Executive Summary

The scope of the Equitable Growth & Inclusion Strategic Plan is ambitious and innovative for a small city in the American South, and is only made possible with the bold vision and commitment of Mayor Deana Holiday-Ingraham, City Councilmembers, and senior City staff. PSE has designed a process that integrates City leadership insights, the collective wisdom of the full PSE team of planners, analysts, organizers and advocates, and the lived experience of East Point stakeholders.

The combination of knowledge and experience brought to this endeavor is grounded in PSE’s Principles of Shared Prosperity:

• Development must happen with people, not to people;

• Public and private investments should produce outcomes for “people, planet & profit;”

• Equitable growth is the superior growth model; and

• Building capacity can enable communities to lead and own change efforts.

The Draft City of East Point Equitable Growth & Inclusion Strategic Plan is provided not as a quick equity to-do list, but as a roadmap for the further exploration of equity solutions for the City of East Point. The findings in this Plan integrate PSE’s understanding of current conditions in East Point, insight from a robust community engagement process, a preliminary review of internal City documents, and best practice research. These processes helped identify a set of recommended strategies to promote equity in four goal areas, including community engagement, just use of industrial land use, inclusive housing, and equitable economic development.

Recommended actions are summarized in the Matrix of Equity Strategies & Actions, which also includes suggested prioritization of actions over the course of 2021-2026. The rest of this page provides a summary of key takeaways from the completed research, engagement, and analysis.