New race institute will examine civil rights implications of ‘smart growth’

The new Kirwan Institute on Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University, headed by Director john a. powell, will sponsor a conference titled “Growing Together: Achieving Racial Justice and Sustainable Growth Through Regional Planning.” Activities, including a community conference, luncheon and celebration of the institute’s opening will be held May 22-23 at several campus and Columbus locations.

“Zoning and spatial dynamics are the biggest civil rights issues of this decade,” says powell, who adds that during the last half century, there have been two major demographic shifts in this country: blacks moving from farms to the cities and whites moving from the cities to the suburbs. The white migration to the suburbs has included job growth and other key social opportunities, such as quality housing, transportation and education.

The purpose of the conference and related meetings is to provide a forum for African-American scholars, policy makers and Smart Growth advocates to review recent regional development phenomena and to make recommendations for future regional planning that takes into consideration racial equity goals. Featured speakers include former Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening, president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute; former Albuquerque Mayor and author David Rusk; Hattie Dorsey, president of the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership Inc. and Ford Foundation Program Officer Carl Anthony, director of the foundation’s Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative.

During the next several years, many regions throughout the United States are expected to experience substantial growth. Unfortunately, according to powell, education, housing, transportation, the environment and economic viability are rarely analyzed simultaneously. Yet, he says, these issues are interrelated in powerful and dynamic ways, due to current planning and fiscal policy methods.

How these issues are addressed will have important consequences in determining if this region is to grow cohesively or in a fragmented manner, powell says. There is growing evidence that racial and social justice concerns, the quality of life throughout the region and economic viability are strongly related. The conference will examine emerging regional issues in Columbus and their interrelationships, as well as regional dynamics in other regions of the country and the world.

The conference is funded by the Ford Foundation. Ford has been a leader in supporting efforts to encourage regional development that is both equitable and sensitive to urban, suburban and rural needs.

The mission of the Kirwan Institute is to provide scholars and policymakers opportunities to work together to examine marginalized racial and ethnic groups in the United States and throughout the world and to work toward solutions to social inequities.

Agenda

Thursday, May 22, 2003
Luncheon featuring: Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, president of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute Former Mayor of Albuquerque and author David Rusk, and Hattie Dorsey, president of the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Inc.
11:45-1:30 p.m.
Grand Lounge, OSU Faculty Club
181 South Oval Drive
Columbus, Ohio
(Reservations required in advance.)

Community Conference featuring Glendening, Rusk and Ford Foundation Program Officer Carl Anthony, director of the foundation’s Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative (SMCI)
4:00-5:30 p.m.
The King Arts Complex
867 Mt. Vernon Ave.
Columbus, Ohio
(Free and open to the public.)

Friday, May 23, 2003
Celebration of the opening of the Kirwan Institute on Race & Ethnicity at the Ohio State University
Open House 2:30-5:30 p.m.
433 Mendenhall Laboratories
125 South Oval Mall
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
(Free and open to the public.)

OSU President Karen A. Holbrook's welcoming address for the Institute
4-5 p.m.
Faculty Club Grand Lounge
(Free and open to the public.)

john powell’s brief bio

Professor john a. powell is a nationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties and issues relating to race, poverty, and the law. He teaches civil rights law, property law and jurisprudence and was recently appointed the Gregory Williams Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He is also the director of the Kirwan Institute on Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University and the founder and former executive director of the Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP), which is located at the University of Minnesota Law School. The Institute was created in 1993 to focus on dynamics created by the intersections of race and poverty. IRP’s Web site is at http://www.umn.edu/irp.

Professor powell received his B.A. Degree from Stanford University and his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall). In 1977, he received an International Human Rights Fellowship from the University of Minnesota to work in Southern Africa, where he served as a consultant to the government of Mozambique. From 1987 to 1993, he served as national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory. Professor powell has taught at Columbia University School of Law, Harvard Law School, University of Miami School of Law, American University, the University of San Francisco School of Law, and the University of Minnesota Law School. He is the author of many articles and books dealing with issues of race and poverty and how to make society more equitable.