Black Planning Centers (BPC) are organizations, institutions and groups that meet and conduct urban planning activities in service of Black communities. BPC can be municipalities, non-profit organizations, or private companies and typically are equitably controlled or operated. Urban planning is an inherent skill among participants in poor to working-class urban lifestyles. Transportation, blight and infrastructure are key examples of the refined planning lens developed by families scouring bus schedules, dodging trash cans on their walk to school or hoping the neighborhood culvert drains away from their backyard. Believing in these inherent talents as a byproduct of entrenched urban survival requires attention to the guerilla way professional skills are deployed in working-class urban environments. Outside of university and post-graduate education is the network of impacted peoples who educate, learn and lead where they survive: on the streets. Through engagement at the penthouse, pavement and curb; BPC are the true forefront of urban planning as a field of study, professional field and means of survival.

 

Examples of Black Planning Centers:

• Community Centers who participate in municipal comprehensive plans by hosting community engagement events.

• Advocacy organizations who publish opinions in support of public transportation, municipal services, or county-level programs.

• Non-profit organizations who write policy, recommend laws or operating procedures in political bodies at the state level.