We would like to thank the many, many individuals who helped make this book possible over the course of four years. First, we thank all the authors in the volume, who worked with us through multiple drafts of their chapters. Second, we thank the dozens of city officials, public housing authority leaders, federal officials, and others who put together fair housing plans, spoke with us, and worked with us to make those documents public. Third, we thank the civil rights advocates who have tirelessly worked across generations to create more equal access to opportunities and to advance visions of a democratic, just, multiracial nation.
This volume began with a symposium in the fall of 2016, supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Urban Studies and Planning. For helping guide the creation of that symposium and moderate many of the panels, we thank Ingrid Gould Ellen, who was at the time a visiting professor at MIT. For working closely with us to help plan the symposium and co-teach a class on the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Rule at MIT, we are grateful to Ezra Haber Glenn. Harriette Crawford and Phil Sunde proved to be instrumental in helping put on the conference, and Takeo Kuwabara assisted us throughout, including advertising the symposium and helping us set up a website. Eran Ben-Joseph, as the head of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, offered financial and collegial support for the symposium from the beginning. We also thank Karmen Cheung, Jessie Lee Heneghan, and Will Monson for assistance with logistics and advertising, and Lee Fennell, William Fischel, Jeffrey Lubell, David Harris, Janine Anzalota, and Chrystal Kornegay for participating in the event. Additionally, we are grateful to all the participants in the symposium for their helpful questions and comments.
The process of transforming the discussions that began at the symposium into this book proved to be predictably lengthy. In addition to all the authors who patiently worked with us, we would like to thank many of the folks who helped us along the way. Reed Jordan was fundamental in helping track down Assessments of Fair Housing (AFHs) for the research in the chapter he coauthored as well as in conceiving the idea to launch a website collecting the work (available at furtheringfairhousing.mit.edu). Hayley Flores helped us take the website idea from concept to reality. For help with notes, we thank Valeria Alvarado and Francis Goyes. We appreciated the feedback received on our chapter and previous related research at several conferences, including the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning conference and two gatherings at the University of Pennsylvania: The Fair Housing Act at 50 and US Housing Policy—The Future of What Works, with special thanks to Vincent Reina for his inclusion of this work there. We offer special gratitude to Aaron Javsicas and the entire team at Temple University Press for helping see this project through from inception to completion with enthusiasm, engagement, and patience.
Conflicts over spatial and racial justice have recurred throughout the history of the United States. We are indebted to the centuries of struggle for equal rights and anti-racist policies and hope this book can be a helpful tool as we consider how to translate desires for racial justice into plans and policies. The chapters in this volume suggest that, with the right policies at the federal level, many local officials are ready to play a needed role in addressing some of the long-standing inequalities in resources and in access to opportunity in our cities and regions.