Show Us The Numbers! The Data / Equity Connection

Course Details

There can be no serious discussion of equity without a consideration of data. Communities beginning to address equity in planning policies and practices should be focused on how to use data more effectively to identify and monitor equity outcomes. Otherwise, how will a community, organization, or city know where gaps exist? How will it know when its efforts have been successful? To ignore the importance of data in equity work is to risk making decisions that perpetuate historic inequities or, at best, are ineffective in resolving the issue you are trying to address.

Increasingly, planners are asked to demonstrate how to center equity in their work. Data tools are an effective way for planners to tell their stories. This presentation illustrates how jurisdictions can use data to inform, measure, and track equity outcomes as a matter of practice. Presenters share tools that planners can use to establish baseline data and discuss ways to partner with other institutions to secure better data collection. This presentation highlights how data can be used to provide more effective and equitable services to communities.

Learning Outcomes

• Learn practical ways to use data to inform decision making through an equity lens.
• Identify strategies to overcome the lack of available quality data when initiating an equity-driven project.
• Compare partnerships among local governments and other institutions to share and track data to identify and address inequities.