Racial Equity Impact Policy
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The Alliance and our partner organizations are working with the city of St. Paul to pilot a racial equity impact policy, which will help the city’s urban planners use their research, analytical and planning capacities to ensure that subsidized economic development increases equity rather than exacerbating disparities.
The number of people of color in the Twin Cities continues to increase, now making up nearly 20 percent of the region’s total population (a growth rate of 110 percent between 1990 and 2000). Although Minnesota has the reputation for being a relatively prosperous and progressive state, these changes in our demographic makeup have led to widening achievement gaps between races. Measures like educational attainment, health and poverty rates are directly related to how development in our region is planned: where people can afford to live, what types of jobs are located there, how they get around and what community amenities are available. The disparities created by development decisions are usually not due to bad intentions of cities and developers, but rather to a lack of attention paid to how development decisions will affect certain communities.
We are introducing a racial equity impact policy as a tool to help communities of color ensure that cities and developers have considered, quantified and documented the impacts new development projects may have on different racial and economic groups. The policy expands upon the typical economic and environmental impact reports conducted by the city to include measurements of the racial impacts of development decisions.
The draft policy identifies the following criteria as critical to ensuring racial and socioeconomic equity in development policy:
- Fiscal equity: Will the use of public funds reduce racial disparities rather than increasing them or neglecting to consider them?
- Transportation equity: Will transit access (or lack thereof) differentially impact people of different racial and economic statuses?
- Housing equity: Will the use of public funds for housing development differentially impact people of various racial and economic backgrounds?
- Employment equity: Are jobs created and retained as part of a strategy to reduce poverty across different racial and ethnic lines?
- Environmental equity: Are environmental hazards distributed unevenly across residents based on race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status?
- Zoning and planning equity: Are zoning and planning policies adversely impacting people differently based on socioeconomic, ethnic or racial status?
Campaign partners:
Alliance for Metropolitan Stability
Aurora/Saint Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation
Community Stabilization Project
Jewish Community Action
JUST Equity
Organizing Apprenticeship Project
Research Allies
Crossroads Resource Center
HECUA
University of Minnesota Institute for Global Studies