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Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning

Evolution of an Ethic

John C. Arroyo, Gerard F. Sandoval & Joanna Bernstein

To cite this article: John C. Arroyo, Gerard F. Sandoval & Joanna Bernstein (2023): Sixty
Years of Racial Equity Planning, Journal of the American Planning Association, DOI:
10.1080/01944363.2022.2132986

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Journal of the American Planning Association 1 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0

Review Essay
Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning: Evolution of an Ethic
John C. Arroyo Gerard F. Sandoval Joanna Bernstein

ABSTRACT
Problem, research strategy, and findings: Debates about race in the United States are front and center in
the 21st century. From the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to the caging of indigenous migrant chil-
dren from Mexico and Central America to rising Asian American and Pacific Islander discrimination during
COVID-19, the urgency for an explicit definition of racial equity planning and examples of how the ethic
evolved could not be more pressing. Historically, social justice–oriented planners focused efforts on racial
equity despite a lack of a collective understanding of the topic. By demonstrating diverse, applied
approaches through an analysis of 17 municipal and community-led plans at various scales, we traced the
primacy of race in equity planning through four key eras: civil rights, Model Cities and successive pro-
grams, HOPE VI and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Sustainable Cities
Regional Planning Grants, and contemporary. How and why has racial equity planning evolved in the aca-
demic planning literature and representative racial equity plans in the last 60 years? Racial equity planning
has always been a cornerstone of the field, and lessons from the literature and relevant plans merit
deeper attention, especially as White supremacy gains stronger ground.
Takeaway for practice: Planners should affirm a unified definition of racial equity planning informed by
relevant scholarship and operationalize its tenets in their work. Recognizing key milestones where racial
equity has successfully informed contemporary urban policies offers progressive planners a rich set of
alternative policies, strategies, and programs to use across diverse communities.
Keywords: advocacy; civil rights planning; equity; race; reparative planning

T
he rise of contemporary social movements rang-
ing from Stop Asian American/Pacific Islander
Hate to Black Lives Matter (BLM) has influenced
cities and state governments grappling with
increased racial tensions and income inequality. On the
one hand, these social movements are testaments to
the pre-existing networks and organizational capacities
of the not-for-profit organizations and ad hoc grassroots
advocacy groups they are built upon. On the other,
increased activist movements illuminate the flaws of
race-neutral planning and the central role race must
sustain in planning practice.
Increased attention to race highlights the need for
a re-emergence of race-specific equity-based planning.
However, it is difficult to operationalize racial equity
planning goals without a clear definition of racial equity
planning. Equity planning and social justice are not new
to urban planning (Bates & Green, 2018; Davidoff, 1965;
Fainstein, 2010; Krumholz, 1986; Reece, 2018; Song,
2014; Thomas, 2012). Progressive planning scholars
Friedmann (1993) and Kennedy (1996) described plans
as transactive and transformational instead of using the
term racial equity planning (REP). Other scholars
described variations of insurgency in plans and cities to
articulate revolutionary attempts toward racial equity
(Holston, 2008; Hou, 2010; Miraftab, 2009; Sandercock,
1999; Shrestha & Aranya, 2015).
Unfortunately, REP is not part of planning litera-
ture’s lexicon, and a failure to lead with race decreases
the visibility of anti-racism plans and initiatives within
the field. We define REP as planning that aims to ameli-
orate historically racist policies, programs, and actions
through prioritizing public resource redistribution, eth-
nic and racial representation, and participatory proced-
ural design. For this review, we analyzed REP’s
transformation via four planning eras and foci: the civil
rights era (1961–1968), with a focus on social justice;
the Model Cities and successive programs era
(1969–1991), with a focus on citizen participation; the
HOPE VI and Department of Housing and Urban
Development’s (HUD) Sustainable Cities Regional
Planning Grants era (1992–2015), with a focus on

DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2022.2132986 | ß 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
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Journal of the American Planning Association
equitable housing; and the contemporary era
(2015–2021), with a focus on local-level community sta-
bility and grassroots-based partnerships and reparations.
We traced the history of REP by asking how and why REP
evolved in planning scholarship and municipal and com-
munity-approved urban plans. As of this writing, cities
have been highly racialized and planners need an under-
standing of diverse approaches to REP. At a minimum,
planning practitioners need exposure to the racist plan-
ning history that contributed to segregated cities and
must learn about diverse REP approaches.
The updated (as of 2021) AICP Code of Ethics and
Professional Conduct (Section A: Principles to Which We
Aspire, Part III) emphasizes racial justice as a primary
planning goal, stating that “people who participate in
the planning process shall work to achieve economic,
social and racial equity” (AICP, 2005, revised 2021, p. 3).
The Code also states planners should “seek social justice
by identifying and working to expand choice and
opportunity for all persons, emphasizing our special
responsibility to plan with those who have been margi-
nalized or disadvantaged and to promote racial and
economic equity” (AICP, 2005, revised 2021, p. 3). A not-
able omission, however, is the lack of addressing REP in
the enforceable (Part B) section of the AICP Code of
Conduct. Planning practitioners, nevertheless, have
engaged in racial equity efforts since the civil rights
movement (Thomas, 2012, 2019). Admittedly, planning
scholarship often bundles racial equity within a general
equity planning framing, an action that perpetuates
scant awareness of racial equity and the difficulties plan-
ners face in application.
The absence of overt attention to race in the last
60 years has set the stage for daylighting and eventual
recentering of race in equity planning. Social movements
like BLM have created opportunities for urban planners
to re-engage in equitable initiatives for displaced urban
African American and Black communities, as well as dis-
possessed Native American communities. Movements
have also exposed the racialization tied to authorized
immigration for recent waves of Latino/a/x immigrant
communities and new streams of Asian migrants and
Asian Americans facing rising bias and discrimination
during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (C. A. Lee et al.,
2021; C. A. Lee & Arroyo, 2022; Zapata & Bates, 2017).
Despite the increased attention to race, planners and
planning institutions have struggled with equity’s defin-
ition and how to operationalize it (Brand, 2015). They
also often fail to recognize the major strides equity plan-
ning has already made in research and practice.
Our REP definition builds upon the ideas of social just-
ice philosophers Iris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser. I. M.
Young (2011) viewed social equity as an institutional effort
to address historical forms of oppression. Fraser (1999)
argued that social justice is a form of redistribution and
2 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0
recognition. Her redistribution paradigm focused on socio-
economic injustices rooted in the economic structure of
society: The remedy for injustice is economic restructuring.
Furthermore, Fraser’s recognition paradigm targeted injus-
tices understood as cultural based on social patterns of
representation, interpretation, and communication: The
remedy for injustice is cultural or symbolic change. For
example, anti-discrimination efforts to protect same-sex
marriage for the LGBTQIA þ community fall within the rec-
ognition paradigm. In addition, procedural equity,
advanced by urban resilience planning scholars, has added
a process dimension to Young and Fraser’s concepts.
Meerow et al. (2019) stated:
Equitable participation in decision-making processes
includes public participation in the development of the
plan, efforts to increase ongoing public participation in
city governance, and specific outreach to marginalized
groups that often are underrepresented in traditional
public engagement processes. [p. 798]
This procedural dimension acknowledges the import-
ance of organizational capacity-building and the potential
of participatory planning to promote REP by rebuilding
the organizational base and strengthening the leadership
of resident-led and community-based planning efforts.
REP encompasses three elements of justice: redis-
tributional, recognitional, and procedural. It leads to
more material resources for people of color and
increased cultural recognition, and empowers the voi-
ces of people of color. Redressing racism in cities, sub-
urbs, and towns becomes the goal of REP, as the
process demands a shift from a culture rooted in White
supremacy to one that respects and learns from diverse
cultural and ethnic differences. At the core of under-
standing race in the United States is Whiteness, the cus-
toms, culture, and beliefs of White people to which all
other racial groups are compared (Fields, 2001; Goetz
et al., 2020; Hartigan, 1997; A. Keating, 1995; Painter,
2015). Whiteness inherently normalizes the prominence
of White racial identity in the United States and creates
an environment that makes non-White individuals infer-
ior (Doane, 2013; Garner, 2007). Based on our definition
of REP and the increasing role of Whiteness, we ana-
lyzed racial equity plans to showcase diverse
approaches to help racial equity planners implement
goals that align with their planning agency’s mission.
Advancing REP will ultimately expand the goals outlined
in the AICP Code: “economic, social and racial equity”
(AICP, 2005, revised 2021, p. 3).
Methods
The basis of our review was a chronological literature
review contextualized by a series of plans across four key
eras. We identified 17 geographically dispersed plans (see

the Technical Appendix for more details) focused on vari-
ous strategies for addressing racial equity that spanned
60 years (1961–2021). Several plans are well known in the
field (e.g., The Cleveland [OH] Policy Planning Report,
1975 [Cleveland City Planning Commission, 1975]),
whereas others are more recent and novel (e.g., City of
Evanston, 2021). We limited the study to the known avail-
ability of relevant plans or their coverage in scholarly lit-
erature. Although some plans featured Latino/a/x, Asian
American and Pacific Islander, and Native American
groups, most analyzed plans focused on affected African
American and Black groups. Additional research is
required to investigate whether non–African American
and Black groups are becoming integrated into REP.
We employed a four-phase collection strategy to
identify and locate formal (sanctioned by planners at
public agencies) and community-driven (not-for-profit
organization or grassroots advocacy-led civil rights
groups, trade unions, and faith-based organizations)
plans published during our 60-year time frame. The ini-
tial collection phase was inductive and bounded schol-
arly planning eras with representative plans created
concomitantly or catalyzed by major events during that
period (e.g., the civil rights movement) or directly refer-
enced in planning scholarship and practice.
The second phase was deductive and identified
plans in cities (multiple scales) that matched the eras
identified in Phase 1. Leading planning scholars directed
the publication of several plans (e.g. Cleveland City
Planning Commission [Krumholz, 1975; Thabit, 1961]),
and popular equity-oriented theories influenced or
aided others (e.g., Birmingham Black Civic Associations).
We derived another batch from reviewing plans from
public agencies, community-based organizations, or
locales with pre-existing racial equity commitments
from previous strategies (plans or programs).
A third phase relied on examining the prevalence of
REP as determined by annual national awards given by
the American Planning Association Board of Directors, the
official professional organization for the field in the United
States. We reviewed all award winners of the APA
National Planning Excellence Awards over the last decade
(since 2012; American Planning Association, n.d.). Plans
spanned the United States from Puget Sound (WA) to
Birmingham (AL) to New York (NY) and featured housing,
Table 1. Racial equity planning: Four key eras.
Era
Civil rights era
Model Cities and successive programs era
HOPE VI & HUD’s SCRPG era
Contemporary era
3 Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
transportation, urban design, economic development,
and cultural heritage/historic preservation.
Finally, we searched the archives of the Progressive
Planning Magazine (known as Planners Network
Newsletter before the 2000s), a newsletter reaching
equity planners in the United States and Canada
(Planners Network, n.d.). Analysis of content in this pub-
lication between 1997 and 2016 uncovered details
about more radical and rogue forms of equity planning.
We relied on content analysis to analyze the plans
while simultaneously developing the literature review to
identify the most significant and often lesser-known and
undercelebrated racial equity–oriented plans. We thor-
oughly examined the plans, and we recorded data in
terms of year of publication; plan type (e.g., neighbor-
hood plan, urban renewal plan, comprehensive or gen-
eral plan, redevelopment plan or thematic plan specific
to housing, transportation, disaster recovery, or immi-
grant integration); location (city and region in the United
States); funding source; and key partnerships and alli-
ances in the development and execution of the plan
(e.g., municipal, interagency, not-for-profit, and commu-
nity-based organizations). The results were organized in
several ways: chronologically by year published, geo-
graphically by connection to the broader four areas
delineated here, and by associated planning scholars.
We analyzed these data alongside key textual compo-
nents and descriptions referring to racial equity using
Microsoft Excel. We developed a codebook of keyword
searches with terms that frame REP (e.g., equity, race, social
equity, reparative planning, representative planning, civil
rights planning, and advocacy planning). Two coders coded
each plan to maintain rigor and measure intercoder reli-
ability. We also reviewed racial and environmental justice
literature that highlighted the use of diverse strategies,
including lawsuits, legislative initiatives, grassroots activism,
community organizing, and development to inform the
historical analysis (Archer, 2020; Bullard, 2001; Crump, 2002;
Golub, 2013; Weintraub, 1994; Welton & Freelon, 2018).
Racial Equity Planning Literature and
Representative Plans: Key
Eras (1961–2021)
Our review of the canon of REP literature led to four key
eras identified by primary themes (Table 1).
Time period Primary theme(s)
1961–1968 Social justice
1969–1991 Citizen participation
1992–2015 Equitable housing
2015–2021 Local community stability and grassroots
partnerships
Racially based reparations
Journal of the American Planning Association
REP has strong roots in the urban renewal strat-
egies that cleared predominantly African American,
Black, and Latino/a/x downtown areas in major urban
centers in the mid-20th century. President Lyndon B.
Johnson created the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) in 1965, continuing President John
F. Kennedy’s initial vision as part of federal efforts to
reduce the national poverty rate (Khadduri, 2015).
Federal funds that mandated a particular approach
through shorter-lived federal initiatives, such as Model
Cities, and enduring ones like HUD’s Community
Development Block Grant Program, catalyzed REP.
REP was influenced by civil rights era struggles that
were ideologically Marxist and anti-capitalist through
rent strikes and the formation of planner advocacy and
citizen equity groups such as Planners for Equal
Opportunity (PEO) in New York City (Thabit, 1999). More
recently, there has been a heightened awareness of the
BLM movement as well as increased visibility of police
killings of people of color, resulting in massive civil
unrest. This climate promoted demands for racially
based housing and local capital reparations, primarily—
but not only—for African American and Black commun-
ities and recentered REP.
Civil Rights Era: Social Justice (1961–1968)
We identified social justice as the primary theme in the
literature review connected to planning during the
1960s. During this time, racial discrimination and its eco-
nomically and socially disabling consequences became
issues of national concern because of the systematic de
jure and de facto denial of equal opportunity for African
American and Black individuals (Rabin, 1970). In 1965,
Paul Davidoff proposed a theory of advocacy planning
to align the value of equity in planning (Checkoway,
1994; Reardon & Forester, 2019; Solis, 2020; Zapata &
Bates, 2015). According to Davidoff, the advocacy plan-
ner must ensure that citizens become well informed
about the motivations for planning proposals and
versed in the technical language of professional plan-
ners. Although Davidoff’s language is more about advo-
cacy and not equity, this term and ideology created the
foundation for equity planning in today’s theory and
practice. In this section, we trace the evolution from
advocacy to equity.
Advocacy planning gained popularity in profes-
sional schools during the 1970s (Klemek, 2009), and
some planners who pursued social equity and redistri-
bution sought to implement this vision within the local
government (Krumholz & Clavel, 1994). Norman
Krumholz, a former student of Davidoff’s, developed the
term equity planning while overseeing the creation of
the Cleveland Policy Planning Report (Krumholz &
Forester, 1990). Krumholz defined equity planning as
4 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0
expanding the range of choices for those who tradition-
ally have had the fewest and who are “less favored by
present conditions” (City of Cleveland, 1975, p. 10 as
cited in Brand, 2015, p. 250). Though many ideas were
not original or unique to the plan, they diverged signifi-
cantly from the downtown-oriented land use planning
tradition prevalent in most U.S. cities during this time
(Keating & Krumholz, 1991).
The primary definitions of advocacy (Davidoff, 1965)
and equity planning (Krumholz et al., 1975) did not
mention race and thus obscure the historical primacy of
race as an equity concern for planners. However,
Davidoff, Krumholz, and other planners and scholars
were aware of and concerned with issues of race and
racism. Reardon and Raciti (2019) commented that
“Davidoff’s advocacy planning ideas and methods never
achieved dominance” (p. 607) in planning, but they
improved living conditions for some marginalized
groups and provided a foundation for further centering
equity. By 1964, PEO formed as a group of planning,
housing, and social work professionals concerned with
racial equity in planning, related to housing and federal
housing programs and especially race-based rent dis-
crimination (Cornell University Library, n.d.; Thabit,
1999).1 PEO played a prominent role in advancing racial
equity and collaborated with the American Institute of
Planners (AIP). However, the exclusion of the group’s
rhetoric about race and racial discrimination in the
advocacy planning or equity planning definitions of the
1960s and 1970s and in some equity planning scholar-
ship (Metzger, 1996; Reece, 2018) overlooked PEO’s role
during this time.
In the 1970s, scholars explored how advocacy flour-
ished in city and government planning and how equity
planning emerged. Needleman and Needleman’s (1974)
Guerillas in the Bureaucracy: A Community Planning
Experiment illustrated how planners assumed positions
as administrative guerillas, becoming clandestine advo-
cates within city bureaucracies while preserving their
cover as disinterested technical experts (Thomas &
Ritzdorf, 1997). Needleman and Needleman reinforced
the notion that “equity planning developed as a govern-
ment response to community organizing” (Krumholz &
Clavel, 1994, p. 11). For Brand (2015), Davidoff’s theory
“rejects the concept that planners act as neutral techni-
cians and argues for planners to take up the political
and social values embedded in the practice of planning”
(p. 250). The critical transformation planning had under-
gone during and after the civil rights era would echo
the goals of federal urban renewal projects and
legislation.
Davidoff’s theory of advocacy planning also
responded to U.S. cities’ decisions to hire planners to
create racial zoning plans before and during the civil
rights movement (Silver, 1997). As Silver (1997)

Table 2. Civil rights era literature and relevant racial equity plans (1961–1968).
Civil rights
era (1961–1968) Implemented plans
Focus: social justice Alternate Plan for Cooper
Square (New York, NY)
Municipal plans and plans 1961–early 1970s
granting power to
Black civic associations
(Birmingham, AL)
explained, racial zoning continued to operate while
remaining compliant with the law during urban renewal
after the landmark Buchanan v. Warley case in 1917. The
U.S. Supreme Court declared racially biased zoning
unconstitutional through a victory in the Buchanan
decision, but it focused only on upholding property
rights, not affirming equal protection for individuals of
different racial identities under the law (The Fair
Housing Center of Greater Boston, n.d.). As a result,
exclusionary zoning (Bigham & Bostick, 1972; Davidoff &
Gold, 1970a; Whittemore, 2017, 2021; Wilson, 2018) con-
tinued in novel forms (Mangin, 2014). Scholars have
studied the impact of exclusionary zoning in the sub-
urbs (Danielson, 1976; Davidoff & Davidoff, 1970;
Davidoff & Gold, 1970b), and Davidoff and Gold (1970a,
1970b) worked with Suburban Action to support policy
and legal actions to increase equity in the suburbs and
support affordable housing. The tenets of Davidoff’s
advocacy planning became the first formal attempt to
transform the planning profession from an arm of tacit,
and even insidious, government intervention that per-
petuated a racially bifurcated society to one that com-
batted and ruptured systematic racism.
RACIAL EQUITY PLANS
Social justice was a key focus of implemented plans dur-
ing the civil rights era (1961–1968) because this was a
time of great tumult and progress in American democ-
racy (Table 2). Long-standing legalized racial discrimin-
ation, segregation, and wanton barriers for African
Americans, Blacks, and other pioneering activists in the
Native American, Latino/a/x, and Asian American and
Pacific Islander communities spurred a grassroots
national movement resulting in direct actions for legisla-
tive gains, protections, and resources: a comprehensive
new vision for human rights across the country (Morris,
1986). These changes led to attempts to rectify racist
aspects of planning and urban development primarily
evident in housing and civil society through the
5 Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
Plan author Plan author (nonprofit
Year (municipal agency) or grassroots)
1961 Cooper Square Community
Development Committee
and Businessmen’s
Association (housing and
social welfare
professionals); tenants and
businesses; planning
consultant: Walter Thabit
City council and Black civic associations
mayor’s office
landmark legacy of the Housing Act of 1949, the Civil
Rights Act (1968), and the Fair Housing Act (Titles VIII
and IX of the Civil Rights Act).2
The goal of the Truman administration’s Housing
Act of 1949 was to address the decline of urban hous-
ing and counter the rapid development of suburbs by
reducing housing costs, raising housing standards,
expanding mortgage options, and enabling the clear-
ance of urban slums through an emphasis on new con-
struction (Lang & Sohmer, 2000; Martinez, 2000; von
Hoffman, 2000). Lessons learned from 1949 paved the
way for how community groups would respond to
housing issues during the civil rights era. Two represen-
tative plans resulting from grassroots advocacy during
the civil rights era include the Alternate Plan for Cooper
Square (Angotti, 1997, 2008; Angotti & Jagu, 2007;
Thabit, 1961) and a series of municipal-level plans that
recognized and placed planning decisions in the hands
of African American and Black civic associations
in Birmingham.
The Alternate Plan for Cooper Square (New York
City) was the first known plan that advocated for the
anti-displacement of African American, Black, and
Latino/a/x tenants and business owners and homeless
individuals in the area (Thabit, 1961). The plan was
developed by Walter Thabit, an activist and member of
PEO, and the Cooper Square Community Development
Committee and Businessmen’s Association. Thabit
(1961) argued that the Cooper Square plan was a
response to New York City’s Committee on Slum
Clearance’s official—though grossly inaccurate—strat-
egy to displace hundreds of tenants, furnished room
occupants, homeless men, and businesses for the con-
struction of middle-income cooperative housing in the
Lower East Side.
Angotti and Jagu (2007) highlighted the Cooper
Square Plan’s ability to increase community-controlled
land via community organization and city support.
The plan drew on 100 meetings to propose 10 guiding
Journal of the American Planning Association
Figure 1. Elements of the 1961 Alternate Plan for Cooper
Square including public housing, artist housing, furnished
rooms, depopulation and resettlement, and possible rehabilita-
tion of homeless men. Source: Thabit, 1961.
principles that positioned individuals most affected by
displacement as the central beneficiaries of any new
development-based investment. According to the plan:
The Cooper Square resident agrees that the area needs
renewal, he believes that he should benefit from the
improvement, not be the one to suffer from it. If new
housing is going to be constructed on the Cooper
Square site, he wants one of those apartments for
himself. (Thabit, 1961, p. 4)
Though Cooper Square was not the first or only
blighted neighborhood identified for urban renewal, it
was the first where advocacy groups developed a func-
tional document informed by relevant data missing in
the city’s plan, especially during a period when scholars
of advocacy planning were gaining ground (Figure 1).
At the same time, a series of municipal-level plans
that recognized the power of placing planning deci-
sions in the hands of Black civic associations sprouted in
Birmingham, a city once dubbed America’s
6 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0
Johannesburg, a loose apartheid reference to the city’s
legacy of race-connected practices (Connerly, 2005).
This was a key strategy after years of planning abuses
maintained the racial status quo in America’s most seg-
regated city, including the Supreme Court’s unconstitu-
tional declaration of “the South’s longest-standing racial
zoning law” in 1951 (Connerly, 2005, p. 3).
Years after the Civil Rights Act of 1968, predomin-
antly Black areas of Birmingham remained excluded
from citywide interventions for neighborhood improve-
ment and purposefully segregated. Challenges culmi-
nated when advocacy planners worked with hyperlocal
African American and Black-led civic leagues and the
federal government to formalize a direct relationship
with the city’s predominantly White Community
Development Department (Connerly, 2005). Equity plan-
ning examples in Birmingham conform to Krumholz
and Clavel’s (1994) understanding of the evolution of
equity planning and the community planning profes-
sion as a government response to community organiz-
ing. Whereas grassroots advocacy informed planning
elements of housing and infrastructure before the
1970s, gains during the later period legitimized the role
of racial communities within an equity-based plan-
ning system.
Both Needleman and Needleman (1974) and
Krumholz and Clavel (1994) have argued that advocacy
planning presented an opportunity for the potential
radical transformation of the planning profession from
neutral technician to passionate, or potentially even
guerilla, advocate (Needleman & Needleman, 1974).
In The Alternate Plan for Cooper Square, Thabit
(1961) developed one of the first large-scale anti-
displacement plans to protect African American, Black,
and Latino/a/x tenants and businesses at the heels of
the civil rights era. In Birmingham, White advocacy
planners recognized the important role African
American and Black-led community groups played in
dismantling the legacy of residential segregation in the
city, a direct result of passing the Civil Rights Act of
1968 (Connerly, 2005).
Model Cities and Successive Programs Era:
Citizen Participation (1969–1991)
Moving into the Model Cities era, citizen participation in
planning grew as equity planning advanced on an insti-
tutional level between 1967 and 1974. Model Cities pro-
vided block grants to cities for social, economic, and
physical programs, under the guidance of the newly
created HUD. The program funded neighborhood-
based agencies, but the government controlled input
and participation (Frieden & Kaplan, 1975). There were
more than 150 5-year Model City projects (Weber &
Wallace, 2012). Implementation began in 1969, but by
 7 Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
Table 3. Model cities era literature and relevant racial equity plans (1969–1991).
Model cities and successive
programs era (1969–1991) Implemented plans
Focus: citizen participation Cleveland Policy Planning Report
(Cleveland, OH)
Chicago Development Plan
(Chicago, IL)
this time political goals had shifted from supporting
minority political leadership to increasing housing and
building projects through citizen participation (Weber &
Wallace, 2012).
The Model Cities program suffered from a lack of
funding and was deemed a failed experiment by studies
that focused on the program’s financing (Weber &
Wallace, 2012). However, it increased African American
and Black community activism and civic engagement
across the country by encouraging citizen participation
(Thomas, 1997), despite this not being the program’s
main goal (Aleshire, 1972; Strange, 1972). It also created
other tangible benefits, such as improved health care,
legal representation, and services for youth and seniors
in some cities (Weber & Wallace, 2012).
Mittenthal and Spiegel (1970) commented on the
value of citizen participation when structured equitably,
avoiding top-down government mechanisms. However,
this was a challenge for Model Cities. According to
Thomas (1997), the program was a “corrective antidote to
the oppressive side of urban renewal that was designed
to appeal to the urban Black constituency, by encourag-
ing residents to participate in defining and supervising
neighborhood improvement … ” (p. 144). Thomas has
argued that planning must facilitate the fair (re)distri-
bution of public goods and services to marginalized
populations. Thomas emphasized the disproportion-
ate amount of social and economic struggles margi-
nalized, impoverished communities of color endure.
Weber and Wallace (2012) drew on their nearly 30-
year literature review to emphasize the political train-
ing, heightened participation, and successful public
office elections of minority leaders, particularly in
Black communities, that resulted from the program.
Many African Americans and Blacks (and some Latino/
a/xs) were elected to public office for the first time.
RACIAL EQUITY PLANS
In the next 20 years, wide-sweeping federal programs
and policies from HUD (initially Model Cities, followed
by Community Development Block Grant Program,
Empowerment Zones, the Sustainable Communities
Regional Planning Grant [SCRPG], and the Sustainable
Cities Initiative [SCI]) generated federal funds that man-
dated key facets of equity planning, primarily citizen
participation (Table 3). These mandates influenced three
representative plans in Cleveland (1975), New York
Year Plan author (municipal agency)
1975 City Planning Commission; director:
Norman Krumholz
1984 City of Chicago
(1994), and Puget Sound (2013) that incorporated
citizen participation.
Under Norman Krumholz’s direction, the Cleveland
Planning Department was the first known municipality to
center social and racial equity as a key goal in the
Cleveland Policy Planning Report (Cleveland City Planning
Commission, 1975). The plan focused on income and
community development and housing and transportation
objectives. Like the Alternate Plan for Cooper Square, the
Cleveland City Planning Commission (1975) emphasized
that “equity requires that locally-responsible government
institutions give priority attention to the goal of promot-
ing a wider range of choices for those Cleveland residents
who have few, if any, choices” (p. 9). A unique element of
the plan was its deference to federal strategies (over local
ones) to improve existing housing stock and mobility
among non-transit-dependent individuals. According to
the plan, “Until an adequate housing allowance program
is operational, the Commission supports the reinstate-
ment of Federal programs to subsidize rehabilitation, leas-
ing, and construction of low-income housing” (Cleveland
City Planning Commission, 1975, p. 16; Figure 2).
The plan was an “equity-oriented planning
experiment,” implemented across years of diverse pol-
itical leadership, and focused on redistribution at the
neighborhood level (Chakalis et al., 2002, p. 88). It did
contribute to equitable solutions, but Krumholz
(1982) admitted at the time that “it is not surprising
that the Cleveland model has little known application
by practicing planning professionals” (p. 173),
although it highlighted the future potential for this
work to grow.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the evolution of REP
expanded from local (neighborhood and citywide
efforts) to coordinated national efforts. Federal pro-
grams and policies from HUD, beginning with Model
Cities, aimed to satisfy racial equity mandates (Thomas
& Ritzdorf, 1997; Weber & Wallace, 2012). Krumholz’s
Cleveland Policy Planning Report (Cleveland City
Planning Commission, 1975) guided how to defer to
federal strategies for citywide improvement for a racial
equity agenda. Later, the Chicago Works Together:
Chicago 1984 Development Plan would spotlight the
need for increased attention among African American,
Black, and Latino/a/x communities through “rigorous
goal-setting, measurable targets, and an emphasis on
Journal of the American Planning Association
Figure 2. Community photos from Cleveland Policy Planning Report in 1975. Source: Cleveland City Planning Commission, 1975.
citizen participation” (City of Chicago, 1984, p. 21). As
momentum to support minoritized racial communities
increased, so did scholars intending to prioritize and
innovate equity planning initiatives through subsequent
programs (Arias et al., 2017; Zapata & Bates, 2017).
HOPE VI and HUD’s SCRPG Era: Equitable
Housing (1992–2015)
Following the defunding of the Model Cities program in
the 1970s, HOPE VI and the SCRPG started in 1992 with
a focus on fair housing. Funding from HUD, in response
to the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act),
Housing and Urban Redevelopment Act of 1970, and
Housing and Urban–Rural Recovery Act of 1983,
resulted in programs that focused on housing
improvements during this time.3 HUD chartered
HOPE VI in 1991 (with formal recognition in 1998)
because of recommendations by the National
Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing’s
8 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0
National Action Plan to eradicate severely distressed
public housing across the United States
(Moschetti, 2003).
The goal of these pre-1990s policies was to decon-
centrate poverty and racial segregation with mixed-
income housing projects and market-rate single-family
homes (Popkin, 2004; Smith et al., 2002). Government-
subsidized housing developments were linked to com-
munity resources, such as community youth centers,
parks, and outreach locations of public services agen-
cies. At times, empowerment zones buoyed HOPE VI
investments in areas of high poverty and unemploy-
ment given the program’s promise for urban and racial
justice (Thomas, 1997).4
Although HOPE VI intended to increase fair housing
and improve lives, program implementation failed
across the board (Cisneros et al., 2009; Popkin, 2004;
Popkin et al., 2004). Vale et al. (2018) described the mis-
aligned accountability mechanisms, prioritizing goals of
political officials versus the community, and defined
 9 Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
HUD’s practices as “selective memory planning” as plan-
ners disregarded original program plans to implement
more feasible ones. The program displaced community
residents and destroyed older stock housing to build
new mixed-income communities. The impacts of reloca-
tion and the resulting gentrification have been explored
by several scholars (Bennett, 2009; Clampet-Lundquist,
2004; Goetz, 2010, 2013; Kleit, 2005; Kleit & Manzo, 2006;
Smith et al., 2002; Steil et al., 2021; Wyly & Hammel,
1999). Fraser et al. (2013) described HOPE VI as “a colo-
nial project” (p. 525) given the displacement of public
housing residents and the growing body of research
that has shown mixed-income housing can marginalize
lower-income residents (Gebhardt, 2009; Joseph et al.,
2007; Schwartz & Tajbakhsh, 1997).
However, there have been calls for increased inclu-
sion, equity, and accountability in the revisioning of
mixed-income communities (Jackson, 2020; Khare &
Joseph, 2020). The legacy of HOPE VI gave way to the
Choice Neighborhoods Initiative in 2010 and the Rental
Assistance Demonstration in 2012 as new strategies to
improve public housing through tenant relocation with
additional services and new access to reinvest in public
housing with stricter tenant protections, respectively
(Bulger et al., 2021; Popkin et al., 2020).
Launched in 2010, the SCRPG program encouraged
equity-oriented planning at the regional and municipal
levels. Federal funding also extended to planning schol-
ars (Arias et al., 2017; Bates and Zapata, 2013; Frick et al.,
2015; Zapata & Bates, 2017) to examine equity planning
within the program. According to an external evaluation
by Wilder Research, “The grant explicitly charged the
recipients to include the meaningful engagement of
historically underrepresented communities as one of
the strategies toward this goal of change in the public
planning process” (Steel et al., 2014, p. 2).
The implementation and reporting from SCRPG-
funded regions reoriented planning scholars to the re-
emergence of REP that had not occurred substantially
since Krumholz (1986; Krumholz et al., 1975). Bates and
Zapata (2013) and Zapata and Bates (2017) found that
most regions applying for SCRPG did not use
Krumholz’s (1986) equity planning language or goal set-
ting. Krumholz et al. (1975) defined equity as “providing
a wider range of alternatives and opportunities while
leaving individuals free to define their own needs and
priorities” (p. 299). HUD’s definition of equity (in the con-
text of the SCI) was “fair and equal access to livelihood,
education and resources, full participation in the polit-
ical and cultural life of the community, and self-determi-
nation in meeting fundamental needs” (HUD, n.d.,
p. 13).
Arias et al. (2017) complemented the conclusions
of Zapata and Bates (2017) and found that three differ-
ent SCRPG receiving regions (Puget Sound [WA], the
Bay Area [CA], and the Twin Cities [MN]) struggled to
arrive at a shared understanding of equity. In the Bay
Area, planners did not arrive at a shared definition of
equity that included race, in contrast to the other two
regions. As a result, conversations about residential dis-
placement and low-wage work exposed a critical weak-
ness that did not explicitly address race. Similarly, Brand
(2015) found inconsistencies in equity interpretations in
planning recovery efforts in post–Hurricane Katrina New
Orleans (LA).5
The discrepancies that Brand (2015) identified were
based on different political and social ideologies about
urban revitalization and disaster recovery. Two defini-
tions of equity emerged among residents of the Lower
Ninth Ward, an understanding rooted in Krumholz’s
focus on redistribution of resources, and a newer, neo-
liberal definition. For Brand (2015), in neoliberalism, indi-
viduals “whose developmental and economic interests
align with core neoliberal tenets … rationalize their sup-
port of various distributional decisions” regardless of the
actual impact, sometimes detrimental, on disadvan-
taged groups (p. 252). In essence, post-Katrina planning
“highlighted the tensions of advocacy planning to pro-
mote equity within a neoliberal state” (Brand, 2015, p.
254). This was in notable contrast to community-led
efforts based on direct community feedback, such as
The Peoples Plan for Overcoming the Hurricane Katrina
Blues: A Comprehensive Strategy for Building a More
Vibrant, Sustainable, and Equitable 9th Ward. According
to the plan, survey results indicated that residents
“placed a high priority on the need for schools, medical
facilities, public transportation, community and recre-
ational facilities, parks and playgrounds, affordable hous-
ing and grocery stores” (ACORN Housing/University
Consortium, 2007, p. 5).
RACIAL EQUITY PLANS
Our analysis of representative racial equity plans during
this time revealed community efforts to ensure equit-
able housing for marginalized populations (Table 4). The
Nos Quedamos Aquı Plan for Melrose Commons (The
Bronx, NY) followed the legacy of the Cooper Square
and Cleveland plans to oppose the Bronx Center project
and secure benefits for the most vulnerable residents in
the area (Stand et al., 1996). Working with Magnusson
Architects, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and
the Environmental Defense Fund, Yolanda Garcia, foun-
der and inaugural executive director of We Stay/Nos
Quedamos, Inc., led an anti-displacement plan geared
toward racial equity. The plan valued community needs
over corporate or government interests and delineated
recommendations for tenants and home and business
owners. We Stay/Nos Quedamos Aquı stated:
Journal of the American Planning Association 10 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0

Table 4. HOPE VI and HUD’s sustainable cities regional planning grant program (1992–2015).
HOPE VI and SCRPG Plan author Plan author (nonprofit
era (1992–2015) Implemented plans Year (municipal agency) or grassroots)
Focus: equitable housing Nos Quedamos Aquı Plan 1994 Support from city, Bronx Nos Quedamos:
for Melrose Commons borough president’s Community group with
(Bronx, NY) office, and Bronx Center Project
mayor’s office and Magnusson
Architecture
& Planning
The People’s Plan for 2007 ACORN Housing
Hurricane Katrina (Association of
Recovery in the Ninth Community
Ward (New Orleans, LA) Organizations for
Reform Now) with
Cornell University with
resident input
Welcome Dayton 2011 City of Dayton
(Dayton, OH)
SCRPG Growing Transit 2013 Puget Sound Regional
Communities (Puget Council (2013)
Sound, WA)
SCRPG Corridors of 2014 Metropolitan council (2014) Corridors of Opportunity
Opportunity (Twin with government [SCRPG] (Twin
Cities, MN) leaders, philanthropy, Cities, MN)
nonprofits,
and businesses
Bridge Park Equitable 2015 Building Bridges Across
Development Plan the River (2015)
(Washington, DC)

The Urban Renewal Plan removed us from prosperity
and made way for new residents who would reap the
rewards of our sacrifices. The idea that prosperity meant
our community residents had to be sacrificed was
inconceivable. We had to be a part of the prosperity.
[Stand et al., 1996, para.10]
In 2011, the City of Dayton (Human Relations
Council) launched Welcome Dayton—Immigrant
Friendly City, a citywide initiative to support the liveli-
hood and prosperity of immigrants, refugees, asylee res-
idents, and businesses. The resolution was the product
of a coalition of local organizations that worked with
city agencies for 6 years on topics ranging from eco-
nomic development to housing (Homeless Solutions,
2006). A key goal from Welcome Dayton recommended
that language interpreter access would lead to
increased immigrant participation, trust, and communi-
cation between government and law enforcement (City
of Dayton, 2011). The plan is a successful model for
regional and national support to bridge newcomers and
extant populations and a cornerstone of Welcoming
America’s Welcoming Cities Network.
Later, national efforts funded plans such as the
Growing Transit Communities plan for Puget Sound,
which centered its racial equity framework around
HUD’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities
Livability Principles (Puget Sound Regional Council,
2013). Funded by the SCRPG, the plan addressed the six
required livability principles, including “Principle 2:
Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location-
and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all
ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to increase mobility
and lower the combined cost of housing and trans-
portation” (Puget Sound Regional Council, 2013, p. 5).6
The result led to the establishment of the Regional Fair
Housing Group, which broadened the enforcement of
federal racial equity mandates at a regional level.
The rise and continued emphasis of racial advocacy
planning from the 1990s and throughout the early
2000s institutionalized the value of progressive commu-
nity organizing to support housing provision within fed-
eral and local planning agencies. Programs such as
HOPE VI, SCRPG, and the SCI found value in a regional
public housing approach to catalyze reciprocal involve-
ment in racial equity from the onset of major infrastruc-
tural change. Building a bridge between advocacy and
community planning—in what Krumholz and Clavel
(1994) described as radical community planning—
enhanced these new federal programs.
 11
Contemporary Era: Local-Level Community
Stability and Grassroots-Based
Partnerships (2015–2021)
The literature on contemporary (2015–2021) REP and
policy debates has focused on local-level community
and grassroots-based partnerships. These partnerships
are based on increasing community stability and pre-
venting or slowing the gentrification of racially and eth-
nically mixed neighborhoods (Anguelovski et al., 2018,
2019; Bates, 2013, 2018; Chapple & Zuk, 2016; Freeman,
2005, 2011; Freeman & Braconi, 2004; Lees, 2000;
Pearsall & Anguelovski, 2016; Redfern, 2003; Zuk et al.,
2018). Some literature has also highlighted partnerships
and coalitions that are implementing reparations for
African Americans, Blacks, and others (Goetz et al., 2020;
Williams, 2020).
Gentrification studies provide insight into opportu-
nities to create more equitable communities. More
recently, REP scholarship on displacement and dispos-
session has considered the legacy of consequences that
affect the present day in the same way PEO showed
advocacy planning was and is mainly concerned with
racial justice and federal programs that engender civic
leadership among racialized groups.
Chapple and Zuk (2016) suggested that cities can
use patterns of gentrification from the 1980s and previ-
ously identified indicators to predict changes and create
more equitable change in the future. Freeman and
Braconi (2004) studied gentrification in New York City in
the 1990s and found that rather than rapid displace-
ment, gentrification was associated with slower residen-
tial turnover among lower income households. Bates
(2018) examined gentrification and displacement in
Albina, North Portland’s (OR) historically African
American and Black community. According to Bates,
focusing on gentrification and planning for housing
affordability is “a moment of opportunity for planners to
genuinely address an equity challenge with the trad-
itional tools of planning policy” (Bates, 2018, p. 29).
Redfern (2003) focused on class distinctions that drive
gentrification, whereas Lees (2000) encouraged broad-
ening the analyses of gentrification to the global city,
urban policy, and African American, Black, and ethnic
minority gentrification.
Racial reparations for African Americans and Blacks
in the United States (Chapman, 2022; Coates, 2015) as
well as Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other
people of color have been emerging in the literature as
well (Chapman, 2022). Reparations is a system of redress
for egregious injustices. For example, some Native
Americans who were forcibly exiled from their land
received reparations in the form of returned land and
funds (Ray & Perry, 2020). Japanese Americans interned
during World War II received $1.5 billion in reparations,
Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
and the Marshall Plan offered Jews reparations for the
Holocaust (Ray & Perry, 2020). Despite these examples,
the United States has missed opportunities to expand
reparations for all affected groups.
Recent scholarship has focused on opportunities to
support African American and Black communities with
reparations to atone for slavery during the Civil War,
Reconstruction, and later during the Black freedom
struggle of the 20th century (Burton, 2021; Chapman,
2022). As of 2021, several cities in the United States
included reparations in community planning. For
example, a reparations pilot program for African
Americans and Blacks in St. Paul (MN) established via
the St. Paul Recovery Act has been taking shape (Kiene,
2021). Evanston and Asheville (NC) have been raising
funds to pay reparations to African Americans and
Blacks and invest in minority home- and business own-
ership, as well as health care, education, and criminal
justice system reform (Chapman, 2022). In Evanston,
“The Restorative Housing Program (‘The Program’), the
first program of the Evanston Local Reparations Fund,
acknowledges the harm caused to Black/African-
American Evanston residents due to discriminatory
housing policies and practices and inaction on the
City’s part” (City of Evanston, 2021, p. 3).
Reparation-based planning gained traction as racial
equity planners advocated for making amends for plan-
ning’s historical sins by explicitly highlighting Whiteness
as a tool of oppression (Goetz et al., 2020; Williams,
2020). Williams (2020) argued that reparative planning
centers corrective/reparative/transitional justice: “The
rejection and dismantling of White supremacy such that
life chances become independent of one’s ascribed
social location” (p. 8). Further, Williams drew on
Coleman (1983) and Thompson (2002) to explain that
reparative planning, like reparative justice, concerns
itself with “the annulment of both wrongful gains and
losses,” including “distribution of holdings (or entitle-
ments)” (Coleman, 1983, p. 6), and with “what ought to
be done in reparation for injustice and the obligation of
wrongdoers, or their descendants or successors, for
making this repair” (Thompson, 2002, p. xi). Williams’s
use of “distribution” tenets is consistent with both
Krumholz et al. (1975) and Thomas and Ritzdorf’s (1997)
definitions of equity planning.
For Goetz et al. (2020), planning would benefit from
examining the role of Whiteness and White supremacy
in “shaping and perpetuating regional and racial injusti-
ces in the American city” (p. 142). Goetz et al. proved
how the “focus of planners, scholars, and public dis-
course on the ‘dysfunctions’ of communities of color,
notably poverty, high levels of segregation, and isola-
tion, diverts attention from the structural systems” of
White supremacy and racial capitalism that “produce
Journal of the American Planning Association
and reproduce the advantages of affluent and White
neighborhoods” (Goetz et al., 2020, p. 142).
Reparational planning, however, is also inadvert-
ently positioned in a White–Black racial binary and a
domestic U.S. context that does not account for the
potential reparative status of Native American and other
communities of color. Among Asian scholars, REP has
sought to combat racial stereotypes and the xenopho-
bia of Asians in the United States that stemmed from
the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese American incarcer-
ation during World War II, and other exclusionary federal
policies (C. A. Lee et al., 2017, 2021; E. Lee, 2002, 2019,
2020; Loh, 2021). Indigenous planning has elevated
issues such as sovereignty, land dispossession, and com-
munal forms of public engagement, which also tran-
scend the traditional White–Black binary and require
closer attention in planning (Dalla Costa, 2020; Dorries &
Harjo, 2020; Hibbard, 2022; Jojola, 1998, 2008; Jolly &
Thompson-Fawcett, 2021; Kumasaka et al., 2022; Lane &
Hibbard, 2005).
Contemporary Latino/a/x immigration scholars
such as Arroyo (2021), Garcıa (2018), Huerta (2013,
2019), Sarmiento and Sims (2015), Sims & Sarmiento
(2019), Sandoval (2017, 2021), and Irazabal (2021) have
contributed to debates on immigrant integration and
unauthorized immigrants. Garcia-Hallett et al. (2020)
examined REP through the lens of increasing police and
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement surveillance
in Latino/a/x ethnic enclaves in Kansas City (MO).
Latino/a/x scholars have also illuminated the role ethnic
identity plays in resisting gentrification, including in
transit-oriented projects in California (Sandoval, 2017)
and the equitable provision of and federal investment
in affordable housing without substantive community
participation (Sarmiento & Sims, 2015).
RACIAL EQUITY PLANS
Racial equity plans during the contemporary era
included those proposed, funded, and led by not-for-
profit organizations and ad hoc grassroots organizations
and have started to include plans that are implement-
ing reparations for some communities (Table 5). This
was a new direction for advocacy groups to develop
substitute or alternative plans as formal, community-led
responses to official plans created by public institutions.
These plans are emblematic of neighborhood, citywide,
or regional planning issues often missing from the
respective city’s general or comprehensive plan.
Local-level community stability and grassroots-
based partnerships. The Owe’neh Bupingeh
Preservation Plan (New Mexico) was the first plan devel-
oped to ensure the self-determination of a tribal com-
munity in the United States (Atkin Olshin Schade
Architects, 2010; Sustainable Native Communities
12 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0
Collaborative, 2013). The Ohkay Owingeh (“Place of the
Strong People”) is one of 19 federally recognized pue-
blos in New Mexico whose spiritual center (Owe’neh
Bupingeh) generated a tribal-led process guided by the
tribe’s cultural values. Although most of the tribe’s cere-
monial village is intact, changing residential and work
patterns—as well as a 1970 plan from HUD to build
new homes on the periphery of the town center—led
to a decline in building maintenance and preservation,
especially among traditional housing stock (HUD Office
of Policy Development and Research, 2013).
Thirty-five years later, the Ohkay Owingeh Housing
Authority and Tribal Council developed a plan to
improve housing in a culturally sensitive manner. Local
preservationists worked with tribal youth on a twofold
mission: 1) to use geographic information systems to
document and inventory existing buildings and 2) to
employ tribal elders to teach traditional cultural heritage
techniques to youth (Sustainable Native Communities
Collaborative, 2013). The locations of 90 original dwell-
ings were documented and 60 were prioritized for res-
toration (HUD Office of Policy Development and
Research, 2013). The Cha Piyeh, a community develop-
ment financial institution, helped earn the plan a 2013
APA National Planning Excellence Award (American
Planning Association Opportunity and Empowerment,
2013). Ohkay Owingeh’s Plan was a departure from typ-
ical plans because
The rehabilitation principles that evolved are sometimes
in conflict with federal preservation standards. However,
these principles are based on Ohkay Owingeh
community and cultural values and are being
implemented by construction crew members and
homeowners from the tribe who, through learning
traditional methods of construction, ensure that the
project is culturally appropriate. [Sustainable Native
Communities Collaborative, 2013, p. 2]
Prioritizing a grassroots model as well, the 2020
Bayview Community Based Transportation Plan (San
Francisco [CA]), recipient of the 2021 National APA
Award for Advancing Diversity & Social Change, identi-
fied transportation barriers faced by one of San
Francisco’s longtime African American, Asian American,
low-income, and immigrant neighborhoods:
Bayview–Hunters Point (San Francisco Municipal
Transportation Agency [SFMTA], 2020a). The 2-year
open-ended planning process allowed the SFMTA to
partner with nearly 4,000 residents and multiple com-
munity groups in southeastern San Francisco. The goal
was to achieve “a more collaborative and responsive
relationship with the residents of Bayview–Hunters
Point” (SFMTA, 2020a, p. 7). At more than 56 meetings
planners heard concerns ranging from “No more
 13 Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning

Table 5. Contemporary planning and relevant racial equity plans (2015–2021).

Contemporary
era (2015–2021) Implemented plans
Focus: Local, community Dayton Plan to End
stability, and grassroots Homelessness
partnerships (Dayton, OH)
Owe’neh Bupingeh Tribal
Preservation Plan
(Ohkay Owingeh, NM)
City of Portland Parks
Department 5-year
Racial Equity Plan
(Portland, OR)
Pathway 1000 Plan for
Housing Reparations
(Portland, OR)
Bayview Community
Transportation Plan
(San Francisco, CA)
Equity in Master Planning
Framework
(Montgomery
County, MD)
City of Evanston
Reparational Restorative
Housing Program
(Evanston, IL)
Plan author Plan author (nonprofit
Year (municipal agency) or grassroots)
2015 City of Dayton and
Montgomery County
with community and
Shelter Policy Board
2015 Ohkay Owingeh Housing
Authority with Concept
Consulting Group.
Funding from HUD,
foundations, National
Park Service, NM
Mortgage Finance
Authority, and others
2017 Portland Parks and
Recreation (2017)
2018 Portland Community
Reinvestment
Initiatives (PCRI)
2020 SFMTA, county funds, and
community input
2020 Montgomery County
Planning Department
(2020);
planning agency
2021 City of Evanston;
planning agency

studies!” to “I may be displaced before I can benefit
from your plan” (SFMTA, 2020b, p. 8).
More than $3.63 million was committed to projects
to address the needs and desires of residents, with an
additional $600,000 grant to allocate via participatory
budgeting through the Bayview CBTP Community
Steering Committee, a 12-person group of representa-
tives from multiple racial and ethnic-oriented organiza-
tions (SFMTA, 2020a). Desired projects included
crosswalk improvements, bus shelters, youth programs,
and funding for new transit assistants. A novel element
of the plan was a geographic information system–based
equity index tool to identify transit challenges faced by
the most vulnerable residents (SFMTA, 2020a). SFMTA
engaged community leaders, elders, and key organiza-
tions to identify the groups facing the greatest transpor-
tation challenges through a “recalibrated scoring of
data, leading to a new Equity Index Map” (SFMTA,
2020a, p. 53; Figure 3).
Demand for racially based reparation. BLM’s call to
center Black lives in the reparative urban planning field
has only increased due to the high-profile police killings
of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. In
2018, Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives
(PCRI) developed the Pathway 1000 Implementation
Housing Plan to raise and invest $300 million over
10 years to construct 1,000 rental and owned homes in
the predominantly African American and Black com-
munities of north and northeast Portland and to
develop small, independent businesses and create jobs
in areas with a history of displacement (PCRI, 2018). The
plan is an attempt to remedy the residential displace-
ment caused by gentrification in the region in the past
20 years. There is a unique focus on rectifying previous
harm and displacement of the city’s African American
and Black populations through funding that is not reli-
ant on public support (Berger et al., 2016). According to
Maxine Fitzpatrick, executive director of PCRI, “We can-
not undo the harms done, but rather must focus on
restoring housing justice for those who were harmed”
(PCRI, 2018, p. 6).
Three years later, the City of Evanston drafted the
Reparational Restorative Housing Program (City of
Journal of the American Planning Association
Figure 3. Project-defined equity index map (left) and community-defined equity index map (right) from 2020 Bayview Community
Based Transportation Plan. Source: SFMTA, 2020a.
Evanston, 2021). Though not necessarily a plan, the pro-
gram focused on African American and Black Evanston
residents or their ancestors harmed by housing discrim-
ination from 1919 to 1969. The plan offered “restorative
housing payments” that can be “layered with other City
or externally funded programs,” including Community
Development Block Grant housing rehabilitation and
other improvements, down payment and closing costs
for home purchase (Illinois Housing Development
Authority), or mortgage assistance (City of Evanston,
2021, p. 8). Recently, the City of Evanston’s Reparations
Committee approved 122 applicants qualifying as
“ancestors” for the City’s Local Reparations
Restorative Housing Program (City of Evanston, 2022).
They selected 16 for a maximum amount of
$25,000 (out of a $400,000 allocation; City of
Evanston, 2022).
In New Mexico, the Ohkay Owingeh tribe sustained
their grassroots and intergenerational leadership to pro-
tect their ceremonial village while simultaneously
addressing the acute housing needs of current and
future generations (Sustainable Native Communities
Collaborative, 2013). PCRI’s Portland Pathway 1000
(2018) and the City of Evanston’s Reparational
Restorative Housing Program (2021) focused on a
hyperlocal implementation of reparations. The last
60 years have proved planning has been more in tune
with the zeitgeist purchase of racial equity than is com-
monly known or credited.
14 2023 | Volume 0 Number 0
Maintaining Planning's Relevance in a
Race-Forward Field
Racial equity has been a central—albeit implicit—
element of advocacy and equity planning since the
mid-1960s. Though there are mentions of reparations
planning and racial planning, there is no explicit refer-
ence to REP in the field’s canon. Rather, concerns and
orientations about racial justice, civil rights, gentrifica-
tion and displacement, redistributionist policies, and
reparations fall under a broader equity plan-
ning discourse.
The failure to frame equity planning through race
further contributes to White supremacy, Whiteness, and
the invisibility of people of color. Because planning
practitioners are educated with influential equity plan-
ning writings, the lack of centering REP within that
body of scholarly work serves as a form of erasure that
perpetuates White supremacy in the field. Advocacy
and equity planning have always been about REP at
their core, even if this was not fully realized and directly
articulated and defined as such.
In this review, we have presented an evolution of
REP that amends past racist policies and plans via pro-
cedural struggles over redistribution and recognition.
Our analysis of this evolution supports the notion that
REP is a participatory process that leads to the redivision
of material resources, recognition of diverse cultures,
and empowerment of racialized groups. Our goal of
contextualizing the evolution of racial equity in the last
60 years revealed thematic trends, debates, and
 15
underappreciated and/or misunderstood contributions
in planning scholarship and practice.
We demonstrated diverse approaches to racial equity
in planning scholarship in four eras: civil rights era, Model
Cities era, HOPE VI and the SCRPG era, and a contempor-
ary era. We illustrated how REP manifested through itera-
tions in equity planning, and we highlighted examples of
specific plans that can help planners better understand
how to incorporate REP into plans. For example, planners
working on racial housing inequality can study the 1961
Alternative Plan for Cooper Square or the 1994 Nos
Quedamos Aquı Plan for Melrose Commons. These plans
provide planning practitioners with specific initiatives,
strategies, and programs relevant to racial equity housing
struggles in the 21st century.
Though Davidoff’s (1965) scholarly work on advo-
cacy planning endures, its generalist approach bypassed
an explicit focus on race. The scholarly foundations of
advocacy planning set the stage for a deeper commit-
ment to the community and the policies that affect
them. Planning scholars have often associated with rad-
ical community-based strategies, and their relevancy is
inextricably tied to the grassroots advocates that
founded and supported equitable movements for
change across the country (Alinsky, 1971). However,
credit is seldom given to the weight that race played in
groups like the PEO and the bonds that formed across
ethnic and racial communities during the 1960s and
endure to the present day.
Planners are not new to racial equity work, nor are
we behind other professional and scholarly fields.
However, contemporary planning overall remains reti-
cent to engage directly with race, thus making the pro-
fession ill prepared for one of the most significant
barriers to a just future. To move forward, the planning
profession must look backward at its past to acknow-
ledge its long-standing contributions to racial equity.
Future anti-racist planning strategies may come from
what we have already gleaned through previous
answers and efforts.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JOHN C. ARROYO (jarroyo@uoregon.edu) is an assistant pro-
fessor in the School of Planning, Public Policy and
Management at the University of Oregon. GERARD F.
SANDOVAL (gsando@uoregon.edu) is a professor in the
School of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the
University of Oregon. JOANNA BERNSTEIN (jbernst3@uore-
gon.edu) completed doctoral coursework in planning and pub-
lic affairs at the University of Oregon.
ORCID
John C. Arroyo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2073-4824
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Iliana Lang Lundgren, a graduate of the Master of
Nonprofit Management Program at the University of Oregon
Sixty Years of Racial Equity Planning
and a research assistant for the Pacific Northwest Just Futures
Institute for Racial and Climate Justice, for supporting the final
editorial phases of the article. We thank Katrina Maggiulli, a
doctoral candidate in Environmental Sciences, Studies, and
Policy and English at the University of Oregon and a research
assistant for the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for
Racial and Climate Justice, for copyediting support. We also
thank Alayne Switzer for administrative grant support of the
University of Oregon’s Just Futures Initiative grant.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
RESEARCH SUPPORT
This research was supported by an Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation (Just Futures Initiative) grant to the University of
Oregon (2021) for the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute
for Racial and Climate Justice.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Supplemental data for this article can be found at https://doi.
org/10.1080/01944363.2022.2132986.
NOTES
1. PEO was formed during a spring 1964 Metropolitan Committee
on Planning Meeting about rent strikes from African Americans,
Blacks, and Puerto Ricans on the Lower East Side and Harlem. The
group originally began as City Planners for Civil Rights and then
changed to PEO during their formal launch later that summer at
the AIP convention in Newark (NJ). The group was the precursor
to the Planner’s Network.
2. The Fair Housing Act of the Civil Rights Act was vehemently
opposed by senators and the National Association of Real Estate
Boards. The passage of a previous iteration of the Civil Rights Act
(1966) failed due to the fair housing elements featured in the bill.
3. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) built on its
predecessor (the Civil Rights Act of 1964) to allow federal
enforcement of housing discrimination concerning the sale,
financing, and rental of housing based on protected classes (race,
religion, and national origin). “Sex” was added in a 1974
amendment. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970
(commonly known as the New Communities Assistance Program)
established financing mechanisms to both public and private
developers and expanded the definition of blight to other
inappropriately used land uses. The act built on its predecessor
(Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968), which was the
result of major race-related riots after the assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Housing and Urban–Rural Recovery
Act of 1983 amended the previous Housing and Community Act
of 1974 with major provisions to HUD’s Community Development
Block Grant program, which supports infrastructure, economic
development, public facilities construction and maintenance,
community centers, housing rehabilitation, homeowner
assistance, and other local-level commitments.
4. An empowerment zone is an economically distressed area in
the United States eligible to receive tax incentives, bonds, and
grants from the U.S. federal government, based on the provisions
Journal of the American Planning Association
of the Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities Act
of 1993.
5. Even though New Orleans was not an SCI- or SCRPG-funded
region, REP for the area occurred while SCI and SCRPG gained
momentum in other places.
6. The six Federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities
Livability Principles are 1) provide more transportation choices; 2)
promote equitable, affordable housing; 3) enhance economic
competitiveness; 4) support existing communities; 5) coordinate
policies and leverage investment; and 6) value communities and
neighborhoods.
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