Social equity is about ensuring that people of all income levels have access to housing, good schools, reliable transportation, and employment that provides them with a living wage.

Social equity at the regional level means that all residents — particularly those in low-income brackets — should benefit from new investments in their communities, gain equal access to economic opportunities, and have a chance to actively participate in community planning efforts. Regional investments should favor communities that have been underfunded in the past.

Regional agencies are committed to ensuring that investments are distributed throughout the region in a balanced and fair way. Low-income residents in the region currently struggle between the high cost of housing and the high costs of transportation. Bay Area residents should not have to leave the region to find an affordable home near a good school. Encouraging focused growth can help to reduce these costs by creating more opportunities for residents to live in walkable areas near high-quality transit service.

With an Environmental Justice Grant from Caltrans, the FOCUS Program began a Development without Displacement program to increase regional and local understanding of gentrification and displacement, and in particular increase awareness of equitable development policies that jurisdictions can use to capture the benefits of new growth for their current residents.

As part of this program, FOCUS is funding three cities to partner with community organizations on strengthening community in redeveloping neighborhoods. These projects include working with congregations in Richmond to create new affordable housing, assisting small businesses and preserving cultural character in San Francisco's Mission District, and engaging the Lake Merritt Community in Oakland on strategies to prevent displacement as part of their Station Area Plan.

FOCUS has also partnered with the national organization PolicyLink to release an Equitable Development in Transit-Oriented Development Toolkit that reflects the unique conditions of transit-oriented neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Since combined housing and transportation costs can make up the majority of a household's expenses, creating and maintaining affordable housing near public transit helps make the Bay Area an affordable place to live. The toolkit presents a broad selection of policies that both advocates and local governments can refer to when planning in low-income neighborhoods.

The Center for Community Innovation at UC Berkeley has used census data to map which FOCUS Priority Development Areas have gentrified or are likely to gentrify over the coming years. Gentrification is defined as

• Housing price appreciation greater than the regional average
• Increase in educational attainment greater than the regional average
• Income at 40th percentile in starting year; and
• Central city location

The purpose of this work to highlight areas where transit-oriented development may have been successful in spurring the local economy but displacement is also a concern. Census tract level data is available, but this work has not yet been published.

For more information, please contact Marisa Cravens, ABAG Regional Planner, at 510.464.7926 or MarisaC@abag.ca.gov