Metromode received an abundance of provocative and inspiring ideas via our guest bloggers throughout the year, and it's our pleasure to share with you a selection of the most compelling.
Making Data a Force for Equity
Posted By: Best Blogs of the Year
Posted: 12/22/2011
By, Eleanore Eveleth
"We have a moment in time in which everyone is looking up
and it's ok to talk about inequality. It's our time, but only if we
make it." --Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink
Recently we've heard a lot of statistics about the growing income gap in the U.S.:
- "Since
1976, the share of income going to the top 1% more than doubled, and
these top echelon earners now get more than a fifth of the entire U.S.
economic pie." (1)
- "Of
the total wealth generated between 1983 and 2009, 82% of it went to the
wealthiest 5% of households while the typical household's wealth
actually declined." (2)
- "The gap in wealth between white and African-American families has more than quadrupled in the past two decades." (3)
And economic mobility remains lower than often thought:
- "the
challenge of getting ahead, downward mobility is a serious risk,
particularly for African Americans: 45% of middle-class black children
end up poor, compared to 16% of middle-class white children." (4)
As the country wades through the Great Recession, it is communities of color that have been most impacted:
- "While
unemployment for whites at 8% is too high, 11.3% of Hispanics and 16%
of African Americans are experiencing unemployment, with an additional
22% of Hispanics and 25% of African Americans facing underemployment." (5)
In November, Data Driven Detroit joined hundreds of other organizations at the Ren Cen to discuss issues of economic and social equity. Hosted by Oakland's PolicyLink, the 2011 Equity Summit
brought together diverse groups from around the country to discuss
equity challenges, areas of progress, and strategies for social change.
For us at D3, the conversation helps ground our work and reinforce our
purpose to strengthen distressed communities through access to better
information and tools.
Before 2050, the majority of Americans
will be people of color. At present, 45% of kids under 18 are children
of color. What does the increasing wealth gap and lack of opportunities
in communities of color mean for future sustainability?
Angela Glover Blackwell presented a clear proposition: America must first and foremost concern itself with equity. (6)
We cannot expect our future to be prosperous and healthy if the
majority populations have inadequate access to education, opportunity,
decision-making, and wealth-building opportunities.
Glover
Blackwell argues that building equity is not merely a strategy for
progressives, but an economic imperative. Building equity is a superior
growth model to the consumerist consumption bubble that has burst. (7)
- Equity,
inclusion, and opportunity are key ingredients to unleash the
creativity and entrepreneurialism required to make communities
economically competitive and sustainable.
- Developing
countries that are more equitable and regions within the U.S. that are
less segregated have more sustained growth over time.
- Communities of inclusion and opportunity are more inviting to new residents and are better able to retain existing residents.
- Equity,
inclusion, and opportunity are also key ingredients to creating safe,
healthy, and livable neighborhoods. Residents cannot merely be the
object of decision-making, but must fully participate in creating the
future direction of neighborhoods and the city.
Growth
and sustainability require strategies to building equity: better
education, access to jobs and opportunities, and genuine participation
in decision-making. D3's small role in this effort is to provide access
to information and tools that empower residents and inform
decision-makers as they craft the future of our region, cities, and
neighborhoods.
Data Analysis
At
the summit, Geoffrey Canada discussed research showing that a child's
zip code is a predictor of life expectancy. Canada urged the audience
to think of all kids as our own – would a shorter life be acceptable
based upon your zip code for your family? Would limited resources be
acceptable to you for your child?
To highlight some of the issues facing children in our area, D3 published Right Start,
an analysis of birth outcomes that informs decision-making around early
childhood learning and resources for children and teen moms. Also,
D3's State of Detroit's Child highlights critical issues requiring concentrated and coordinated community attention to improve the lives of kids.
Planning and Technical Support
In
addition to data analysis, D3 has provided planning and technical
support to residents as they work to design their own neighborhoods'
assistance that helps residents participate in decision-making. The Lower Eastside Action Plan
(LEAP) is a community-driven project designed to engage people in a
process to transform vacant land and property into uses that improve the
quality of life in LEAP neighborhoods and surrounding areas. D3
trained residents to survey the neighborhood. We also created maps and
tools to assist the residents to visualize, discuss, and communicate
existing conditions and future desires.
Tools to Access Information
With
all the inequalities of access, Detroiters should not also have to
contend with unequal access to information. As we grow, we are
experimenting with new communication and technical tools to make
information more easily understandable and relevant – relevant to all
stakeholders.
We are also developing a variety of web-based tools
with differing levels of detail and user-accessibility. Our goal is
to empower stakeholders to more directly answer much of their own
information needs. We also aim to provide a public interface for the
same data that is used to support policy-makers and city officials. We
have recently created an interactive web mapping and data visualization Community Profiling Tool to access a variety of indicators. Other recently developed tools were created to understand the Census 2010 data, to get quick facts about change between the 2000 and 2010 Census, and to access property-level information prior to the Wayne County Tax Foreclosure Auction.
Inclusive and Transparent Processes
More
than making data accessible, we're committed to making our process
accessible and inclusive. If our process can be an educational
opportunity, that's even better. Last summer, D3 partnered with Southwest Counseling Solutions to engage youth in Southwest Detroit to map neighborhood conditions. This Community Youth Mapping Program
gave students an opportunity to learn more about the geography of their
neighborhood and gain job skills in the process. The program
introduced students to the work of D3, demographers, urban planners,
policy wonks, and data crunchers. A strategy of building equity
requires that these fields grow to better represent the populations they
serve. It's not going to happen unless we get youth excited about
things like mapping – and they are.
This article was co-authored by Lisa Rayle, D3 transportation consultant.
1. America's Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model.
2. America's Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model.
3. Pew Research Center, 2011. In PolicyLink memo "A Policy Agenda for the 99%".
4. http://www.policylink.org/atf/cf/{97c6d565-bb43-406d-a6d5-eca3bbf35af0}/POLICY_LINK_BRIEF.PDF
5. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011. In PolicyLink memo "A Policy Agenda for the 99%".
6. Angela Glover Blackwell also founded D3's NNIP sister organization in Oakland, California Urban Strategies Council which
does incredible work to empower low-income communities and communities
of color through access to information and technology.
7. Angela Glover Blackwell and Manuel Pastor have substantiated these arguments in Uncommon Common Ground.