We are half-way into 2021, and this year has packed more in six months than some do in twelve. We’ve witnessed the traumas of an armed insurrection in the Halls of Congress, the swearing in of a new President, of the first female and multiracial Vice President, and of two Democratic Georgia Senators who collectively helped to pass major economic recovery spending legislation.

We’ve witnessed the re-opening of our country as significant numbers of people are vaccinated. At the same time we continue to remember and mourn the more than 595,000 Americans who died from COVID-19 in the past year. We’ve witnessed a guilty verdict for the murderer of George Floyd. And yet, we see with the murders of Adam Toledo, Duane Wright, Andrew Brown Jr and too many other Black and Brown bodies that racial justice requires more than a Presidential Executive Order.

We ready for summer and hope for a chance to visit with friends and family, many of whom we have not seen in over a year. We embrace change, feel changed, and also worry about changes to come. We brace for the droughts, tornadoes, floods or other extreme weather events Mother Nature will likely unleash in the next few months. It can all feel overwhelming and the actions of a single person inconsequential. Yet, this moment we are living through is the result of the culmination of millions of individual actions.

I have always loved this quote by Margaret Mead (1901-1978), “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It reminds me that each of us can help to change the world if we get organized and focus our energies.

Against the backdrop of these tumultuous past months, I am so grateful to work with thoughtful partners who are committed to a just recovery as our nation rebuilds and rediscovers its full potential through recognizing and reckoning with our past while working towards a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Ramsey County hired three local artists to help bring its Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion Plan to life. Mayum Park illustrated the section: “Ensure Place-based Inclusion and Create Resilient and Equitable Communities” www.mayumipark.com

A special shout out to the incredible team at the Center for Economic Inclusion, NEOO Partners, and Fourth Economy who I worked with in Ramsey County, Minnesota over the past year. Together we supported the bold leadership at Ramsey County to develop a roadmap for Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion for the County that is centered on addressing racial disparities, building community wealth, and prioritizing public resources to meet the urgent need to provide safe, affordable housing to those residents earning less than a living wage. We know that many of these are folks working in full-time service sector jobs or those who are retired and trying to meet their monthly costs on a fixed income. Some are families with children.

Our analysis found that between 2014-2019, approximately 1,400 total affordable and market-rate units were built annually, with about one-third of these being affordable units to households earning below $50,000. Simply put, not enough new housing is being built. The shrinking supply is pushing up rents and home values and creating an extreme housing cost burden for low-income families. At the current pace of new construction, it would take more than 21 years to build enough units to provide an affordable home for those very low-income households living in the county today.

At the same time, the County --- like so many communities around the country – is losing currently affordable units, whether units funded through low-income housing tax credits that are set to soon expire, or unsubsidized units that are being lost to housing speculators and other market pressures. Particularly vulnerable to this rate of change are smaller multi-family units like duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes many of which are over 100 years old and need additional funding to not only preserve but to update and improve their condition and energy efficiency.

The County’s Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion Plan identifies specific actions and timelines to address the growing racial inequality manifested through higher housing cost burdens, lower home ownership rates, and reduced access to capital that Black, Brown, Indigenous and other people of color experience as a direct results of decades of systemic racism in the planning, housing finance, and regulatory frameworks that exist nationally and in virtually every community. With this plan, adopted earlier this spring, Ramsey County commits to activating its Housing Redevelopment Authority levy to generate much needed funding that can leverage state, private and federal resources to increase housing security for homeowners, renters, and those who struggle to find a place to call home. In developing this plan, our team navigated an evolving world of online public engagement and made space in the process to grieve and to acknowledge the deep trauma felt in the community following the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing civil unrest that sowed divisions between the Black and Asian communities as properties were damaged.

The plan is just the beginning. The real power to transform and heal the community, to provide housing stability and security, and to diminish racial disparities in homeownership, incomes, and wealth will be determined in the coming years as the plan is implemented and evolves. Yet the process and plan itself transformed those of us involved to rethink how we approach this work and who we prioritize in the process. These lessons resonate with me as well in my on-going work to build more inclusive, thriving and equitable communities near transit, or simply stated: “to grow together and push no one out, while welcoming others in.”

Next month I am speaking about a few topics MZ Strategies has been deeply involved in to foster equitable transit--oriented development (ETOD). I have written before about my personal and professional evolution working on ETOD. My work with Elevated Chicago and the City of Chicago to develop the first citywide ETOD policy plan was transformative. Through steadfast leadership and accountability by community leaders, the process was centered on elevating the lived expertise of Brown, Black, Asian, Indigenous and other people of color in shaping ETOD policies. We balanced data analytics with community engagement, personal narratives, and used art as facilitation and cultural acknowledgment to frame the work and tell the story.

I wrote about this new planning paradigm last September. Since then, I feel even more strongly that we must rethink our approach to planning such that we give up the false sense of certainty that expensive over analysis can provide and re-invest in building capacity and power within our own communities. I look forward to sharing my emerging thoughts and observations during several upcoming speaking events.

MZ Strategies --- JUNE 2021 SPEAKING EVENTS

Join me and some of the incredible partners who helped to create and are now implementing Chicago’s Equitable Transit Oriented Policy on June 9th (1:00 – 2:30 pm ET) for a free webinar co-hosted by Rail~Volution, SPARCC and Elevated Chicago to learn more about the approach taken, lessons learned and hopes for an ETOD future. Registration details provided at this link.
Through the wonders of technology, I am facilitating another panel that same day as part of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA)’s rail conference (4:00 – 5:00 pm ET on 6/9/21). I will be speaking with the General Managers of MARTA in Atlanta, Jeff Parker, and of RTD in Denver, Debra Johnson, along with Kendra Freeman, Vice President of the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago on the future of ETOD to help transit agencies and regions recover ridership, regional economies and address deep racial disparities. Registration details provided at this link.
On June 11th I will be joining the San Antonio chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar for their Professional Development series where we’ll discuss ways that our work as transportation professionals needs to evolve to better reflect the numerous ways transportation intersects with regional housing, economic development, public health, climate and racial equity needs.
On June 16th I will be joining a group of transportation peers from Nelson Nygaard, King County and Rad Bicycles at the Forth Roadmap Conference, a virtual convening to discuss electric, smart, and shared mobility in the United States. We’ll be ruminating on “Rebuilding Transit Better than Before.” Conference details provided at this link.

Over the summer I hope to get back to writing more regular blog posts. It’s been a busy spring with lots of various reports including research, survey and case study work to inform the upcoming Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP’s) synthesis report on Coordinating Transit with Affordable Housing, and working with colleagues at Strategic Economics to update the TOD Policy for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Thanks to all of you who have been gracious with your time and insights to help inform these projects! It’s been fascinating and inspiring to learn more about the ways that ETOD is evolving across the country. From places like the Bay Area that were early innovators in linking transit with land use to regions like Atlanta where MARTA station areas are being reconceived as active community spaces for youth, their families and the larger community and the transit agency is re-imagining its role as a development and finance facilitator to build more affordable housing near transit.