Cross-posted from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity

Economic growth is often seen as an antidote to poverty (e.g. rising tides lift all boats)—but increasing inequality in regions across the country underscores the fact that the benefits of growth are often narrowly shared.

In most regions, income and racial inequality are a legacy of myriad land-use, housing, education, tax, and economic development decisions that have disproportionately benefited wealthier, white households over lower-income and household of color. For example, for decades, public and private investment in regional transportation systems, infrastructure, and housing fueled the development of suburbs where racially restrictive covenants explicitly kept out black buyers; while redlining minimized investment in the urban core, where households of color remained.

Today, we see the reverse dynamic: Public and private investment is flowing back into many inner cities, increasing land and housing prices and disrupting social networks that act as the glue to already marginalized communities. This “reinvestment” is fueling a diaspora of community residents, especially black and Latino families, who can no longer afford to stay in their rapidly changing neighborhoods.

But where, when, and how can we have frank civic conversations about who benefits from regional economic decisions—where diverse stakeholders can come together, unpack complex issues, and explore lasting solutions?

Read more>>>

"Robust, democratically controlled community-based organizations have the capacity to drive development locally," said Greg Sawtell, a leadership organizer at Baltimore's United Workers. The human rights organization is gearing up for a month-long exhibition of the community's multiple visions for local development, opening in September. The Development Without Displacement art show will highlight works focusing on neighborhood revitalization efforts that aim to protect the city's vulnerable low-income residents from displacement, eviction, and alienation.

United Workers' arts and culture projects are intertwined with their campaigns: the projects are tools to critically engage with issues of housing, labor, and environmental injustice and draw attention to the lived experience of locals. "The arts — in the form of music, painting, storytelling, and more — are a strength that we have on the ground," said Sawtell. "We've used art both to shine a light on untold stories, and as a way to ignite the collective imagination to think beyond what seems possible in the everyday."

Free Your Voice and the fight against an incinerator

One of United Workers' most successful and well-publicized recent campaigns was an effort to block the building of a trash-to-energy incinerator in the Curtis Bay neighborhood of South Baltimore. Proposed in 2010, the 90-acre site was planned to house a plant that would burn 4,000 tons of trash a day. The complex would have been less than a mile from two public schools, in a neighborhood already beset by multiple toxic pollution burdens.

The anti-incinerator campaign was largely youth-led, spearheaded by one of United Workers' human rights committees, Free Your Voice. Young people conducted research about the impacts of the incinerator, canvassed neighborhoods to disseminate information about the plans, and organized protests and events. The students discovered that Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), other city government agencies, and local entities — including several arts-based institutions — had signed contracts to purchase energy from the proposed incinerator. Students launched a divestment campaign to put pressure on these entities to demonstrate their commitment to environmental justice and equitable development. Sisters Audrey and Leah Rozier wrote and performed the song "Free Your Voice" for the Baltimore City School Board in 2014, singing: "It'll all get better/We can save the world/And it starts with music/Get your message heard."

In 2015, BCPS and the Baltimore City Board of Estimates terminated their contracts with the incinerator developer, Energy Answers. In spring 2016, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Public Service Commission both declared the incinerator's permit to be invalid, halting the project indefinitely. For her leadership in the campaign, high school student Destiny Watford became the 2016 North American winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors grassroots environmental activists.

Sawtell said that local residents initially supported Free Your Voice as a nice research project and leadership development activity, but didn't have much faith that young people would be able to stop the construction of the incinerator. "Those weren't cynical adults," he explained, "Those were people who felt like they were managing the expectations of young people. Free Your Voice went from hearing those responses to their efforts to steadily building power and a campaign, and now this is recognized as one of the most successful environmental justice campaigns currently in Maryland."

Read more in the August 18th America's Tomorrow newsletter>>>

As all eyes turn to the presidential election, many transportation equity advocates are setting their sights on more local battles, where city and county ballot measures are offering key opportunities to invest in more equitable transportation systems.

Though both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have come out in support of overhauling the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, this is no guarantee of an influx of federal transportation spending.  As Gabrielle Gurley noted in The American Prospect, “the person moving into the Oval Office may actually matter less than who gets new digs on Capitol Hill,” considering the sizeable challenge that Congress’s austerity politics have posed to local leaders desperate to address infrastructure issues in their jurisdictions.

As Washington politics fail to move on the rebuilding America’s infrastructure, advocates and local governments have had to find local means to meet their transportation needs, resulting in dozens of transit-related ballot initiatives in cities and counties across the country. Transit-related ballot initiatives have an impressive success rate (in 2015, 7 in 10 proposed ballot measures passed) and because they require a public vote, they are a powerful method for communities to create direct policy change on issues that elected officials might otherwise shy away from — such as raising revenue through increased taxes or tackling politically controversial topics. 

For example, in Atlanta, Mayor Kasim Reed and local advocates succeeded in getting a proposed half-penny sales tax to fund transportation on the November 2016 ballot. If Atlanta voters pass this ballot initiative, SB 369, it will generate at least $2.5 billion in revenue over the next 40 years, funding the largest expansion of the regional transit system, MARTA, in its history. This potential expansion opens doors for equity advocates in Atlanta to advocate for a more equitable and inclusive transit system.

“You can’t talk about public transit in Atlanta without also understanding the history of structural racism and the built environment,” says Nathaniel Smith, Founder and Chief Equity Officer at the Partnership for Southern Equity. “We need policies that minimize displacement and gentrification and expand transit to communities that have been left behind.”

The Partnership is working in coalition with the Transformation Alliance to advocate for the development of a revolving loan fund that will take $200 million of the $2.5 billion to provide grants for equitable transit development around MARTA stations. 

A similar opportunity to expand transit is taking place in Seattle, where local advocates are asking voters to approve a measure that would raise $54 billion dollars over a 25-year period to regionalize the current mass transit system of light rail, commuter rail, and bus services. Puget Sound Sage, which works for equitable and sustainable solutions to the regions problems, has mobilized a coalition of community members that helped put language into the ballot that enables measures to address potential displacement and meet the needs of low-income communities and communities of color. For example, the ballot now includes a mandate for transit agencies to dedicate 80 percent of their surplus properties as affordable housing, a light rail stop in previously overlooked neighborhood, and a revolving loan fund for acquiring property near transit stations for affordable housing and family-owned businesses.

In the Bay Area, TransForm, which advocates for equitable transportation solutions, has had to contend with ongoing tension between expanding the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system to serve primarily wealthier suburban communities and channeling transportation funding to meet the needs of low-income communities and communities of color. Their focus has gained new urgency with the upcoming $3.5 billion bond measure that voters in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties will vote on in November. TransForm has worked to ensure that this ballot measure focused improving and expanding service on the core system as opposed to funding more expensive suburban expansions.

These three measures are just a few examples of the 34 ballot initiatives that transportation advocates across 13 states are working on — from bus expansion in Southeast Michigan to a new regional transit plan for Wake County, N.C. Given the high success rate of transit ballot initiatives and the strong community engagement that has driven these campaigns thus far, these referenda offer significant opportunities to move the needle on transportation equity, regardless of who moves into the White House in January.