The attached articles from the Canadian Planning Magazine “Plan Canada” does in excellent job in explaining additional dynamics of “Vertical Redlining” which unfortunately are at the basis of OP’s Bill B23-0736 Comprehensive Amendment Act of 2020.   Vertical Redlining leverages various land use and other policies to institutionalize historic racial inequities around wealth and income associated with redlining policies of the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. 

Historic redlining used primarily horizontal techniques associated with housing segregation to obstruct Blacks and others access to wealth building tools, where as Vertical Redlining leverage land use policies which favor urban density to achieve the same inequities.   Another aspect of Vertical Redlining is found in transportation and public space policies often referred to as Mobility and Micro Mobility.  The “Plan Canada” articles delve into how the COVID-19 pandemic is being used in a way which  advances radical inequities.

Director Marootian’s DDOT under the guise of “Demonstrations Projects” along with DMPED’s COVID-19 Recovery Efforts on the ground implementing theses vertical redlining land use politics discussed in the articles, while OP seeks to make them permanent via Bill B23-0736.  The article refers to theses policies and actions as  “flat white urbanism”.

Although the articles focus primarily on Canadian city’s and their policies mirror the Vertical Redlining we are experiencing here in DC via public policy.   And our challenging mix of big capital, professional planning and race.

William