logo
Donate
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
    • Glossary
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Magazine
  • Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Urban Planning that Undoes the “New Jim Crow”

Rick Cohen
July 17, 2015

 

July 16, 2015; Next City

This Next City article by Ryan Lugalia-Hollon criticizes the failure of urban planners to plan for public safety or to understand the impact of high incarceration rates on specific urban neighborhoods. He writes, “Students of community and economic development have been trained to redesign residential space, work for affordable housing and advocate for living wage jobs without ever being asked to consider how police, prisons and courtroom decrees shape life in urban neighborhoods.”

Describing this oversight in urban planning as a manifestation of “the New Jim Crow,” a concept he ascribes to Michelle Alexander concerning the mass incarceration in some neighborhoods, the author references a website called “Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks” to map the money that Illinois taxpayers invest in mass incarceration that could have spent on “schools, housing, transportation, job creation, or parks” in the subject neighborhoods, a process of “incarceration mapping.”

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

What isn’t clear in the brief article is what the mapping tells urban planners how they should rethink their design approaches to inner city neighborhoods.

Alexander has described the New Jim Crow as “a new racial undercaste” in which “millions of people of color are now saddled with criminal records and legally denied the very rights that their parents and grandparents fought for and, in some cases, died for.” There is no question that Alexander has pointed out a dimension of our society that needs to be rectified, as President Obama is now addressing in his recent initiative on criminal justice reform. In her major piece on the New Jim Crow, Alexander called for undoing the “networked systems of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race…There is an elaborate system of control, complete with political disenfranchisement and legalized discrimination in every major realm of economic and social life.”

This means that planners have to reexamine everything they are generating as plans for inner city neighborhoods and ask whether the structures they are contemplating add to or undo the New Jim Crow dynamic. It is insufficient for activists to simply argue for a social movement to emerge to undo the mass incarceration of inner city African Americans. Too many racial justice advocates tend to generate solid research describing the problem, but the challenge of undoing the New Jim Crow requires immediate, practical responses when plans are conjured up for inner city neighborhoods.

In a report on race, planning, and the American city, author Joseph Heathcott wrote of the importance to planners to “study the multiform efforts of diverse peoples over time to build resilient communities, demand justice, and define alternatives.” The NPQ Newswire asks NPQ readers to tell us what you think planners should and could be doing concretely to undo the New Jim Crow in their concrete plans for inner city neighborhoods.—Rick Cohen

About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: Community DevelopmentNonprofit NewsPolicyPrison AbolitionStructural Racism

Our Voices Are Our Power.

Journalism, nonprofits, and multiracial democracy are under attack. At NPQ, we fight back by sharing stories and essential insights from nonprofit leaders and workers—and we pay every contributor.

Can you help us protect nonprofit voices?

Your support keeps truth alive when it matters most.
Every single dollar makes a difference.

Donate now
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

You might also like
How Can a Perpetual Purpose Trust Build Community?
April De Simone, Adriana Abizadeh, Kevin Clegg and Paul MacArthur
In Asheville, A Community Gathers to Consider What “Resiliency” Requires
Steve Dubb
Cancer Research in the US Is World Class Because of Its Broad Base of Funding—with the Government Pulling Out, Its Future Is Uncertain
Jeffrey MacKeigan
Endowments Aren’t Blank Checks—but Universities Can Rely on Them More Heavily in Turbulent Times
Ellen P. Aprill
US Colleges and Universities Have Billions Stashed Away in Endowments—a Higher Ed Finance Expert Explains What They Are
Todd L. Ely
Without DOJ Funding, Community Violence Intervention Programs Face Uncertainty
Rebekah Barber

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
May 27th, 2:00 pm ET

Ask the Nonprofit Lawyer

Register
Group Created with Sketch.
June 26th, 2:00 pm ET

From Performance Management to Mutual Commitment

Fostering a Culture of Joyful Accountability

Register

    
You might also like
US Capitol Building
Tax Provision Would Give Trump Administration Unilateral...
Rebekah Barber and Isaiah Thompson
A strip of property on Kensington Street in Philadelphia, owned by  Kensington Corridor Trust to combat gentrification and displacement in the area.
How Can a Perpetual Purpose Trust Build Community?
April De Simone, Adriana Abizadeh, Kevin Clegg and Paul MacArthur
A bustling street in Asheville, NC lined with local businesses and colorful sotrefronts.
In Asheville, A Community Gathers to Consider What...
Steve Dubb

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright
  • Donate
  • Editorial Policy
  • Funders

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.