by Ron Shiffman I really liked Marie Kennedy’s definition of transformative planning. From the very beginning in our work at the Pratt Center we learned from the communities that we worked with. We learned early on that it wasn’t just doing the planning work or providing the direct technical assistance, but that it was also […]

By Elizabeth Yeampierre It is not true that if the major environmental organizations had addressed the justice issue there would not be an environmental justice movement. Environmental justice not only speaks to the disparate impact of environmental burdens in our communities, but also to the need to develop indigenous leadership. Environmental justice grew out of the […]

By Romel Pasqual The future of advocacy and progressive planning is bound up with what we did in the immediate past and what we are doing now. We are making the future right now. It’s happening on the ground, in the communities that we work with and in the organizations that work with communities. My […]

By Marie Kennedy The most important thing we advocate planners did in the 1960s was to be explicit that planning served one or another set of interests. As a result, planning and other professional services were made available to those with less money and power. Our practice in the 1960s and early 1970s was connected […]

By Tom Angotti The term advocacy planning was coined by Paul Davidoff in his famous 1965 article and is today required reading in planning schools throughout the nation. But to many students today, advocacy planning is a quaint and outdated notion, a product of the bygone civil rights era. We acknowledge Davidoff’s critique of mainstream physical […]

By Kenneth M. Reardon Shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast , Cornell’s Department of City and Regional Planning received a request for planning assistance from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The leaders of ACORN were concerned about the long-term recovery prospects for the city’s eastside neighborhoods, which […]

By Anna Livia Brand While Katrina has faded from major news coverage, at least half of New Orleans residents are still displaced. The struggles for their right to return to New Orleans highlight powerful issues of social and spatial justice. Post-disaster conditions in New Orleans are amplified by serious pre-disaster social and economic inequalities. Taken […]

By Bill Quigley Each morning, Debra South Jones drives 120 miles into New Orleans to cook and serve over 300 hot free meals each day to people in New Orleans East, where she lived until Katrina took her home. Ms. Jones and several volunteers also distribute groceries to 18,000 families a month through their group, […]

By Sujatha Fernandes The radical trajectory of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has been a highly controversial topic among Latin Americanists, democratization experts, policymakers and activists. Some lament what they see as Chávez’s disregard for the rule of law and the breakdown of the party system. They compare him to other neopopulist leaders who bypassed […]