SmartCities.org

The Clean Air Action Network and ILSR conducted a webinar focused on reuse enterprises and their potential for local and regional economic growth. Presentations featured model enterprises, networks and policies. Watch it here!… Read More

Labor and small business were once natural allies in a New Deal coalition that backed muscular policies to limit corporate power and build a thriving middle class. A growing antimonopoly movement is rekindling this alliance, writes Stacy Mitchell in The New York Times.… Read More

The following is a round-up of recycling legislation in Maine, Colorado, Washington, and other states that have recently considered innovative new legislative approaches to recycling.
… Read More

“Unless you force some divestiture of assets, [monopolies are] going to just keep going the way they are… Yes, breakup[s have] to be on the table when it comes to these companies,” Senator Klobuchar at a town hall event co-hosted by Small Business Rising. She was responding to a question posed by an independent bookstore owner in Minneapolis.… Read More

For this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, host John Farrell and guest Danny Kennedy discuss rooftop solar revolutions, Kennedy’s work at New Energy Nexus, and the importance of innovation in the energy sector. … Read More

A new fact sheet from ILSR explains how Amazon is crushing independent businesses, detailing eight specific ways that Amazon abuses its market dominance to hurt smaller competitors.… Read More

Amazon is crushing independent businesses — and most Americans believe it needs to be reined in. In this fact sheet, we explain why Congress must act in order to check Amazon’s outsized power and allow small business to compete online.… Read More

Given the rapidly changing “future of work” space and the impact on our cities over the last 15 months, I decided to catch up with Robert Hoyle Brown to get the latest trends and insights on where we are now and where we are headed next.

Their new report “21 Places of the Future” touches on the key drivers for the creation of jobs in relation to place. We discussed how architectural heritage is tied to jobs and place. We also discussed how people matter and the future role of philosophers and ethicists in our data-driven world. Given the recent cyber attacks on US companies, we discussed the role of cybersecurity as a driver for the creation of jobs, including the jobs of cyber attack agent and cyber calamity forecaster. And we discussed the future of virtual workplaces. Here to stay, go, or evolve? Take a look.

At Living Cities, at the core of our racial equity work and values is an underpinning belief that to truly achieve our mission and work we must be intentional about operating under values of racial equity at every level and at every step of the work. Embedding racial equity into an organizational culture requires intentional work every single day. On a personal level, it can require a lifetime of studying, learning and unlearning which can seem daunting. Rooted in these understandings, we’ve come to understand that racial equity is a process rather than an outcome that can be checked off a to-do list. We seek to move beyond the binary thinking that suggests there is an “end” or that some people are “on top” or “more successful” when it comes to racial equity.

With our Closing the Gaps Network, we’ve been exploring and deepening our understanding of what it looks like to practice racial equity as a process in our work. We believe that to do so, practitioners need to reflect on the person/role/system framework to deepen their analysis and thus further embed equity into their processes as they’re making decisions. Racial equity work is inherently about changing the culture of institutions therefore understanding process change is critical for success.

We hope this resource will allow readers to adapt our agenda to create space for you to reflect on your personal practice so that you can model what this daily person-and role-level work looks like as you support work that aims to close racial gaps in income and wealth. We hope this resource will allow you to adapt our agenda to enhance your own ability to see how racial equity is a practice and a process.

Credit to Shammara Wright, Alyssa Smaldino and Thiara Falcon for developing the agenda and discussion questions for this session on racial equity as a process. 

 

AGENDA

Purpose: Create space for participants to have space to reflect on their person-level work as organizers and leaders of teams trying to advance racial equity. Participants get a deeper sense of how the person/role/system framework can support and deepen their racial equity processes.

Total time: 60 mins

Check-In: Start with a check-in that grounds people in culture, humanity and/or creativity. We used the podcast below, but our check-in resource has more options for you to consider. (You can also come up with your own!) 

[5 mins] Listen to Sunstone Podcast SEASON 1, EP. 3, clip from 12:25 – 16:51)

Alicia Garza and Ai-Jen Poo discuss their early experiences in organizing in their podcast, Sunstorm. 

[10 mins] In pairs participants discuss..

Share a time when you worked with others towards change.

How did you participate in movement building?

How did you feel during that experience?

 

Leading Racial Equity as a Process

[10 mins] Review Living Cities, racial equity competency framework

[20 mins] Journal on your own..

To enact & lead REI practices & processes…

• What competencies do you most need to develop? Your team? (reference LC competency framework)
• What are you personally devoted to at P/R/S levels? (template – devotion chart)

[15 mins] Small group conversation:

What came up for you in your personal reflections?

What advice or support might you get from this group to stay devoted to your personal practice and your visions for your team?

 

This resource is a template that you can adapt to your organizational needs. We hope that it helps you build your practice of defying white supremacy culture. If it does, or if you want to learn more about anything we’re sharing, let us know by emailing racialequity@livingcities.org.

Illustration by Alicia Brown

ILSR Co-Director Stacy Mitchell issued a statement in response to today’s release of legislation from the House Judiciary Committee designed to address the outsized power and destructive harms of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook. “The introduction of this legislation marks a major step forward in the effort to break the monopolistic grip of Big Tech and safeguard our economy and democracy,” Mitchell said. … Read More