Listening Like a State: Using Public Reparations Testimony to Guide Planning

Problem, research strategy, and findingsRacial and tribal disparities in land access and ownership are at the root of many inequalities in the built and natural environment, but land-based reparations and reparative land use planning are not standard practices. California offers a unique case study in multiracial reparative planning, with recommendations now emerging from two important statewide processes: the California Reparations Task Force and the Truth and Healing Council. Listening to public comment from these two reparative conversations together has yielded specific and intersectional findings. We analyzed 75 hours of public testimony from 2021 to 2023 to better understand how African American descendants of enslaved workers and Native Californian descendants of genocide survivors describe both their (1) relationships to California as land and place, and (2) desired forms of repair related to land access. We interpreted this comprehensive public testimony on relations to land and place, including many suggestions for land reparations, as planning tools and practices. Finally, we evaluate here how a reparations planning process aligns and disaligns with more common practices to analyze and redress racial and tribal land access disparities.Takeaway for practiceReparative planning seeks to establish the harms underlying racial and tribal disparities as well as co-design accountability and solutions with affected groups. Opening discussions on repair surfaces specific community histories, including oral histories, and ongoing land relationships that are cultural, economic, social, and spiritual. These holistic representations of space and place challenge the boundaries of local and state policymaking and land administration. To advance reparative planning practice, we characterize this California public’s land-based recommendations as affecting access, use and zoning, decision-making authority, consultation, ownership, and stewardship, as well as education of the general public on both rooted and mobile cultural connections to place.