Place, Race, and Equity Legislative Watch
Welcome to the Place, Race, and Equity Legislative Watch. We will be tracking proposed federal legislation by Congress that impact the fight to eliminate place-based inequality. Before proposed legislation becomes law, it is reviewed by an internal committee, then must pass a House vote, Senate vote, and finally be approved by the President. Through at least 2018, the Senate and House Majority are Republican. For context, according to the Library of Congress, the 114th Congress proposed 18,747 bills, resulting in 113 laws in the 2015-2016 session.
Read More
Director's Comments on Mt. Laurel
Fair housing under the Mt. Laurel doctrine is resurrected in New Jersey. On January 18th, days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump would unsettle expectations of HUD’s role in supporting federal fair housing, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the vitality of the state’s own constitutional requirement that all municipalities provide their “fair share” of the regional need for affordable housing. That constitutional requirement had been dead for 18 years, thanks to recalcitrance by the governor and the state regulatory body—the Council on Affordable Housing …
Read More
Dispatches from Terrell Homes
The Terrell Homes public housing project, with over 200 units situated in Newark’s Ironbound area, has again been proposed for demolition by the Newark Housing Authority, in the face of residents’ protests. The Terrell Homes is comprised of primarily black residents, who make up 10% of the 07105 zip code where the housing development sits; demolition of the units could significantly lower the proportion of black residents in the Ironbound neighborhood and therefore violate the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.
Read More
New Report on Thriving U.S. Suburbs
"Suburban housing markets across the United States are evolving rapidly and overall remain well-positioned to maintain their relevance in the years ahead as the places where most Americans live and work, even as many urban cores and downtown neighborhoods continue to attract new residents and businesses, according to a new publication from the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
Read More
CLiME 1Q Survey: What is the Greater Newark Area?
Metropolitan equity is the idea that all parts of a region are relevant to the distribution of opportunity in any part of that region. As CLiME continues our work on metropolitan equity in the Greater Newark Area, we invite our readers to help us define the geographical boundaries of the Greater Newark Area.
Read More
What We're Reading
1. A new report by the Urban Land Institute provides a nuanced view of U.S. suburbs, including classification, maps, and important insights for policy and planning. 2. Frameworks Institute, a research organization that applies the cognitive and social sciences to policy messaging, has released recommendations for a variety of equity-related topics, including criminal justice and affordable housing. 3. The Coalition on Human Needs issued the Human Needs Report summarizing current actions of the 115th Congress in the areas of safety net, healthcare and labor, as well as a freeze on all new agency regulations.
Read More
2016's Top Visualizations of Inequality and Equity
Equity is not just an ideal to admire. It can be defined, measured, and mapped. Visualizations are an increasingly important medium to communicate our values in a digital era. We have compiled some of the best visualizations that came our way this past year that featured measures of inequality and equity. We commend the researchers and institutions for their commitment and investment to this work.
Read More
TSP Report Release: "A Critical Review of the Psychological Literature"
It is with great pride that the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) announces the release of our literature review for the Trauma, Schools and Poverty Project (TSP). "A Critical Review of the Psychological Literature" provides a critical and comprehensive review of the empirical literature literature on the sequelae of childhood exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), with special emphasis on low socioeconomic status populationsat disparate risk for exposure to PTEs across the lifespan.
Read More
School Spending and Educational Outcomes in New Jersey
Last week, the New York Times reported on fundamental changes occurring to the State of Connecticut's public school financing, in response to a decade long lawsuit claiming that the state's poorest districts were producing poor outcomes. Supported by new research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the New York Times concluded: "In the long run, over comparable time frames, states that send additional money to their lowest-income school districts see more academic improvement in those districts than states that don’t. The size of the effect was significant."
Read More
New Report by the Urban Institute: A Vision for an Equitable D.C.
The inequality that the report examines is heavily correlated with race; and the report also expounds upon how the amelioration of racial disparities would benefit not only people of color, but the District of Columbia as a whole. Specifically, the report cites the National Equity Atlas which predicted that if black and brown DC residents had income parity with white DC residents, the DC economy would have been more than $65 billion larger in 2012.
Read More
Backlash In The Name Of Inequality
The presidential election that was too vulgar for us to write about, with accusations too inarticulate to describe policies, and an intimidating atmosphere of racist, nativist and sexist extremism inflaming every imaginable social division, finally received the emotional outcome it created. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in a historic upset destined to be known as the ultimate political demand for change. For those dedicated to working against structural inequality, this may be the transformative change we …
Read More
Canary On The Riverbank: Terrell Homes And Newark’s Problem With Gentrification, Part I
This past September, CLiME began this series on housing issues in Newark by reporting on a demonstration at City Hall, part of the National Tenants Day of Action. I met many organizers and tenants from the Terrell Homes, who have been fighting to preserve the residences of over 200 families in this public housing development located in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood. Terrell first made headlines in 2014 as the tenants fought against talks of demolition. Now the Newark Housing Authority …
Read More
The Luxury Of Disappointment: What Rick James Knew 30 Years Before The International Monetary Fund
This election is giving me high blood pressure, and I don’t mean the man in the Great Pumpkin outfit who is running for president. No, my friends, it is the folks on “my side” who bring me despair. The blue-hairs and kids that can afford to work in politics and policy are of the same breed and dependent on the same hierarchy that they claim to be against. Case in point: in a moment of panic I recently volunteered at a local political organization. They told me that they needed to hire five part-time workers at $10 per hour.
Read More
Changing A Community Of Violence: An Interview With Jack Farrell, LCSW
“Given the right resources and opportunity, people can bring about a change in their lives,” community organizer and social worker Jack Farrell explains to me. For over 40 years, Farrell has served as a bridge between community members and policymakers to address issues of trauma and violence in Northern New Jersey. His career started with substance abuse recovery– “and I see violence in the same way,” Farrell explains, “it’s a learned behavior.”
Read More
Equity & Opportunity Studies Fellowship Updates
Our 2015-2016 Equity and Opportunity Studies Fellows have spent the Spring semester completing coursework with Prof. Troutt and advancing their qualitative research projects that span an array of issues in place-based inequality and opportunity, including the topics of Diverse and Inclusive, Moderate-Income municipalities (DIMIs) to accompany the ongoing work by David Ruske and David Troutt; investigation into the impact of state takeover in troubled cities, including Camden and Atlantic City; interrogation of the theoretical benefits of localism in two affluent …
Read More
CLiME’s Trauma, Schools And Poverty Project (TSP)
Beginning in the fall of 2015, CLiME’s Trauma, Schools and Poverty Project (TSP) is a multi-year effort to understand the relationships between structural inequality and the pervasive experience of complex psychological stress and trauma. Psychological research has demonstrated the cumulative destructive effects caused by exposure to complex trauma—traumatic experiences linked to school and community violence, family separation as well as domestic abuse and neglect that are often repetitive, if not continuous—on children and adults, especially those …
Read More
Trauma-Informed Care Roundtable On April 15, 2016
The Center on Law, Inequality & Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) was proud to host the Trauma-Informed Care Roundtable on April 15th, 2016 at the Rutgers School of Law-Newark, co-sponsored with the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. CLiME Director David Troutt and Assistant Attorney General Wanda Moore served as the facilitators for three panels on the following topics: Understanding Trauma in Adults and Children, Understanding Trauma-Informed Care Practices in Action, and Understanding the Capacity to Provide Trauma-Informed Care.
Read More
Fulfilling Martin Luther King Jr.'S Dream: The Role For Higher Education
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Why We Can’t Wait“ to dispel the notion that African Americans should be content to proceed on an incremental course toward full equality under the law and in the wider society. King observed, “Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.” Yet waiting and whispering, rather than raising their voices for genuine inclusion, is what many seem to expect of the children and grandchildren of King’s generation even today.
Read More
Addicted Black Lives Matter (Too)
When President Obama visited the Rutgers Law School on November 2nd, it represented the startling achievement of two dream-like goals. First was the sheer specter of the occasion—seeing our president suddenly in our home, flanked by new flags and the familiar bars that adorn our atrium’s spiral stairs. Second was the occasion itself: to meet in a roundtable with formerly incarcerated persons and then to deliver a speech intended to reverse—by executive order—one of the single greatest public policy failures in American history.
Read More
Disappearing Acts: Reflecting On New Orleans 10 Years After Katrina
In this season of anniversaries, no two are more stark in their parallels than Ferguson a year after the shooting of Michael Brown and New Orleans 10 years after Hurricane Katrina killed 1,800 and displaced thousands. Both involve the senseless loss of black lives and the public horror at revelations long known in many isolated communities. Each said a lot about race relations in a country where the “postracial” election of the first black president suggested that we were too far beyond Katrina to produce Ferguson. Each also speaks of structural inequality and the idea of disappearance.
Read More
