By Mona Tawatao
Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), the council of governments metropolitan planning organization (MPO) serving the greater Kansas City, Missouri region, is recognized as an innovator in equitable and sustainable planning among regional planning bodies around the country. In this December 22, 2011 interview with Mona Tawatao, MARC Executive Director David Warm and Government Innovations Forum Director Dean Katerndahl discuss MARC’s vision and planning work toward achieving equity, sustainability and economic growth in the region.
Can you describe the geography and demographics of the area MARC serves?
Dean Katerndahl: MARC serves two million people in Kansas and Missouri in a region that encompasses the Kansas City, Missouri metropolitan area; nine counties (4 in Kansas and 5 in Missouri ) and 120 cities and towns. We have a 25 percent minority population. Approximately half of that population is African-American, eight to ten percent is Hispanic and about five percent is Asian. The metropolitan center of the region has a higher minority population.
David Warm: We have an interesting dynamic in the metro area. There are more poor white people overall in the MARC region, yet only 20 percent of the white poor live in the areas that are exclusively poor urban core as opposed to 75 percent of the African-American poor, so there is a marked concentration of race-based poverty, especially in the urban core.
What is MARC’s vision for helping to make the region that it serves more equitable and sustainable for its residents?
Warm: MARC’S vision statement is: Greater Kansas City is a sustainable region that increases the vitality of our society, economy, and environment for current residents and future generations.
This statement is the culmination of a fairly intensive vetting and policy development process. I think it articulates a vision of sustainability that is fundamentally rooted in our region’s economic progress, environmental health and social equity. This triple bottom line philosophy is something MARC articulates regularly and endeavors to apply consciously to everything we do.
The vision statement certainly guides our transportation planning work. MARC’s long range transportation planning begins with the regional vision, which is supported by several principles and goals. MARC, in partnership with others, then adopts strategies to support these goals, measures progress toward meeting those goals, and then targets funding accordingly. MARC then promotes these goals actively, especially in transportation corridor planning work.
One of more interesting related projects MARC has started is publishing a scorecard for its transportation planning goals. The scorecard is intended to measure how the transportation plan is measuring up and being applied to meet its stated objectives along the triple bottom line: economic progress, environmental health and social equity.
What kind of planning has MARC done or action MARC taken to address racial and other inequities regarding access to quality transportation, housing and/or jobs?
Katerndahl : Over the last three years MARC has specifically looked at the region’s capacity to develop affordable housing and has worked with community development corporations and housing agencies to develop enhanced capacity in this area. We also engage in work intended to develop a bigger and stronger workforce in the region that includes mechanisms for spurring economic development as well as connecting people with those jobs through improved transportation access.
Warm : MARC has been involved for many years in services for older adults, most of which are targeted toward persons in need. We have also been highly involved in promoting greater accessibility to high-quality education, and administering a Head Start grant.
These activities are highly unusual for an MPO to be engaged in – aren’t they?
Warm: True, MARC is designated as the MPO for our region under the rules of the [U.S.] Department of Transportation, but we also work extensively in the areas of public safety, environmental protection and social and human services, and many of our efforts in this regard are focused on the needs of disenfranchised populations. This broader scope of MARC’s work, I believe, is consistent with our desire to pursue a clearer vision of a sustainable region with more intentional focus on equity. In other words, the reason we have developed strong working relationships with community-based organizations and have taken on work in areas atypical for an MPO such as workforce development and early childhood education is that transportation planning is only part of the broader community strategy needed to meet that triple bottom line.
So, let’s go back to MARC’s efforts to address racial and other inequities.
Katerndahl : In our long range transportation plan adopted a year and a half ago, MARC’s emphasis is on transportation corridors with a specific focus on addressing transportation services for vulnerable populations along these corridors, including communities of color.
To give a very specific example MARC used a Department of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant obtained through the federal Recovery Act to boost its corridor strategy by building bus rapid transit through these corridors. MARC was also asked to take the lead in an initiative to use stimulus funds to transform a 150 block area of the urban core called the Green Impact Zone. The strategy in the zone is to address the multiple dimensions of decline in the area simultaneously; such as housing, jobs, youth, energy efficiency, and other elements that go into building a strong neighborhood. Our TIGER strategy was focused on enhancing transit service in key corridors and connecting these corridors to the Green Impact Zone, thus improving job access for zone residents. Thus we hoped to tie neighborhood specific initiatives, the Green Impact Zone, to regional systems, the transit system.
Our role is somewhat unusual for an MPO because our work is very directed at implementation in targeted geographic areas. We take this approach because MARC is very interested in developing new models for transforming urban communities. We believe that unless we help create a different dynamic in the market, the metro area will continue to suffer.
What are MARC’s biggest equity-related challenges in updating its regional transit plan?
Katerndahl: Organizing and creating plans and tools and putting them into action and creating more equity of opportunity in more places throughout the MARC area.
Warm: As Dean mentioned, the Long-Range Transportation Plan is organized around land use along specific corridors. MARC is trying to preserve existing communities along transportation corridors so that they become sustainable communities. First, we are trying to organize the community around that agenda, especially groups concerned with equity, in a way that is truly inclusive. The second objective is to do the actual planning and strategy development with these groups. Third, we are looking to implement demonstration projects.
I think the two biggest challenges MARC faces are transportation accessibility and the region’s lack of engagement in the sustainable planning efforts. With regard to the first problem, we have an anemic transit system and feel somewhat frustrated in terms of our efforts to make it more robust because of existing land use patterns. This is the reason we chose to focus on the corridors. If we can create more economic vitality along these corridors, we can help generate much greater access to jobs and higher quality more evenly dispersed affordable housing throughout the region. We think this is the most effective land use and transportation strategy.
In terms of engagement, the simple fact is that the region is just not focused on the sustainable transportation and land use issues—it isn’t really a priority on our civic agenda. So MARC is raising it up wherever and whenever possible as something the region needs to address.
Do you think more equitable regions and communities are more economically stable and viable? Has this idea shaped MARC’s planning approach? If so, can you give examples of how this has worked in the MARC region?
Katerndahl: We are definitely exploring this philosophy more and have invited PolicyLink to help us in this regard. However I cannot say we are at the stage at which this view has really shaped our planning.
Warm: That said, we know our region is going to be majority minority in 30 years. The challenge MARC needs to meet is to close the loop between people’s thought process and regional decision-making. The average person understands that there are problems in our region. They understand it is a problem that 40 percent of our students are ill-equipped to compete. If you ask them if poverty is increasing, they say “yes”, but then they don’t look at the potential for investment in impoverished communities. For instance, I recently had lunch with a suburban mayor and we started talking about the center city school problem. He cares about the problem and could see how it drains the area as a whole, but at the same time does not see what he can do to make a difference. We are hoping that a successful transportation corridors strategy will show the local leaders and the community how the gap between understanding and action can be bridged—that regional thinking is the way to go because all of systems and decisions are connected and interrelated.
What are the two or three most effective things MARC has done or is doing with the HUD Partnership for Sustainable Communities grant it received in 2010 to promote equity?
Katerndahl: It is still a work in progress. MARC has put a coordinating committee together and the equity representation on it has been very effective. The group meets monthly and is very engaged and our equity partners are at the table consistently. So we are hopeful. Another accomplishment was putting together a delegation to go the PolicyLink Equity Summit in Detroit in November 2011 at which the theme was “Equity is the Superior Growth Model.” Not only was it a tremendous learning opportunity—it created lasting bonds among the people in our delegation upon which to build.
Can you talk about your approach to facilitating meaningful community engagement in sustainable transportation and land use planning? Are there examples of effective mechanisms MARC used in this regard and how community contribution and participation helped shape the plan(s)?
Warm: With regard to developing a long-range plan based on meaningful community engagement, I think we did a couple of things that were effective. One was to present the community with clear choices using scenario planning. Using this tool helped the community to understand trade-offs between one transportation/land use scenario versus another. Another thing we did was to work with the local public television station to engage people in non-tradition ways, specifically using this medium to meet people in their living room , actively educating , lifting up best practices and framing policy issues. We think it changed the sophistication of dialogue around planning among equity partners and members of the public.
Katerndahl: We partnered with PolicyLink for technical assistance on a community-based approach to sustainable planning and partnered with several local equity organizations, the faith based community, the Urban League, the Latino Civic Engagement Collaborative,a consortium of Hispanic organizations, among others. We feel we have been able to engage populations that have had traditionally a more difficult time engaging which has helped create a platform from which they are creating a regional equity network. These equity partners have expressed their priorities to a wider group of thought leaders and policy makers than what they previously experienced. It is very much a mutual benefit. The equity groups are creating a real equity agenda and platform for the region and we help them strengthen their capacity and their networks with like groups and decision-makers.
We have just started doing corridor planning work in earnest and probably will contract with some equity and community groups to do very specific community engagement work. MARC is also leaning on them for to help engage their constituents along each unique transportation corridor while helping them to frame messages and information in way that gets the community interested and involved.
Warm: We are proud of what we have accomplished, but are hesitant to lift up our work as exemplary because there is much that remains to be done. The work MARC is doing is real and I can say our motives are genuine, but we have not solved the regional equity and sustainability issues. It is definitely a work in progress and we are hopeful, but early in the journey.
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David Warm has served as MARC’S executive director since July 1990. As the chief executive of the metropolitan council of governments serving Greater Kansas City, Warm leads key regional planning and community development initiatives, as well as a broad range of regional functions in areas that include transportation, environmental protection, emergency management, aging services, early education and local government cooperative services.
Dean Katerndahl has been Director of MARC’s Government Innovations Forum since 1997. He leads efforts to coordinate regional initiatives with local governments, including the region’s Creating Sustainable Places initiative and the First Suburbs Coalition and also works to identify and develop new regional programs.
Mona Tawatao is a Regional Counsel with Legal Services of Northern California in Sacramento, California and a co-coordinator of its Race Equity Project.
