Equitable, inclusive, and accessible engagement

Learning objectives

• Identify the barriers that keep people out of planning processes and the practical steps that remove them.
• Distinguish procedural, distributive, and structural equity and apply them to a planning decision.
• Use an equity analysis, with disaggregated data, to test who a proposal helps and who it burdens.
• Explain the federal civil rights foundations for language access and nondiscrimination in engagement.
• Practice culturally appropriate communication, including the idea of cultural humility.
• Apply accessibility standards (ADA, Section 508, WCAG) to meetings, documents, and digital engagement.

Key concepts

Who's missing, and why

Traditional engagement, such as a weeknight hearing at city hall, a notice in the newspaper, or a 60-page PDF, reliably hears from people with time, transportation, English fluency, and confidence that government will listen. It reliably misses renters, shift workers, parents of young children, youth, people with disabilities, immigrants, and residents whose experience with government has taught them distrust.

Common barriers and how to lower them:

When partnering with community organizations, pay them for their time and expertise. They're doing real work, and relying on unpaid labor from under-resourced groups repeats the inequity you're trying to address.

5 more sections follow in the full lesson.

Key terms

• Community-based organization (CBO): A local nonprofit or group rooted in and trusted by a community.
• Procedural equity: Fair, inclusive, transparent decision-making processes.
• Distributive equity: Fair distribution of benefits and burdens.
• Structural equity: Addressing historical and systemic causes of inequity.
• Equity analysis: A structured review of who a proposal benefits and burdens, done before the decision.
• Disaggregated data: Data broken down by group or place instead of reported as one overall average.
• Limited English proficiency (LEP): Limited ability to read, write, speak, or understand English.
• Environmental justice: Fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental decisions, and avoiding disproportionate burdens.
• Cultural humility: An ongoing practice of self-reflection and learning that recognizes the limits of one's own perspective.
• Section 508: The federal requirement that agencies' information technology be accessible.
• WCAG: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the standard for accessible digital content.
• Plain language: Writing that the intended audience can understand the first time they read it.