What does Environmental Justice mean within our field? What are its core values and how are they measured? What constitutes a truly just space and who defines it as such? This session brings together three distinct vantage points (government, practice, and academia) to establish a working definition of Environmental Justice within the practice of landscape architecture and to discuss the challenges and opportunities that come from engaging an ethical position in design.

1. Learn how to define Environmental Justice within your own practice and its broader framework.

2. Learn tools for community engagement in the political and design processes.

3. Learn tools for capturing the quantitative and qualitative impacts of design work with regard to environmental justice.

4. Explore “best practices” for incorporating environmental justice into project work.

measuring environmental justice

SESSION OVERVIEW

LEARNING OBJECTIVES LARA LASKY

KURT CULBERTSON

CALI PFAFF

RANDY HESTER

Kurt Culbertson is Chairman and CEO at Design Workshop. Kurt is a leader in the field of evidence-based design and the application of performance mea-surement to landscape architecture, urban design and planning projects. He is an ASLA fellow, a member of AICP, a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, a fellow of Dumbarton Oaks, and a fellow of the Institute of Urban Design.

Randolph (Randy) Hester Jr. is an emeritus professor and activist landscape ar-chitect, based in Durham, North Carolina. His teaching and professional prac-tice focuses on applying sociology to the design of neighborhoods, cities and landscapes. His approach has transformed communities across the world. He has been measuring injustice in primitive but effective ways for over 50 years.

Lara Lasky is the Environmental Justice (EJ) Program Coordinator for US EPA Region 5. Lara supports her colleagues to assure that environmental justice is being considered in all EPA’s programs and policies. She empowers commu-nity members to address their EJ concerns by drawing from a wide variety of resources to find creative solutions to challenging problems.

Cali Pfaff is a landscape and urban designer at Design Workshop’s Denver office. Her interests lie at the intersection of urban design, ecology, and social justice. She won an ASLA National Student Honor Award in research in 2015. Previously, she worked for Public Architecture, a national nonprofit aimed at leveling access to design through pro bono and public interest design.

MAJOR MILESTONES

BUILT ENVIRONMENT

1946: ATOMIC ENERGY ACT

1954: BROWN VS. BOARD

1976: TOXIC SUBSTANCE CONTROL ACT

1969: ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT

1969: CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

2007: CBC’S ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ACCESS & IMPLEMENTATION ACT

1980: CERCLA / SUPERFUND

1970: CLEAN AIR ACT OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY ACT

2015: ASLA ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PPN

1990: COMMUNITY DESIGN PRIMER, R. HESTER

1993: RURAL STUDIO

1999: ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY

2002: PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE

2010: MASS DESIGN GROUP

2006: TULANE CITY CENTER

1992: CDC PHILADELPHIA DESIGN CORPS

1994: DETROIT COLLABORATIVE DESIGN CENTER

1976: URBAN RENEWAL STOPPED AT CHAVIS HTS CLEVELAND DIAGNOSIS, L. HALPRIN HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

1975: NEIGHBORHOOD SPACE BOOK, R. HESTER PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES

1961: NEIGHBORHOOD COMMONS, KARL LINN

1965: ADVOCACY & PLURIALISM IN PLANNING, PAUL DAVIDOFF

1968: WHITE SOLUTIONS WON’T WORK IN BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS, K. LINN WHITNEY YOUNG’S CHALLENGE TO AIA TO ENGAGE ISSUES OF JUSTICE

1969: RSVP CYCLES, L. HALPRIN JUSTICE MAPPING, R. HESTER

1868: 14TH AMENDMENT: EQUAL PROTECTION

1986: EMERGENCY PLANNING & COMMUNITY RIGHT-TO-KNOW ACT

1994: EXECUTIVE ORDER 12898: FEDERAL ACTIONS TO ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

EPA ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE OFFICE FORMED

1972: CLEAN WATER ACT MARINE PROTECTION ACT

1992: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ACT PROPOSED

1996: FEDERAL INSECTICIDE ACT1974: SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT

2005: ENERGY POLICY ACT

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

environmental justice timeline

2030

measuring environmental justice

KEY METRICS SESSION OUTLINE

i. Proximity to Environmental Hazards

ii. Proximity to Pollution

iii. Access to Nature

iv. Access to Parks and Open Space

v. Access to Transportation

vi. Access to Public Realm

vii. Access to Public Process

viii. Equity of Public Expenditure

ix. Displacement & Gentrification

x. Inclusion & Measures of Tolerance

I. Introduction/Session Overview (Cali Pfaff)

II. Environmental Justice Metrics: Origin, Application and Practice

1. Environmental Justice as a Movement: History and Context (Randy Hester)i. Overview of EJ Movement II. Unique skills and roles of landscape architectsii. Protest, Conflict, Civil disobedience and Consensus-driven designiii. Accessiv. Distribution, Displacement and Gentrification v. Inclusion and Measures of Tolerance

2. Environmental Justice as an Institution: the EPA (Lara Lasky)i. EPA EJ Office History and Overviewii. Demographicsiii. Proximity to Environmental Hazardsiv. Health Disparities

3. Environmental Justice as a Part of Practice (Kurt Culbertson)i. Reframing Sustainability & Community Metricsii. Access to Natureiii. Access to Parks and Open Spaceiv. Access to Public Processv. EJ & Profitability

III. Moderated Discussion

influential projects

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CICLOVIA | CITY OF BOGOTA, COLUMBIALAFAYETTE SQUARE PARK | HOOD DESIGN STUDIO

DANA PARK | RANDY HESTER

FOR FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY, PLEASE EMAIL CPFAFF@DESIGNWORKSHOP.COM

selected bibliography

Byrne, J. 2012. When green is white: The cultural politics of race, nature and social exclusion in a Los Angeles urban national park. Geoforum 43, 3: 595-611.

Byron, Joan. July 2013. “Global Cities, Inequality, and the Public Realm.” Urban Policy Paper Series.

Brulle, R.J., and D.N. Pellow. 2006. Environmental justice: Human health and environmental inequalities. Annual Review of Public Health 27: 103-124.

Chan, Shih-Liang. “Measuring the Spatial Equity of Public Expenditure Allocation-An Empirical Study of the Northern Taiwan Areas.” The Inter-national Conference of Urbanizing World and UN Human Habitat II: New York: 2001/06/04-2001/06/06.

Exec. Order No. 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, 3 C.F.R. (1994).

Florida, Richard. “The Complicated Link Between Gentrification and Displacement.” 09/08/2015. Atlantic: CityLab. Retrieved 09/09/2015. http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/09/the-complicated-link-between-gentrifi-cation-and-...9/9/2015/

Frumkin, H. 2005. Health, equity, and the built environment. Environmen-tal Health Perspectives 113, 5: A290-291.

Halprin, Lawrence. 1970. The RSVP Cycles: creative processes in the hu-man environment. G. Braziller.

Hester, R. 1990. Community Design Primer. Ridge Times Press, Mendocino, California.

Hester, R. 1975. Neighborhood Space. Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Inc., Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

Kuehn, R. 2000. A taxonomy of environmental justice issues. Environmen-tal Law Reporter 30: 10681-10703.

Lawrence, Keith, Andrea A Anderson, Gretchen Susi, Stacey Sutton, and Anne Kubisch. (2009). Theory of Change: A Practical Guide for Designing Strategies to Close Chronic Racial Outcome Gaps. The Aspen Institute: Roundtable on Community Change.

Maroko, Andrew R, Juliana A Maantay, Nancy Sohler, Kristen Grady, and Peter S Arno. 2009. “The complexities of measuring access to parks and physical activity sites in New York City: a quantitative and qualitative ap-proach.” International Journal of Health Geographics 2009, 8:34.

McKnight, John L. and John P. Kretzmann. 1990. Mapping Community Capacity. Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University.

The Trust for Public Land. 2004. No Place to Play: A Comparative Analysis of Park Access in Seven Major Cities. The Trust for Public Land: San Fran-cisco, CA.

USA. US EPA. Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of Regulatory Actions. N.p., May 2015. Web. 7 Oct. 2015. <http://www3.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/resources/policy/consider-ing-ej-in-rulemaking-guide-final.pdf>.

Wolch, Jennifer. “Parks and Park Funding in Los Angeles: An Equity Map-ping Analysis.” 2002. Sustainable Cities Program, University of Southern California.

measuring environmental justice

NEXT STEPS NOTES

Criteria for Environmental Justice Awards

Projects must address one or all of the following criteria:

1) Provides equal distribution of good and bad things

2) Increases access to vital amenities: • Jobs• Transportation• Food Sources• Open Space / Nature• Public Process

3) Includes people typically excluded from public spaces:

• The poor• Homeless / marginal• Disenfranchised / minority• Families• Women

4) Empowers marginal users through spatial design and the amenities provided