A Multimillion Dollar Opportunity for Equitable Recovery

For more than a century, local planning helped set the stage for how and where federal funding was spent. Many federal programs created a lasting imprint throughout the United States. Local governments now are faced with significant federal dollars to spend to make places more resilient and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Planners play key roles as co-contributors, co-creators, and co-leaders in allocating local and federal resources. This case study explores how planners can ensure that equity is a priority and that leadership and infrastructure aim to implement an equitable process and program.

Allocation processes that engage the community and center its experience create the conditions for more equitable outcomes, positive social impact, and racial equity and justice. Addressing the impacts of the pandemic on those who were harmed the most is not only an opportunity to address the root causes of inequity. It is an imperative of the American Rescue Plan and relevant to expending other federally funded transportation and HUD programs.

NPC Peer Reviewers assigned this presentation a learning level of Intermediate. For more on learning-level descriptions, visit our General Information Page.