Our Vision
We believe that race, space, and place still matter in defining individual and community outcomes. They determine our access to opportunities, health, wealth, and even basic human necessities. Racial disparities in poverty, health, income, housing stability, and education did not evolve overnight. They have been shaped by a long history of racist policies, divestment, and neglect.
It will first take centering the people most impacted to have the power to define and solve the problems. It will also take the audacity to come together to design cities that remember our collective past of grave injustices, vow never to repeat that history, and forge new roadmaps of inclusion and self-determination — this is what restorative justice looks like.
Our Initiatives
01
RELATIONSHIPS FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
Growing racial and income segregation of our neighborhoods and schools means that we don’t know one another. And if we don’t know one another, then we don’t care about each other’s pain. Just Cities convenes all of us to care about the people most impacted by racial injustice, centers their leadership, and moves the collective towards concrete solutions.
02
Multiracial Leadership Development
Just Cities operates leadership development programs for future planning and policy leaders that call forth our beauty and brilliance, raise consciousness of structural causes of injustice, and facilitate collective design and implementation of solutions.
03
HOUSING FOR ALL
Housing in the US is treated as a market commodity rather than a fundamental human need, like public education or healthcare. Just Cities takes a comprehensive approach through prevention of harm, production of accessible housing, access for the most disenfranchised, and justice innovation.
04
UN HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS
Many US cities have adopted international standards when it comes to climate change or economic development. However, very few cities apply international human rights standards to the treatment of their most vulnerable residents. We believe in practicing international human rights standards to address homelessness, displacement, and the growing educational/economic divides.
05
Inclusive Development
After decades of public and private disinvestment from cities, we are finally seeing resources and investments in urban areas but many of these efforts are done in ways that harm low-income communities of color. We believe it’s an imperative to invest in community-based development as the antidote to the current untenable situation of development with displacement.
06
Public Financing Innovation
Under Proposition 13, California cities are limited in revenue generation strategies and rely on regressive taxation strategies that hurt low income communities. Funding for safety net services that keep people housed were decimated by federal funding cuts and the demise of California Redevelopment. Instead, we must develop new innovative solutions to public financing woes.
