Unraveling Our Shared Mobility Justice History: Lessons from Creating the ERC City Snapshots

The Equitably Reconnecting Communities in Small and Midsize Cities Initiative provides capacity-building support and technical assistance to 14 “Community Connectors” teams. These teams are working in cities across the country to reconnect their communities and repair harms caused by transportation infrastructure.

As the strategy and learning partner for this initiative, Equivolve is working to uncover the connections between historical legacies and urban development to inform future policies that prevent the displacement of people and the destruction of local support cities and displacement, transportation policy, and community resilience. In this pursuit, the team embarked on creating City Snapshots for each of the participating cities in this initiative. By looking at the histories of these cities and regions, it becomes apparent just how connected we are and what it takes to build a more equitable, unbound future for us all.

Our Shared Urban Development History

Equivolve’s initial approach to finding a commonality between all 15 cities was to look for patterns. For most of them, again and again, we saw a familiar cycle: displacement, industrialization, de-industrialization, and back to displacement. When city planners and leaders felt that it was time for a city-wide facelift, communities were kicked out and replaced with large infrastructure projects. 

It's not just ‘Oh, well, in this city, this is the dark history.’ No, this is just how urban development happened in our country, right? Displacement, slaves, industrialization, de-industrialization, and freeways, but this is just a consistent thing, how can we start to look at that? Having the opportunity to see where that pattern was and what we could learn from it… and getting to find out that as much as there is a pattern across the country, what are the particular histories, and who are the people who had a relationship with the land and the ecosystem. - Adonia Lugo

Recognizing these patterns helps us understand ongoing urban challenges and develop solutions that prioritize fairness and accessibility, but digging into the individual richness of each city’s culture and the desires of its people is where the heart of each of these projects lies. How can our history inform and build a better future?  

The Power of Storytelling and Visual Representation

The next challenge for the Equivolve team was figuring out how to illustrate the historical patterns we saw across the cities and connect them to the story of what each of the Community Connector teams is doing on the ground. Our design partner, lover studio, brought these stories to life in an innovative way that listing out facts simply can’t. Each Community Connectors team was presented with an initial draft collage meant to represent their city’s history and the often forgotten narratives of each community that has called their city home. 

“We saw in the feedback to the collages, for example, where there were indigenous people featured and there was pushback on that. I think a layer that can become difficult is when there's harmed communities that have not been acknowledged in the work so far and you know there's multiple different communities that have been harmed. The project may focus on one or a few and there inevitably will be other groups that have been harmed that maybe this work isn't directly focusing on or involving or maybe they just never even thought about because this history seems so distant past… It's not that you know the work isn't good or worthwhile because it isn't addressing or including every single group… I think its just a point of tension that came out in this… Maybe its knowing that every single historical harm won't be resolved through this one project, but also not ignoring the harms that have happened to different groups in the past, and what do we learn from that awareness.” -Stephanie Moore, Senior Associate

The initial versions of the collages sparked conversations about what each team felt was central to their city’s history and the narrative of each project. Creating these snapshots meant working with a wide range of people with a variety of roles —city officials, transportation planners, grassroots organizations, and community advocates. Each group had its own way of thinking about and talking about these issues, which made collaboration both enriching and challenging. The process reinforced the need for flexibility, open communication, and a willingness to listen and adapt so that all voices could be heard and respected.

Through iteration and experimentation, each collage integrated images of the cities that created a more inviting and personal way to connect with the history of these places by highlighting people and locations central to the current Community Connector projects, and the broader history of each city. This approach helped bridge the gap between facts and lived experiences, making these stories more accessible and emotionally resonant.

Moving Toward More Inclusive Urban Planning

The City Snapshots aren’t just historical overviews. Equivolve hopes that cities will use them as a tool for rethinking approaches to city planning, development, and transportation. By recognizing past mistakes, engaging a diverse range of voices, and experimenting with new ways of sharing information, we can push for a more inclusive and justice-oriented transportation infrastructure that serves every city resident. To look forward, we must acknowledge how we got to this moment in time. 

Looking ahead, we want to build on these insights, deepen our partnerships, and refine how we approach mobility justice. We ask the question: What does it take to continue championing and supporting community-driven change?