Eleventh Annual Bay Area Policy Forum Focuses on Equitable Economic Development and Community Engagement
By Colin Harmony
The 11th annual Bay Area Policy Forum (BAPF) took place at the SPUR Urban Center in the Yerba Buena district of San Francisco on March 6th. (All photographs by Mariana Garcia Medina. See the full set here.) The forum provided USC Price School graduate students with the opportunity to hear from policy leaders during structured colloquies around salient public policy issues. The panels organized for the year differed from panels of past years, however, in the degree to which the themes and organizing principles of each panel complemented one another — a point articulated by Professor T.J. McCarthy of the Price School during his opening remarks to the assembled audience.
Members of the BAPF Planning Committee oriented this year’s panels around equitable economic development and community-based participatory action. Samuel Worley, a second-year MPP candidate and returning BAPF committee member, emceed the event with characteristic ease and facilitated the smooth transitions between the forum’s scheduled events.
Margaret Gordon, Co-Director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, served as keynote speaker for the forum. Ms. Gordon expounded on her work to assess and address localized sources of environmental pollutants through the utilization of a previously untapped community network. In her final remarks, Ms. Gordon asserted the overriding importance of developing on-the-ground personal relationships with the communities that policy actors serve.
Ms. Gordon’s concluding admonition resurfaced throughout the proceeding talks. The Equitable Economic Development panel, which was moderated by first-year MUP/MPP candidate Alexander Sarno, provided space for measured reflection on the prevailing economic paradoxes in the Bay Area and discussion of the methods by which panelist organizations worked to ensure equitable distributions of economic prosperity. Communal engagement emerged as a leitmotif throughout the talk.
At the conclusion of the Equitable Economic Development panel, attendees participated in a community walk — a first for BAPF. Penelope Fergison, a first-year MPP candidate, teamed up with Dr. Rym Kaki of the Price School to facilitate the walk-and-talk, which included discussion of the history of the Yerba Buena district as well as commentary on some of the longstanding public challenges facing downtown San Francisco.
Ms. Fergison pulled double duty as moderator for the Community-Based Participatory Action panel. The panelists foregrounded the importance of treating the internalization of community perspectives as a prerequisite to meaningful community-based work; they also thoughtfully considered the respective impacts of voting rights and funding restrictions on the efficacy of community-driven ventures.
Dr. Juliet Musso returned to BAPF to provide closing remarks for the forum. In customary fashion, Dr. Musso deftly spoke to the privileges and hidden pitfalls of the policy profession and urged the audience to remain cognizant of the ramifications of top-down policy initiatives that prescribe at the expense of community input. The mixer that capped the forum brought together forum attendees, Price School alumni and a promising roster of admitted Price School graduate students for an evening of networking and good conversation.
