Year of Reckoning Needs Assessments & Workplans

​​​​Living Cities’ Closing the Gaps (CTG) Network is a ten-year initiative that brings together leaders from cities across the country to imagine and build an anti-racist society through the transformation of government policies, practices, and operations. CTG is particularly anchored on a vision for closing racial inequities in income and wealth. In 2021, six cities (Albuquerque, NM; Austin, TX; Memphis, TN; Minneapolis, MN; Rochester, NY; and Saint Paul, MN) in the CTG network participated in a “Year of Reckoning.” During this experience, they underwent a deep racial equity competency training led by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), Third Space Action Lab, and Black Womxn Flourish. As the six cities emerge from the Year of Reckoning, they are developing and implementing specific strategies in service of their shared anti-racist vision. 

Living Cities is providing technical support to the cities to develop strategies in two focus areas: homeownership and entrepreneurship. There are pronounced racial inequities in both areas, but they each also present outsized opportunities to create intergenerational wealth for communities of color. The cities of Austin, Memphis, Minneapolis, Rochester, and Saint Paul partnered with FSG, a mission-driven consulting firm supporting leaders to create equitable systems change, to conduct a community needs assessment to better understand the current state and the inhibiting and supporting drivers of racial equity in each focus area. In the context of the work that the City of Albuquerque’s Office of Equity and Inclusion has done to unearth the systemic disparities facing Black and native communities, the City has partnered with MASS Design Group, a firm focusing on the critical role that architecture has to play in supporting communities to confront history, shape new narratives, collectively heal and project new possibilities for the future, to conduct a community needs assessment. 

The needs assessment process had three objectives: 

1. Increase each city’s understanding of the current state of racial inequities in home ownership and entrepreneurship, and the root causes of those inequities. 
2. Identify key drivers and inhibitors of racial equity in homeownership and entrepreneurship in each city and specific opportunities for action. 
3. Lay the foundation for closer ongoing partnership between city governments and their communities in advancing equity in homeownership and entrepreneurship

Below you can view all the reports: