Showcasing Impact: The Value of Embedding Community-Based Planners in Underserved Communities | APA Los Angeles

For decades, communities of color and low-income communities across Los Angeles County have failed to receive adequate development, operations, and maintenance services to actualize an equitable built environment. While inadequate services to these communities are not exclusive to any one period, these outcomes are most prominently understood through the impact of redlining, a discriminatory practice of denying loans or services within a specific geographic area due to the race or ethnicity of its residents. 

However, for as long as there have been inequities in communities of color and low-income communities, there have been community-based planners who are embedded in their communities developing and implementing innovative approaches to actualize an equitable built environment. Embedded Planning means the planner moves with intention to work on the ground in the community:

• Understand people’s needs,

• Build trust and authentic relationships,

• Increase participation for marginalized communities through street-level engagement,

• Participate in daily community life, and

• Advance equity.

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