Writing assignment

Journal of Planning Education and Research 2015, Vol. 35(3) 282 –295 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0739456X15580022 jpe.sagepub.com

Symposium: Equity Planning Revisited

Introduction For planners, the sustainable development paradigm has offered the tantalizing hope that the competing imperatives for economic development, environmental protection, and social equity can be reconciled in a meaningful way (Campbell 1996; Portney 2003). But in practice, most observers have found that social equity goals usually get lost relative to environmental and economic priorities (Agyeman 2005; Saha and Paterson 2008); even where sustainability efforts have been taken seriously, they have tended to reflect the priorities of white, upper-middle-class constituencies that dominate the environmental movement, and arguably, plan- ning more broadly. This has engendered skepticism among planning scholars about the limits of sustainability as a vehi- cle for social equity (Gunder 2006).

In the past decade, local planning for climate change has represented a central front in the sustainability movement (Bulkeley and Betsill 2003; Bassett and Shandas 2010; Greve, Boswell, and Seale 2011). Faced with federal and often state inaction, mayors and other city leaders have taken the initiative to adopt strategies to promote reductions in local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and prepare their communities for anticipated impacts of climate change. Climate action plans (CAPs), while varying across places, generally focus on enhancing energy efficiency, adopting renewable energy sources, alternative transportation and reductions in vehicle miles traveled, and expanding “green infrastructure” such as trees. Some cities have moved beyond

climate plans toward more broad-based sustainability action plans (SAPs), which emulate comprehensive plans in pursuit of a more holistic approach to sustainable urban develop- ment. Local officials have eagerly trumpeted the “co-bene- fits” of local climate action, especially in terms of livability and quality of life, household and public-sector energy sav- ings, as well as job creation and opportunities for “green” economic development (Fitzgerald 2010).

From an equity standpoint, local CAPs have the potential to address both fundamental challenges and opportunities. On one hand, there is considerable evidence suggesting that the poorest and most vulnerable members of society will dis- proportionately bear the negative impacts of global climate change as it accelerates in this century (Morello-Frosch et al. 2009; Park 2009). But at the same time, local investments to mitigate and adapt to climate change, if targeted correctly, have the potential to serve as tools of social and racial justice by tackling longstanding disparities and inequities within

580022 JPEXXX10.1177/0739456X15580022Journal of Planning Education and ResearchSchrock et al. research-article2015

Initial submission, January 2014; revised submissions, July and October 2014; final acceptance, November 2014

1Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA 2University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Corresponding Author: Greg Schrock, Portland State University, PO Box 751-USP, Portland, OR 97201-0751, USA. Email: [email protected]

Pursuing Equity and Justice in a Changing Climate: Assessing Equity in Local Climate and Sustainability Plans in U.S. Cities

Greg Schrock1, Ellen M. Bassett2, and Jamaal Green1

Abstract Despite interest in the importance of social equity to sustainability, there is concern that equity is often left behind in practice relative to environmental and economic imperatives. We analyze recent climate and sustainability action plans from a sample of twenty-eight medium and large U.S. cities, finding that few made social equity a prominent goal of their plans, although there is a discernible trend in this direction. We present case studies of three cities that incorporated social equity goals, concluding that sustainability planning efforts provide strategic opportunities to pursue equity goals, especially where capacity exists among community-based actors to intervene and participate.

Keywords sustainability, equity planning, climate action planning, participatory planning

Schrock et al. 283

cities, from “food deserts” to health disparities (e.g., asthma rates) to unemployment and poverty rates.

But are cities taking advantage of these opportunities? In this paper, we examine recently completed CAPs and SAPs from a cross section of medium and large U.S. cities to assess whether they are making equity a climate planning priority or not. From there, we focus in on three cities with varying levels of equity orientation to their plans and assess the fac- tors that were influential in the presence of meaningful equity components. Although the configuration of factors varied from city to city, we find that integrating equity into local climate and sustainability planning requires planners to build capacity to analyze, think, and talk about equity, but fre- quently, they are only prompted to do so where community- based actors and coalitions have the capacity to intervene and advocate for equity as a priority. While these factors are not that different from the possibilities for equity planning in general, we conclude that climate and sustainability initia- tives offer equity advocates tactical opportunities to reframe local strategies in the direction of social and racial equity.

Equity in Local Sustainability and Climate Planning To many, equity—especially social and racial equity—has always been integral to sustainability and sustainable devel- opment. This has been articulated in various ways in recent years, from the “triple bottom line” framework (Elkington 1994) to the “3 E’s: environment, economy, equity” (Campbell 1996). For planning scholars, the sustainability concept offers the possibility to reframe perennial debates about urban growth and change in ways that foreground not just the environmentally problematic character of status quo modes of urban development but also the distributional con- sequences of that growth in terms of access to opportunity within metropolitan regions (Wheeler 2000) and exposure to environmental hazards. In this regard, planning scholars gen- erally take for granted that social equity is an important nor- mative dimension of sustainability, while recognizing that it remains elusive in practice.

Yet as the sustainability paradigm has moved toward the mainstream of planning education and practice, scholars have begun to point to the concept itself as a reason for the chronic failure to focus on equity. Gunder (2006), in particu- lar, assails sustainability as a “fuzzy” and hegemonic concept (see Markusen 2003) that, because of its sheer malleability, often serves to reinforce existing agendas and power rela- tions, and effectively ignores social equity and justice con- cerns. Others have argued that when environmental organizations and sustainability efforts do show an interest in equity, it tends to be reflected in a greater concern for inter- generational equity (i.e., the impact on future generations) than on addressing contemporary disparities and inequities (Agyeman, Bullard, and Evans 2003). Indeed, Saha and Patterson (2008), assessing local sustainability initiatives in

the United States, found that the “third E”—equity—is the one most routinely left aside. One reason for this is the con- flation of sustainability efforts with agendas for “livability” and quality of life (Portney 2003), which are often geared toward making cities more attractive to educated, upper-mid- dle-class households, rather than tackling difficult issues of social and racial inequity.

Cities and Climate Action Planning One area of particular focus in urban sustainability has been the movement on the part of cities to develop CAPs. CAPs identify strategic steps that municipal officials and (often) private residents and businesses can take to mitigate local contributions to climate change (i.e., their “carbon foot- print”), but also prepare for, and adapt to, the likely impacts that climate change will have on weather patterns and resul- tant infrastructure needs. In the United States, a small num- ber of cities began developing “CO

2 reduction strategies” as

early as 1990, but the emergence of transnational network organizations—most notably the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and its “Cities for Climate Protection” program—has accelerated the practice of local climate action planning in recent years through the provision of technical assistance and peer networking oppor- tunities, but also by the access to financial and political resources for local governments (Bulkeley and Betsill 2003). Spurred by the Bush Administration’s inaction on climate change, the U.S. Conference of Mayors initiated in 2005 a Climate Protection Agreement with 141 initial signatories— a figure that has now risen to over one thousand cities— pledging to meet or exceed the Kyoto targets for GHG reductions.1 According to Greve, Boswell, and Seale (2011), more than 120 cities and counties, 36 states, and nearly 400 colleges and universities had developed CAPs as of 2011.

The literature on CAPs has become quite voluminous in recent years, and has assessed the trend from a number of different angles, including the common elements of CAPs, the plan-making process and impacts on local governance (Wheeler 2008; Bassett and Shandas 2010; Boswell, Greve, and Seale 2010), and the factors associated with the adoption of climate plans across cities (Zahran et al. 2008; Pitt 2010; Sharp, Daley, and Lynch 2011). Others have questioned whether climate planning efforts actually matter for achiev- ing results. Millard-Ball (2013), examining the efforts of three California cities, argues that it was their preexisting sustainability initiatives and local preferences, rather than the planning process itself, that was responsible for resulting improvements in climate-related outcomes.

In recent years, a number of cities have developed SAPs, which move beyond a narrow focus on climate change/GHG mitigation and adaptation and toward a broader integration of sustainability principles into local planning and develop- ment. Whereas CAPs—especially those developed with the assistance of ICLEI—have a relatively standard set of

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components, such as a local GHG inventory (Bassett and Shandas 2010), SAPs are less standardized. New York City’s PlaNYC is an important example; although it recognizes cli- mate change as a fundamental challenge underpinning the plan’s actions, its broader goal is for a “greener, greater New York” along a variety of dimensions not directly related to GHG mitigation or adaptation, such as construction of more housing units within the city (City of New York 2007). In some cases, cities have connected sustainability directly to their comprehensive plans, such as Minneapolis’s 2009 “Plan for Sustainable Growth.” In most cities, however, sustain- ability initiatives are managed by offices focused specifi- cally on environmental sustainability concerns, rather than those dealing with land use and other planning issues.

Bringing Equity into Local Climate and Sustainability Initiatives To date, relatively little work has been done to examine the connection between equity and local climate and sustainabil- ity planning efforts. One exception is Finn and McCormick (2011), which examined recently completed climate action/ sustainability plans for New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and concluded that substantive engagement on the equity issue “beyond the level of rhetoric remains rare” (412). On one hand, this is not surprising, given that at least two of these cities (New York City and Chicago) had been governed by strong growth-oriented mayoral regimes for many years. But as global cities, each has experienced a sig- nificant amount of economic restructuring and polarization over the years (Abu-Lughod 1999), and at different points, have been generative of community organizing and activism around social equity issues.

The social and racial equity implications of climate change are substantial. The burdens of climate change are projected to fall disproportionally on low-income and com- munities of color, with impacts ranging from health impacts due to urban heat island effect and air pollution to negative impacts on industry sectors employing workers of color (Morello-Frosch et al. 2009; Park 2009). At the same time, low-income populations have fewer resources to adapt to cli- mate change, rendering them more vulnerable to the impacts. For this reason, efforts to target green infrastructure and other amenities toward low-income neighborhoods and com- munities have significant potential to address the inequitable burdens associated with climate change, but also long-stand- ing forms of environmental and health disparities, such as pollution exposure and lack of access to greenspace.

Additionally, considerable attention has focused on the potential to use climate and sustainability initiatives to address entrenched racial disparities in poverty and eco- nomic opportunity, through the creation of “green collar jobs”—jobs directly enhancing environmental quality while promoting economic mobility and self-sufficiency—through local initiatives to promote energy efficiency, renewable

energy, green infrastructure, and so forth (Jones 2008; White and Walsh 2008; Fitzgerald 2010). Especially when con- nected with efforts to target employment opportunities toward marginalized populations such as the formerly incar- cerated and improve environmental quality in low-income communities, green-collar job initiatives represent a good example of what Agyeman (2005) calls “just sustainability.”

CAPs and SAPs offer differential opportunities and barri- ers to addressing equity concerns. Early generations of CAPs focused almost exclusively on GHG mitigation strategies; even as more cities have begun to acknowledge and address the challenges of climate adaptation, many CAPs remain largely oriented toward seeking cost-effective ways of reduc- ing local emissions. SAPs, by virtue of their broad focus on sustainability, would seem to offer more openings to address equity concerns and goals. On the other hand, the breadth and diversity of SAPs may be a barrier in itself, as equity concerns could get subordinated to other local agendas, such as for “livability” or economic vitality, which may or may not correspond to an equity agenda. Under what circum- stances might local climate and sustainability initiatives incorporate strong social equity and justice components? Literature from urban politics and planning suggests that three sets of factors are likely to be at work: disparities, capacity, and opportunities.

Disparities. Simply put, local actors are most likely to address equity when the conditions on the ground are most compel- ling, that is, when inequities are most apparent. Yet in a con- text where local officials are dependent on private capital investment to create jobs and generate the tax revenue to support public services, local officials in places with the greatest need—for example, where poverty rates are highest, or income levels are lowest—are least well positioned to pur- sue equity-oriented development strategies that may be con- sidered anti-business (Peterson 1981; Savitch and Kantor 2002). By contrast, places with relatively higher incomes and a stronger economy, but also high levels of economic inequality and disparity, may be more responsive to calls for redistributional policies.

Similarly, equity arguments may achieve greater attention in cities where racial minorities represent a larger share of the local population and electorate. In the context of “green” initiatives, cities with large nonwhite populations may be more likely to focus those initiatives toward the needs and concerns of communities of color, rather than the white, mid- dle-class constituency to which they have been traditionally oriented.

Capacity. Since equity is rarely a natural concern for urban officials, local capacity to bring equity issues into the politi- cal and policy debate is a key factor. This operates on a polit- ical level, as well as a policy level. At a political level, it requires the ability of grassroots organizations, especially within communities of color but also in equity-oriented

Schrock et al. 285

stakeholders like organized labor, academics, and faith-based communities, to mobilize successfully around particular leg- islative issues or political campaigns (Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka 2009). For example, local living wage campaigns have been most successful in places where community–labor coalitions, organized around groups like ACORN and public employee unions, have been able to generate political pres- sure on elected officials.

The literature on equity planning has emphasized the need for public-sector planning professionals to internalize equity goals and propose equity-oriented alternatives (Krumholz and Forester 1990; Fainstein 2010). Others, such as Clavel (1986, 2010), have emphasized the importance of nongov- ernmental capacity to work with planners, agency, and elected officials to demonstrate both the importance and the viability of equity-oriented approaches. Such community capacity can emerge through a combination of factors, including past organizing, entrepreneurial efforts of commu- nity-based organizations, as well as explicit efforts on the part of local governments to redistribute decision-making power to community actors. Although researchers have found that local political participation and engagement are correlated with local sustainability efforts (Portney and Berry 2010), we suspect this is likely to be distinct from local capacity for social equity, which depends less on overall rates of participation than on engagement and organizational resources within low-income communities and communities of color. While capacity can be assessed quantitatively in terms of budgets or staffing levels for environmental agen- cies or nonprofits, or number of local sustainability measures adopted (Portney 2003), it is an inherently qualitative feature that is arguably best understood in the context of specific cases where capacity enables actors to act and affect change. Only in places with relatively high capacity for either sus- tainability or equity—and especially both—are likely to see the two issues brought together in a meaningful way.

Opportunity. Even where the needs are apparent and capacity exists to bring equity into the sustainability conversation (and the broader local policy debate), a catalytic event or opening may be necessary to activate that capacity. Pierre Clavel’s work on progressive cities (Clavel 1986, 2010) emphasizes the role of mayoral campaigns, such as the campaign of Har- old Washington in Chicago or Ray Flynn in Boston, in help- ing neighborhood activists coalesce around a progressive policy agenda. In other cases, the availability of resources, such as from the federal government or a foundation, may create a space for “positive sum” coalitions around equity, where the resources allow—or even compel—local actors to transcend barriers to equity-oriented policies. Finally, other kinds of contingent events—such as the onset of the Great Recession, or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans—may reshuffle local politics in favor of social equity.

In this article, we examine whether cities are making equity a prominent theme of their CAPs and SAPs. What

factors are associated with a more equity-oriented approach? In the next section, we provide cross-sectional evidence from a sample of recently completed CAPs and SAPs. From there, we present case studies of three cities—Portland, Philadelphia and Boston—that have, to a comparatively high degree, incorporated social equity in their local sustainability efforts, assessing the similarities and differences in the factors enabling and hindering an equity focus. We conclude by reflecting on the broader implications for sustainability and equity planning, arguing that while there are considerable barriers to linking the two, it is possible through strategic efforts on the part of equity-oriented coalitions to intervene and reframe local planning debates in ways that cast light on existing injustices and disparities.

Analyzing Equity in Recent Climate and Sustainability Plans To what extent are cities incorporating equity into their cli- mate and sustainability plans? What kinds of cities and plans are focusing on equity? Is there a trend toward a greater focus on equity in the context of climate action and sustainability?

We examine these questions through a review of recent CAPs and SAPs developed by medium and large U.S. cities. Although such plans have been completed by cities large and small, we focus on plans completed by the one hundred larg- est cities as of the 2010 Census.2 We focus on larger cities because they are more likely to have diverse populations— demographically, politically, and socioeconomically—and experience challenges of poverty and inequality that climate and sustainability plans might target.

Compiling a list of cities with plans was a remarkably challenging task. We used a variety of strategies to identify cities with plans, including a review of websites of ICLEI- USA3 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,4 and web searches of individual cities. Based on our review, fifty- six of the hundred largest U.S. cities had plans that were pub- licly available as of summer 2012. We excluded cities that had sustainability programs or initiatives but no formal cli- mate action or sustainability plan document that could be publicly accessed. We included cities whose plans focused primarily or exclusively on municipal operations. Several cities in our sample had produced multiple (or updated) plans in the past decade; in cases where the plans were comple- mentary to one another (e.g., one plan focusing on GHG mitigation strategies, another focusing on adaptation strate- gies), we reviewed both, while in cases where the plans updated or superseded the earlier plans, we reviewed the most recent plan. In cities that had both CAPs and SAPs, we reviewed the most recent plan that we could find.

From this list, we created a sample of twenty-eight cit- ies—exactly one-half—that was designed to be broadly rep- resentative in terms of population, city type (central city/ suburb), region, year completed, and socioeconomic (e.g., poverty rate) and demographic (e.g., nonwhite population

286 Journal of Planning Education and Research 35(3)

share) characteristics (Table 1).5 A list of cities in our review sample along with their plan information is provided in the appendix. The oldest plan in our sample (San Diego) was completed in 2005; three plans (Sacramento, Tulsa and Pittsburgh) were completed in 2012. The plans varied greatly in length, from fewer than 20 pages to more than 250 pages.

We employed a qualitative coding scheme (Miles and Huberman 1994) to assess whether and to what degree the cities in our review sample discussed equity in their plans. Using a scale ranging from 0 to 3, we read each plan for the specificity and prominence of equity themes.6 Each rater coded passages that reflected equity as a problem, goal/ objective, or an action of the plan (see Table 2 for examples from the plans reviewed); each then assigned the plan a sum- mary score based upon his or her assessment of both the quantity and quality of the plan’s discussion of the issue.7 This assessment was based on the degree of specificity within the plan about the inequities and disparities to be addressed by the plan, in terms of its goals, actions and met- rics. We also analyzed the plans for which aspects of equity they focus on. In particular, we looked at the three types of equity discussed by Bullard (1994)—procedural equity (i.e., fairness in public proceedings and decision-making), geo- graphic equity (i.e., equity across neighborhoods and com- munities) and social equity (i.e., equity across race, ethnicity,

class, etc.). For reliability, each plan was reviewed by at least two raters, and where significant discrepancy existed between raters, the scores were reconciled through an addi- tional round of analysis, or adjudicated by a third reviewer.8 Rater scores were then averaged to reach the final summary rating.

Findings We find that only a minority of cities in our sample made equity a prominent theme in their climate and sustainability plans. While nearly 90 percent of the plans reviewed had at least some discussion of equity—either as a goal, as a prob- lem to be addressed, or in terms of specific action items (e.g., targeting weatherization assistance toward low-income households)—only 36 percent (ten of twenty-eight) received a rating of two or higher, meaning that the issue received at least some prominence as a cobenefit of the plan and/or spe- cific objectives and action items with an equity orientation. Within the overall sample, the average equity rating was 1.3 (Table 3).

How were cities discussing equity in the context of their plans? Of the three types of equity discussed by Bullard (1994), social equity was most prominent, with nearly all cit- ies addressing social equity concerns in some way, and

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics, Largest U.S. Cities and Review Sample.

Characteristic 100 Largest Cities Cities with CAP/SAP Review Sample

Number of cities 100 56 28 Population (average), 2010 597,558 775,393 885,539 ≥1 million 9 (9%) 8 (14%) 5 (18%) 500,000–999,999 24 (24%) 16 (29%) 7 (25%) 300,000–499,999 27 (27%) 18 (32%) 11 (39%) <300,000 40 (40%) 14 (25%) 5 (18%) By Census region Northeast 8 (8%) 5 (9%) 4 (14%) Midwest 17 (17%) 9 (16%) 4 (14%) South 39 (39%) 23 (41%) 11 (39%) West 36 (36%) 19 (34%) 9 (32%) City type Central city 79 (79%) 52 (93%) 26 (93%) Suburb 21 (21%) 4 (7%) 2 (7%) % nonwhite population

(average), 2010 55.0% 55.5% 57.8%

≥75% 12 (12%) 5 (9%) 3 (11%) 50%–74% 51 (51%) 33 (59%) 18 (64%) 25%–49% 33 (33%) 16 (29%) 7 (25%) <25% 4 (4%) 2 (4%) 0 (0%) Poverty rate (average),

2008–2010 18.8% 19.8% 20.4%

≥25% 18 (18%) 9 (16%) 6 (21%) 20–24% 18 (18%) 14 (25%) 4 (14%) 15–19% 41 (41%) 27 (48%) 16 (57%) <15% 23 (23%) 6 (11%) 2 (7%)

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nearly one-third (eight of twenty-eight) making it a promi- nent theme (rating of 2 or higher). By contrast, geographic equity was a less common theme, with only a small share (4, or 14%) making it a prominent theme. And procedural equity was even less prominent, with none of the plans making it a prominent theme.9

However, there is clear evidence that cities are making equity a growing priority. In plans completed in 2008 or ear- lier (n = 10), only one (New Orleans) made equity a promi- nent theme, and as a group, the cities achieved an average score of less than one (0.7)—meaning that the typical pre- 2009 plan gave equity hardly more than a passing mention. In plans since 2009, though, the average rating increased to 1.7, and of plans completed since 2010, six of eleven made equity a prominent theme.

There does not appear to be a clear relationship between city characteristics and their degree of equity focus. There appears to be a moderate positive relationship with city size, poverty rate, and income inequality, although in the latter cases not strong enough to pass standard thresholds for sta- tistical significance. Even weaker statistical relationships existed between equity and a city’s share of populations of color and median household income level, although in the former case, cities with above-average nonwhite population shares represented the bulk of cities making equity a promi- nent theme. Taken together, they suggest that the relationship

between local conditions and its equity orientation is com- plex in nature, and does not automatically correspond to city characteristics.10 Unfortunately, we were unable to develop a good operational measure of local environmental and social equity capacity for the twenty-eight cities in our sample;11 this is an area where future research would be helpful.

The factor that appears to be most clearly associated with an equity orientation is whether the plan was the city’s first effort or not. Cities that were completing climate/sustainabil- ity plan “updates” or revisions—which represented one- fourth of the sample—had an average equity rating of 2.0, while cities whose plans were their first had an average rat- ing of 1.1; they represented half of the plans where equity was a prominent theme.12 This is likely a reflection of a deep- ening of local sustainability capacity over time, which may be permitting a broader array of organizations and interest groups to participate and shape the agenda in pro-equity ways. Also, plans that were identified as sustainability plans were somewhat more likely than climate plans to focus on equity. While this could reflect the broader, holistic focus of sustainability plans, it could also be that the recent growth of sustainability plans has simply coincided with the trend toward a greater equity focus in climate and sustainability planning. As more cities complete and update CAPs and SAPs over time, it will likely become easier to disentangle statistically the effects of plan type and city experience from

Table 2. Equity Problems, Goals and Actions in CAPs/SAPs Reviewed.

Category Description Examples from Plans Reviewed

Problems Documented environmental and/or social disparities likely exacerbated by climate change, and/or with potential to be mitigated by climate action and sustainability efforts

- “Low-income residents typically pay a larger percentage of their income towards heating and cooling needs.” (Washington, DC, p. 45)

- “The lowest income families are the most negatively impacted by high transportation costs, with the average low-to-medium income family in Cleveland spending an average of $10,023 a year on transportation, more than education or food. Without access to public transportation, bike paths and walking paths, certain demographic sectors are marginalized and disenfranchised leading to higher poverty levels and exclusion, eventually undermining a productive and sustainable Cleveland economy.” (Cleveland, p. 91)

Goals/ objectives

Goals or objectives for linking climate/ sustainability and equity

- “Efforts to reduce GHG emissions from the transportation sector also pose the opportunity to create a more equitable, sustainable, affordable and healthy Oakland by addressing the interconnection between land use and transportation.” (Oakland, p. 23)

- “While the benefits almost always outweigh the costs in the long-run, one of the city’s goals should be to assist New Orleanians, especially poorer citizens, to overcome the initial cost associated with greening houses so that they may enjoy the affordability that energy efficiency imparts.” (New Orleans, p. 4)

Actions Specific action items likely to yield meaningful equity co-benefits and/or further equity goals.

- “The (energy) audits should identify deficiencies and provide homeowners with cost-effective energy improvement recommendations. Priority consideration for participation in the program should be given to low and moderate income residents.” (Memphis, p. 97)

- “Reexamine parking permit fees for residential areas: Potential impacts on lower-income residents could be addressed by using the proceeds to fund alternative transportation or by allowing fee reductions or waivers for low-income residents.” (Boston, p. 31)

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broader secular trends with regard to equity orientation in planning.

Linking Sustainability and Equity: Three Cities’ Experiences Our analysis found that relatively few U.S. cities were mak- ing social equity goals an important component of their cli- mate and sustainability plans. But what can we learn from those few cities that are? In this section, we dig deeper into the experience of three U.S. cities—Boston, Philadelphia, and Portland (Oregon)—all of which produced climate or sustainability plans that made equity a prominent issue, scor- ing higher than 2.0 in our analysis. We completed these case studies through supplemental analysis of primary and sec- ondary materials (e.g., media reports) related to those plans, as well as semistructured interviews with a total of fifteen individuals (approximately five for each city) involved in the development and implementation of those plans, including stakeholders specifically oriented toward social and racial equity issues and goals. We briefly summarize each of these three plans, and conclude with a set of observations about

key commonalities and differences across the three cities. While our research design is limited by the fact that we are examining three “positive cases,” we will show that even within these “successful” cities, there was considerable vari- ation in terms of the quality and specificity of their plans’ equity focus.

A Climate of Progress: City of Boston Climate Action Plan Update (2011) Boston, as with the broader New England region, has shown a long historical concern with environmental conservation and sustainability. At the same time, it is a city that has a long, fraught history of racial division and inequity, which has helped to fuel grassroots organizing within low-income communities and communities of color, especially around housing issues and environmental justice (Medoff and Sklar 1994; Agyeman 2005; Clavel 2010). Although long-time Mayor Thomas Menino did not naturally gravitate toward environmental issues, under his leadership Boston was active in the Cities for Climate Protection campaign, producing its first Climate Action Plan in 2007.

Table 3. Equity and Climate/Sustainability Plans.

Plan/City Characteristic Average Rating

(0-3) % of Cities as Prominent

Theme (score>=2)

Equity as plan co-benefit (overall) 1.30 36 Types of equity (Bullard) Procedural equity 0.40 0 Geographic equity 0.80 14 Social equity 1.50 29 Overall equity rating by plan/city characteristic 2008 or earlier (n = 10) 0.70** 10 2009 or later (n = 18) 1.70** 56 First plan (n = 21) 1.10* 29 Updated/revised plan (n = 7) 2.00* 71 Climate action plan (n = 17) 1.20 29 Sustainability plan (n = 11) 1.50 55 City population ≥500,000 (n = 12) 1.60 50 City population <500,000 (n = 16) 1.10 25 Bivariate correlation (Kendall’s tau, 1-tailed) with city size 0.25* City nonwhite population share > sample mean 58% (n = 15) 1.50 53 City nonwhite population share < 58% (n = 13) 1.10 15 Bivariate correlation (one-tailed) with nonwhite population 0.12 City poverty rate ≥ sample mean 20% (n = 10) 1.60 50 City poverty rate < 20% (n = 18) 1.20 28 Bivariate correlation (one-tailed) with poverty rate 0.23 City income inequality (Gini ratio) >= sample mean 0.5 (n = 14) 1.70 57 City income inequality < 0.5 1.00 21 Bivariate correlation (one-tailed) with inequality 0.16 City MHI % of U.S. > sample mean 88% (n = 15) 1.40 40 City MHI % of U.S. < 88% (n = 13) 1.20 31 Bivariate correlation (two-tailed) with MHI % of U.S. 0.05

Note: MHI = median household income. **p < .01, *p < .05.

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In March 2009, less than two years after implementing its first CAP, the Menino Administration formed two commit- tees—the Boston Climate Action Leadership Committee (CALC) and the Community Advisory Committee (CAC)— with the purpose of helping the City develop the “next set of goals, policies and programs” to address both the risks and opportunities presented by climate change (City of Boston 2010, 10). While the CALC was a fairly typical “green rib- bon” committee, with twenty-two representatives of estab- lished private-sector, public-sector, community-based, and academic institutions and organizations, the CAC was a broader group of 39 individuals with representation from each of Boston’s neighborhoods. In putting the CAC together, City officials sought a more inclusive process that would result in greater diversity.13 Working together, the committees produced a report in April 2010, “Sparking Boston’s Climate Revolution,” with detailed recommenda- tions for the planned 2011 update to the city’s CAP. Local foundations, especially the Barr Foundation, played a criti- cal role in this process by providing financial support for the committees’ work, with Barr also helping to launch Renew Boston, the City’s energy efficiency program, in 2009.

One year later, in April 2011, the City released its CAP update report, titled “A Climate of Progress” (City of Boston 2011). Echoing the committees’ recommendations, the report made equity a central priority, saying that “concern for the most vulnerable—those most likely to be affected by climate change and those with the fewest resources for taking action— is one of the basic starting points” and that the plan’s imple- mentation “should not exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities, and wherever possible, contribute to reducing those inequalities” (p. 8). Several people interviewed attrib- uted the plan’s equity orientation directly to the CAC, which continually pushed City officials and planners to consider the climate mitigation—and especially adaption—issues raised through a justice lens. The Renew Boston program represented the most tangible area of focus for equity in Boston’s CAP— both in terms of providing services, but also targeting the eco- nomic benefits of job creation within underrepresented communities. The Renew Boston program targets energy effi- ciency services to households between 60 and 120 percent of the area median household income through a set of commu- nity-based partners who conduct outreach and engagement, with special attention to low-income and communities of color. At the same time, the plan emphasizes the importance of the City’s Resident Jobs Policy14 as a tool for ensuring that green investments yield tangible benefits to, and address his- torical disparities faced by, communities of color (p. 42).

Greenworks Philadelphia (2009) In the mid-2000s, Philadelphia experienced a new wave of interest and community action around planning and sustain- ability issues. Spurred in part by renewed housing and com- mercial development in a city that had experienced decades of

disinvestment and population decline, a variety of civic, com- munity, private- and public-sector stakeholders began to talk about becoming America’s “Next Great City” through efforts to revitalize the city’s derelict riverfront, remediate the environ- mental degradation of the city’s industrial legacy, and build a new, more sustainable economy (McGovern 2013). This atten- tion became focused on the 2007 Philadelphia mayoral race, when a coalition called the Next Great City (NGC), led by the statewide environmental nonprofit Penn Futures, successfully organized 130 organizations from throughout the city, releasing a ten-point plan for livability and sustainability in January 2007 (Black 2007). Michael Nutter, an African-American City Council member from West Philadelphia, eagerly embraced the NGC agenda as part of a broader reformist platform, which he rode to decisive victories in April’s Democratic primary and November’s general election.

Upon taking office, Mayor Nutter created the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and tasked it with the creation of a sustainability plan for Philadelphia. In spring 2009, the Nutter Administration released the Greenworks Philadelphia plan, which set a broad vision to “reposition and repurpose Philadelphia as a city of the future” (City of Philadelphia 2009, 1). The plan was heavily influenced by the NGC plat- form on one hand but also by New York City’s PlaNYC for its comprehensive focus on urban sustainability issues.15 The Greenworks plan was organized around five “E’s”: Energy, Environment, Equity, Economy, and Engagement. The spe- cific recognition of equity as a focus area reflected both the reality of Philadelphia’s history of racial segregation, con- centrated poverty and disinvestment, but at the same time, a basis for differentiating the Greenworks plan, and the city’s approach to sustainability in general, from other cities.16 The plan’s equity chapter focused primarily on disparities in the physical and natural attributes of the city’s neighborhoods that perpetuate disparate levels of health and livability; for example, adequate stormwater management infrastructure, parks and recreational amenities, trees and natural canopy to address urban heat island problems, and access to healthy food. For many of these issues, the Greenworks plan estab- lished metrics and quantitative goals to be achieved by 2015, for example, increasing the share of residents living within a ten-minute radius of a park from 58 to 75 percent.

City officials have produced annual reports documenting progress toward those goals, which has been somewhat uneven to date. Areas like food access and urban agriculture have shown the most progress, reflecting the fact that the Nutter Administration’s initiatives have built upon the lon- ger-term efforts of a wider set of stakeholders in the Philadelphia region (Vitiello and Wolf-Powers 2014). Other areas like stormwater management have witnessed slower progress but considerable promise, with the Philadelphia Water Department pioneering new approaches to the devel- opment of green infrastructure, such as the “big green block” initiative in the low-income Lower Kensington neighbor- hood of Northeast Philadelphia.

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Portland/Multnomah County Climate Action Plan (2009) Portland, Oregon, has a relatively long track record in the area of climate and sustainability planning. The City’s 1993 Carbon Dioxide Reduction Strategy was the first municipal- level strategy in the United States to address the topic of cli- mate change through local actions. A second plan, the Local Action Plan on Global Warming, was promulgated in 2001 in partnership with Multnomah County, and was more sophisti- cated in its energy analysis and prescriptive and comprehen- sive in its action steps—for both the municipal government itself and for residents and local businesses. Portland’s prog- ress in sustainability is evidenced by the fact that it managed to achieve significant GHG emissions reductions over the 2000s, and by 2008 had even dipped below the 1990 bench- mark, over which emissions had increased 14 percent nation- ally (City of Portland and Multnomah County 2009, 7).

As work began on updating Portland’s CAP in 2007, City officials conceived of it as a largely technical exercise, led by a Steering Committee supported by technical working groups. However, the election of Sam Adams as mayor in 2008 changed its course. At Mayor Adams’ behest, the draft plan was subjected to considerable public scrutiny in 2009 through eight town hall meetings, as well as web-based dis- semination with an online survey for community feedback. Although the public feedback did not greatly alter the sub- stance of the plan (i.e., the objectives and actions), it created an opportunity for advocacy groups to raise equity as a broader concern that was largely absent from the plan. Consequently, the resulting CAP document, released in late 2009, identifies social equity as a core objective of the plan, saying, “Disparities among our residents can be reduced by ensuring that the communities most vulnerable to climate change are given priority for green jobs, healthy local food, energy-efficient homes and affordable, efficient transporta- tion” (p. 8). But specific actions and metrics for measuring progress toward social equity were weak in the plan. As a staffer at Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability lamented: “the greater question of who wins, who loses, where is this occurring was never really asked. [It was] a series of lost opportunities. So when we say ‘let’s plant thousands of trees or garden plots’ we didn’t really weigh where those trees should go or who should be given priority.”17 Although Portland had very high levels of envi- ronmental sustainability capacity, both within the public and nongovernmental sectors, they drew on primarily white, upper-middle-class constituencies, and few nongovernmen- tal organizations working directly with communities of color had active sustainability agendas.

Since 2009, planners and community advocates have made considerable efforts to keep equity on the public agenda, both for sustainability efforts and planning gener- ally. In 2010 and 2011, the city engaged in a strategic plan- ning process called the “Portland Plan,” in which equity and

disparities—especially by race and ethnicity—were elevated to a defining theme within the plan, and a city-level Office of Equity and Human Rights was created. Inspired by similar efforts in Seattle, Multnomah County developed an “Equity and Empowerment Lens” as a tool for planners and policy makers to critically assess the extent to which planning pro- cesses, and the substance of those planning efforts, work affirmatively to address current and historical disparities, and affect the empowerment of marginalized populations. These efforts have been very influential as Portland under- took an update to its CAP over the course of 2013.

Comparing the Cases In this section, we assess the relative contribution of the three factors identified earlier—disparities, capacity, and opportu- nity—in motivating Boston, Philadelphia, and Portland to prioritize equity in their plans and planning processes. While there are many similarities across the cities, we find that there are significant differences in their respective pathways toward equity, especially relating to the role of local capacity.

Disparities. In each of the cities, recognition on the part of planners and sustainability officials of persistent environ- mental disparities and inequities facing communities of color and other marginalized populations played a role in getting equity onto the agenda. For the most part, this was reflected in an emphasis on geographical disparities in natural and environmental amenities such as tree canopy and park space, which were viewed as both impediments to neighborhood livability but also factors exacerbating the vulnerability of populations living in those neighborhoods to the impacts of climate change. The racial dimension of these neighborhood disparities was often left implicit, embedded within local imaginaries of areas like North Philadelphia, Roxbury, and East Portland. But importantly, it was often left to activists and other outside groups to raise awareness of equity con- cerns. In both Boston and Portland, equity-oriented groups successfully called attention to the ongoing processes of gen- trification and displacement experienced in those cities, as a corrective to the prevailing discourse about urban vitality and livability. In Boston this took place directly through the CAC, whereas in Portland this occurred through the public comment process, since there was no direct involvement of such groups in the plan-making process. Although local dis- parities were important because they provided community activists with tangible concerns to be addressed, we conclude that it was unlikely to be a sufficient condition to compel cit- ies toward an equity orientation.

Capacity. We found that local capacity—both within govern- ment and especially communities—to facilitate dialogue and action about the equity dimensions of climate and sustainabil- ity planning was an important factor in making equity goals

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real and tangible, rather than vague and aspirational. Of the three cities, Boston’s overall capacity around urban sustain- ability issues was not the highest, but the capacity of commu- nity-based organizations within the city—built over time through foundations and other local funders—to elevate and advocate for equity concerns was quite significant and instru- mental, especially in terms of implementation. For example, the Boston Green Justice Coalition had become a powerful network of community, labor, and environmental organiza- tions who were highly successful in influencing the develop- ment and implementation of the Renew Boston program in ways that both targeted lower-income populations but also ensured for strong language on inclusive hiring and contract- ing. By contrast, Portland’s environmental sustainability capacity was the highest of the three, but for the most part, the city lacked strong community voices who could lend clarity and specificity to the 2009 CAP’s broad emphasis on equity, or the kind of high-profile philanthropic partners to build community capacity that existed in Boston. In both Boston and Portland, however, public-sector capacity around climate change and social equity was less prevalent within planning and sustainability departments than within local public health departments, where a growing national dialogue around health disparities was working its way into the conversation about climate adaptation. Philadelphia fell somewhere in between, with uneven capacity both inside and outside of local government. Although it lacked a unified sustainability office until the Nutter Administration’s arrival in 2008, cer- tain city agencies like the Philadelphia Water Department were successfully building capacity around sustainability concerns; at the same time, certain CDCs were recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities to link neighborhood- level initiatives to broader sustainability agendas pursued by local, federal, and philanthropic partners. One CDC official there put it bluntly as follows:

Nobody (cares) about what the carbon footprint is in many of our communities; they care about whether they can put food on the table. And if we can call it “sustainability” to a funder so we can help them learn how to plant vegetables in their backyard to feed their family, those are two different conversations we’re having at two different levels.18

What capacity brought in the cases of Boston and Philadelphia was the ability to translate social equity goals from broad, aspirational language into a more focused dis- cussion of specific disparities to be addressed, and specific mechanisms for addressing them. The lack of this commu- nity capacity in Portland resulted in a CAP that talked in lofty terms about equity but had preciously little to opera- tionalize those goals.

This final point speaks to the capacity of planners and other public-sector actors to analyze disparities and inequi- ties in relation to climate and sustainability efforts. Philadelphia’s use of quantitative metrics and goals for

reducing disparities in neighborhood greenspace and other amenities has served as a powerful organizing device for public investments in areas like green infrastructure. In Portland, on the other hand, efforts by Multnomah County Health Department analysts to map health disparities rela- tive to environmental hazards and injustices were under- way in the late 2000s, but the connections with local climate planning efforts did not make their way into the 2009 CAP. The lack of established “climate equity” metrics—espe- cially in relation to (more easily available) environmental (e.g., GHG reduction) and economic (e.g., job growth) met- rics—made it harder for planners to pursue equity in ways that were clear and operational in nature.

Opportunity. Even where disparities and local capacity ren- der the ground fertile for discussion of equity within sus- tainability planning efforts, contingent events are often necessary to activate that capacity. This was most evident in the case of Philadelphia, where the 2007 mayoral race served as a catalyst for a wide range of local organizations to coalesce around the Next Great City agenda. The arrival of the Nutter Administration created a window of opportu- nity for sustainability-minded actors and organizations to pursue their agenda, but also for community organizations to link long-standing concerns about neighborhood dispari- ties to the Mayor’s sustainability focus. Portland’s experi- ence with the Portland Plan and its equity focus is indicative of the potential for planning efforts in one arena to spill over into others.

The role of the Great Recession as a contingent factor was complex and worked in countervailing directions. On one hand, the dramatic, widespread increase in unemployment and economic distress caused mayors to focus more on the broader economic benefits of local investments rather than the need to target specific communities and populations. But on the other hand, the significant influx of federal funding through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) created an opportunity for local officials to make new investments in energy efficiency programs, green infra- structure and other areas, and under the right conditions, allowing local coalitions to shape those investments in pro- gressive ways. In both Boston and Portland, community- labor coalitions helped push local officials to incorporate strong equity provisions within their ARRA-funded energy efficiency initiatives.19

Although we have emphasized external contingencies such as mayoral changes, the initiation of a climate or sus- tainability planning process can create a window of oppor- tunity in itself, especially where nongovernmental actors are well organized and have well-placed allies to influence the process in pro-equity ways. This was most evident in Boston, where community, labor, and environmental justice groups, and their philanthropic allies, were well positioned when Mayor Menino initiated the CAP update process in

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2009. This underscores the long-understood point that plan- ning processes, in general, tend to favor the stakeholders and interests that are best organized and resourced.

Conclusion: Toward More Equitable Sustainability Planning?

Can local climate and sustainability planning represent a renewed front for equity planning efforts? Or rather, as crit- ics like Gunder (2006) suggest, has the sustainability para- digm simply offered local powers-that-be a new frame to pursue models of urban growth and development that are, at best, indifferent to the persistent disparities that exist by race and class within those communities? Our findings pro- vide support for both these optimistic and pessimistic views.

On one hand, our analysis shows that many U.S. cities continue to ignore equity goals as part of their climate and sustainability plans, or at least treat them as secondary or ter- tiary goals relative to environmental and economic goals. Even in the three cities we studied (Boston, Philadelphia, and Portland, OR) where equity did make it onto the agenda in a meaningful way, advocates for equity and environmental jus- tice generally represented a small constituency relative to mainstream environmental advocates and experts, and down- town business and economic development constituencies. In the case of CAPs in particular, the objective focus on GHG emissions reductions tended to lead officials toward strategies such as commercial and institutional energy efficiency pro- grams rather than programs likely to yield tangible benefits to impoverished communities. Even where strategies like tree planting were proposed, planners routinely failed to make the obvious connections between those investments and the neighborhoods where those investments would yield the greatest social impact. While SAPs seem to offer clearer openings to speak to equity and justice concerns, our analysis suggests that they are only somewhat more likely to do so, and that agendas for livability and economic development may obscure an equity orientation. While political economy explanations about the role of money and financial interests in driving these oversights make sense, more mundane forms of institutional blindness are also certainly to blame.

Yet we argue that under the right conditions, local sus- tainability initiatives can provide strategic openings for planners and equity advocates to make the pursuit of equity goals, and social and racial equity in particular, a priority. While there is evidence of growing interest among local sustainability officials throughout North America in articulating and actualizing equity goals,20 we strongly suspect that the factors enabling—or hindering— an equity focus will remain mostly local in nature. In each of three cities we examined, actors organized around social, racial, and spatial disparities that were particular to their community and took advantage of localized contingencies,

such as elections, to participate in, and at times reframe, the climate and sustainability planning process. But most importantly, the presence of local capacity on the part of planners and other public officials, community organiza- tions, and civic actors such as foundations to advocate for and analyze equity goals was critical in enabling equity- oriented climate and sustainability plans. In some respects, the ambiguous nature of “sustainability” was a strategic asset, in that actors were successful in reframing the con- cept as one in which equity was an integral component of, and not subsidiary to, environmental goals. While it is possible that equity-oriented policies could have been implemented without the impetus of a CAP or SAP, the initiation of a visible, public planning process can serve as an important organizing tool for elevating equity con- cerns, if voices exist, and can be mobilized to elevate those concerns.

While we are optimistic that the experience of Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, and others will inspire more cities to build equity into their climate and sustainability efforts, we anticipate that such a development will hinge espe- cially on local capacity. In particular, it will depend on the capacity of community-based actors, especially from within communities of color and other marginalized popu- lations, to engage and participate actively in local sustain- ability planning efforts. But equally importantly, it will depend on the capacity of local planning officials to think more intentionally about—and analyze—the distributional outcomes of planning efforts and resulting public invest- ments, especially in terms of race and ethnicity, and to recommit themselves to deeper forms of community engagement, creating space, and helping to empower mar- ginalized populations in the process. Such investments in community capacity, if they can be sustained, are likely to have long-term benefits for the pursuit of equity planning goals across a variety of domains, not just climate and sustainability.

Our findings have very clear implications for planning education in helping to break down institutional blindness to equity concerns, not just in climate and sustainability planning. It is not enough to simply train planners to become more “culturally competent” and work more effec- tively across class and racial divides, although this is highly important; it is not enough to remind planning stu- dents of the field’s normative commitment to, in the words of Norm Krumholz, “provide more choices to those with few, if any, choices”; we must also train them to develop and deploy policy-analytical tools that allow them—and the institutions in which they work—to measure disparities and inequities in new and powerful ways, which our cases show were important in supporting the advocacy and pur- suit of equity goals. After all, the measurement and depic- tion of social and racial disparity is an important source of power that planners hold and the only way that we will

Schrock et al. 293

ever know if we achieve progress toward the goal that planners share of creating more just and equitable communities.

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Pierre Clavel, Marc Doussard, Laura Wolf-Powers, and Stephen McGovern and three anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier drafts, and the Portland State University Faculty Enhancement Grant program for financial support of this research.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:

Portland State University Faculty Enhancement Grant program, received by Greg Schrock in 2011. FEG is an internal research grant program, the funds of which were used to hire a graduate student (Jamaal Green) and pay for interview transcription costs.

Notes 1. U.S. Conference of Mayors, Climate Protection Agreement,

http://www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/agreement.htm 2. The smallest city in this group (Prescott, AZ) had a population

of just over 200,000. 3. http://www.icleiusa.org/. 4. http://www.epa.gov/statelocalclimate/local/local-examples/

action-plans.html. 5. Specifically, we used a form of stratified sampling in which we

created a matrix along these various dimensions, and selected cities so that each cell (e.g., cities greater than 1 million popula- tion, 500-999,000, less than 500,000) was represented in roughly equal proportion to its share of the fifty-six cities with climate action plans (CAP) and sustainability action plans (SAPs).

Appendix

Plans Reviewed

City Plan Name Year Plan Type

Albuquerque, NM City of Albuquerque Climate Action Plan 2009 CAP Atlanta, GA Our Path to Sustainability 2009 Sustainability Aurora, CO Aurora’s Sustainability Plan 2009 Sustainability Boston, MA A Climate of Progress: City of Boston Climate Action Plan Update

2011 2011 CAP

Chicago, IL Chicago Climate Action Plan: Our City. Our Future. 2008 CAP Chula Vista, CA Climate Change Working Group Measures Implementation Plans

(2008: mitigation plan, 2011: adaptation plan) 2008/2011 CAP

Cincinnati, OH Climate Protection Action Plan: The Green Cincinnati Plan 2008 CAP Cleveland, OH Sustainable Cleveland 2019 2009 Sustainability Corpus Christi, TX Corpus Christi Integrated Community Sustainability Plan 2011 Sustainability Denver, CO Greenprint: City of Denver Climate Action Plan 2007 CAP Durham, NC City of Durham and Durham County: Greenhouse Gas and Criteria

Air Pollutant Emissions Inventory and Local Action Plan for Emission Reductions

2007 CAP

Greensboro, NC Sustainability Action Plan 2011 Sustainability Kansas City, MO Climate Protection Plan: City of Kansas City, Missouri 2008 CAP Lexington-Fayette, KY Empower Lexington: A Plan for a Resilient Community 2012 CAP Memphis, TN Sustainable Shelby: A Future of Choice Not Chance 2011 Sustainability Miami, FL MiPlan: City of Miami Climate Action Plan 2008 CAP New Orleans, LA GreeNOLA: A Strategy for a Sustainable New Orleans 2008 Sustainability New York City, NY PlanNYC (2011 update) 2011 Sustainability Oakland, CA City of Oakland Draft Energy and Climate Action Plan 2010 CAP Philadelphia, PA Greenworks Philadelphia 2009 Sustainability Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan (Version 2.0) 2012 CAP Portland, OR City of Portland and Multnomah County Climate Action Plan 2009 2009 CAP Sacramento, CA Sacramento Climate Action Plan 2012 CAP San Antonio, TX Mission Verde: Building a 21st Century Economy 2009 Sustainability San Diego, CA City of San Diego Climate Protection Action Plan 2005 CAP Seattle, WA Seattle, a Climate of Change: Meeting the Kyoto Challenge 2006 CAP Tulsa, OK City of Tulsa Sustainability Plan 2012 Sustainability Washington, DC Climate of Opportunity 2010 CAP

294 Journal of Planning Education and Research 35(3)

6. Our coding approach is similar to Agyeman (2005, p. 108) in the use of a 0–3 scale based on prominence of equity themes. Plans were coded as 0 if they had no mention of equity; 1 if they had mentions of equity concerns or themes with little depth or specificity, or prominence as a plan goal; 2 if they were more prominent but with less depth or specificity, or specific but not a prominent goal; and 3 if they were both prominent and specific themes. Also following Agyeman, we analyzed the extent to which the plans emphasized intragen- erational, intergenerational, and/or interspecies equity, and principles of environmental justice; for sake of space, we do not present those detailed findings here. We also rated plans for a series of other cobenefits, such as economic develop- ment, improved local environmental quality, public health benefits, livability/quality of life, reduced energy costs, and reduced government costs. For the sake of focus, we only report on the equity themes.

7. Because of the varying length of the documents and the poten- tial for redundancy, we opted not to count the number of equity-related passages in the plans.

8. For nineteen of the twenty-eight plans (68%), reviewers agreed in their initial rating; for six of the remaining nine, the review- ers were within one category and their scores subsequently averaged; in only three cases was reconciliation needed among reviewer scores.

9. Our scores for social, geographic, and procedural equity were developed independently from the overall equity score and are not directly related to the overall score (e.g., the sum or aver- age of the three types). In most of the cases, however, the over- all score was equivalent to the highest score among the three types.

10. Because of the small sample size involved, it was not feasible to analyze the statistical relationships in a multivariate context. An analysis using larger sample sizes would likely yield more robust statistical results.

11. Existing measures of environmental program adoption (e.g., Portney’s Sustainable Cities index), or social capital or engagement, do not align perfectly with twenty-eight cities in our sample, limiting their potential value for our analysis.

12. Although there is some overlap between the post-2009 and revised/updated plans in terms of equity, they are not perfectly correlated. Some equity-oriented, post-2009 plans were initial efforts by cities (e.g., Oakland), while some revised plans had low equity scores (e.g., Pittsburgh).

13. Carl Spector, Boston climate planning director, interview with authors.

14. Boston’s Resident Jobs Policy requires city-funded building projects to employ at least 50 percent city residents, 25 percent racial minorities, and 10 precent women.

15. Philadelphia had completed a CAP in April 2007 under outgo- ing Mayor John Street.

16. Mark Alan Hughes, former Nutter Administration official, interview with authors.

17. City of Portland BPS official, interview with authors. 18. Development director, Philadelphia Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC), interview with authors. 19. Although the 1994 federal Executive Order 12898 requires

consideration of Environmental Justice issues as a require- ment of federal funding, we found little evidence in our case

studies that this was a significant factor motivating a focus on equity. Rather, we found that the influx of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding tended to catalyze community- and labor-oriented actors around oppor- tunities for job creation, with the relative level of organization and mobilization of equity-oriented groups influencing the degree to which those resources were deployed in progressive ways; for example, through the creation of the Community Workforce Agreement in Portland’s ARRA-funded Clean Energy Works pilot program.

20. For example, the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, an influential organization for information-sharing among local sustainability officials in the United States and Canada, has recently reported growing interest on the part of its members in learning about cities that have integrated equity into their sustainability efforts.

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Author Biographies Greg Schrock is an assistant professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. His research focuses on linkages between economic development and local labor market policies with a focus on social and racial equity.

Ellen M. Bassett is an associate professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on land use planning in African cities, sustainability and climate planning, and connections to public health.

Jamaal Green is a doctoral student in Urban Studies at Portland State University. His research interests include industrial revitaliza- tion and land preservation, local sustainability efforts, and labor market inequality.