Urban Equity Planning with André Darmanin
angela_r_howard (00:00.874)
All right, Andrei, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you on. I am really looking forward to this conversation because you and I really, first of all, we have been vibing off of the Virgo energy, which is what brought us together. Ah, you knew that was coming, you knew that was coming. But also the work that we do, there's also energy around.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (00:15.088)
just had to bring that one up.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (00:19.706)
Of course.
angela_r_howard (00:25.854)
and synergy around the work and the impact we're looking to make. And so we'd love for you to just open up with an intro, tell us who you are, what you do, and the impact you're looking to make on the world.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (00:37.32)
All right, thanks, Angela. Outside of the Virgo connection that we got, so for me, I've been doing my work, predominantly within urban planning for just over 20 years. And I've spent anywhere from Los Angeles to Edmonton to the Greater Toronto area doing this work. And also in the spheres of transportation and housing.
angela_r_howard (00:42.123)
I'm going to go to bed.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (01:06.296)
And those are the two biggest areas when it comes to inequities and inequalities, whether it's in policy, how we build, what we build, et cetera. And it's not just racial, it's also accessibility issues and whatnot. So, you know, growing up with my lived experience as a, as a mixed ancestry person, growing up in social housing, I was very observant as to what was going on in my neighborhood.
And from the time initially I was saying to myself, hey, I want to be a bus driver. And I played with a broken scooter wheel to pretend I was a bus driver. So I knew I was kind of wanting to get into that whole planning space. And then as time went on going through university and whatnot, I realized that I have this passion towards changing.
angela_r_howard (01:46.81)
Ah.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (02:03.508)
whether it's from an organizational perspective to the lower level, you know, from the grassroots level. And that's why I initially got into this work of planning. And so what I'm trying to do is actually change the dynamic of how do we approach planning from a Canadian perspective. And, you know, and we can go on for this for...
angela_r_howard (02:04.042)
Mm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (02:31.332)
you know, throughout the podcast and, you know, and I've, and I've gone into the whole part of the DEI and how do we, how do we bring diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into the profession? So that's that organizational perspective of, from the planning side. So, and it relates to a lot of other organizations and what they're going through. So a lot of my work overlaps with what, what we're experiencing today.
angela_r_howard (02:44.136)
Mm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (03:01.156)
And so this is the impact I'm trying to do in terms of not only internally from an organizational perspective, from a DEI perspective, but as well as from a policy perspective, a talent perspective, and what we're trying to do to change the industry. And it's not just me who's doing it. There's other people that are doing it within the Canadian frame. So kudos to those people who are trying to change the narrative. But I'm here to contribute to that as well.
angela_r_howard (03:08.854)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (03:30.93)
I love that. And I do want to highlight that you're Canadian because I think that's going to enrich our conversation today about DE&I, racism, sexism, classism, all the isms because we live in two different countries and the context, the background is different. So, you know, I think throughout this episode we'll be kind of...
vibing off of kind of our lived experiences in this space, which is going to be really cool. But what really like interests me in your work is the fact that I do not have an urban planning background, but I can easily see the system of urban planning within a community really mirroring how I do my work from a organizational perspective, right? I mean, I'm really just working within an ecosystem.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (04:02.072)
Yeah.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (04:24.178)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (04:28.102)
which you are also doing and you're kind of pairing it up with DE&I. So give us some perspective as to how you kind of make the connection between urban planning, the work that you do in urban planning, but also DE&I within an organization.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (04:44.476)
Yeah, no, that's a great question, Angela. So, you know, looking at it from the grassroots level, comparing it to what happens in the U.S., we see, you know, in the U.S. we had seen, you know, tear downs of neighborhoods and what they called urban renewal in the 50s, so they can build highways across the country and within our cities, within Chicago, within New York, within Los Angeles, et cetera, because the car was the domination.
at that time. And so when you start to see that, and of course that didn't really happen here because of the fact, Jane Jacobs, who was the classic activist within the planning circles, she didn't want the same thing happening in Toronto for instance. So there was some community backlash behind that. And we didn't have that same movement of highways.
angela_r_howard (05:33.466)
Mmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (05:41.308)
going through our cities and going over neighborhoods and whatnot. But you still have the same issues of gentrification. You still have that within a community perspective. So you're starting to see a lot of the class disparities, the race disparities, the income disparities, et cetera. And you start to see the similarities to what's happening in the US. And so
from an organizational perspective, this is where we start from, what is happening at the top? What is, you know, what have we done from a leadership perspective and from an organizational perspective to allow that to percolate to our communities? And the people that are not hired in leadership levels do not represent the communities.
angela_r_howard (06:23.464)
Mm.
angela_r_howard (06:28.583)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (06:34.972)
people at the entry level do represent the communities, but they're not able to influence that change. So we see that in the private sector. And we're still seeing that issue coming to hand. But also, and as we meant, as I spoke with you before, Canadians tend to do this
angela_r_howard (06:43.565)
Mm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (07:04.456)
It takes them a little while to get to this point. And so there's a lot of issues there within an organization that still are percolating to the grassroots level from a Canadian perspective, but there's people out there that are doing the work. So I think that's where it starts. And then of course you can see the relationship between the two in terms of that and how do we change that.
angela_r_howard (07:25.813)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (07:35.938)
And you talk about accessibility, and I think I can't help but think about kind of this new wave of hybrid working, and how that's, so let me see if I can articulate this, the way it's happening in my head. But one of the things that we talk about with hybrid working is that it levels the playing field in some cases when it comes to access to certain jobs. So you no longer have to live in Silicon Valley, and
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (07:45.416)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (07:52.028)
Yeah.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (08:01.007)
Hmm
angela_r_howard (08:05.086)
you know, for someone who cannot afford a million dollar house or condo in Silicon Valley, I can now work in Ohio and have a tech job, right, and reap the benefits of that role. When in the past, you know, we had an urban planning, a general planning issue where you had to live where you worked and the accessibility really, I can't help but think about the context of
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (08:17.853)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (08:34.542)
neighborhoods and gentrification and how that might have impacted people's accessibility to certain positions or certain roles or organizations because of where they lived. And so are you seeing like that conversation being had from an urban planning perspective, the connection between that and the workplace?
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (08:39.047)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (08:44.7)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (08:53.704)
So let me enlighten the audience a little bit here. So first of all, this conversation has been around for decades. And this is more of a conversation around commuting to work. And there was always, so there's the act of transportation circles, there's how does business contribute to this and are you going to allow
angela_r_howard (09:04.182)
Mm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (09:22.032)
flexible schedules at work, et cetera. So this conversation has been around for years. It took a pandemic for businesses to realize that, hey, we have the technology to do this, why don't we do this? But at the same time, what we're starting to see is that those people who decide to move to, you know, outside of the city or to another province or in the US, another state.
angela_r_howard (09:28.843)
Mm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (09:49.244)
To do this work, there's tax implications on an organization. There's, you know, and of course, there's the whole insecurity of leaders in that they want them to come back to work. I mean, they're not at the level of the Elon Musk's craziness of, you know, we're demanding people to go back to work. But you know, but there are those organizations who are telling them, okay, we're going to we're okay with flexibility in doing, you know, a two, three, two kind of model.
angela_r_howard (10:07.291)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (10:25.076)
So accessibility is, in my mind, accessibility more means the people who have mobility issues, right, in terms of those in scooters, etc. So it's more about equal mobility and are we able to...
angela_r_howard (10:38.603)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (10:46.921)
Mm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (10:47.984)
to have them come to work, are we able to provide that technology? Are we able to save the environment, especially given the fact that we're in a climate change world, or now considered a climate emergency, if you will? So there's a lot of that coming into this. So those are the things that organizations are thinking about. And also too, you have to...
angela_r_howard (11:02.818)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (11:14.744)
you know, a little bit off of the tangent here is the fact that leaders need to be flexible in that work, right? Whether, regardless if you're in urban planning or you're in healthcare or in whatnot, you have to fully grasp the idea of what you as a leader are doing to be flexible and understand what the hybrid environment looks like. Do you lead in a hybrid environment? Do you develop, you know, can you, you know, a lot of organizations, for example, they tend to...
angela_r_howard (11:20.715)
Hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (11:45.457)
A lot of them want them the collaborative environment because that's the way they think that things can be done, but you can be collaborative in this environment. So there's so many factors involved when it comes to this work and it overlaps, like I say, from an organizational level to the ground level.
angela_r_howard (12:01.182)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's these paradigms that, you know, I think we're all grappling with now, which is checking in on why do I believe that? Why do I believe productivity needs to happen in a physical space? But I think what you're saying is deeper, what we're saying together is deeper than that, which is saying this is not just about ways of working in collaboration. There's also a ripple effect.
to you asking, let's say, all your employees to be in an office in a certain location. There are contextual pieces that could create inequities because of that decision, other than just we can't collaborate, right? And that's where I feel like urban planning is this piece that people don't think about. Climate change is this piece, this ripple effect that we don't think about. Like how am I impacting
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (12:44.665)
Yeah.
angela_r_howard (12:58.41)
the environment society and the humans on my team.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (13:02.396)
Right, and you start to see where the inequities are, especially, and now they're more profound when it comes to those who are working in service level, employees and the commuting patterns, they still have to be front-facing employees, right? So there's that inequity of someone like you and I who are from an intersectional lens, we're able-bodied, we're, you know, we're, you know, we,
angela_r_howard (13:19.63)
Thanks for watching!
Mm.
angela_r_howard (13:29.23)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (13:31.824)
either own a car or can take transit, educated, all that stuff. And whereas someone from a different perspective, you start to see those inequities of the education level. There's oftentimes, especially in the US, we're talking about race and whatnot. So you start to see those playing out and how urban planning has contributed to those inequities, right? So...
So those are the things we need to really think about.
angela_r_howard (14:03.774)
Yeah. And so I did want to kind of pause and just, you know, kind of acknowledge the fact that again, you're, you're from Canada, you're currently living in Canada, you're Canadian, I'm from the US. And oftentimes, I think it's really important that especially us from the US we understand the global context of things like racism, of sexism, of classism, of colorism.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (14:27.793)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (14:32.286)
So help enlighten the audience on like, what are the issues you're grappling with from a Canadian perspective? And how might they differ from what we're grappling with in the US?
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (14:45.412)
Um, you know, there isn't, I wouldn't say there's that much of a difference with the exception of the fact that there's, you know, there's blatant in your face racism in the U.S. versus behind your back covert racism that exists in the Canadian perspective. So you'll see it in not just, you know.
angela_r_howard (14:51.243)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (15:09.128)
This is just more of an organizational perspective, or just in general, in how we live everyday life. People will not tell you, or they'll just imply racism, or some sort of racist trope to your face or to other people. But also they're hidden in the policies that we've, or the programs that we've implemented over the years. Now that's more of a comparison.
angela_r_howard (15:12.024)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (15:22.324)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (15:29.739)
Mmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (15:35.784)
to what the US has done over the years, where that's the same thing. It's the, going back to an urban planning perspective, there's the zoning, there's the urban renewal, all that stuff, right, as I mentioned earlier. So really, there's a difference, but there's still a lot of similarities when it comes to the classism, the colorism that exists, the inequities between gender and sexual identity and all that. So we...
angela_r_howard (15:46.432)
Yeah.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (16:06.108)
From a global perspective, no matter what, those are the issues. From a North American perspective, the only really big difference is, the way racism is conveyed, in whether it's a personal setting or professional setting.
angela_r_howard (16:09.806)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (16:26.258)
Yeah, yeah, and it's important to talk about those differences because we do have organizations that are, I mean, I know there's a lot of similarities, but just the context as to where these things originated, how the systems were built and who they weren't built for might be different. So we're dealing with the same things, but for example, we were talking earlier, the US is...
kind of riddled with slavery. Not that didn't happen in Canada, but you all have a history with Indigenous people. And so tell us that, because I just started learning about that history. So tell us a little bit about that too and how that maybe connects to urban planning and the workplace too.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (17:09.672)
Yeah.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (17:16.652)
Yeah. So from an Indigenous perspective, you know, without getting to a lot of the history and, you know, I'll just summarize it as much as I can or be as brief as possible. So with the Indigenous peoples, they were, you know, at that, you know, during the early days of colonialism, if you will.
you know, they came into the country and, sorry, I shouldn't say they, it's, you know, the English, the French, they came into the country and were seeking the new world and whatnot, interacted with Indigenous people and then, you know, took over. And then after that, when it came to, when it came to Confederation, which was in 1867, and later on, there was a, there was a,
legislation called the Indian Act, which was meant to be an act that was supposed to level the playing field, and I use that in air quotes, but it doesn't. It actually created more inequities. And then from there, there was the establishment of the residential schools all over Canada, which took away a lot of the children from their parents and brought them into
angela_r_howard (18:21.997)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (18:29.71)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (18:39.784)
into these residential schools and you hear such a, and now then the news and the issues are coming out where children were missing and murdered and it still exists even today where you'd see in a lot of cities where there were missing and murdered indigenous women. And so that is something that has been brought to light. So,
angela_r_howard (19:01.907)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (19:08.844)
So in that, we also have the, what most recently within the last five to seven years was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the federal government had put together. And there are 94, I believe, 94 recommendations within there that talk about how do we engage with communities? How do we create equity within the Indigenous community? Economic development.
issues involved, et cetera, et cetera. So there's all of that. So from an urban planning perspective is how do we, we are not the, we're not technically in a term, we're not the land, we don't own the land here, right? With the term that's being called is the stolen land, right? And so now how do we reconcile with the committee? How do we...
angela_r_howard (19:58.987)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (20:04.508)
give back to the community. So there's a lot of engagement with these communities. And that's from an urban planning perspective is, how do we meet them on their terms? Because indigenous cultures are different from normal, normal British white cultures. So how do we bridge the gap between the two communities? And how do we create a partnership in terms of reconciling
reconciling and building communities or I should say or the more common term co-create communities with Indigenous people in mind given the fact that it is their land that we need to respect. So and also too there's a you know on top of that there's the UN resolution that talks about the recognition of Indigenous peoples that a lot of organizations have been
angela_r_howard (20:40.655)
Mm-hmm.
angela_r_howard (20:59.254)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (21:04.068)
And that's what the profession is doing as well, is understanding that the UN resolution is also something that we need to think about in terms of how do we reconcile with indigenous populations. So we've been ahead of the game as opposed to what's happening in the US when it comes to indigenous issues. I mean, it's not just about casinos, right? It's, there's a lot more than that. And
angela_r_howard (21:21.782)
Mm-hmm. Right.
angela_r_howard (21:29.355)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (21:32.692)
And this is where we need to build that part. We need to continue to build that partnership. And we're doing that. And there's apologies involved. There's other aspects of reconciliation that we're trying to do, not only as an organization, but also as professionals, even in the planning field.
angela_r_howard (21:54.787)
Hmm. Yeah, and I know that sliver of kind of an overview Gabe is, I mean, there's so much underneath it. So I'm sure the experience of all of that from someone, for example, who's an indigenous person listening to this, there's so much more layers and context to that. And I think that gets to how do we ensure that
different identities within organizations are not just acknowledged, because I think we struggle with just the acknowledgement. Like the fact that you just talked about the acknowledgement that we're on stolen land, the acknowledgement that we owe you an apology. I mean, it's just the acknowledgement we struggle with. So let's get to some action, because I do like to kind of wrap up our conversation with some things that.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (22:29.393)
Right.
angela_r_howard (22:47.554)
people can do, especially leaders of organizations may be listening to this, community leaders may be listening to this. So with your experience with urban planning, with your experience with DE&I and understanding how that works within organizations, what are some things that you can do or start to think about differently so that you can create more equity within your organization and ensure that your platform is also driving
equity and inclusion with your customers, your partners, your suppliers, your whole ecosystem.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (23:24.825)
Right, so this is a huge conversation. When it comes to your suppliers, one thing you need to do is ensure that there's equitable statements and you start to, within your tenders to start to say, we want to represent our communities, this is who we want to have in our tenders in terms of...
angela_r_howard (23:42.349)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (23:50.96)
black communities in terms of indigenous communities, in terms of gender, et cetera, et cetera. So you wanna have that perspective within your tenders. Then from an organizational perspective, you wanna have those embedded in your codes of conduct. You wanna ensure that you do the same thing as you do in other organizations where you're looking at.
You know, your ERGs, you're looking to have that talent pipeline through mentoring, through sponsoring black and talented women in the workplace and help them advance instead of putting them into middle management or even, you know, or don't even advance them to management positions or even to directors and whatnot. So have those in place.
And then you talk about it from the professional perspective. You know, the applying profession is accredited. So a lot of times, you know, like for instance, just the other day I was making a presentation to masters urban planning students. And I was giving them the statistics and within the statistics I also said that we're still not at the same level as, you know, the American.
the American Institute of Certified Planners, where in their code of conduct, they have a whole bunch of factors, sorry, a whole bunch of language when it comes to addressing racism, sexism, and creating equity within the planning profession. We're not there yet. And so that's where we need to get more involved from the planning perspective, because the planners in themselves represent the communities.
angela_r_howard (25:25.878)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (25:44.764)
they build for those communities. And then finally, one of the things I wanna say too is about education. And so, if we're not, if we're continuously talking about the same policies, the same histories that created these inequities, then it becomes a problem. So this just becomes a revolving cycle of what are we teaching our students? And I know that some schools are starting to get the message and they're starting to...
angela_r_howard (25:45.71)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (26:14.864)
build courses around social and racial equity, but we're still not there yet, but at least there's the talk of that happening. So I think those are the most important things that are required in terms of how organizations can start the conversation, and then how do they translate from those who want to get into these organizations.
by feeding them that information of, look, this is what's happened. How do we improve organizations from the bottom up? But also how do we improve the organizations from the top down, understanding that these are the leaders that have perpetuated the racism, the sexism, et cetera, and brought them down to the communities themselves and created inequitable policies and whatnot. So it's an ecosystem, as you alluded to before, of how do we bring
How do we make change within an organization, regardless if it's planning or not?
angela_r_howard (27:19.178)
Right, and I think you talk about this ripple effect, right, between each of the sectors, which is, you know, private sector, public sector, and education. And, you know, I think all too often businesses...
whether they're in the public sector or private sector, they kind of just like narrow in and they don't think about the other parts of the ecosystem. And so that is, you know, that's why we are talking about social responsibility at work because we're talking about the workplace, but there is a connecting point. There's the education, right, is a pipeline into who enters the workforce. And the workforce has to operate in the context of a society.
So you have to think about those three things, like a Venn diagram that just overlap each other. And so I love what you're saying. This could probably be like three podcast episodes because I have so many other questions, but I think you've given us some things to think about. I appreciate you bringing your perspective, your diverse perspective, not only from your life experience, but also where you're living and also from your industry.
So really, really excited to share this episode. And if you could just let everybody know where to find you, if they wanna reach out to you, if they wanna use you as a resource or hire you for a project, where can they find you?
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (28:46.628)
Sure. So I can be found on LinkedIn and on Instagram, Urban Equity Consulting. And also you can find me on the various channels under Andre Darmanin, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, et cetera. You can find me on there and connect with me on there in terms of...
you know, in terms of any future work, if you want to ask me any questions, if you or even just want to just riff about different, uh, different topics that intersect and how do they intersect even in public health or even in, uh, transportation or, you know, interdisciplinary issues and whatnot. So I'm, I'm open to those conversations and also to, um, you know, as a shameless plug, if you will, I am the host of, uh, the global conversations podcast that starts in 2023 and I'll be having.
probably some same guest as you, and talking about DEI issues from a global perspective because I guess the last thing I wanna say is that going back to our initial conversation about the American perspective is that because the American perspective is feeds into the media, sorry, the media feeds into what Canadians.
angela_r_howard (29:44.92)
Mm-hmm.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (30:08.708)
listen to or watch and whatnot, it just becomes this silo effect. And so now I wanted to bring people from outside of that silo to say, what is going on? What can we learn from you in places like Australia in terms of the EMEA area, APAC, etc. What do we bring from their perspective into what you're doing and how do you change organizations? Because it's not all about the US, it's all about Canada, it's about a global perspective.
angela_r_howard (30:10.283)
Hmm.
angela_r_howard (30:37.482)
Love it. Love it. Well, Andre, thank you so much for your time, your brilliance. Thanks for sharing it with my audience and hope to have you on the podcast soon again.
andr__darmanin__he_him____urban_equity_consulting (30:46.692)
Yeah, exactly. Great to have, great to be here. And same, likewise in terms of there's an open invitation for you to be on my podcast.
