Unequal Protection Revisited: Planning for Environmental Justice, Hazard Vulnerability, and Critical Infrastructure in Communities of Color with Marccus Hendricks

Cities@Tufts Lectures

The impact of hazard exposures such as stormwater runoff is rarely evenly felt across a community. Neighborhoods of color, particularly of low-wealth, will often face worse stormwater problems especially in the era of climate change with more frequent and intense stormwater runoff.

In this Cities@Tufts open lecture, Dr. Marccus Hendricks will discuss the equity and environmental justice issues related to stormwater infrastructure planning that result in vulnerable systems leading to everyday challenges in stormwater and more extreme urban flooding. Specifically, he will examine conceptual frameworks and contextualize what it means for physical systems to operate in a social world.

He will also describe several ongoing studies where he investigates the inventory, condition, capacity, and distribution patterns of stormwater systems, along the lines of race, ethnicity, and income, at the neighborhood-level. Furthermore, as part of ongoing resilience efforts for catastrophic flood events, he will discuss opportunities at “leveling the landscape” in marginalized areas by planning for adaptations that integrate justice and participation into the redevelopment of community spaces.

In addition to this audio, you can watch the video and read the full transcript of their conversation onShareable.net, and while you’re there get caught up on past lectures.

Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman and host Tom Llewellyn.

Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from The Kresge Foundation.

Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants Meghan Tenhoff, and Perri Sheinbaum. Robert Raymond is our audio editor, Zanetta Jones manages communications and editorial, and the series is produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.

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