The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 9 December 2022
by Carl C. Anthony
The history of the environment of planet Earth is the heritage of all eight billion humans residing here today. Our relationship to that environment, however, has been distorted and shaped by our social constructs, so many of which are based on inequality, colonialism, wars, invasions, genocides and slavery. We are defined in a large part by our relationship to the natural world. And, at least in the last few centuries, that definition is dominated by European Enlightenment ideals that emphasize the dominance of European culture and race, as well as the abject subjugation of nature to our tiniest whims. It is not at all a stretch to see that the inequalities that dominate global culture today is a dark legacy of the dominance and subjugation of entire peoples in the past. One doesn't have to be "woke" to see the many parallels, but it helps. In the USA, minorities, and particularly African-Americans, continue to endure the inequalities that our culture imposes in the realms of the natural environment, as well as economic, social and urban environments. There are countless examples of outright racism in the system in the past that continue to shape the urban environment today. And, while racist policies have often been abandoned or overturned, so much of those policies are now baked-in to the culture that it is a major project to right those wrongs of the past. And that project is rife with political conflict and a cultural injustice that feeds upon itself. An honest reckoning is still frustratingly out of reach.
And so, Carl Anthony, born into an American mid-century urban environment that reflected all of this country's inequalities, persevered to become an urbanist, architect and activist. For decades, he has worked inside the long hard project of creating a built and cultural urban environment that better serves the needs of under-represented commuities. In this book, he begins by outlining his own journey of youth, education, entering a profession dominated (still) by white men, exploring his African heritage, joining the civil rights movements of the sixties, and applying lessons learned there to the field of urban planning. His career has been long and productive, and he expresses a deep involvement with his environment, built and natural. He has been involved in grass-roots planning efforts to inject responses to inequality and the status of minorities into the planning process. He has also worked with large well-funded organizations, such as the Ford Foundation, to mold policies that have normally benefited the well-connected and majority classes, so that they better address a broader spectrum of the population.
Anthony's analysis is sharp and deep. There's an evocation of our evolutionary connection to the environment and how it feeds into our discussion of how we relate to each other and to the natural world. The second part of this book is a long journey through the particular organizations in which the author has been involved, and the specific goals of equality, awareness, cooperation and progress that they have pursued. He has advocated for regional cooperation, particularly in sprawling regions like San Francisco Bay Area. That cooperation is vital for connecting communities, reducing instances of duplicated work, and empowering larger groups of individuals. Connecting across regions promises to find solutions that build environments that are sustainable and as diverse as possible.
This reader, however, took note of the vast number of organizations Anthony worked with, across the country and around the world. Often, as with the Ford Foundation, these organizations could be very well funded. In any case, Anthony's struggle often involved getting these diverse organizations to work together. But one is struck by something fundamentally flawed in the work. Small local organizations often effect very productive change. Think global, act local. And the ground-up view could result, long term, in a functional change throughout the system. At the same time, though, there doesn't appear to be any real shift in the fundamentally biased and flawed elements of our culture and economic system. In a sense, it is entirely safe for the great economic powers and corporations to fund such efforts, as long as they stay small and regional. There is no great threat to the system in which all of this is operating. As long as there is no large collective organization, then the racially and economically biased systems that have oppressed people for decades and centuries are under no great threat. The power in the hands of a racial and economic elite remains safe. One worries about that, and one wonders what a really fundamental change in the baked-in injustices would look like. Nevertheless, Carl Anthony has contributed much more than most to fixing the system as seen through the lens of urban planning.