05 Center Community Leadership In Design & Planning Processes

Design Justice demands that we center community leadership in the design process across a range of project scales, types, and scopes to support community organizing and self-determination.

Design practice is predominantly driven by a patronage model of project financing which places power and control in the hands of policy makers, government actors and private investors, individuals who are removed from the immediate implications of their actions. This model of design conventionally excludes the very communities and people that will be directly and indirectly affected by implementation of a spatial project or policy. We must dismantle the oppressive systems of colonialism, racism, and injustice that shape our design, policy and planning processes.

In response, models of community outreach and engagement have grown in use and requirement within cities and design practices, yet, alone they are inadequate for accomplishing community self-determination. Traditional practices of community outreach are non-participatory and only involve the dissemination of information. Community engagement processes involve varying levels of interaction and participation with stakeholders but tend to focus solely on extractive data collection without accountability for corresponding action.

We need to move beyond outreach and engagement towards organizing with communities to build power, shift political will and create equitable change that is self-determined by the people directly impacted by the issue. As designers we have to begin by immersing ourselves within a community, to acknowledge the past negative impacts of racist and capitalist design, and build trust amongst all involved. We must empower community leaders - long standing residents and stakeholders within a community - in the design process and ensure their collective knowledge, experiences and values direct the ideation and implementation of a project across all scales, types and scopes of practice.