1st Edition

Progressive Planning Practice Transforming Communities of Color

Edited By Sean Robin Copyright 2026
322 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

322 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

322 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book provides justification, a framework and examples for an emergent alternative approach to planning and community development. Planning, design and community development have often been practiced in a monocultural way, as if all communities are the same, meaning that communities of color and low-income communities are often overlooked or ignored, if not outright harmed. This book... Read more

Land Acknowledgment

Michaela P. Shirley and Scott Moore y Medina

Foreword

Norma Rantisi

Introduction

Sean Robin

Part I. Transformative Planning

Chapter 1: Learning from Mel King: Transformative Planner, Activist, Educator and Thinker

Marie Kennedy, Sean Robin and Chris Tilly

Chapter 2: Transformative Planning in Practice: Challenges and Strategies

Chris Tilly and Marie Kennedy

Part II. Planning from Black Communities/African Diaspora Perspectives

Chapter 3: Black Planning Project’s 4P Approach: People, Place, Pedagogy and Practice

Abigail Moriah and Hanaa Ali

Chapter 4: Perspectives from an Early 21st-Century Black Planner

Byron Anthony Nicholas

Part III. Indigenous Planning/Tribal and Pacific Island Perspectives

Chapter 5: Seven Generations: A Role for Artists in Zuni PlaceKnowing

Theodore (Ted) Jojola and Michaela P. Shirley

Chapter 6: Beyond Refusal: Balancing Colonial Land Ownership in Planning

Nihok’aa Diyin Dine’é Bikéyah [This author is the Land] and M. Joaquin Lopez-Huertas

Chapter 7: Planning Against Imperialism: Towards a Global and Transnational Indigenous Planning

Kevin Lujan Lee and Josh Campbell

 

Part IV. Planning from Latino Communities/Puerto Rican Perspectives

Chapter 8: Strategies to Protect and Enhance the Political and Cultural Capital of Puerto Ricans in Chicago

Teresa Córdova and Jessica “Jessie” Fuentes

 

Part V. Housing

Chapter 9: Beyond the House: Decolonial Housing for a Just Future

Anaid Yerena

 

Part VI. Ethics

Chapter 10: Love Ethics to Guide Planning/Policy Transformation

Margaretta Wan-Ling Lin

Part VII. Prison Abolition and Planning

Chapter 11: A Place for Planning in Abolition and Transformative Justice?

Courtney Knapp, A.J. Kim, Carolina Sarmiento and Sheryl-Ann Simpson

Part VIII. Political Mobilizing and Organizing

Chapter 12: Mobilizing Communities of Color for Housing Policy Change

Alejandra Reyes

Part IX. Storytelling and Film

Chapter 13: Sa Amin: Our Place - Film’s Transformative Planning Potential

Fay Darmawi

Part X. Environmental and Climate Justice

Chapter 14: Seeing Indigenous Peoples in Urban Environmental and Climate Justice: Transformations and Intersectionalities

Sharon Hausam and Lauren Mullenbach

Chapter 15. A Blues Epistemology for Climate Futures

Mia Charlene White

About the Authors

Index

Biography

Sean Robin has worked for decades in New York in the community development field, including through promoting supportive housing and cooperative home ownership and through sponsoring authentically participatory processes. He is founding editor of Indigenous Planning Times, is on the steering committee of Planners Network and co-initiated the BIPOC Planning Collective.