• Executive Summary
• What is equity?
• Equity & wealth
• Equity & opportunity
• Equity & power
• Equity between communities
• Equity between generations
• Resources

Executive Summary

It seems unlikely that a sustainable community will be one of gross inequities, because of the inevitable conflict and strife that result. If we believe that sustainability is a result of equity as much as it is a healthy economy and ecology, then we need to make some effort to identify and minimize the injustices and inequities that are around us.

What is equity?

Equity is a perception that things are just and fair. This does not necessarily mean all people are equal, or have equal amounts, but that the distribution of wealth, opportunity, and power is seen to be fair. Equity, as with justice and fairness, is subjective and difficult to measure, and while most of us support the idea of fairness, we do not all agree on what is fair. What we consider to be equitable is very much based on our values and ethics.

Unfortunately, inequitable situations are defended with statements like 'The poor will always be with us' and 'Our productive economy depends on people being motivated by competition and inequity, and so there are naturally winners and losers.'

Equity & wealth

Is our wealth only measured by the goods and resources that have economic value for us, or does it include intangibles like health and strong relationships? Wealth can be defined to mean not just money and property but more broadly to include social and natural capital.

When we speak of equity and wealth, we ask about the fairness of the distribution of goods and resources. We include things with monetary value as well as other things currently not valued by our economy like clean air and water, healthy forests and farmland, and strong communities.

Our culture rewards us more for accumulating and controlling than it does for giving away and sharing. We are conditioned to always be thinking about 'keeping up with the Jones' and about getting ahead. On the other hand, cultures or programs of equity are quick to be labeled as being socialist or communist, and are derided.

Equity & opportunity

Our cultural story tells us that it is O.K. if wealth is distributed inequitably as long as people all have access to opportunities. Thus we can say that the wealthy are that way because they worked hard and the poor are poor because they are lazy and have not taken advantage of opportunities. This thinking leads us away from any redistribution of wealth and toward programs that provide 'opportunities.'

In the United States we tend to put great stock in rags to riches stories and believe that even the poorest ghetto child has some real chance of growing up to be President. Along with this we believe that people by and large get what they deserve.

Equity & power

We all feel some pressure to 'climb the ladder' of success, which means we are expected to be interested in increasing our power and our status. Discussions of power are usually not comfortable ones as they bring up underlying issues of class, gender, ethnicity and other issues we would rather not talk about.

We unnecessarily restrict our alternatives when we see all power as being about domination of others. There is also a power in being able to do things for ourselves, and in being able to cooperate with others. Just as we need to redefine wealth, we need to rethink power.

Equity between communities

The relative equity or sustainability of our community is not always easy to judge. As Seattle and other Northwest cities transition into a post-industrial information age, we are getting better at cleaning up our own air and water, and we are learning to recycle. But at the same time we are importing our food, energy and materials from ever greater distances, and similarly exporting our wastes far out of sight.

Our own city may look better while other parts of the world are very much the worse for our wear and tear. In this sense we appropriate sustainability from other communities as we bring wealth, opportunity and power to ourselves while taking it from others.

Equity between generations

Equity between generations is often defined as considering the impacts of our actions on each of the next seven generations. This type of long-term thinking and planning does not come easily for us these days. Instead we are more driven by the short-term, by the cycles of business and politics, by quarterly profits and election returns. Our economics and our politics value the present and discount the future. True respect for the future would mean finding ways to value such actions as the building of communities, the conserving of soil, and the maintenance of forests. This all seems to call for a conservative thinking, not in the sense of blindly maintaining the status quo, but in terms of conserving and increasing wealth and opportunity for the communities who will be inheriting our legacies.

Resources

Bullard, Robert D. ed. 1993. Confronting environmental racism: voices from the grassroots. South End Press: Boston.

Castells, Manuell. 1978. City class and power. St. Martin's Press: London.

Krumholz, Norman, and Pierre Clavel. 1994. Reinventing cities: equity planners tell their stories. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.