The Past We Step Into and How We Repair It

Rashad Williams and Justin Steil

Journal of the American Planning Association, 2023, vol. 89, issue 4, 580-591

Abstract: Problem, research strategy, and findingsAnti-racist futures in urban and regional planning require repairing the White supremacist harms that have structured our metropolitan areas and patterns of living. What would constitute the appropriate dimensions for a reparative planning practice? Focusing here on the harms of anti-Black racism, answering these questions requires a deep engagement with the rich tradition of Black radical thought and debates in political philosophy and planning theory about urban justice. We begin by engaging with recent discussions in planning theory regarding definitions of urban justice. We then draw from threads of Black radical thought, identifying central insights from and tensions among Black nationalist, Marxist, feminist, abolitionist, and environmental justice movements. From these themes in Black radical thought, we present key dimensions of reparative planning and apply them to three case studies.Takeaway for practiceReparative planning must involve at a minimum at least three dimensions: public recognition, material redistribution, and social and spatial transformation. For this third, transformative dimension, we identify five principles for reparative planning: creating spaces for Black joy, advancing material redistribution, attending to intersectionality, building new democratic institutions grounded in and with the participation of non-elites, and constructing environmentally just futures. In practice, Black-led movements for economic democracy at the local level are creating examples of what grassroots reparative planning could be by creating joyful spaces for dialogue, education, and cultural production; building cooperative, nonextractive financial institutions that are redistributive; developing the capacity for broad, grassroots participatory democracy; designing structures for community control of projects that advance racial equity; and prioritizing efforts that help repair local ecosystems.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2022.2154247

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