A creative exhibit highlights how redlining and racist exclusion persist today.
In 1968, when the federal Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in housing, the city of Seattle passed its own Open Housing Act. For the 50th anniversary of those victories, the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific Experience has launched an exhibit that will eventually anchor a trail of commemorative sites from the International District through the Central District.
The exhibit celebrates community leaders who fought discrimination in the built environment and beyond—like the Jackson Street Community Council, the Seattle Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Gang of Four, which included current King County Councilmember Larry Gossett. And it highlights how similar struggles over civil rights and place-based discrimination manifest today.
"Seattle is particularly rife with racially restrictive covenants, some even still in place today," Annie Lloyd explains in Curbed, pointing to present-day housing deeds that prohibit non-white ownership. In addition to explicitly racist practices, Lloyd notes, working-class communities of color now face gentrifying investment patterns that threaten to push them out of the very neighborhoods formed partly in response to redlining.
The exhibit is free and public, and extends through February 2020.
FULL STORY: Wing Luke Museum exhibit explores Seattle’s legacy of redlining
In Defense of Asian American Neighborhoods
How do you address a history of anti-Asian housing discrimination? Not by destroying Asian American communities.
Boston to Require Fair Housing Review for New Developments
The Boston Zoning Code is one of the first in the nation to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.
Formerly Redlined Denver Neighborhoods Are Now Gentrification Hotspots
Prices remain depressed in most formerly redlined neighborhoods, but several such areas in Denver now boast higher home values than the city as a whole.
Alabama: Trump Terminates Settlements for Black Communities Harmed By Raw Sewage
Trump deemed the landmark civil rights agreement “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.”
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees
More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?
In Both Crashes and Crime, Public Transportation is Far Safer than Driving
Contrary to popular assumptions, public transportation has far lower crash and crime rates than automobile travel. For safer communities, improve and encourage transit travel.
Report: Zoning Reforms Should Complement Nashville’s Ambitious Transit Plan
Without reform, restrictive zoning codes will limit the impact of the city’s planned transit expansion and could exclude some of the residents who depend on transit the most.
Judge Orders Release of Frozen IRA, IIJA Funding
The decision is a victory for environmental groups who charged that freezing funds for critical infrastructure and disaster response programs caused “real and irreparable harm” to communities.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Clanton & Associates, Inc.
Jessamine County Fiscal Court
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service