A thriving democracy requires municipal governments to be able to set the stage for ensuring fair access to resources and opportunities for everyone because they have power and influence, especially if they work in partnership with other organizations and leaders to leverage and expand these opportunities and resources for the places they govern and the communities they serve. Living Cities and the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE—a project of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at University of California-Berkeley and the Center for Social Inclusion) joined together in an effort, Racial Equity Here, to ensure fair access to and advance opportunities for all in five cities: Albuquerque, Austin, Grand Rapids, Louisville, and Philadelphia. City government leaders in these cities will complete an assessment of their core government operations, with an intentional focus on adults and youth, ages 16 to 24, who face many barriers when attempting to access resources and opportunities to help them reach their full potential. Over a two-year period, the five municipal governments received training and technical assistance from GARE to develop a blueprint of government-wide strategies and begin execution of the blueprint by applying the skills, tools, and processes they developed through assistance from GARE.
Community Science, in partnership with the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, was engaged by Living Cities to evaluate Racial Equity Here.
“Living Cities is incredibly excited to partner with Community Science and the Insight Center to undertake this important project. They are real innovators in the evaluation and racial equity space and we look forward to partnering with them and ultimately sharing lessons from the work with the field,” states Daniela Pineda, Associate Director, Evaluation and Impact, Living Cities.
Community Science worked closely with the Living Cities and GARE staff to design an evaluation framework that will capture and document the change process and outcomes in each of the five municipal governments, and identify the common and unique circumstances that affected their pathways to remove biases and barriers to ensure fair access to opportunities and resources for all. The evaluation helped generate rich insights about the capacities and conditions required to effect systems change at the city government level as well as the supports needed to aid the process.
