Please join us on Friday, July 15, 2022 (12-2pm PST) for our fourth and final virtual session - The JE:DI Agenda in Action: With Liberation and Justice for All. In this session, we will explore Design Justice strategies in the context of Urban Planning, Policy and Development in shaping a future that centers practices of decolonization, anti-racist/anti-harm, and liberation from systems that limit our ability to thrive. For the first part of the workshop, we will convene notable Design Justice leaders in development and our city government in the Bay Area. They will share a broad range of practice, process and frameworks that support liberation and just outcomes in the built environment. In sharing examples of how they manifested their goals into sustained actions and broader impact, Alyssa Victory, Kyle Rawlins, and John Bauters will inspire us to reflect and take action in meaningful ways in our regional communities.
This opening segment will be followed by a moderated panel discussion with these trailblazers to gather input on how we can be more effective in serving our communities and transform our profession in the process. In the second part of the workshop, we will revisit the Frameworks for Action (introduced in the 12/3 session) to discuss current work, identify barriers to advancing JEDI goals and to ideate and assess strategies for promoting persistence and success.
Session Background and Learning Prompts:
Our society is at a critical inflection point. The choices and actions we take today will determine our collective future. This is contextualized by a historic confluence of catastrophic events creating great disruption and uncertainty - a global pandemic disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable, long term economic disruption, racist violence, civil unrest, and environmental peril caused by climate change. This perfect storm exposes the intersectional impacts of a systemic injustices in socio-economic, environmental, and health policies within the urban planning process. The legacy of which continues to perpetuate inequities for historically disenfranchised communities of color, LGBTQIA+, and other identities who are disproportionately at-risk.
With the newly adopted requirements for the California State General Plan Updates, the City and community members of each California city stand at the precipice of a unique opportunity in history to make a significant impact in civic policy, Elements, Environmental Justice and Racial Equity components that are grounded in truth telling, de-colonization and are co-created to authentically serve every community member (prioritizing the most vulnerable) in effective and sustainable ways, with enduring outcomes.
We recognized that this effort requires highly strategic, innovative, and collaborative ideas and practices for implementation that are deeply aligned core values and guiding principles for each City’s General Plan Update: Racial Equity and Environmental Justice, Transparency, Relevance and Clarity, Focused Planning Process that is Flexible and Adaptable, Strategic and Long-Range Though Leadership, Interdisciplinary Coordination, and a place-based approach prioritizing strong partnerships with Community Based Organizations (CBO’s). Transit-oriented development, equitable/affordable/mixed-income housing incentives and strategies, and equitable access to urban resources.
Learning Objectives:
After attending this program, participants will be able to:
Identify key components and frameworks utilized successfully by key Civic Leaders and Developers (ie.- past experience and case studies that show policies and practices implemented into urban design and development) that is Design Justice driven.
Comprehend new vocabulary and meaning (ie., liberation, decolonization and sovereignty) as these related to designing projects for historically underserved communities and assess impacts for a range of solutions.
Apply Civic scale examples of Design Justice to the EQxD Frameworks for Action to identify and assess the potential impact of systems interventions designed to promote just and equitable design outcomes for underserved communities.
Commit to implementing one of these identified civic/urban Design Justice strategies with the support of fellow members of Equity by Design’s Community of Practice.
Featured Panelists:
Allyssa Victory, Esq. - 2022 Candidate for Mayor, City of Oakland
Allyssa Victory (born Villanueva) was raised in North Oakland and has since lived in every district of Oakland and even overcame homelessness. Allyssa has devoted her entire career to advocacy on behalf of the public’s interest and underserved communities starting with clothing and food distribution with her West Oakland church and as a social justice student organizer with Oakland’s Youth Together. Allyssa is a civil rights leader, educator, and licensed attorney serving across the Bay Area and state of California. Allyssa holds a B.A. with honors in Ethnic Studies and minor in Black Studies as well as J.D. concentrated in Government Law. Allyssa currently practices in policing and labor law and is an elected ADEM Delegate to the CA Democratic Party for Assembly District 18. Allyssa is an author on the history of racial terrorism in the U.S. and currently teaches Black Studies inside San Quentin state prison. Allyssa is a candidate for Oakland Mayor in the November 8 general election.
Kyle Rawlins, BIG Oakland
Kyle Rawlins is a co-founder of BIG Oakland, an incubator/coworking space dedicated to the architecture/engineering/construction/real estate industry. In 2018, the San Francisco Business Times included BIG in its Upstart 50 business creators of the Bay Area. He is also a co-founder of Oakland-based Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS), a public interest architecture and real estate development firm focused on addressing the root causes of mass incarceration. DJDS is a winner of the ArtPlace America 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund. Kyle has been active in analyzing, financing, design, development, construction, and management of real estate in North and South America for more than 20 years.
Before his entrepreneurial ventures, Kyle held senior positions with Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI). As Senior Investment Associate of Latin American Merchant Banking, he was responsible for the management and development of PREI's portfolio companies within Latin America, capital market-based product development and the integration of PREI's regional offices with its NJ headquarters. Subsequently, as Director of Corporate Development for its Brazil-based portfolio company, Atlântica Residencial, he took on deal sourcing, product development, feasibility studies, financing, marketing, and day-to-day oversight of the construction of 4,000 residential units in Brazil.
Kyle is an Echoing Green Fellow - 2016 Black Male Achievement Cohort. Kyle holds a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia, an MBA from the Harvard Business School. In 2020, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley where he teaches equitable and inclusive development for the Master of Real Estate Development + Design program.
John Bauters - Mayor of Emeryville, Ca / State Director at Alliance for Safety and Justice
John Bauters is the Mayor of Emeryville, California. He serves as the Chair of both the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, where he has been an outspoken and progressive voice on sustainable land use and active transportation policies that yield equitable, people-oriented communities.
Professionally, John has over 20 years of experience as a nonprofit professional, working as a legal aid attorney for people experiencing homelessness, an eviction defense trial attorney, and more recently as a policy director on trauma-informed and community-based health services as an alternative to incarceration.
An animal lover, cyclist, and long-distance hiker, John is an all-around outdoors enthusiast and loves helping other people discover the joy of active transportation as a lifestyle.
Last year, in the wake of multiple pandemics impacting societal and environmental challenges, we came together to grapple with the resultant shifts and compounding disruptions that have challenged how we live, work and thrive. At this inflection point, we quickly pivoted and expanded our platform to respond to the rapidly changing needs of our profession and community members. #ED2020 Series, The JE:DI. Agenda introduced a Justice and Equity driven approach to drive Diverse representation and Inclusive results at the contextual intersections of Social/Economic, Health, Environment, and Practice.
This year we will continue the next chapter with The JE:DI. Agenda in Action with an augmented series of panels and workshops that will build on the outcomes of last year’s critical discourse and frameworks. We will begin with a summary of what we learned in 2020 and build upon it with today’s evolving challenges with an overview of JE:DI frameworks for solving these challenges proposed to date across multiple organizations. Together, we will begin to co-create an intersectional “Roadmap for Action'' designed to guide practitioners and firm leaders in their commitments to initiating and sustaining systemic change by dismantling systems of harm and oppression. We will propose a new paradigm for designing a just future in which the built environment cultivates dignity, belonging, agency and mutualism.
Thank You #EQxD022 JE:DI Agenda in Action Program Sponsors
Special Thanks to our Equity by Design / AIASF Sponsors for this year’s programming!
Silver Sponsors - 5000
HOK
Steel Sponsors - 3500
Mithun
Bronze Sponsors - 2500
Gensler
PYATOK
SmithGroup
Copper Sponsors - 1500
Tipping Structural Engineers
Walker Warner
Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings
