The legal history of the United States is full of laws designed to exclude and segregate the racialized other. This reading list recommends scholarship that sheds light on that history.
Desiree Valadares presents a reading list that explores "the law’s historical role in the constitution of space, place, the body, and various other modalities of belonging in the U.S."
"The focus lies primarily on integrating legal history texts into architectural scholarship to examine race (and its intersections) and to trace changing legal notions of property, territory, nationhood, and citizenship," explains Valaderes.
Reading recommendations on two themes, exclusion and segregation, follow.
The first theme, Exclusion, is concerned with the ways in which the Right of First Possession, Trespass Laws, Vagrancy Laws, Nuisance Laws, Zoning and Eviction excludes and “others” undesirable groups.
The second, Segregation, looks at Alien Land Acts, Zoning Laws, Restrictive Covenants, Historic Districting, Redlining, Utility Easements, and Right-of-Way isolates and divides space.
FULL STORY: Race, Space, and the Law
The Pseudoscientific Foundations of Racist Planning Practices
Racist and colonialist narratives in old geography textbooks help explain the prevalence of segregationist and discriminatory policies and other nasty planning practices. It’s time to understand and reconcile.
In Defense of Asian American Neighborhoods
How do you address a history of anti-Asian housing discrimination? Not by destroying Asian American communities.
Removing Urban Highways Can Improve Neighborhoods Blighted by Decades of Racist Policies
More money from the infrastructure bill now moving through Congress should go toward dismantling racist infrastructure in the United States, according to this article.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
Canada vs. Kamala: Whose Liberal Housing Platform Comes Out on Top?
As Canada votes for a new Prime Minister, what can America learn from the leading liberal candidate of its neighbor to the north?
The Five Most-Changed American Cities
A ranking of population change, home values, and jobs highlights the nation’s most dynamic and most stagnant regions.
San Diego Adopts First Mobility Master Plan
The plan provides a comprehensive framework for making San Diego’s transportation network more multimodal, accessible, and sustainable.
Housing, Supportive Service Providers Brace for Federal Cuts
Organizations that provide housing assistance are tightening their purse strings and making plans for maintaining operations if federal funding dries up.
Op-Ed: Why an Effective Passenger Rail Network Needs Government Involvement
An outdated rail network that privileges freight won’t be fixed by privatizing Amtrak.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions