TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 710: Practical Approaches for Involving Traditionally Underserved Populations in Transportation Decisionmaking highlights tools, techniques, and approaches for identifying and connecting with populations that have traditionally been underserved and underrepresented in transportation decisionmaking.
The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice presents an extensive and cutting-edge introduction to the diverse, rapidly growing body of research on pressing issues of environmental justice and injustice. With wide-ranging discussion of current debates, controversies, and questions in the history, theory, and methods of environmental justice research, contributed by over 90 leading social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and scholars from professional disciplines from six continents, it is an essential resource both for newcomers to this research and for experienced scholars and practitioners. The chapters of this volume examine the roots of environmental justice activism, lay out and assess key theories and approaches, and consider the many different substantive issues that have been the subject of activism, empirical research, and policy development throughout the world. The Handbook features critical reviews of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodological approaches and explicitly addresses interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and engaged research. Instead of adopting a narrow regional focus, it tackles substantive issues and presents perspectives from political and cultural systems across the world, as well as addressing activism for environmental justice at the global scale. Its chapters do not simply review the state of the art, but also propose new conceptual frameworks and directions for research, policy, and practice. Providing detailed but accessible overviews of the complex, varied dimensions of environmental justice and injustice, the Handbook is an essential guide and reference not only for researchers engaged with environmental justice, but also for undergraduate and graduate teaching and for policymakers and activists.
This guide was written as a quick primer for transportation professionals and analysts who assess the impacts of proposed transportation actions on communities. It outlines the community impact assessment process, highlights critical areas that must be examined, identifies basic tools and information sources, and stimulates the thought-process related to individual projects. In the past, the consequences of transportation investments on communities have often been ignored or introduced near the end of a planning process, reducing them to reactive considerations at best. The goals of this primer are to increase awareness of the effects of transportation actions on the human environment and emphasize that community impacts deserve serious attention in project planning and development-attention comparable to that given the natural environment. Finally, this guide is intended to provide some tips for facilitating public involvement in the decision making process.
State and local governments must designate a metro. planning org. (MPO) in each urbanized area with a population of 50,000 or more to help plan surface transport. infrastructure and services. MPOs are subordinate to state departments of transport. in the planning and selecting of projects using fed. surface transport. funds. Contents of this report: (1) The Metro. Transport. Planning Process; (2) Issues for Congress: Decision-Making Authority of MPOs; Surface Transport. Assist. Act of 2009; Perspectives on MPO Authority; Representation and Participation in MPOs; MPO Funding and Tech. Capacity; MPOs and ¿Livability/Sustainability¿ Initiatives; Climate Change Mitigation, Compact Cities, and Transport.; Long-Range Planning; Freight Transport. Illustrations.
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
The lack of access to transportation among low-income groups is increasingly being recognised as a barrier to employment and social inclusion both in Britain and the United States. This work looks at the delivery of transport from a social policy perspective to assist in a better understanding of this issue.
In 1996, the Federal Highway Administration initiated efforts to re-educate transportation professionals and enhance their expertise on how to address possible adverse social, economic, and environmental effects during project planning, development, and decision making. A user-friendly primer, "Community Impact Assessment," was published in September 1996 on how to conduct a community impact assessment to address the impacts of proposed transportation actions on communities, neighborhoods, and people. To complement the primer, this document, "Community Impact Mitigation: Case Studies," provides examples of how transportation projects have been planned, designed, and constructed to be neighborhood friendly; avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts; and, where appropriate, enhance the livability of communities and neighborhoods. This document contains five case studies: Community Mitigation and Enhancement - Durham, North Carolina; Community Cohesion - Oak Park, Michigan; Community Preservation - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Community Reconstruction - Seattle, Washington; and Community Revitalization - Prichard, Alabama.
