Transit-oriented development (TOD) often raises land values and can promote gentrification and the displacement in low-income communities. Little research, however, has shown how communities have organized to fight for more equitable TOD processes and outcomes within particular metropolitan contexts and dynamics of neighborhood change. This case study examines the role of neighborhood-based advocacy and organizing in fighting for equitable TOD and tackling key political and planning challenges in a predominantly Latinx immigrant inner-ring suburb. Their successes show the strengths of community-based, cross-sector coalitions in generating more equitable and inclusive TOD processes, plans, and policies that target conditions of place-based precarity.

This commentary brings together four scholars who have taught courses in diversity and inequity in planning to reflect on the challenges of speaking to and about issues of race, ethnicity, and cultural difference in contemporary equity and advocacy planning. Using evidence gathered from over forty-five years of collective teaching experience, we highlight students’ struggles with questions about racial inequality inside the classroom and working with marginalized communities outside the classroom. The article offers pedagogical lessons for planning, highlighting strategies to help students and instructors navigate tough personal and professional questions about advocacy and equity planning in today’s multicultural, “post-racial” world.

No abstract

Abstract Community developers and planners have long recognized the value of storytelling to engage communities. Yet, in working with disadvantaged communities, they are often challenged to meaningfully engage residents and uncover place values that can help drive community development strategies. In a case study of Langley Park, Maryland, a neighborhood comprised of largely low-income Latino immigrants facing potential displacement from a new transit line, this article investigates the potential of new story mapping techniques and technologies to assist communities in leveraging everyday place meanings and values to advance greater equity in the process of neighborhood redevelopment. It demonstrates how participatory story mapping can empower traditionally marginalized voices and encourage more complex place narratives within community development and planning.

No abstract