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environment • air • climate • housing • water • equity • land use • economy • mobility

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Mission

Establish Equity & Justice as the Umbrella for Integrated Planning & Decision-Making

01.

Equity & justice results in community agency – that is, an authentic participatory process that engages communities.

02.

Equity is the driver, rather than an issue addressed later. Equity – that is, fairness &  justice –  is fully interwoven throughout state & local processes and actualized through implementation actions. Equity guides state actions, local decisions, & private sector responsibility.

03.

Equity for all is achieved when we all rise together – that is, when marginalized communities on the front lines of environmental degradation & at the bottom of economic opportunity – are lifted up; and those with more means contribute more responsibly – through environmental justice, social justice, & economic justice.

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Purpose

Move from Piecemeal Action to Integrated Strategies

Goal:

Evolve Colorado away from its current piecemeal & incremental approach to planning for growth to a more all-encompassing framework for 21st century. Equity-and fairness are foundational principles for this framework.

At Issue:

Colorado’s challenges today are complex & interrelated  – environmental degradation, extreme air pollution, worsening climate, widening social & economic inequities, housing imbalance & homelessness, pending water scarcity, unsustainable development, & mobility imbalance. The challenges are urgent & exacerbated by inequities – and require systems level analysis, rather than piecemeal incremental decision-making.

Action:

Colorado must evolve from siloed, one-dimensional approaches, to embrace whole systems thinking based on equity-for-all. The laissez-faire approaches of the past have failed, we can no longer afford business-as-usual.

 

Systems level analysis is based on authentic participatory processes that engage & empower community members, advance equity & fairness, and achieve long-lasting sustainability outcomes for people & the environment

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What Colorado Needs Now

Transformation That is Equitable & Just for All From Incrementalism to Integration Systems

It is long overdue for Colorado to move beyond its piecemeal, enabling & advisory-only approach to planning for growth & the future.

 

What’s being proposed?

  • shift to a fully integrated, all-inclusive planning & policy planning framework – that has official standing

    • intersection of equity, health, housing, transport, land use, economic resiliency

  • focus is locally-based, rather than top down

    • locally based, but requires localities to craft policies & actions in an integrated, equity framework

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Positioning Colorado for the Future: what conservations are needed next, what actions should we explore?

  • establish a new integrated, comprehensive policy framework – for localities to tailor & customize to their context (shift from advisory, to having official standing)

  • provide this framework with distinctions for urban, rural, & resource areas of the state (i.e., not one size fits all)

  • moves Colorado from a bottom tier among the 50 states in dealing with equity & sustainability to be in-line with what other states are already doing.

  • include incentives for local jurisdictions

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