“The Past We Step Into and How We Repair It”
Name
Williams Steil 2023 Reparative Planning.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
168.41 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a82c0385d0892e102c0a14cd2468c0bb
Author(s)
Williams, Rashad
Steil, Justin
Date Issued
October 2, 2023
Journal
Journal of the American Planning Association
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Citation
Williams, R., & Steil, J. (2023). “The Past We Step Into and How We Repair It”: A Normative Framework for Reparative Planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89(4), 580–591.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Problem, research strategy, and findings
Anti-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 practice
Reparative 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.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2022.2154247
