Tom Grubisich, Columnist, StreetFightMag.com, provides a scenic tour of the historical landscape of American cities, the intentional and thoughtful growth of emerging communities and the role that local media organizations can play in the transformation.

1. Action to Promote Equity Short-Listed
In Cities’ ‘21st-Century’ Plans
But local news reports don’t seem to notice

2. Equity is not the same thing as equality,
but they aren’t binary opposites
2
Disparities exist in many categories of livability;
Equity’s goal is to create equal opportunities for all

3. Cities everywhere are tearing up old plans
and creating goal-setting bolder ones
3

4. ‘21st-century’ plans are a response
to new needs and higher expectations
Raleigh 2030 sums up
the expansiveness of
21st-century municipal planning.
Between the lines, there’s
the hint of tension along the Yellow Brick
Road (see circled phrases) – a clue for
alert newsrooms:
Six key themes reinforce Raleigh’s Vision for 2030 and serve as Planning Raleigh 2030’s overall goals: Economic
Prosperity and Equity; Expanding Housing Choices; Managing Our Growth; Coordinating Land Use and
Transportation; Greenprint Raleigh—Sustainable Development; and Growing Successful Neighborhoods and
Communities. They express and reinforce the major concerns the Plan seeks to address and the issues raised
by the public.
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5. Raleigh’s Modest Start on Housing Equity
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Like most urban centers in the U.S., Raleigh, NC, has a desperate need for affordable housing. The current
shortage in the city and surrounding Wake County is 56,000 units.
In this Q & A, Raleigh Planning Director Kenneth Bowers tells how the city is beginning to close the gap with
help from a 1-cent property tax, which costs the average homeowner $20 annually.
Above is one gap-closing project in the city, the Village at Washington Terrace, whose 162 apartments will
be earmarked for residents who earn less than 60% of the regional median income.
When those apartments and other committed affordable housing are delivered, Raleigh and Wake County
will still have to figure out how to close an equity gap of more than 50,000 apartments and houses.

6. Historically, city planning set major goals,
but their focus was not as expansive
Benjamin Franklin Parkway is crown jewel of Philadelphia
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CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT FROM LATE 1800S TO 1920S

7. Chicago’s Cabrini-Green project:
It began as a ‘New Deal’ in housing
THE BROKEN DREAM OF URBAN REDEVELOPMENT AND RENEWAL
Started under FDR,
demolished under
three later presidents
7

8. LBJ’s Model Cities program: undone
by federal-local racial power struggles
Dilapidated housing in
predominantly black North
Philadelphia was an early target
for renewal in the mid-1960s, but
a four-way clash involving the
Johnson Administration,
Congress, white-controlled City
Hall and black neighborhood
activists snarled some ambitious
projects. How to resolve control
issuers was laid out in onetime
social worker, later federal
housing adviser Sherry Arnstein’s
influential 1969 ‘A Ladder of Civic
Participation,’ which is largely
adopted in today’s city planning.8
REVAMPED PROGRAM TO REDEVELOP AND RENEW CITIES FAILED TOO

9. Local sites need compelling news to extend reach,
but too often miss what’s staring them in the face
9

10. Equity is a major goal, but what it means is often
diluted to get bigger buy-in from white residents
Race and ethnicity
remain as historical
divides in still-very-
segregated Austin, but
are airbrushed out in
this ‘Vision for
Austin’s Future,’
which should be a
signal for newsrooms.
10

11. News coverage by one local provider
reduces equity to ‘other topics’
Opening paragraphs of report by a major local news provider in a city where white-
black relations are better than they are in many other cities, in the South and the
North, but which has some highly segregated neighborhoods whose black residents
have remained trapped in poverty:
What should [the city] do to make traffic less of a headache? How should the city
create more housing for its poorest families?
Residents can share their thoughts on how [the city] should grow as [it] works to
update its…Comprehensive Plan. The plan lays out…goals and strategies for
development and its approach to economic, social and environmental issues.
The plan addresses housing, transportation, land use, historic preservation, economic
development, public utilities, arts and culture and other topics.
Equity is a major
theme in city plan,
but it goes
unmentioned in
this news article.
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12. ‘Social equity’ isn’t equitable enough
– in at least one community
In Seattle 2035,
‘social equity’
was changed to
‘race and social
equity.’
12

13. Good news: Citizens are being empowered
to help write their cities’ new plans
Community Engagement
Committee at work on
draft of NashvilleNext.
When newsrooms are
poised to listen they can
generate very engaging,
and enlightening,
coverage about the
experiences – good and
sometimes not so good
– of citizens who get
involved in community
planning.
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14. Cities grade how well they do hitting goals,
but should they be in charge?
14

15. In New Haven, the city didn’t flinch rating how it did
on ‘housing burden’ costs and ‘unsafe at night – but…
15
From New Haven’s ‘Transformation City Planning’ dashboard:

16. …in the Music City, planners summed up
first-year results with vague generalities
• Finding funding mechanisms to implement all the actions and
programs proves challenging.
• Decision-making often proves difficult in selecting specific projects to
move forward. For example, a neighborhood’s main thoroughfares
are extremely congested because street connectivity is needed.
Residents agree that connectivity needs to happen, but when a
certain street connection is proposed, nearby residents are opposed
because they fear increased traffic on ‘their’ street.
• Implementation of some priorities takes time, even with immediate
need and public support, for example planning, funding and building
a transit system.
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From one-year update of NashvilleNext:

17. Local providers should get involved:
It starts with opening their newsroom to readers
• One way is using community-listening tools by services like Hearken.
• SMS texting tools, with notifications, can connect newsrooms to their
communities – everybody from neighborhood activists to the mayor or
chief planner, as well as average citizens who might not be ready or even
want to become upfront activists – but care deeply about their community.
• News providers have to capture and communicate the tension embedded
in the plans, especially regarding equity, and create a prominent – and safe
– space where readers can have spirited but respectful debates. Google’s
“Perspective” is one ongoing experiment. But filtering out toxic comments
is not easy to do.
• Newsrooms should have a sign on their wall that says something like: “Our
job is to help the people of our community live better lives.”
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18. Where are today’s Pulitzers and Hearsts
who know how to connect with readers?
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For all their journalistic misdeeds, Joseph Pulitzer’s New York
World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal
did some things worth emulating by today’s local publishers.

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By Tom Grubisich,
‘The New News’ columnist,
Street Fight
tomgrubisich@gmail.com
@TomGrubisich