Community Planning Through the Lens of Equitable Economic Development
At Fourth Economy, we lead with a holistic approach to community and economic development that considers multifaceted factors such as investment and wealth creation, talent and access to opportunity, sustainability and resilience, vibrancy and quality of place, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Using this same approach, this resource is intended to help communities advance equity while furthering their economic and community development goals.
Contents
Why is Equitable Community Planning Important?
Communities that deploy formal community planning processes that center equity are more likely to create alignment and accountability that lead to measurable results.
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Communities that are seeing great success in their equity work understand how their economic systems are connected. They improve inequities comprehensively by addressing and working within the interactions of these systems. For example, a community may recognize how housing proximity to transit supports workforce development, then deploy an approach that creates cross-cutting benefits, such as Transit-Oriented Development.
Additionally, understanding how systems operate at local vs. regional levels — and in what ways the two interact — is equally important.
Community-system interactions are complex, but equitable development is achievable through strategic planning and implementation. The topics below highlight key areas communities should consider when framing their conversations around equitable development planning.
Key Considerations
A Shared Language
The definition of equity can vary across communities, with each determining its appropriate framing and language based on unique local context.
These terms are most frequently used:
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Diversity
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Equity
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Inclusion
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Belonging
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Economic Opportunity
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Equitable Development
Target Populations
In many cases, equitable development efforts are highly localized and serve the following commonly marginalized groups:
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Women
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LGBTQIA+ communities
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Immigrants
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People with Disabilities
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Communities of Color, often African Americans and Latinx
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Indigenous populations
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Veterans
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Low-Income Individuals and Families
Areas of Focus
Equitable development strategies address barriers to access and disparities in quality across different systems such as:
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Housing
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Placemaking
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Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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Environment
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Transportation
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Healthcare
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Infrastructure
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Public Services
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Education
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Finance​
Varying Approaches
To advance equitable development, communities are deploying a variety of local and regional initiatives across public and private sectors including:
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Targeted programs
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Mandates and incentives
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Process improvements
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Financial investments
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Physical infrastructure
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Partnerships
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Equitable Community Planning Framework & Workbooks
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This toolkit section provides our Equitable Community Planning Framework, which includes four steps to approaching systems change. It also provides activities organized into separate workbooks for each step of the framework for your community to take action.
The framework and activities will help you analyze and create change around:
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The makeup of the current system, including its components and the ways they interact
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Principles, policies, and programs that create inequalities vs. those that advance equity
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Benefactors and beneficiaries of the system
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Intended and unintended outcomes of the system
For each step, the toolkit provides resources to understand the process and templates to implement it.
Use the links below to access the Workbooks
Framework for Equitable Community Planning
Identify and Understand the Work
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2
Identify and Engage Community Members
3
Identify, Evaluate, and Implement the Methods
Identify and Measure Outcomes
4
Establish a Baseline​
To know where you are going, you need to start by understanding where you are.
Begin by answering the following questions:
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What problem are you seeking to address?
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What are the strengths of your community?
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What are the goals, programs, policies, and other elements of the existing systems? Do they lead to or perpetuate these problems or support your community's strengths?
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Is the work of the system missing or reaching a targeted community?
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What data or metrics validate this?
Step 1:
Identify and Understand
the Work
Identify Your Strengths
Consider what’s working well and why.
Draft Your Goals
Prioritize which problem(s) you seek to address. Draft your goals related to these priorities.
Step 1 Activities
Brainstorm the problems of the community as you understand them using the data available to you.
Diagnose the Problem
Deploy Inclusive Planning and Engagement ​
Community planning can improve or worsen social and economic inequities for individuals, particularly those who have been historically marginalized. To address inequities, planners must prioritize inclusive engagement.
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Who are your system partners? How are these partners organized? Do the partners reflect the community? Are they working from a shared, common vision?
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Who are the community members contributing to and being impacted by the system? How are they included and interacting with the system and its leaders?
Step 2:
Identify and Engage with Community Members
Step 2 Activities
Identify Partners and Community Members You Need to Engage
Understand Partner Roles
Engage Partners and the Broader Community
Brainstorm the partners in your ecosystem and who in your community needs to be engaged to contribute to the goals you identified in Step 1.
Think about and document how these partners currently function in the ecosystem, and how they can work together.
Engage partners and community members to review baseline findings from Step 1, including reprioritization of problems and updating goals.
Develop Strategies to Advance Equitable Development ​
Understanding the existing system leadership and how resources are currently invested is critical for understanding what is possible.
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What is the function of leadership? Who are the collaborators? What are the resources being used for support?
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Are these processes creating new pathways for intended end-users to participate? How are they being shaped by end-users?
Step 3:
Identify, Evaluate, and Implement the Methods
Step 3 Activities
Evaluate Promising Practices
Promising practices can provide examples for systems change across communities.
Build Consensus and Strategies
Move Towards Action
Your approach to equitable community planning will depend on community context, strengths, and goals.
Once you identify your key strategies, you need to create a plan to put them into action.
Included Activities
Brainstorm the problems of the community as you understand them using the data available to you.
Diagnose the Problem
Measure Effectiveness of Interventions by Tracking Indicators ​
Equitable development is often seeking to undo the results of past generational decisions. Incremental and system-scale impacts are important to track to keep attention.
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To what end are these actors working and how are they measuring success?
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Do these outcomes incorporate equity?
Step 4:
Identify and Measure Outcomes
Step 4 Activities
Identify Meaningful Metrics
Create A Process to Track Outcomes
Evaluate Outcomes Through Impact
Consider what you wanted to see changed and identify a good measurement for this.
Once you have identified a set of metrics, think about how to best track them to assess progress.
Capture data to evaluate how the community has been affected by outcomes.
Included Activities
Included Activities
Advancing Equity: Resources by Topic
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This section of the toolkit describes equitable planning by topic area, applying the systems change processes and providing additional information to support your community as it utilizes the toolkit workbooks. Select a subject below to learn more.
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Fourth Economy’s toolkit is a dynamic planning resource. As such, we will be adding to the Equity in Action series continuously. Check back regularly for more resources and information.
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