ABSTRACT
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This sums up much of historic and contemporary urban planning practice. Rarely are planners from the neighborhoods they work within or are charged with making decisions for, and seldom are issues of positionality, privilege, and relationship engaged with as part of the planning and research processes. This is further exacerbated by a deficit orientation towards lower-income and urban communities of color in particular. Urban scholars Kretzmann and McKnight (1996) argue that the focus on overwhelmingly stereotypical and negative images of urban neighborhoods functions as a kind of “mental map” of the community that is regarded as the whole truth of the neighborhood, rather than part of it, and determines how problems are addressed. There are long-term repercussions to this orientation that reinforces a one-dimensional notion of communities as troubled and broken, while bolstering the expert authority of outsiders. Not only does this deny the long-term wisdom of community members, it also frames neighborhoods and/or community members as “at risk,” and serves to justify their disinvestment, dispossession, and dependence (ibid.).
