Future Forward

Seyi Fabode (00:01.892)
Hello, hello, hello Reza, how are you?

Reza (00:04.882)
Good Seyi, how are you doing?

Seyi Fabode (00:06.502)
I am doing great today. is episode 11 of Future Forward.

Reza (00:11.898)
Wow, okay, what are we talking about today? Well first, what are we doing? What are we doing on Future Forward, Seyi? Let's bring our listeners

Seyi Fabode (00:19.554)
Yes, welcome to our new listeners and to our past listeners. Thank you for showing up again. As those of you who've been here before know, Future Forward is a conversation Reza and I have been having for years that we've chosen to bring you all in. And it's a conversation about the history of cities, where we are today, and strategic foresight gleaned from the past.

about where cities are going. It's an exploration of just where, how, and the things we need to do to build thriving cities for all people.

Reza (00:59.74)
Yeah. So Seyi, I'm very excited about this episode today because this one is grounded in a trip to another city that you made last week. So you went to Atlanta and so tee it up. What are we gonna cover

Seyi Fabode (01:11.162)
Yes, yes, yes, yes I did.

Seyi Fabode (01:20.536)
Yeah. So today's episode is about and titled social equity in cities. And we'll put a caveat out as we start this. It is a very complex topic that underneath this broad topic of social equity are several topics that we could spend an hour on each by itself. So homelessness, energy, poverty,

water availability and quality, but we're just going to touch on it overarching as a topic. And we're starting this episode on a different note today, Reza.

Reza (02:03.312)
Yeah, so as I've maybe mentioned on a prior episode, I love poetry, I am a poet, and I wanna read a poem at the start of this episode and do something different. So this poem is called This Is a Hymn, and it's by a Jamaican poet, Lorna Goodison. And I heard it read at the Round Top Poetry Festival in April by an Irish poet, Patrick O'Toole. And I was so moved when I heard this poem, and every time I read

I am moved again. And I think it's a great way to sort of bring some empathy for this issue of social equity. So this is a hymn. For all those who ride the trains all night, sleep on sidewalks and park benches beneath basements and abandoned buildings, this is a hymn. For those whose homes are the great outdoors,

the streets, their one big room. For live men asleep in tombs, this is a hymn. This is a hymn for bag women pushing rubbish babies and ridiculous prams, dividing open lots into elaborate architects' plans. Mansions of the dispossessed, magnificence of desperate rooms. Kings and queens of homelessness die with empty bottles rising from their

This is a hymn for all recommending a bootstrap as a way to rise with effort on your part. This is a hymn. May it renew what passes for your heart. This hymn is for the must be blessed, the victims of the world who know salt best, the world tribe of the dispossessed, outside the halls of plenty looking in. This is a benediction. This is a hymn. Wow, I...

It's such a powerful poem. It's so moving. We forget when we live in our cities, these people are invisible that don't have access to the basics that we just consider just a given. And she does such a good job of,

Seyi Fabode (04:14.527)
given.

Reza (04:23.304)
bringing this to light and respecting their humanity. And I think that's the hardest thing about like when we talk about cities, I I find it so hard that cities are so incredible for us to live in, but at the same time can have such a hard impact on some of them, some of these, some of our city dwellers on the edges. So yeah.

So thanks for letting me do that, Seyi Let's jump in. Yeah, yeah.

Seyi Fabode (04:55.48)
Thank you. Thank you. Now, that was so powerful. the way we typically start this is to talk about the history of whatever topic we're discussing. But because of how sort of complicated this social equity issue is, I don't think we could have started in any other way. So thank you. Thank you for that.

So now I guess we have to define social equity within the bounds that we've chosen to discuss it today. And I'll start with what is not an all -encompassing description or definition, but one that I think will do. as the poem sort of alludes to, social equity is concerned with justice and fairness.

of the social policies that we implement in our cities based on this principle of substantive equality and equal outcomes for groups. And as the poem so vividly describes, as I experienced in Atlanta this past

There are, even in growing cities, people who do not have outcomes or experience outcomes that make them feel like they are thriving or even growing and are barely surviving, even in growing cities. And that, think, as we talk about cities and how we want them to be for all people in the future, we've chosen to talk about

Atlanta because it is a growing city and consequently it seems to be that as it grows the inequities increase for the residents of the city unfortunately.

Reza (07:09.146)
Interesting. Yeah, think that's the hard part is with the growth comes this inequity. And you had some really great, like when we talked on the phone on Friday, you just come back and you had some great stories about like what your experience was as you went for a walk and went for a run and as you were observing the city. So tell us a little bit about, well, start at the start, like I think, yeah.

I'm curious to talk about some of these examples that you encountered in Atlanta.

Seyi Fabode (07:43.674)
In Atlanta, yeah, so this one, as we typically do, we talk about the history, but I won't even have to go too far in history to talk about history here. But I'll actually start this one from the inequities that became amazingly and sadly apparent during the pandemic when we all, for the most part in the US, had to shelter in place and our kids came home with us to

Reza (07:49.82)
Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (08:13.51)
get homeschooled essentially, even as some of the schools tried really hard. And at the point where we had to have our kids at home, the inequities in our cities became amazingly apparent because there were homes, wide swaths of some of the biggest cities where the kids didn't have internet connectivity and consequently couldn't do online school. So

it was this stark expression of how social inequities exist in a lot of our cities. And that example is social inequity in the form of educational access to all our kids. And based on some research and conversations with some folk who know a lot about

about what's going on as cities grow, especially in Atlanta. The rapid expansion and the rapid growth of a city like Atlanta, which is expressed in a lot of cities that you and I have visited or know, starts to cause housing affordability issues, especially in the desirable downtown neighborhoods. It's why, again, during the pandemic,

home prices in the the prime areas of Austin, which became a fast growing city. a hundred or so people were moving to Austin before the pandemic that increased during the pandemic briefly and everyone was trying to buy homes. And if you hadn't sold a company to Google or you weren't making crazy amounts of money, you couldn't afford to buy a home.

Reza (09:51.528)
Mm -hmm.

Reza (10:13.074)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (10:13.176)
in Austin. It was that stark, especially in the desirable neighborhoods. And this was especially stark in the black neighborhoods of the old fourth ward and west end of Atlanta. Historically black city, parts of the city. And the example a really good friend of mine, Justin Dawkins, gave me is about Vine City.

It's an area in the city. And he mentioned this club called the Cutting Club, which was one that was mentioned in this, the green book that black Americans could feel safe to go into. Yeah. And the Cutting Club was this place of respite, respite, respite.

Reza (10:57.81)
Yes. Going across the country. Yes.

Seyi Fabode (11:11.146)
whatever the word is, for Black people who travel to Atlanta and fast forward a few years, and it's still there, the building is still there, but the area is getting wealth washed is the word we'll use and we'll explain that. And consequently, this area which used to be affordable for a lot of Black people is no longer affordable and we'll explain some of the dynamics that make that the case.

Even as I was in Atlanta, I could see that wealth washing. I was running downtown and there were distinct points where the growth is happening, nice fancy buildings, the Mercedes -Benz stadium is on one side, the roads are fine and everything looks good because the development of this area.

is happening to attract people who can afford to now buy in these areas. And the, the starkness. And if you watch this video of this conversation we're having, I will share some of the pictures where you can literally see one side of the street is nice. The other side of the street has a barbed wire fence and buildings that are crumbling.

which in a few years, based on this problematic trend of world washing, those parts of the city that have a story and a history that is tied to the black residents and black citizens, if you call them, of Atlanta, those areas will become redeveloped.

Reza (13:05.832)
Mm.

Seyi Fabode (13:12.044)
and renamed such that those stories that are attached to the culture and the people who were there before, those stories will disappear.

Reza (13:21.903)
Ugh, tragic.

Seyi Fabode (13:24.216)
It is, it is. So I'll pause here, because I'm sure you have lot of comments here.

Reza (13:26.758)
Yeah, I think two comments that I want to make. One is the example, the pandemic. So just like our first episode where we talked about the office, like the pandemic was a way to really get us to re -examine some of what we take for granted. And we were taking the office for granted and that's why we talked about it in the first episode. And this one, the pandemic sort of uncovers

this layer of inequity that we don't recognize, given some of the public infrastructure or public schools and things like that that exist, but we miss out on some of the nuances. So I think that was a great way to begin this. And I mean, I think it's really tragic to hear about this wealth washing. I'm curious to hear, you have some more that you're gonna cover on this particular topic,

It's, I'm sure this exists in every city. I know that we see this in Austin with East Austin, gentrifying. And I think the most important thing you said, like we lose the stories of that place, right? places have stories, they have character, they have texture, they have something that makes it meaningful. And when we, when we wealth wash it, we wash those stories away.

Seyi Fabode (14:32.676)
Yes.

Reza (14:50.376)
And they become, think we mentioned it in maybe in the last episode where we talked about, I don't remember exactly the episode. Yeah, where we talked about like, I think it was the 20 laws episode where we talked about multi -use development as opposed to sort of these mixed use developments that just sort of get planted in the middle of these areas

Seyi Fabode (15:00.483)
Axe and public spaces,

Seyi Fabode (15:06.645)
I

Seyi Fabode (15:10.627)
Yes.

Reza (15:17.98)
They don't have a story. They don't have any meaning there. yeah. So yeah. So those are my two comments. Yeah. Let's keep going, Seyi think sort of bring us to the present and see what we're grappling with here in Atlanta.

Seyi Fabode (15:19.438)
don't. They don't. They don't.

Seyi Fabode (15:36.622)
Yeah, so and I'll touch, I'll go back to Atlanta, but some of these ideas we have about the, we're learning about the inequities in cities, as you've highlighted, tied to some of the laws we shared, boil down to this idea by the former mayor of Bogota.

Enrique Penaloza is his name. And he shared this idea that there's this.

dichotomy with growing cities, which is that as the city grows, lower income families, low wage workers who traditionally could live in the city, the people who clean the hotels, who do the work of cleaning the city centers and keeping it livable

everyone who visits become less able to afford to live close to their work. And remember, they're low income earners, low wage workers, and they now have to move further out of the city as it grows because they can't afford homes in the middle of the city or close to their place of work. And they immediately have

increase their cost of transportation, whether it be by when they could get a bus to get to work before. Now they probably have to get a car, which is an expense they couldn't afford to get from these further locations of home to come into this growing city to come and do work. And that is exactly what is happening in Atlanta right now.

Seyi Fabode (17:44.542)
Justin and I were talking and the Atlanta airport, the busiest airport in the world, serves more people than most cities will ever see in a day. And they, there's, there's just this unfortunate situation between the people who work in the airport

who used to be in Atlanta and bringing it to today unable to be close to their place of work even as just unparalleled growth is happening in the city. It's pretty wild. I'll throw some stats and some numbers out about Atlanta, talking about the present. So Atlanta, based on research and data, Atlanta has the highest

income inequality of any major US city.

The average white family's median income is $83 ,722 compared to $28 ,105 for the average black family across the country, but specifically in Atlanta right now, which equates to white households having four to six times more wealth than black households in the city.

Reza (19:13.765)
Hey.

Seyi Fabode (19:15.2)
As the home prices increase in these previously black majority parts of the city that are now becoming prime real estate, because of this wealth disparity, the black residents are having to move further out of the city. Even as Atlanta grows, Atlanta will host the World Cup in two years and

the workers will have to travel from far distances. And I have a few more stats here. They'll have to travel from further distances to come to get to the work they have to do to earn a wage. Another stat that blew my mind, 60 % of the residents of the state of Georgia, which is 6 .3 million

And Georgia has 10 .3 million people. 6 .3 million of those 10 million live in the Atlanta metro area. It's insane with projections of growth of 1 .8 million residents by 2050. And just based on the evidence of where we are today, because of that growth and the further

Reza (20:21.83)
That's crazy. Wow.

Seyi Fabode (20:38.68)
move out and the expansion of the metro area, unless we start to take serious action, the inequities will grow. I was in a cab driving, sorry, going from one location from my hotel to meet up with Justin, actually. And there was a gentleman in the middle of the road. He just stood there. You could tell he was either suffering from mental health issues or something, because

He had no recognition of how much danger he was in standing in the middle of the street. And what I loved was that the cab, the guy, the Uber driver, or the Lyft driver sort of slowed down and tried to talk to him to get him to move out of the road because

My, my interpretation of what he did was he recognizes that we need to help this man. This isn't a, he's just crazy or poor or druggy. He slowed down, let him walk away. The guy didn't really understand what was wrong, but it stayed with me and we pulled up a few meters after the guy into this, the lobby of this

beautiful building just right there with apartments upstairs and a bar and it just really blew my mind. Yeah, yeah.

Reza (22:14.716)
That's stark. Yeah, that's stark. I mean, that's stark and so human at the same time, right? You see this huge difference between someone suffering and struggling and these beautiful building that you are going into, but at the same time, you're Uber driver just being human like we can be and actually pausing to help. Yeah, what a way to observe.

how cities can be so powerfully good and also so difficult for us to live in at the same

Seyi Fabode (22:53.11)
It is, it is. And I think that example actually ties to the two laws that we know apply to this social equity case. And as you bring it up, I'll comment on how that experience really just re -emphasized the laws for

Reza (23:09.064)
Yeah. So to remind our old listeners that have been listening and new listeners, we have these 20 laws of sustainable cities and thriving communities. And we will touch on these laws as we go through each of these episodes. So the two laws for this particular episode on social equity, the first one is titled Social Equity Underpins Urban Sustainability. And to expand on it, equitable access to resources, opportunities, and services

across all neighborhoods and demographics is fundamental to creating sustainable and inclusive cities. And the research on this is primarily based on Dempsey and other authors who had identified social equity as a key dimension of urban social sustainability and really brought up the consequence of not doing it can lead to increased segregation, social unrest, and overall decreased quality of life for many residents.

So yeah, that's one. So maybe touch on the Atlanta example and then I'll give the second

Seyi Fabode (24:12.484)
Yeah, exactly. And so this one really touches on, I'll use the example of the, the, who I think was mentally unstable gentleman that I saw standing in the middle of the streets. He was a few meters away from the front of this beautiful building. And so both for him and the people in the building who

want to live and experience the city in all its beauty, the quality of that experience is diminished by the inequity that has been expressed through the suffering of this gentleman on the street. So it's not just you who are on the road suffering that the experience of having an inequitable society.

It is not the only one who suffers from this. If the lift driver had been going too fast and hit him, that would have been a problem for the lift driver. But also it becomes another data point for how unsafe that part of the city is and the diminishing experience for everybody involved. And even as you start to think about moving to a city,

that starts to happen. Yeah.

Reza (25:39.496)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Let me touch on the second one. Affordable housing ensures social equity. to expand on it, ensuring an adequate supply of affordable housing across all urban areas is crucial for social equity, economic diversity, and sustainable growth. And the research here is Bramley and other authors in 2009 that identified affordable housing as a key component of urban social sustainability.

The consequence of not addressing this is, you know, it can lead to gentrification, displacement of low income residents and increased homelessness.

Seyi Fabode (26:17.86)
Absolutely, yeah, I don't even need to touch on it. poem, the poem you read perfectly describes the problem with flouting this law.

Reza (26:24.326)
guess.

Reza (26:28.156)
Yeah. you know, Seyi, this is like, and you know, we're about to segue into the future.

of this, but I'm kind of struggling on this one. So, tell me a little, we're having a hard time with this episode. This is hard. It's

Seyi Fabode (26:43.492)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (26:50.36)
It is, it is. And I think this will be the first time when we don't have any like concrete steps towards addressing some of the issues that we might have identified during the episode beyond just saying and agreeing with you. The future of this one is, is, is hard. It's while it is expressed and experienced in the microcosm that is the city.

Social equity, income inequality, homelessness, housing affordability, these are big problems that we can't just wave our hands and make some recommendations and suggest that we've solved. So this is one way we'll ask our listeners, if you know any experts who are working on this, if you've experienced any

any meaningful work that is starting to help address social inequities, please reach out and we will make sure we bring these experts on board. In fact, we have some authors and experts coming and we're super excited about that. This is one where we absolutely need to bring them on to help have this conversation. We do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

Reza (28:10.81)
Yeah. So we have some ideas, so maybe we can touch on those. Yeah, so share some of

Seyi Fabode (28:18.712)
The big one, I'll go back to Atlanta, Northern Atlanta suburbs, recognizing that a lot of workers who couldn't afford homes in the Atlanta city area itself, and have moved to the Northern suburbs, there's been a lot of work on the public transit and infrastructure to shuttle people between

their from their homes in the burbs to the city or to the airport where thousands of people work just to ease the cost of this inability to afford homes close to work as the city grows. So that's a that's a pretty good one. The unfortunately the southern and western neighborhoods haven't done anything. So

folk end up in traffic. It's more expensive to who who. And I'm saying expensive in terms of the time you have to spend, which in itself, the time value, the monetary value of your time, you're spending something there. So the northern suburbs are doing a lot of work. And this is great. Hopefully the other suburbs start

Reza (29:31.132)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (29:47.77)
borrow from the work here, multimodal forms of transportation to move people from suburbs to downtown areas to get to work without the burden of additional costs. So that's a good one. There's an initiative called the Action for Racial Equity. And this one is taking a more business centric approach where

it's working with the business community, the employers of these low wage earners who have to transit themselves and it's costing them more. And they're doing a lot to, again, similarly support their workers to reduce the burdens, the increased burdens that have come upon them as a result of not being able to afford homes close to where they work. So and recognizing

gentrification and racial elements to the inequity and then taking action to address it that way. And the city is also doing a lot of work in this regard to give the city credit. The current mayor did a ribbon cutting a few weeks ago where the city had spent $3 million to update and upgrade

324 apartments, condos, and homes that belong to, I believe, retired public servants to ease the burden in their retirement, especially as home prices increase in the city of Atlanta. And the goal is to build, I believe, up to about 600 of these or so. And the idea here

policy and place -based solutions for affordable housing in recognition of the inequities as a result of the massive growth that is happening in the city. So there is work, concerted effort is ongoing to get the benefits of the

Reza (31:55.634)
Move.

Seyi Fabode (32:04.624)
to apply and to be shared equitably across all the residents and citizens of the city. So I have hope on this one, but there's a lot of work to be done.

Reza (32:12.39)
Yeah. Yeah, I have a couple of comments. So there's another example that I recently came across in New York Times. The architect critic, Kilmellon, talked about public libraries, two branch public libraries in New York City, one in, I believe, Harlem and the other one in Queens that have built on top of the library, affordable housing. So it's combining this third space, a library with affordable housing

to take advantage of that land to create housing that could be used. So I think that is a good example, but the article really talked about the difficulty of getting that through the public process and the complications of regulations and things like that. But there are good examples out there. I do have to say, Shai, my summation of this episode,

One is we've laughed a lot less on this episode. We usually have some good laughs. This one is just, this is like, it's heartbreaking when we talk about this. And it's, we haven't talked about technology because this seems to be like, this is a community infrastructure and community infrastructure is not physical infrastructure. And you can't apply technology or engineering to solving this. requires

Seyi Fabode (33:11.962)
Yes, that is true. That is true.

Reza (33:38.44)
a complex set of policies and approaches to really address it. I think that's the reason why this is such a challenging one to tackle.

Seyi Fabode (33:54.85)
It is, and that observation is so true. Even in the writing and the working on the episode as I was running and walking across downtown Atlanta and taking these pictures, it was tough for me because it's so tangible how much needs to be done here.

Seyi Fabode (34:27.438)
It's not as tangible what the solutions are because it's more policy related as you've said. yes, but we're hopeful. And I think that's what always keeps us going here. We believe that the future of cities for all will one, include all and the will and the desire by all involved to ensure equitable cities in the future.

Reza (34:43.186)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (34:54.914)
will, I always say this, that there's as much good and positive stuff going on in the direction we need it to be, even if it's not as obvious as some of the struggles we share.

Reza (35:01.404)
Yes.

Reza (35:08.828)
Yeah. Yeah. I have a great example of this in Mailbag. Are we ready to transition? yeah. So, listeners, we have this Mailbag section where we take your input, your ideas, and share it with the rest of us that are listening. And last week, my friend Tulsi, she listened to the Parks and Public Spaces episode, and she sent me an example of a community

Seyi Fabode (35:14.896)
Please. Yes, we should.

Reza (35:39.174)
that has taken a public park called Festival Beach, it's along the Colorado River, and they're creating a food forest, which I'd never heard of, but it's similar to a community garden. So a community garden, you create a space where you grow vegetables and other things, but a food forest is where you encourage the natural growth of trees that have fruits and nuts and things and bushes that have berries and other types of things, and it's for the public good.

they're trying to create this food forest in this public park in East Austin that is underserved, both from a parks perspective, as well as being a food desert. And this is a great example of community activists trying to solve the problem, you know, with a public space, but also, you know, this is an example of trying to address that inequity by making a space that's not just welcome for all, but also can serve that community.

Seyi Fabode (36:16.058)
Yes. Yes.

Seyi Fabode (36:31.643)
Yes.

Reza (36:38.076)
with the fruits of it, the fruits of that party. Yeah, I love it. So thank you, Tulsi.

Seyi Fabode (36:40.826)
That is fantastic. That's a really good one. Thank you, Tulsi. And I have one too that is tied to, again, the Parks and Public Spaces episode. And this comes from a good friend of mine, Eric, owns one of the independent bookstores in Austin with his wife. So please check out Black Pearl Books. I'll always give them a shout

And he responds to the episode by saying, I've had interesting interactions with parks. I grew up in Tulsa, maybe four miles north of historic Black Wall Street. My family was lower middle class in a typical lower income Black area. However, the park system was impressive. All of the parks had green space, but most also had community centers that included indoor basketball courts. The overall utility of the spaces were very high for the citizens of the city.

But as budget constraints increased, parks were improved, but the buildings went away. No more indoor basketball or public spaces for community meetings. And as a result, lower income residents were effectively having to pay for indoor practice space or community gathering space from private enterprises. Remember, we touched on this. Definitely negative impact on the community and the economic sustainability of

Reza (37:58.984)
Yeah.

Seyi Fabode (38:07.472)
community. again, cities for the people, working for all people. Eric, thank you so much for sharing that personal example. We're not just making these things up. This is what is happening in cities across the world. So thank you for reminding us of the value of public spaces and parks and how they're part of the community building fabric of our cities.

Reza (38:21.596)
now.

Reza (38:36.636)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Seyi, this has been a hard episode, but I think we're ending up on a hopeful note. There are these good examples in Atlanta. There are these good examples that were shared in our mailbag. So we ask all our listeners

Obviously like and subscribe, rate and review, that always helps. But more important, take a minute, share it with one friend that you think that would enjoy this. Our audience is growing, Seyi. We had our best episode last week and we're very excited that people are responding and enjoying what we're sharing. Keep the mailbags coming.

Seyi Fabode (39:06.118)
Yes.

Seyi Fabode (39:11.172)
Yes, it is. Last week,

Seyi Fabode (39:23.428)
Yes, thank you so much for listening. as always, Reza, thank you for always exploring this rich and complex topics with such nuance. I think that's what our audience enjoys and we'll keep doing

Reza (39:39.686)
Yes. Thanks everyone. Bye.

Seyi Fabode (39:41.914)
Thank you, bye.