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Abstract Recent major investments in infrastructure in the United States and globally present a crucial opportunity to embed equity within the heart of resilient infrastructure decision-making. Yet there is a notable absence of frameworks within the engineering and scientific fields for integrating equity into planning, design, and maintenance of infrastructure. Additionally, whole-of-government approaches to infrastructure, including the Justice40 Initiative, mimic elements of process management that support exploitative rather than exploratory innovation. These and other policies risk creating innovation traps that limit analytical and engineering advances necessary to prioritize equity in decision-making, identification and disruption of mechanisms that cause or contribute to inequities, and remediation of historic harms. Here, we propose a three-tiered framework toward equitable and resilient infrastructure through restorative justice, incremental policy innovation, and exploratory research innovation. This framework aims to ensure equitable access and benefits of infrastructure, minimize risk disparities, and embrace restorative justice to repair historical and systemic inequities. We outline incremental policy innovation and exploratory research action items to address and mitigate risk disparities, emphasizing the need for community-engaged research and the development of equity metrics. Among other action items, we recommend a certification system—referred to as Social, Environmental, and Economic Development (SEED)—to train infrastructure engineers and planners and ensure attentiveness to gaps that exist within and dynamically interact across each tier of the proposed framework. Through the framework and proposed actions, we advocate for a transformative vision for equitable infrastructure that emphasizes the interconnectedness of social, environmental, and technical dimensions in infrastructure planning, design, and maintenance.
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Building a vision for more effective equity indices and planning tools
Recent years have seen a proliferation of equity indices and environmental justice screening tools to support more just environmental planning processes that attempt to quantify the concept of equity. While the equity index framework has proven important to advance the conversation around environmental equity and connect need to investments, we are concerned that these tools do not adequately address the intersectional nature of environmental justice concerns, effectively incorporate local knowledge on the lived experience of residents, or provide an actionable set of next steps to be taken. We see opportunities to rethink and expand on the equity index model to address issues of climate justice and preparedness through the development of Planning for Resilience and Equity through Accessible Community Technology (PREACT), a multipurpose and multi-scalar climate preparedness and neighborhood planning software application informed by both community need and community assets. This perspective article will discuss the theoretical and practical importance of adding these perspectives into screening tools and will describe our research in Philadelphia, PA aimed at understanding these challenges and developing a more inclusive and community-responsive methodology for effective tool development.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2125375
- PAR ID:
- 10388412
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
- Volume:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2624-9634
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2022.947452
