Equitable Development and Economic Growth - a podcast by Michael Hancox

TOPICIntertwined Crises in America


IN THIS EPISODE [2:48]Manuel talks about his background and motivation
[4:05]Spatial, political and intellectual segregation in America
[5:57]Manuel talks about the three big crises in the US
[9:23]Diverse, Dynamic Epistemic Communities
[11:58]Examples of where these communities have come together
[17:02]The key to economic growth
[23:28]One change that would lead to better communities
[24:08]One action listeners can take to build a better future
[24:17]What does the world look like 30 years from now?
GUESTDr. Manuel Pastor is Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC), where he also serves as the Director of USC’s http://dornsife.usc.edu/pere (Program for Environmental and Regional Equity) (PERE) and Co-Director of USC’s http://dornsife.usc.edu/csii (Center for the Study on Immigration Integration). He is the author of multiple books, including most recently, http://growingtogethermetro.org/ (Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America’s Metro Areas), which he co-authored with Chris Benner from UC Santa Cruz.TAKEAWAY QUOTES“We are in a place where people don’t agree on the basic facts. An epistemic communities are about creating opportunities for people to know together so they can grow together. The thing that we sort of left out in this book is that it’s important for them to be diverse and dynamic. You can’t be surrounded simply by like-minded or like-raced people. You need to make sure that who is at the table is coming from different sectors, different communities, et cetera to be able to understand what it is that weaves us together and where our mutual interests lie.”
“It’s basically a nerd fest. We consider ourselves to be nerds for social justice and we did this for a couple of different reasons. Essentially, it was born when Angela Glover Blackwell and I—she’s the head of PolicyLink—were at a meeting at the White House and we realized that while we had pretty good ideas about what to do, few people were paying attention because we didn’t have the kind of data that we needed behind the ideas. This created a way to sort of democratize data.”
“Making sure that people understand that there is more than one leverage point; that we need to move the needle on multiple things at the same time; that we need to make sure that people are reentering from the criminal justice system successfully; that we are dealing with immigration reform. We are dealing with gender inequality. We need to get away from the idea that there is a silver bullet for our problems.”RESOURCEShttp://infiniteearthacademy.com/podcast/affordable-housing-and-employment-patterns-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area/ (Infinite Earth Radio Ep. 011 Affordable Housing and Employment Patterns in the San Francisco Bay Area with Dr. Chris Benner)
http://dornsife.usc.edu/PERE (USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE))http://dornsife.usc.edu/CSII (USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII))
http://NationalEquityAtlas.org (National Equity Atlas Tool)http://www.lgc.org/ (Local Government Commission)
THANKS FOR LISTENING Thanks so much for joining us. Have some feedback or an idea you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave an honest review for Infinite Earth Radio on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are super helpful and greatly appreciated as it helps us expose this show to a wider audience – plus, we read each and every one of them!

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