Inspiration: Jennifer Rangel, Creating Bilingual Cartoons to Teach Zoning 101 Urban Planning

‘Way to Give Back’

Excerpt from Salud America! blog series about Salud Heros.

“Ever wondered why your neighborhood looks how it does?”

Jennifer Rangel once asked herself this question. To find an answer, Rangel got a master’s degree in urban planning. Along the way, this Latina planner learned that discriminatory urban planning practices, like the zoning of land, had been used for white advantage for over a century, segregating communities and forging inequities in health and wealth among Latinos and other people of color.

Rangel wanted to share what she learned. So she helped create workshops ─ then bilingual animated videos ─ to train neighborhood leaders, social workers, and others about zoning and how to get involved in zoning changes. “Understanding zoning is a critical step for residents as they try to undo previous harms and to remedy policies and practices that perpetuate the harmful effects of discrimination and segregation," Rangel wrote on the Inclusive Communities Project website.

See Rangel’s Animated Videos About Zoning in English and Spanish.

Salud America!

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