conversations people can have is about death. How will we choose to remember others or have others remember us? As urbanists, we can look at this topic from another lens too: the way we use land for our burial rituals, and how those practices might shift as our population grows and our housing shortage increases. Keep reading…
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Changing your neighborhood school will not destroy your community
In response to growth in attendance, Arlington County Public Schools (APS) is opening some new schools and shifting the location of county-wide “option” programs to better utilize resources. As a result, the School Board must approve new boundaries for neighborhood schools in the southern portion of the county on December 6. Keep reading…
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How property tax exemptions amplify racial inequity
Housing defines how residents share the wealth created by a city and how they access its assets and amenities. Population growth and demographic changes make their imprints through the housing market, shaped by how quickly supply responds to changes in demand. Keep reading…
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Health outcomes vary widely across the region. How do people in your neighborhood fare?
Despite the amount of wealth and power that exist in the Washington region, the benefits of living in the area do not extend equally to all its residents. DC and the surrounding suburbs have positive health outcomes well above the national average, but when you look closer at the data, there stark differences from neighborhood to neighborhood. Keep reading…