On this Juneteenth, a day that RPA has failed to recognize before 2020, we are honoring the work of Black planners, past and present. Black urbanists have made significant contributions to the field and shaped the way cities and towns have been developed and planned, and have not been properly represented or highlighted.

Like many, we have been taking the past few weeks to truly reflect on our actions, as individuals and as an organization, and the ways that we have perpetuated systems of oppression that have particularly affected the Black community. Working towards an equitable region, nation, and society does not begin and end with this post.

This Juneteenth, we commemorate not only to celebrate, but to underscore why we are still fighting for a better future and an end to institutional racism. We need to be more intentional in using equity as a lens for every policy and every sector of urban planning. With this blog post, we hope to continue the conversation on race and equity in urban planning and serve as a resource for future Black planners. We had the pleasure of interviewing Barika Williams, Executive Director of the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development. Read on to learn more about her professional experience, her perspective on the current state of urban planning, and what she believes the field needs to do to better serve the residents of our region.

Tanzania: You currently serve as the Executive Director of the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development (the second person of color to hold this position!), an organization that centers marginalized communities in the strive for affordable housing and equitable neighborhoods for New York residents. What brought you to ANHD? What led you to dedicate your career to grassroots organizing and activism?

Barika: First Happy Juneteenth Tanzania, my fellow Black woman! For me, this day is a celebration of Black struggle, Black freedom, and Black resilience. I want to acknowledge that on a day the commemorates our freedom, we are two Black Women, in dialogue about planning, purpose, and our continued struggle for liberation.

It ties in because a constant in my career is that I am passionate about pursuing policies and planning that advance anti-racism, justice, and opportunity in all neighborhoods, especially for Black people and communities of color. I’ve pursued that in a variety of work spaces: think tanks, universities, government, private sector, and with not-for-profit organizations.

I found my way to ANHD because I was looking for a place to work towards transformational policy shifts for communities of color. The power to achieve transformative change comes from movements, not big idea thought pieces isolated in a report. Here, I can pursue policy and planning in collaboration with and in support of communities of color. I believe in our collective power and that comes from the people and communities that are too often silenced and ignored in an effort to make them powerless. I do not want my career to be disconnected from the people I work to serve. At ANHD, I found a place where I can help my communities to enact the large-scale shifts that hopefully change our neighborhoods and lives for the better.

I have always rooted my work in racial justice and anti-oppression. I am a proud Black woman. At ANHD, my values – that marginalized communities are powerful, valuable, and vibrant - are embraced not challenged. It is not a perfect organization; ANHD has plenty of work to do to be better. But the organization and staff support my belief in challenging unjust systems, in protest, in liberation, and in Blackness.

I didn’t come to ANHD because I wanted to become an activist. I came because I knew the current systems were failing my community and I wanted something different. My activism is the result of my pursuing and voicing my values and beliefs in my work.

T: I’m sure you can think of many examples, but would you mind sharing a moment in your career that you are most proud of? A project that you pushed for or a goal achieved or a lesson that you learned?

B: I am very proud of being a part of enacting New York State’s most aggressive tenant protections in decades. It is a highlight of my career and was an emotional day because of what it meant for so many Black families.

However, I think I would highlight the policy and advocacy work around citywide inclusionary zoning. I led the policy work that resulted in the development and implementation of New York City’s first citywide inclusionary housing policy. I brought researchers and practitioners from across the country to New York so that we could learn from them and determine the best policy direction for our city. I worked closely with ANHD’s coalition of organizers and developers, with elected officials, and allies to develop a strategy that ultimately led to us having enough power to move the work and community vision forward. For me, it exemplified the collective work of grassroots organizing, policy, planning, and development.

It was shared, collective action that moved inclusionary zoning from an impossible, out-of-the-question ask, to a central demand that united the affordable housing movement in 2013. Despite all that work, what Mayor de Blasio enacted is not at all what we wanted or our communities need. What was enacted is only ​“inclusionary” zoning in name. we could have given up; we could have said ​“this is close enough.” But this coalition said this is going to harm Black and Brown people, this is going to harm immigrants; we are not about that; we are ready to push back. So then that coalition shifted its energy and efforts to fighting against NYC’s harmful inclusionary zoning policy. That collective force was redirected and has gradually halted the inequitable neighborhood rezoning practice that is detrimental to already marginalized neighborhoods.

It’s been powerful to be a part of this collective action that mobilized and pivoted as needed. And as a Black planner, it was so uplifting to be a part of something willing to fight for Black peoples. Sadly, it’s not something we often get to experience. And it has been a humbling lesson on the unintended outcomes when people in power distort community campaigns for their own agendas and purposes.

T: Conversations about equity in planning have been evolving within different spheres of influence. To what extent do you think these are reaching leadership positions? If so, in what ways?

B: Prior to this movement, our planning leaders have largely rejected opportunities to integrate practices and policies of equity, anti-racism, and anti-oppression. The leading associations in our field are overwhelmingly comprised of white planners. Our planning conferences continue to omit issues and topics of concern to planners of color. Talking about Blackness, black racism and black liberation are relegated to ​‘specialized’ planning circles or affinity groups. My Blackness isn’t an affinity. I am both Black and a planner. Collaborations like Blackspace and Hindsight emerged because mainstream planning wasn’t interested in the work of centering planning with Black communities or increasing diversity and cultural competency in the field. Unfortunately, the spheres that have been pushing the conversation and equity and racism are not the ​“formal” leaders of the field and those in positions of power.

The conversation on equity in planning has finally reached leadership because the Movement for Black Lives Matter has been heard and reached audiences worldwide. Our planning leaders cannot shut out a chorus that loud or be blind to the racial disparities of COVID-19 and so they are forced to listen.

The question is what kind of changes is the planning field willing to make and will our leaders embrace change? The planning field seems poised to finally have conversations on equity and anti-discrimination. I would note though, that is not the same thing as planning working towards anti-racism and undoing systems and structures of oppression.

Do we make small adjustments or take this moment to transform our field and as a result our neighborhoods and cities? Will our planning leadership be a point of opposition to overcome or champions who help drive this work forward? Whether and how much we change will determine the effectiveness of our planning practices for decades to come.

T: Was there ever a moment in your career where you felt silenced or discouraged from talking openly about issues like racism, discrimination, and systemic change?

B: Yes, all the time. It’s more common that I am silenced from or dismissed for talking about issues of structural racism, oppression, white supremacy, capitalism, and systemic change than I am embraced. Even now, in an Executive Director role, it regularly happens. It can be as explicit as being uninvited from meetings or task forces, or more subtle, as in the constant implicit refrains I hear like: we’re not addressing that, we can’t take all that on, I’m uncomfortable with this part of the conversation, and can we create a separate table to talk about those kinds of issues. And it comes not just from those on the other side of the aisle, but allies and partners, too. People are uncomfortable talking about racism, oppression, and systemic change. That’s been true from my first job and probably will be through to my last job. This is in the DNA of our world and our country, it is embedded in the facets of our work. So it will be a constant in my career and my life.

I’ve gotten comfortable pushing past whatever dismissals are lobbed my way. Instead, I speak my truths about racism, oppression, white supremacy, and injustice because they matter too much to be silenced. I go back to an Audre Lourde quote: ​“Your silence will not protect you.” I’m able to be where I am and who I am in this world because people before me took great risks and did not stay silent. So I will continue to speak up throughout my career because it’s my right, my passion, and my responsibility.

T: Is there anything that you wish you knew earlier in your career that you know now that you would want the next generation of planners to know? Do you have any tips for young planners that are doing the right thing but are overwhelmed while navigating archaic systems and institutions that perpetuate the status quo?

B: Do not rely on these archaic systems, associations, and institutions to support you in transforming these same systems. Whether you’re inside or outside government, these systems are set up to resist you from doing the work of undoing their legacies of injustice.

Instead, find and build your own networks that help you navigate so that we can build a new planning field and a new world. Throughout my career, I have always found people and spaces that supported me in working for systems change. They embrace me bringing Blackness into my work. My tip – find those, create those and lean on those.

The traditional systems are going to teach you their way of working and leading. That’s not how I want to operate; I do not want to recreate those systems within me. See these systems for what they are. As a Black woman, they didn’t even want me here in the first place. They were designed to exclude me and my community. Accepting that frees you from trying to contort yourself to fit inside of their box. I won’t fit and I don’t want to try. So, rely on your friends, mentors, small groups, and networks to help you develop alternatives and strategies to become the planner you want to be and pursue a career that reflects your values.

T: In the US, there is a lack of representation of Black planners historically and currently in the field. In your experience, what are some of the boundaries or causes for this lack of representation? Why is it important for us to interrogate this gap and how might it impact the field if we’re able to close it?

B: I believe the biggest barrier is the field’s reliance on planning practices and theoretical frameworks that advance and reinforce systems of racism, oppression, and white supremacy. City planning curriculum talks about race and diversity, but the fundamentals we learn are the teachings of Western, white, straight men views on what cities and neighborhoods should look like and how they should function.

I and many other planners of color, choose this career path because we wanted to help create better places and spaces for the communities we come from. But then are met with a planning discipline that under the guise of good planning, wants to erase our culture, erase our values and sometimes even erase our communities. Personally, I want no part of that.

The lack of representation and the failure of planning curriculum to address the realities of communities of color is consistent and stretches back decades. In 1969, Black planning students staged a walk-out of the National Urban Planning Conference. I do not think the core question is why the lack of representation and the impact that has on the planning field. The real question is why, after more than 50 years, hasn’t the planning discipline made substantial shifts to address these concerns of Black planners?

T: We are currently witnessing a period of mobilization and a call for structural rebuilding on a magnified level. How can we use the current global conversation and support for the Black Lives Matter movement to question the role urban planning has played in perpetuating the segregation and inequity we see today in our neighborhoods?

B: First, this is a question planning should have taken up decades ago. It should not take the brutal police murder of George Floyd (after countless before him) and worldwide protests and outrage for the planning discipline to finally say, Black Lives Matter.

As a Black person in this field its hurtful, demoralizing, frustrating, and enraging to get up every day and have to justify my existence. And then as a Black planner, I’m met with a professional community that works in Black communities, espouses diversity, and still can’t bring themselves to embrace Blackness and work towards anti-racism. That’s the pain and paradigm of Black planners.

Planning centers whiteness as the preferred form and function. The field’s refusal to examine how planning reinforces not just segregation and inequity, but systemic racism and oppression, show up in the structural limitations of our POC neighborhoods today. If we as planners truly want to have a conversation on structurally rebuilding our field with an equity and anti-racism lens, we need to be brutally honest. As a discipline, we embrace sprinklings of diverse communities but everything, from our definition of overcrowding to our designs for gatherings and recreation spaces, from our processes for public engagement to where and how we invest resources in communities, derives from the white-hetero normative as ideal. I believe as long as planning remains tied to this framework, our field will continue to fail POC communities again, and again, and again.

I hope that as planners, we use this moment to stop being the ​“know-it-all experts.” We do not have all the answers for these communities; we don’t even know them. Instead, let’s recommit and actually listen to impacted communities. To hear and learn the culture, how a unique community functions, what they want to see for their neighborhood, and understand their needs. I don’t want to recreate a new version of the current paradigm where planners speak for these communities. But if we take the time to listen, planners could be supporting communities that have long been marginalized and silenced instead of demanding they change into our field’s flawed image of what an ideal community should be.

T: What is one book that you would encourage everyone to read when it comes to talking about topics like race and equity in urban planning?

B: I would recommend that people not jump into books on the intersections of race and planning if you haven’t yet learned and read about racism and structures of oppression. I encourage everyone to first read a powerful classic like James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.

For those who are ready, I would suggest books that educate planners on how we got here and the systems that were put in place to maintain structural white supremacy. Three great books for that are:

• Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

--

Barika Williams is the Executive Director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. She was previously with ANHD as Deputy Director until 2018. During her ANHD tenure she led impactful projects and initiatives – including ANHD’s mandatory inclusionary housing, equitable economic development, and data and research work. She has an unparalleled breadth and depth of policy expertise on affordable housing and economic development, as well as deep knowledge on our organization, members, and the communities we serve. Perhaps most important, she’s passionate about policies that advance equity, inclusion, and opportunity in all neighborhoods, especially for low-income communities and communities of color.

Prior to her appointment, Barika served as the Assistant Secretary for Housing for the State of New York under Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. There, she managed the Governor’s major housing priorities consisting of various agencies with a combined workforce of over 1,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $2.5 billion dollars. She supported the Governor’s programs and initiatives to increase NY State housing affordability including the $20 billion housing plan and expanding tenant protections statewide.

In previous roles, Barika has published on several topics at the Urban Institute, served as Project Manager for a leading DC real estate firm and on a community-based comprehensive education reform initiative. Barika holds a master’s degree from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis.