This article is based on a longer report "An Agenda for Equity: A Framework for Building a Just Transportation System in Los Angeles County" by Vanessa Carter, Manuel Pastor, and Madeline Wander.

Los Angeles: Reluctant No More

A leader in California's urban planning scene, Bill Fulton, once characterized Los Angeles as a "reluctant metropolis" -- unwilling to accept that sprawl had hit a wall, unable to see common connections between neighborhoods to create a cohesive region, and unlikely to overcome the social disparities and racial tension that twice produced civil unrest.

But as we witness a paradigm shift in how Angelenos move through the region, how Angelenos understand the interconnectedness of our region, how Angelenos are unifying across difference to fight for a more equitable region, we think that Los Angeles may be reluctant no more.

Talking with 40 advocates and organizations across the Southland, we have seen signs that the once disconnected and dystopian L.A. is fading away. With a new vigor, social justice organizers, policy advocates, government agencies, business leaders, and others are engaging in how to move us more sustainably through our region and, at the same time, how to swell the numbers of those supporting transportation equity. We call that last part movement building.

Last week, as part of this L.A. in Motion series, our director Manuel Pastor explained the "Just Growth" frame -- one that is big enough to encompass L.A.'s wide-ranging transportation equity movement -- asserting that social inclusion is the key to achieving economic prosperity and sustainability.

This week, we run through the agenda for transportation equity being brought together by our region's social-movement leaders. How is transportation equity defined? What does it entail? Who are some of the organizations innovating in the different niches of this work? If these questions pique your interest, read on.

What do we mean by Transportation Equity?

As we look ahead to upcoming articles in this series, it may be useful to define what we mean by "transportation equity." Indeed, this is a difficult concept to define, as it must capture a broad range of issues facing the Southland -- from transit-oriented development to bicycles to goods movement (we dig into these and some other issues a little deeper below).

But we believe the following definition does just this by highlighting outcomes (both benefits and burdens for our communities) as well as the importance of public participation in planning processes. In our view, transportation equity means:

Equitable access to quality, affordable transportation options and so employment, services, amenities, and cultural destinations;

to quality, affordable transportation options and so employment, services, amenities, and cultural destinations; Shared distribution of the benefits and burdens of transportation systems and investments, such as jobs and pollution, respectively; and

of the benefits and burdens of transportation systems and investments, such as jobs and pollution, respectively; and Partnership in the planning process that results in shared decision-making and more equitable outcomes for disadvantaged communities while strengthening the entire region.

In short: people matter.

Photo: Metro Library and Archive/Flickr/Creative Commons.

An Agenda for Transportation Equity in Los Angeles

Of course, making sure that we put people first means that we need to consider a wide range of things that also count in the overall calculus of achieving transportation equity in L.A. Below we outline specific areas that make up our region's transportation equity agenda -- as we see it -- and how social-movement organizers are leading the charge.

Two caveats: First, while we separate these concerns for the sake of clarity, the threads of this work are inherently intertwined, and we think that they should be treated as such. Second, there are so many excellent examples of campaigns and organizing in each of these areas that we could not possibly include them all. (So we ask for your grace and understanding!)

Without further ado, the top six issue areas that matter for a transportation equity agenda in L.A.:

We're not just singing kumbaya, however; bringing together this many strands of work is complicated. Tension that keep this agenda from being integrated and adopted include the high degree of jurisdictional complexity in our multi-layered region, the depth of relationship required to foster genuine community participation in government plans, and identification of what "equity" means at the planning and implementation level. It means building capacity within government and community organizations to move the work, it means advocates and businesses partnering in the difficult work of urban development, and it ultimately means moving from having conversations to making change.

Photo: Doran/Flickr/Creative Commons

What's Next: A Shared Framework for Movement and Action, Together

What this confluence of activity across sectors and communities adds up to is a broader movement for transportation equity, as part of a vision for just growth -- investing with equity to build a better, stronger region for the long-haul.

And what these advocates and organizers understand -- due to the region's rich social-justice movement building legacy -- is that now is a crucial time for L.A. to invest with equity in transportation. After all, it's not often that a region's residents tax themselves to put $40 billion into a transportation build-out over the next 30 years.

These key investments will impact how people can easily and affordably get to their jobs, as well as determine the safety and healthfulness of their surroundings. The ripple effects of transportation equity will be broad and long-lasting for the whole region. Indeed, transportation may be where we can get the most equity bang for our tax-dollar buck.

As the collective voices in this L.A. in Motion series will show in the weeks ahead, it's the movement-building organizations that are tackling the complexities of what real participation looks like, who holds what power, defining metrics that matter for equity, building out government and community capacity, partnering with business -- to infuse equity into transportation planning.

If this framework for just growth, the agenda for L.A.'s transportation equity movement, and the inspiring stories from our communities can contribute to strengthening our region's ability to establish an innovative and inclusive transportation system, we've done our job.

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References:

See our report "An Agenda for Equity: A Framework for Building a Just Transportation System in Los Angeles County" for a full list of references that inform this article.

Benner, Chris, and Manuel Pastor. 2012. Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America's Metropolitan Regions. New York, NY: Routledge.

Brenman, Marc, and Thomas W. Sanchez. 2012. Planning as If People Matter: Governing for Social Equity. Washington D.C.: Island Press.

Fulton, William. 1997. The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

Pastor, Manuel, and Michele Prichard. 2012. "L.A. Rising: The 1992 Civil Unrest, the Arc of Social Justice Organizing, and the Lessons for Today's Movement Building." Los Angeles, CA: The USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity.

About the Authors:

Vanessa Carter is a Senior Data Analyst with the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity.

Madeline Wander is a Data Analyst with the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity.