FROM THE EDITOR

The White Problem in Planning

WILLIAM CURRAN-GROOME WILLIAM CURRAN-GROOME

Will is a second-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Before coming to UNC, he worked in public health and social services research with a nonprofit in Philadelphia. Will’s academic interests center on land use policy and its influence on housing affordability.

This past year has been in large part defined by three interrelated phenomena: a resurgence in Black Lives Matter protests and activism catalyzed by the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd by the police; the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic; and the ouster of Donald Trump and the Republican Party from control of our federal executive and legislative branches of government. Each of these events has highlighted how the social, political, economic, legal, and physical institutions of our country have been designed and employed to benefit whites at the expense of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. In response, we asked authors to address issues raised by Goetz, Williams, and Damiano (2020) in their article titled Whiteness and Urban Planning, in particular how urban planning has worked to normalize and perpetuate whiteness--its invisibility, the exclusion by which it is defined, and the extractive nature of white affluence. The articles in this issue touch on many of the domains where planning intersects with whiteness, and they contribute valuable perspectives and analyses as we seek to build more racially just and reparative planning systems.

The roles of federal housing policy in building white advantage have been documented in an extensive body of literature. This literature also captures how federal housing policy has simultaneously excluded BIPOC groups from wealth-building opportunities and destroyed vibrant BIPOC communities. Frank Muraca (MCRP ‘20) builds on this work by examining the prevalence and impacts of “Urban” Renewal projects on rural communities in North Carolina, demonstrating the influence of federal Renewal dollars in creating and segregating white affluence. Rachel Eberhard (MCRP ‘16) examines contemporary efforts to mitigate housing discrimination, arguing that the Biden Administration has the opportunity to improve the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, expand housing opportunities, and eliminate racial barriers to housing access.

On the environmental justice front, Nora Schwaller (DCRP PhD candidate), Jordan Branham (DCRP PhD candidate), Atticus Jaramillo (DCRP PhD candidate), and Mai Nguyen (DCRP faculty) critique the use of race in natural hazards social vulnerability indices, arguing that such approaches neglect histories of racialized development, do not reliably predict disaster impacts nor support targeted recovery efforts, and may actually contribute to disinvestment in BIPOC communities. They propose reframing recovery with an antiracist framework to better address structural, racialized disadvantage. Katie Koffman (MCRP ‘21) explores environmental injustice through a case study of the Lower Ninth Ward (LNW) in New Orleans, documenting how pre-storm racial inequities were compounded by the City’s and State’s approaches to recovery, leading to massive displacement for the majority-Black LNW. Amanda Ullman (DCRP PhD student) and Noah Kittner (DCRP faculty) write about the environmental and health impacts of container ports on nearby Black and Latinx communities. They propose that transit-oriented development and Green New Deal policies may offer more equitable and sustainable approaches to supporting the development of port-adjacent neighborhoods.

In an article centered on Los Angeles, Jackson Loop examines sites central to the 1992 Uprising following the acquittal of Los Angeles Police Department officers who were recorded beating Rodney King, an unarmed Black man. Loop notes that historic preservation systematically privileges monumental buildings and landmarks and “enshrines whiteness” while neglecting spaces that are central to marginalized peoples’ histories of oppression and resistance. Davi daSilva employs case studies and an analysis of landmarked places to explore how procedural and structural aspects of historic preservation have privileged white historical narratives while erasing those of Black Cambridge residents.

Darien Williams (MCRP ‘18) situates recent efforts to reform the curricula, structures, and praxis of planning departments in the U.S. as part of a longer historical narrative dating back to the 1960s. Williams argues that Black students recognize the “magical” power of planning education, which offers the tools to translate ideas, beliefs, and biases into the built environment, and that these students seek to transform or provide alternatives to white imaginaries through Black magic. L. Dara Baldwin, Tamika L. Butler, Anita Cozart, and Veronica O. Davis, interviewed by Wesley Lowery, reflect on their experiences as Black women in the planning field to characterize how the “White Problem” manifests in planning: historical context, white-centered planning education, exclusionary language, and a lack of empathy around racism. They call for creating and cultivating Brave Spaces; confronting power and privilege that perpetuate inequities; ending institutionalized racism in the planning industry; and revising the planning curriculum to reflect the experience of BIPOC communities.

This year’s cover photo by Joungwon Kwon (DCRP PhD student) highlights the physicality of what Williams (see above) terms “white magic”. The enduring legacy of the railroad tracks in Durham, as elsewhere, is not merely one of transportation, but of both literal and figurative separation and segregation. The familiar phrase “the other side of the tracks” both pathologizes and literally “others” Black communities, while simultaneously normalizing and idealizing whiteness. By shifting the focus to the other, this language also makes invisible the white affluence and exclusion that implicitly define the “right” side of the tracks--affluence and exclusion enabled by the tracks themselves.

I hope you take away as much from reading this year’s articles as I have from watching them develop.

Will Curran-Groome Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL BOARD

The following people are integral to the success of the Journal and its online platform, CarolinaAngles.com:

SIOBHAN NELSON / Managing Editor of Carolina Angles

Siobhan is a second-year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She is specializing in transportation planning and is interested in public transportation as a way to promote equity and improve community vibrancy. She received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, with a major in the Growth and Structure of Cities and a minor in Environmental Studies. In her free time, she enjoys listening to 80s music and cooking.

WILL ANDERSON / Online Contributor

Will Anderson is a third-year undergraduate student with a major in Environmental Studies and minors in Urban Planning and Geographic Information Science. His academic interests include sustainability, land use planning, transportation planning, urban design, and architecture. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis, mountain biking, and surfing.

JACOB BECKER / Online Contributor

Jacob Becker is a third-year master’s candidate pursuing a dual masters in City and Regional Planning and Environmental Sciences and Engineering. His research interests include mapping air pollution, climate change adaptation and transitioning to clean energy sources. For fun, Jacob takes his mind off the slow heat death of the planet by hiking around it and indulging in improv and sketch comedy. Jacob received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Chicago.

DOUG BRIGHT / Online Contributor

Veronica Brown is a first-year student in the Master’s of City and Regional Planning program. She received her undergraduate degree from Smith College, where she studied the psychology of contemporary visual culture. Before coming to UNC, Veronica worked in communications at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

VERONICA BROWN / Editor Veronica Brown is a second-year student in the Master’s of City and Regional Planning program. She received her undergraduate degree from Smith College, where she studied the psychology of contemporary visual culture. Before coming to UNC, Veronica worked in communications at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

ELIJAH GULLETT / Online Contributor

Elijah Gullett is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Public Policy with minors in Urban Studies and Environmental Justice. His academic interests include fair and affordable housing, sustainable development, and LGBTQ+ urban life.

PIERCE HOLLOWAY / Online Contributor and Incoming Editorin-Chief

Pierce Holloway is a first-year master’s student at the Department of City and Regional Planning with a focus on Climate Change Adaptation. Before coming to Chapel Hill he worked as a geospatial analyst for Urban3, working on visualizing economic productivity of communities and states. Through his coursework he hopes to explore the nexus between adaptation for climate change and community equitability. In his free time, he enjoys long bike rides, trail running, and any excuse to play outside. ATTICUS JARAMILLO / Editor Atticus is a PhD candidate in the Department of City and Regional planning and research associate at the UNC Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS). His research explores how housing assistance programs influence the lifelong outcomes of low-income families, with a primary focus on health and employment outcomes. Atticus grew up in Wisconsin and received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse and masters in planning from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

EVAN KING / Online Contributor

Evan King is a second-year master’s student in city and regional planning. His interests include transportation policy in the developing world, light rail, and freight movement on inland waterways. He can be found in his free time trying to kayak long distances and making hand-drawn maps. Evan hails from central Connecticut and completed an undergraduate degree in Maryland. Opinions are his own.

JO KWON / Online Contributor

Jo (Joungwon) Kwon is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She hopes to interweave various data sets and narratives of housing and communities together with new digital technologies. With a background in Statistics and English Literature, she received her M.A. in Computational Media at Duke University. In her free time, she enjoys watching indie movies, going to live performances, and drinking good coffee.

ELI POWELL / Online Contributor

Eli is a second-year master’s student specializing in transportation at the Department of City and Regional Planning. Prior to arriving at Carolina Planning, he earned a B.A. in Geography with minors in Urban Studies and GIS from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. His professional interests include non-automotive transportation, traffic modeling, and planning for environmental protection. When he’s not planning, he can be found running, listening to indie music, or watching anything that could possibly be considered a sport.

AMY SECHRIST / Online Contributor

Amy Sechrist is a second-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning with a concentration in Housing and Community Development. Her research interests include affordable housing, planning for equity, and the intersection of gender and planning. Prior to UNC she worked as a Housing Advocate and Shelter Manager at a gender-based violence crisis center and as a federal project management consultant. Amy holds a certificate in Creative Placemaking from the New Hampshire Institute of Art and a bachelor’s degree in Political Communication from George Washington University. In what little free time she has Amy enjoys hiking, throwing pottery, and musicals!