Critical Planning

Considering the national awakening to the pervasiveness of racial violence, historical acts of planning must be examined for how they have concretized racial inequalities in the built environment. This paper engages with Critical Race Theory to consider how the historical development of the View Park subdivision of Los Angeles contributed to the materialization of White Supremacy. The developer’s plan for the fully improved, racially and socioeconomically restricted subdivision of View Park, especially when compared to its plans for subdivisions intended for Black and working-class persons, illustrates how possession was achieved by design for the exclusive use of White persons through disinvestment in non-White communities.