A crowdsourced and curated list of all things design, equity and culture for people working to improve the world in which we all live.
As we wrap up this challenging year, we are grateful for the people and partnerships that form our community and help us persevere. In a celebration of that community, and in search of inspiration to start the New Year with fresh ideas, we asked some of our collaborators about the resources they valued in 2020. We didn’t know quite what we were asking for, but the wide-ranging submissions reflect the diversity of ideas and themes that our partners have worked on throughout the year. We hope that you have time for reflection and rest in the coming weeks, and that one of these 30 (and counting!) resources might help provide some fuel during that time.
Editor's Pick
"Design with Love: At Home in America,” by Katie Swenson, Photography by Harry Connolly
If you are in pursuit of more equitable and just models of community development, this book teaches us to center ‘love’ as the first ingredient. The words and documentary photography illuminate the Enterprise Rose Fellowship and the work of the creative, resilient and activist architects and artists that have been a part of the program over its 20-year history.
Books
Find these titles wherever you get your books. Try bookshop.org, an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores, or any of these Black-owned bookstores.
- Love and Rage by Lama Rod Owens
“Lama Rod Owens provides a social justice Buddhist perspective on holding trauma, rage, and violence within our individual and social bodies, essential tools for resilience and trauma informed practice.”
- Carol Zou, Enterprise Rose Fellow, Little Tokyo Service Center - Main Street: How a City's Heart Connects Us All by Dr. Mindy Fullilove
"Analysis of urban atrophy, segregation, and disinvestment and their impacts on mental health by a social psychologist seems apropos during an era that begs for healing.”
- Wayne Mortenson, CEO Neighborworks, Lincoln Nebraska, Rose Fellowship Alumnus - Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva
“Working in an organization that aims to use capital to work against poverty and advance racial equity though a housing lens, the wisdom and insights from Villanueva require critical self-reflection of our work. What are we getting right, what are we getting wrong, how can we be better partners? How are our current systems, processes, programs reinforcing racism and colonization? This is a must-read for anyone working in philanthropy and finance.”
- Susan Anderson, Sr. Director, Rural and Native American Program, Enterprise - Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debbie Irving
“It's hard to know what you don't know unless you ask and receive honest, authentic feedback. This book clued me into so many aspects of understanding why members of the dominant culture struggle to be more responsive to issues of racial injustice.”
- Jeana Dunlap, Urbanist and Strategic Advisor based in Louisville, KY - The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
"The first American of African heritage to receive a PhD, is a beautifully written series of essays about being Black in America. Although 150 years old, this book remains relevant both as history and as a framework for important contemporary conversation about public policy and race including DuBois’s controversial categorizations of Black people."
- Kathy Dorgan, Dorgan Architecture and Planning - The Immigrant Food Nexus: Border, Labor and Identity in North America & Cultivating Food Justice. Race, Class and Sustainability by Julian Agyeman
“After seeing his lecture, I ordered two of Julian Agyeman’s books which I’m just starting and will be using for the African food course in the spring. He’s the person who coined ‘just sustainabilities.’”
- Elizabeth Debs, Community Development Consultant, RISD Faculty - The Making of a Democratic Economy: Building Prosperity for the Many, Not just the Few by Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard
- Jesus Calling – Enjoying Peace in His Presence by Sarah Young
“It is a daily reminder of my foundation, purpose and work.”
- Tia McCoy, Neighborhood Engagement Director, Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, Rose Fellowship Host Organization - Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez
“This is an eye-opening account of the vast and profound ways that unconscious personal bias impacts the design of everything from snow collection to medical treatments to airbags and the undeniable conclusion that so much of our world is, in fact, designed for men. Your mind will be blown!”
- Chana Haouzi, Architect and Enterprise Rose Fellow at the Department of Neighborhood Development, City of Boston
Podcasts
- Lit! Pop! Bang!
“This is a literary podcast hosted by two Baltimore-based writers and educators. They also have a lot to say about how pop culture relates to the themes in contemporary literature that they explore with their guest writers. I especially recommend the October 2020 episode (Episode 3.7) called ‘Place is our First Poetics,’ with poet Steven Leyva. He talks about how we connect to places and memory.”
- Nella Young, Sr. Program Director, Culture + Creativity, Enterprise - Partners
“The premise of this podcast is that every successful partnership - be it professional or personal - is essentially a love story; collaborating, trusting and being in conversation with each other are acts of love. I recommend starting with the episode featuring Samin Nosrat & Wendy McNaughton.”
- Kristen Chin, Sr. Project Manager, Hester St. & Rose Fellowship Alumnus - East Bay Yesterday
“This year I was impacted by the ‘East Bay Yesterday,’ local history podcast for its ability to shed light on the interwoven cultural, natural, racial and activist roots of a place, in order to inform its future. Here's a great example – the story of Oakland's city bird that refuses to be displaced ‘They insist on being here.’”
- Annie Ledbury, Sr. Manager, Creative Community Development, EBALDC & Rose Fellowship Alumnus - Invest like the Best
“The most valuable resource I come back to is a podcast called ‘Invest Like the Best’ by Patrick O’Shaughnessy. His interview with Kat Cole was one of my favorites this year. One quote that stood out is this one: ‘People tend to come closer to their potential if you see them at their potential. If you don’t see potential in them, they will never get to their potential.’”
- Anup Patel, Venice Community Housing Corp. & Rose Fellowship Host Organization - “Indigenous Wisdom & the Seed of Life with Sherri Mitchel,” from the No Place Like Home podcast
“I've listened to this podcast at least three times. Sherri Mitchell shares a powerful perspective about the necessity to live in balance with the rest of life and how that translates into how we approach each other, even those we disagree with.”
- Mary Ayala, Senior Program Director, National Initiatives, Enterprise
Newsletters
- "Heated"
“I’m grateful for the ability to start my day with well-reported, thought-provoking climate journalism. There’s nothing else like it.”
- Krista Egger, VP, National Initiatives, Enterprise - "Native Places"
"The Native Places Newsletter is a welcome distraction in my email inbox – a collection of beautifully written essays and whimsical watercolor sketches which emphasize the importance of place and the joy of everyday objects and activities."
- April Montgomery, VP Programs Telluride Foundation & Rose Fellowship Host Organization
Video Resources
- Knight Public Spaces Forum 2020
"A great online gathering that was well organized, focused on critical challenges, and chock full of speakers who really knew their stuff! I watched most of it live despite all of the zoom fatigue we all have, and shared multiple talks with colleagues and friends."
- Nette Compton, AVP, Director of Strategy, Trust for Public Land & Rose Fellowship Host Organization - "Simple Rules," talk + book, by Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
“We tend to create complex systems for so many aspects of community development work. This was a nice reminder to trust your instincts.”
- Devin Culbertson, Sr. Program Director, Enterprise Community Partners - "How great leaders inspire action," TEDTalk by Simon Sinek
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” As Fellows and nonprofits, always start with a project mission - a purpose - because it you don’t know why you are doing something, it is probably not worth doing - and if you do, form will always follow function. See Enterprise’s Design Toolkit for guidance. It is worth making to the end for anecdote on Dr King.
- Mandy Bartle, Executive Director, South Florida Community Land Trust & Rose Fellowship Host Organization
Other Resources
- Connected Communities Guidebook, NYCHA
“The New York City Housing Authority’s ‘Connected Communities Guidebook’ is an essential reference for our firm's work improving open spaces in public housing and designing infill development on NYCHA properties. We like how the guide clearly illustrates design approaches to deploy in schematic design, which sets ups a framework for achieving design excellence in later project phases.”
The Guidebook is also co-authored by Rose Fellow alumnus, Delma Palma.
- Michael Haggerty, Senior Associate, Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners - Recipe Cards for Community Engagement, CO-Everything
"I find CO-Everything’s delivery of consensus building tools, unique, refreshing, and easily transferrable in a virtual format."
- Mark Matel, Program Director, Enterprise Rose Fellowship - "Housing will test white support for Black lives",by Noah Y. Kim
“This op-ed emphasizes that reckoning with race in the U.S. must include efforts to address regulatory barriers to increasing the housing supply for Black Americans and communities of color. This requires addressing exclusionary local zoning requirements and practices that were originally established under discriminatory systems and continue to contribute to Black households’ affordability challenges and price them out of predominantly single-family zoned neighborhoods.”
- Ahmad Abu-Khalaf, Senior Research Analyst, Policy Development & Research Enterprise Community Partners - Meyer’s Memorial Trust – HQ Planning and Construction webpage
“This online presentation of an Oregon foundation’s new office’s equitable design process and powerful results inspired us to keep going in this direction, gave us tools to do so, confirmed we are on the right track, and, so importantly, demonstrates the power of leading and taking the time to share outcomes and lessons learned for others to follow more easily along. This is one-way change happens!”
- Lisa Frack, Director of Communications and Development, Human Solutions & Rose Fellowship Host Organization - The Atlantic's COVID coverage
“These articles – especially Ibram X. Kendi's early articles – became the lens through which I saw all the cascading and devastating impacts of COVID.”
- Geoffrey Barton, Director of Real Estate Development, Mountain Housing –Rose Fellowship Alumnus - Prayers for the Social Order - #21 For Social Justice
“I'm not Episcopalian, but this is what I've been reading this year"
- Emily Roush-Elliott, Social Impact Architect, Delta Design Build Workshop – Rose Fellowship Alumnus - AIA Young Architects Forum – ‘Connection’ and Online Journal
“Throughout a turbulent year, Connection has highlighted the voices and actions of young architects, innovators, and disruptors that have helped to shape the response of the architectural profession to climate change, racial injustice, and the economic and health crisis brought upon by a global pandemic.”
- John J. Clark, AIA, NCARB, Rose Fellow, South Florida Community Land Trust - Urban FootPrint
“The tool Urban FootPrint really helped us to make smarter site selection and resource allocation decisions. We were able to give far more careful thought, for example, into how future sea level rise should impact decisions about acquisition of sites for development… (and).. were able to …make more informed decisions about targeting sites …near where new transit investments are likely to occur.”
- Charles Dabney, Director of Real Estate Development, South Florida Community Land Trust & Rose Fellowship Host Organization - City of Boston's Blue Hill Ave. Action Plan
"What's old is new again. Shop owners who live over their business. Simple idea we need to go back to."
- Jay Lee, Assistant Director of Design, Construction and Open Space, City of Boston & Rose Fellow Host Organization - Agents of Change in Environmental Health
"Agents of Change is a fellowship cohort of next generation environmental and public health leaders who come from historically underrepresented backgrounds in science and academia. They author essays on housing, climate change, and a variety of community and public health issues. This initiative is in response to historical and ongoing structural racism prevalent in most institutions including science and media, which suffer from a lack of diversity and inclusion. These are important voices to listen to and amplify!"
- Gina Ciganik, CEO, Healthy Buildings Network - Anti-Racism Design Resource List
“I continue to appreciate the Anti-Racism Design Resource list and its creators, the Design as Protest Collective. It is such an asset to have this comprehensive and up to date tool; our appreciation to the whole DAP network for the ongoing work to create it.”
- Carrie Niemy, Program Director, Design Matters Newsletter Editor, National Initiatives
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