At our last coalition meeting was focused on discussing initial ideas for the development of an equity framework at Metro. The discussion was framed by presentations (see highlights below) from coalition members and a guest presentation by Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA).
Presentations Recap
Fernando Cazares, Trust for Public Land — Climate Smart Cities LA Decision Support Tool
The tool contains an amazing amount of data on population characteristics, environmental factors, and mobility access — essential data in equitable decision-making. Check it out for yourself at this site; click on “Portal” to get started; and anyone with a valid email address can create their own username and password to utilize the tool.
John Tangenberg, Council for Watershed Health — GIS mapping project
He showed us how and where urban heat island (UHI) hotspots correlate with low vegetation, low-income and industrial areas to create good places to pursue water recharge. See his slides here.
Shankar Prasad, OEHHA — CalEnviroScreen 3.0
He explained the considerations that went into the relative weighting of the different indicators, and how a recent indicator was added to capture housing cost burden. Our coalition encouraged and provided some good leads to help him include transportation cost burden in a future update of the tool. See his slides here.
Amanda Meza, Investing in Place — Equity Opportunity Zones
Investing in Place has mapped three equity indicators: household income, race/ethnicity and households with low vehicle ownership, and is considering additional variables. They are focused now on setting the right thresholds for these variables, in order to determine where in the region should be designated high priority. See her slides here.
We’ll continue the discussion at our next coalition meeting, where we’ll have a draft set of Equity indicators for you to weigh in on. If you’re interested in being a part of the working group that develops that draft, please subscribe to our mailing list for updates.
