New policy brief identifies 4 key strategies for creating healthy, equitable land use across Los Angeles

Land use policies and practices shape health, safety, and equity from the ground up, determining access to health-promoting resources like transit options, walkable neighborhoods, parks and open spaces, affordable housing, quality schools, workplaces, healthy food retail, and more. But as a short bus ride through Los Angeles reveals, all communities haven’t been designed or invested in equally. Too often, land use practices — both past and present — generate and reinforce health inequities. The land use system can act as a barrier to health, particularly for low-income communities of color — but the very fact that these inequities have been created by policies and practices means that changing those policies and practices offers effective solutions.

That’s why the Healthy, Equitable, Active Land Use (HEALU) Network developed Strategic Opportunities to Create a Healthy, Equitable Land Use System in Los Angeles, a new policy brief that outlines a menu of strategies to produce health equity through the land use system.

Given its size and diversity, Los Angeles is an ideal testing ground for learning and innovation around land use. The brief identifies four key strategies for creating a healthier and more equitable land use system in Los Angeles:

• Increase the percentage of public funds invested in health-promoting infrastructure in low-income communities of color.
  
   
• Build capacity in government, the private sector, and community-based organizations for robust community engagement in land use planning and policymaking.
  
   
• Accelerate land use innovations and demonstration projects in low-income communities of color, and scale up successful pilot projects to drive policy change.
  
   
• Foster cross-government collaboration to embed health and equity in all land use decisions.

The challenges and opportunities around land use that Los Angeles faces are shared by communities across the country, and the strategies outlined in this brief can be applied far beyond LA.

We encourage you to read the policy brief, and invite you to sign up to receive e-alerts from Prevention Institute, including updates on an upcoming summit in Los Angeles that will focus on the links between land use and violence prevention. For more information, please contact Prevention Institute’s Rachel Bennett at RachelB@preventioninstitute.org.