Equitable Development

 Equitable development is an approach for meeting the needs of underserved communities through policies and programs that reduce disparities while fostering places that are healthy and vibrant. It is increasingly considered an effective placed-based action for creating strong and livable communities.

At Concord Greenspace, we envision a Concord in which all residents in all neighborhoods can enjoy living in a city that is healthy, safe and thriving.

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Smart Growth America says it best: "Years of intentional segregation through zoning, redlining, and racial covenants have directed investment away from low-income and minority neighborhoods while keeping people of color out of white communities. Consequently, these disenfranchised communities are dealing with long-standing environmental injustices like living near pollution sources, social exclusion, participatory barriers in decision-making processes, disproportionate levels of poor health outcomes, and a lack of access to health care, neighborhood disinvestment, and inadequate access to jobs and social services." 

 

All Concord residents should enjoy clean air, safe water and sufficient infrastructure, safe transportation, and attainable housing, jobs, and services—regardless of income, race, age, or gender.  We must act as more than a collection of individuals, but rather as a unified community sharing and working toward a common future.  This is possible through policies, investment and tools like zoning.

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Here's how Concord Greenspace works to advance economic equity:

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• CG3 offers Civic Leadership training to underrepresented communities in order to bring all voices to the table.

• We take our cues from Smart Growth America and their first-of-its-kind research. They showed how utilizing form-based codes helps communities increase housing, property values and tax revenues without increasing the overall cost of housing. This leads to more equitable development.  They’ve written about how the current approach to zoning has not only been used to divide and harm certain people, but how a different approach to zoning can actually make more equitable development the norm.

• CG3 works with TPAC to ensure equity is at the forefront of the upcoming Transportation Master Plan.

• We advocate for a deck park and pedestrian river bridge or comparable improvement opportunity to unify the socio-economic & racial divide held in place by I-93.  We are pushing back on unnecessary widening of the highway and advocating for safer pedestrian/bike infrastructure at all highway interchanges and throughout the city.