Embedded Planning in Environmental Justice Communities: Three Takeaways for Practice

It starts with putting your feet on the ground.

Honorees Cynthia Babich and Cynthia Medina of the Del Amo Action Committee speaking at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust Garden Party 2022. The fundraiser was held at the soon-to-open Wishing Tree Park in unincorporated West Carson, CA. [Photo by Jonathan Pacheco Bell]

Embedded Planning at the Environmental Justice Enforcement Symposium

The Los Angeles Environmental Justice Network and Del Amo Action Committee (DAAC) in West Carson co-organize the annual Environmental Justice Enforcement Symposium. The focus is environmental racism, which disproportionately burdens working-class communities of color. Homes near industrial factories suffer from noxious air, toxic soils, polluted water, and other environmental ills. This symposium unites local and state agencies and community advocates to share practical lessons for achieving environmental justice. Regulators and residents, often at odds over enforcement efficacy, put aside their differences to educate each other.

I delivered my first Environmental Justice Enforcement talk in 2019. The symposium was held at the California Endowment nestled between Chinatown and Placita Olvera in Downtown LA. At the time, I was thirteen years into my work as an LA County Zoning Enforcement Planner with a track record of writings and public talks on community-based code enforcement. For the panel “Local Land Use Policy: Community Involvement,” symposium organizers…