Grand Challenges: Urban Equity Collaborative
Grant Type: Impact Award
Topics: Future Cities and Social Justice
Colleges Represented: ARCH, ARHU, SPHL
Willow Lung-Amam Authors New Book, “The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge”
January 31, 2025
UMD’s Urban Equity Collaborative Provides Training, Workshops, and Policy Action for Strengthening Community-based Institutions
September 30, 2024
Whose 'Right to Suburbia'?
September 24, 2024
SPH’s Devon Payne-Sturges Earns Top Environmental Health Honor
September 3, 2024
New Tools for Keeping Immigrant-Owned Shops in Place
July 26, 2024
Urban Equity Collaborative Launches First Cohort of the Community Fellows Program
February 23, 2024
UMD Professors Launch Collective to Assist Communities, Activists with Urban Equity Issues (The Diamondback)
October 13, 2023
Grand Challenges: Newly-Launched Urban Equity Collaborative Hosts Open House
October 5, 2023
Urban Equity Collaborative
Virtual Workshop: Defending Land, Defending Sovereignty: Black Yield’s Work of Suturing the Relationships Between the Land and the People, featuring Eric Jackson of Black Yield Institute, 12:00-1:00 pm
Urban Equity Collaborative
The Intersectionality of Life: How Social Justice is Environmental Justice
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
In person at Preinkert Hall Suite 1221, 7840 Preinkert Drive College Park, MD 20740 and Virtually on Zoom
Join the UEC to hear from Robin Lewis, the Director for Climate Equity at Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA). Robin will explore the intersectionality of social and environmental justice, dissect the policies and legislations at the root of climate injustices, and highlight Interfaith Power and Light’s work building grassroots coalitions to pursue climate equity in the DMV. Register here.
Urban Equity Collaborative
Grassroots Power: Mobilizing Communities for Environmental Justice
12:00 - 2:00 PM
As environmental degradation and social inequalities continue to intersect, the need for community-driven solutions has never been more pressing. This session will explore how local communities can harness their collective power to advocate for sustainable practices, combat pollution, and influence policy change. Register here.
Summary:
Cities have never been more important. Currently, over 80% of people in the U.S. live and work in cities. By 2050, almost 90% of the U.S. population, and close to 70% of the world’s population will reside in cities. The Urban Equity Collaborative seeks to strengthen community-based institutions and the work of community activists around issues of urban inequality. It aims to incubate and disseminate durable research and policy strategies that promote economic, racial, and gender justice and shifts power towards communities on the frontlines of struggle.
To accelerate creative solutions to the trenchant problems facing urban communities, the Urban Equity Collaborative employs an intersectional, multidisciplinary, and collaborative approach to action research and collective inquiry that upholds equitable community partnerships. A unique feature of this initiative is its community fellows program where community leaders, including community-based organizational representatives, organizers, and activists, are invited to become researchers-in-residence.
The collaborative’s work will focus on issues of dispossession and displacement, and specifically issues of affordable housing access, immigrant rights, and small business displacement. Through capacity and knowledge exchange with communities, the Urban Equity Collaborative will leverage the collective expertise of university researchers in the service of community-led work.
Team Members:
 PI: Willow Lung-Amam (ARCH), Associate Professor, Urban Studies and Planning |
 Co-PI: Nancy Raquel Mirabal (ARHU), Associate Professor, American Studies |
 Co-PI: Devon Payne-Sturges (SPHL), Associate Professor, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health |