What comes next in community engagement? The account of the 2016 Designing Equity forum points to a practical answer: involve residents before major planning decisions harden, build the political and financial relationships needed to act, adapt communication as needs change, and make trade-offs understandable. Those lessons are especially relevant to construction and design teams working where rezoning, infrastructure investment, or redevelopment can alter who gets to stay and who benefits.
This is a historical reading of Kofi Boone’s report for the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), published August 9, 2016. It describes a forum and an East Harlem case study; it is not a current evaluation of community-engagement programs or proof that any single technique works everywhere.
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What the Designing Equity forum was—and what it was not
Designing Equity was a day-long workshop in Washington, DC, jointly convened by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Surdna Foundation. More than 100 architects, landscape architects, urban planners, community leaders, funders, and other participants attended, according to ASLA’s 2016 report. Working sessions brought people who design places together with people who organize, finance, govern, and live in them.
The forum asked how equity work could move beyond a single neighborhood and influence city-scale decisions. Participants shared projects and methods, then discussed where communication, power, and institutional coordination had broken down. Boone’s article records those conversations and his reflections; it does not provide a quantified outcome study, a ranking of engagement methods, or a current program guide.
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East Harlem: engaging a consequential planning process
The forum’s final session examined the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan in connection with a borough-wide up-zoning process. The community faced growth and the possibility of displacement. Rather than waiting to respond only through protest after decisions were made, residents chose to engage the planning process while it was still developing. Panelists credited that choice as one factor in successful engagement, but the article presents this as a case account, not an independently measured causal finding.
Build political capacity, not just attendance
Sandra Youdelman of Community Voices Heard described the need for people who could navigate relationships inside the neighborhood and between residents and city government. Her group used the concepts of Power, Players, and Campaigns to borrow useful habits from political organizing. The point was not to turn a planning meeting into an election campaign. It was to identify who could influence a decision, understand how those interests interacted, and organize a campaign capable of moving allies and officials.
For a construction or design team, this distinction matters. A well-attended open house can still leave residents without influence if nobody maps decision rights, deadlines, or the officials who control approvals. Engagement should therefore include a relationship plan: who speaks for which constituencies, who can answer technical questions, who can negotiate with agencies, and when each person must be involved.
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Isella Ramirez of Hester Street Collaborative discussed adjusting engagement as circumstances changed. The tools mentioned in the forum included organizational diagrams, graphic materials, multilingual information, new media, video, and clearer explanations of how decisions would be made. The lesson is adaptability. A single meeting format, language, or drawing style should not become a gate that excludes people as a project evolves.
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In practice, an early concept session might use large, simple diagrams and interpreters, while a later construction-impact meeting may require translated schedules, illustrated detour maps, captioned video, or a phone-based update for residents who cannot attend. Changing the format is not changing the commitment to participation; it is how participation remains possible.
Make development trade-offs legible
One exercise had residents role-play as developers. They worked with simplified up-zoning requirements, real financial data, and return-on-investment precedents to understand the trade-offs behind development decisions. The exercise did not ask residents to endorse a project. It gave them enough information to question assumptions, test alternatives, and see why a particular proposal might produce or fail to produce affordable space, community facilities, or other benefits.
Construction teams can apply the same principle without turning a workshop into a finance lecture. Show the assumptions that affect scope, cost, schedule, and feasibility; label which numbers are fixed and which are negotiable; and explain what a requested change would displace. A clear trade-off is more useful than a promise that every goal can be delivered simultaneously.
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Kevin Ryan of The New York Foundation described recruiting allies in the financial community and working with city officials on equitable-development financing tools. His example widened the definition of an engagement partner. Residents are essential decision-makers, but equitable outcomes may also depend on lenders, public agencies, philanthropic funders, and owners who can alter the financial conditions of a project.
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For builders, that means identifying financing constraints early instead of presenting them as an unavoidable surprise. If a public benefit depends on a subsidy, tax treatment, land disposition, or lending covenant, bring the responsible institution into the conversation before design commitments become irreversible.
A practical comparison of the approaches described
The forum did not test these approaches against one another. The following table is a planning aid that translates the reported examples into questions a project team can ask; it is not a performance ranking.
| Approach | What it helps a team examine | Questions to ask | Important caution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power, Players, and Campaigns | Political relationships and decision leverage | Who can approve, block, finance, or improve the proposal? Which alliances are missing? | Mapping influence does not replace accountability to residents. |
| Multilingual and visual communication | Access across language, literacy, and media preferences | Can people understand the plan, schedule, and choices without specialist vocabulary? | Translation and graphics must be maintained when the plan changes. |
| Video and new media | Reaching people who cannot attend conventional meetings | Can updates be viewed later, with captions and a way to respond? | Digital access varies; provide non-digital routes as well. |
| Resident role-play with financial data | Understanding development constraints and alternatives | What happens to cost, return, timing, or public benefit when an assumption changes? | Simplified models must disclose what they leave out. |
| Small-group discussion | Surfacing detailed experience and disagreement | Who has not spoken, and what would make it safer or easier to do so? | Small groups need a transparent method for carrying input into decisions. |
Turning those lessons into a project process
The following sequence is an application for construction and planning teams, not a procedure prescribed by the 2016 forum. It keeps engagement connected to real decisions rather than treating it as a one-time presentation.
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- Map people and institutions. Identify tenant groups, neighborhood organizations, disability advocates, schools, businesses, agencies, owners, lenders, and contractors affected by the work. Record each group’s concerns, authority, preferred communication channels, and access needs.
- Set an accessible information baseline. Prepare translated summaries, diagrams, photographs, videos, and a glossary of technical terms. Explain what is known, what is estimated, and what is still under review. Keep a version date on every handout so outdated drawings do not circulate as promises.
- Explain the trade-offs. Use a simple scenario sheet or workshop model to show how changes in height, density, phasing, parking, open space, affordability, or construction hours affect cost and feasibility. Invite participants to alter assumptions and record the consequences.
- Create feedback routes between meetings. Offer phone, online, in-person, and paper options. Provide interpreters or translated responses where needed. Set a response deadline and name the person responsible for answering each question.
- Show how input changed the work. Maintain a decision log with the request, the team’s response, the reason for accepting or declining it, and the next review point. If a suggestion cannot be adopted, explain the constraint instead of silently dropping it.
- Re-engage at each major change. A revised site plan, financing package, construction sequence, or agency condition can change the impacts. Return to the affected groups before relying on consent gathered for an earlier version.
Communication failures are a project risk
Boone reports that participants sometimes held different understandings of who had been involved at important moments in shared projects. The mismatch prompted discussion about communication and reflection during fast-moving work. In construction, the same problem can produce duplicated outreach, missed stakeholders, or claims that a decision was settled when one group never saw the relevant information.
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A simple record can reduce that risk. After every significant engagement activity, capture the date, participants, languages used, materials shown, questions raised, commitments made, and decisions still open. Circulate the record for correction. This is not bureaucracy for its own sake: it gives residents, designers, contractors, and agencies a common account of what happened before the next change arrives.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Governance is part of the design problem
The forum’s closing discussion connected community challenges to governance. Teddy Cruz urged participants to treat good governance as a shared responsibility. Jason Schupbach, identified in the article as Director of Design Programs at the National Endowment for the Arts, discussed place-based initiatives and coordination across agencies.
For a project team, shared responsibility means making the boundaries between design, construction, ownership, and public authority visible. A landscape architect may understand public-space performance, a community organization may understand displacement pressure, a contractor may understand phasing and safety, and an agency may control a permit or funding condition. None of those perspectives is sufficient alone. A coordination table should identify the decision owner, the people affected, the technical advisers, and the point at which the group will revisit the choice.
What designers and builders contribute
Boone argues that designers need tools, techniques, and tolerance for understanding human conditions and socio-cultural practices, just as they work with complex natural systems. He also calls for landscape architects to make their work more visible and for design and planning to draw on diverse perspectives, histories, and opportunities.
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That argument gives construction professionals a concrete role. Builders can explain sequencing, safety, site logistics, and the practical consequences of a detail. Designers can make spatial effects visible before work begins. Community leaders can identify lived impacts that drawings miss. Funders and agencies can test whether a benefit is financially and administratively possible. Treating each contribution as part of project intelligence—rather than as a late approval hurdle—improves the quality of the questions being asked.
How to judge whether engagement is meaningful
The 2016 account does not establish universal measures, but it suggests useful tests for a project team:
- Adaptability: Did the team change its methods when residents’ needs, the project scope, or the political context changed?
- Accessibility: Could people participate across languages, disabilities, schedules, and levels of technical knowledge?
- Trade-off clarity: Were financial, regulatory, and construction constraints explained well enough for participants to challenge them?
- Alliance-building: Were officials, financiers, owners, and community organizations involved when they could still change the outcome?
- Decision influence: Can participants point to a choice they shaped, a condition they improved, or a reasoned explanation for a request that was not adopted?
These are diagnostic questions, not a certified scorecard. A project should also meet its legal duties and any locally required consultation rules; the forum report does not replace those requirements.
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Limits of the 2016 lessons
Designing Equity was reported in 2016, and the source does not assess the current programs of the organizations named in the article. It reports methods and panelists’ interpretations, not comparative evidence showing that multilingual materials, video, role-play, or political-campaign strategies outperform other approaches. Nor does it provide a quantified measure of the East Harlem plan’s outcomes.
Use the case as a set of questions rather than a plug-in formula. A tactic that helps residents understand an up-zoning decision may need substantial modification for a school replacement, a utility project, a rural subdivision, or a construction job affecting small businesses. Local law, language, history, power relationships, and the project’s actual decision structure should determine the adaptation.
What is next for community engagement?
The strongest answer in Boone’s account is not a new meeting format. It is a shift in responsibility. Engagement starts early enough to influence consequential choices, gives people the information needed to evaluate trade-offs, includes the allies who control resources, and continues as the project changes. Governance, design, finance, and construction are treated as connected parts of the same public conversation.
Boone closes with a concise challenge: “Landscape architects have a lot to learn and a lot to contribute to the conversation.” For today’s project teams, that means learning how human systems work while contributing the technical, spatial, and delivery knowledge needed to turn community priorities into buildable decisions.
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