about the initiative
The following City Snapshots introduce 13 community-led transportation projects in cities across the country and offer a glimpse into the historical legacies that have created the conditions these communities seek to change.
The snapshots include mobility legacies for each city. They outline past policy decisions–like forced migration, segregation, and highway siting — that have shaped today’s transportation challenges, socioeconomic outcomes, and population shifts. These throughlines reveal structural harms embedded in city infrastructure and highlight opportunities for cities and project teams to successfully engage in reparative work.
The City Snapshots are a tool to help local project teams contextualize their efforts, plan in ways that acknowledge and repair historic harms, and communicate effectively about their work.
ROOTED IN MOBILITY JUSTICE
These City Snapshots draw from principles of mobility justice: the idea that everyone should be able to move safely, joyfully, and freely, and that the people living with a decision should help make it. Over the last decade, this notion has evolved into established practices within academic research, for grassroots organizing, and new approaches to planning practice, all asking the same question about power: Who gets to make decisions about who moves freely – and who doesn't?
Mobility justice begins with an understanding of the ways that transportation infrastructure and practices have historically excluded or harmed groups of people, particularly communities of color, in order to heal the harms of the past and build transportation systems that work for all.
Building systems that work for everyone requires that we acknowledge the unjust histories of mobility and economic prosperity in American cities.
A mobility justice approach to transportation planning includes facilitating dialogue, funding the participation of people and community organizations who are directly affected, and establishing partnerships that lead to the shared decision-making that is necessary for meaningful repair.
By taking a mobility justice approach, government agencies and elected officials can advance transportation policies, programs, and projects that bring community-driven visions to life.
Each City Snapshot offers local historical context related to mobility justice. The mobility legacies are organized according to five themes.
These mobility legacies do not provide exhaustive histories of the cities. Rather, they point to harmful policies and decisions and, subsequently, opportunities for repair and reconnection.
forced migrations
Industrialization and Uneven Economic Mobility
Urban Renewal & Disruption
Ecological & Environmental Impacts
Public Safety
city snapshots
The City Snapshots are offered as a tool to help cities, advocates, and decision-makers find connections between existing mobility conditions and historic harms. Reconnecting Communities project teams can use this information to identify impacted communities for partnership in co-creating community-based solutions that reflect the needs and visions of those most affected by transportation inequities.
