Harm Repair at Scale: Transportation Infrastructure and Equitable Development Projects
Large-scale civic infrastructure projects implemented during urban renewal caused generational harm to communities of color. Now cities have the chance to reimagine their neighborhoods and repair this harm with equitable, resident-led comprehensive community development strategies. When these projects come up, longtime residents and the communities who suffered most from past projects must be at the forefront leading the vision for their neighborhoods, grounded in racial equity.
The corridor spanning West Oakland, North Oakland and South Berkeley is the site of three major transportation infrastructure projects that present a generational opportunity for harm mitigation and repair. These include the Caltrans Vision 980 project in West and North Oakland and two BART stations, including the Transit Oriented Development at Ashby BART. Beginning in the 1930s, racially oppressive policies redlined and cordoned off this contiguous chain of historically Black neighborhoods, dividing them with freeways, transit lines and other institutionally sanctioned barriers.
Today, efforts are underway to ensure that these new infrastructure projects acknowledge and quantify past harms and address them through deep community planning, cultural preservation, creative placemaking, and inclusive governance processes that are grounded in equitable, reparative approaches. Join us to learn how the communities that will be impacted by these projects are engaging and mobilizing longtime residents, using innovative policy approaches to prevent further gentrification and encourage the return of displaced community members, and the role philanthropy can play to support the vision that residents have for their communities.
Presented in partnership with Northern California Grantmakers.
Speakers
Randolph Belle, Co-Founder & Partner, Creative Development Partners
Brandi Howard, President & CEO, East Bay Community Foundation
Anthony Rodriguez, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, City of Berkeley
Wilhelmenia Wilson, Executive Director, Healthy Black Families, Inc.
