TY - JOUR
T1 - Examining Spatial Opportunity for Local Action
T2 - From Theory to Practice
AU - Balachandran, Sowmya
AU - Greenlee, Andrew
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Opportunity assessments have served as crucial tools for advocacy and policy-based action to address variability in spatially distributed urban opportunity. However, despite the vast body of theoretical and normative frameworks for discerning the effects of space, the current practices of opportunity mapping do not provide grounded assessments of differences that disproportionately affect the poor and racial minorities. We analyze seventeen opportunity assessments from the last twenty years and find issues of construct validity, implicit racial bias, and limited interpretability of outputs. More importantly, symptomatic outcomes of historical marginalization are conflated with problems of material access in poor and minority neighborhoods.
AB - Opportunity assessments have served as crucial tools for advocacy and policy-based action to address variability in spatially distributed urban opportunity. However, despite the vast body of theoretical and normative frameworks for discerning the effects of space, the current practices of opportunity mapping do not provide grounded assessments of differences that disproportionately affect the poor and racial minorities. We analyze seventeen opportunity assessments from the last twenty years and find issues of construct validity, implicit racial bias, and limited interpretability of outputs. More importantly, symptomatic outcomes of historical marginalization are conflated with problems of material access in poor and minority neighborhoods.
KW - historical marginalization
KW - opportunity mapping
KW - planning practice
KW - racial bias
KW - spatial justice
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U2 - 10.1177/0739456x221088984
DO - 10.1177/0739456x221088984
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132609289
SN - 0739-456X
JO - Journal of Planning Education and Research
JF - Journal of Planning Education and Research
ER -