District Council Partnerships for Health Equity
Charting a More Equitable Future
Understanding the past is one of the first steps towards a more equitable future. In August, five District Councils — in British Columbia, Houston, Northwest, St. Louis, and Toronto — began work to understand historic inequities and racial discrimination in land use, and to craft creative strategies to address the ongoing impacts of these policies on community health and wealth disparities.
Participating district councils were identified via a competitive process open to all district councils in North America. Each participating district council will carefully cultivate partnerships with other local organizations; engage in robust member engagement; create compelling maps and data which tell their local stories; and examine the health and wealth legacy impacts of discriminatory policies and practices.
Finally, District Councils will use this work to create compelling action agendas for advancing antiracism and health equity in real estate. Action plans will emphasize tangible steps for real estate, in addition to broader policy recommendations. Local outcomes and synthesis materials documenting the work will be published in Spring 2023.
Participating district councils and their areas of focus include:
ULI District Councils Address Health Effects of Racial Disparities in Real Estate,
Urban Land Online (May 2022)
- ULI British Columbia: Overcoming housing barriers in indigenous communities
- ULI Houston: Fostering an equitable vision with Settegast
- ULI Northwest: Advancing healthy, community-centric growth
- ULI St. Louis: Amplifying the physical & mental aspects of housing quality
- ULI Toronto: Tracking historical displacement of Black communities
Lessons from this work will be shared across the greater District Councils network and amongst the wider ULI membership throughout the program.
This program is being coordinated by ULI’s Building Healthy Places Initiative with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Program Resources
- Partnership Fact Sheet
- Watch: Partnership Overview Presentation (mp4)
- View: Partnership Overview Presentation (pdf)
Background Resources
- Peer Project: ULI District Council Taskforces for Health and Social Equity
- Redlining: Mapping Inequality | ArcGIS Living Atlas
- Urban Renewal: Renewing Inequality
- Interactive exhibit: Undesign the Redline
- Video: Segregated by Design
- Video: CBS 60 Minutes – Racism’s corrosive impact on the health of Black Americans
- Article: NYT – The ‘New Redlining’ Is Deciding Who Lives in Your Neighborhood