Revisiting Equity in Urban Operations Management 50 Years Later: What do City Planners Have to Say?

Abstract

The persistent inequities in American cities—long recognized and lived by black and Hispanic people and other minorities, the poor and working class, and others disadvantaged by urban systems—have been vaulted into the broader public consciousness over the past decade. Lessening entrenched urban inequalities is now at the top of the national policy agenda, suggesting a need and opportunity for more urban operations management. On what issues and how might this work occur? Operations management was deeply intertwined with urban planning in research and practice from the 1950s through the 1970s, at which point the fields diverged. To build a case for what perspectives and approaches a modern urban operations management agenda might employ to address inequity, I synthesize historical and contemporary planning theory with the debates among reflective operations scholars in the 1950s-1970s over work on cities. Modern operations scholars can look to planning, and especially to recent major shifts in its thinking on race and class, to address urban operations that disadvantage some city residents and overly advantage others. This urban operations agenda should be empirical, equity-oriented, and community-focused in order to best resonate with planners and the city residents they serve. In reengaging with planners to tackle the modern range of urban policy problems, operations analysts have a chance to contribute practical clarity on how cities work and can be made more livable for all residents.