May 7, 2024 • 31 mins
Laura Sharp, PhD, the Equity Data Manager at the City of Tucson's Office of Equity, shares her approach to capturing residents’ perspectives and unique needs, which are being incorporated into the city’s project decision-making process.
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Episode Transcript
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From Esri, this is Engagement Matters, a show about people whose work depends on engaging
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with stakeholders to make meaningful change.
No matter how you define your community, you can learn from the experts we talk to as they
share their stories about motivating groups of people to care about issues and take action.
On today's show, we'll talk with Dr. Laura Sharp from the City of Tucson, Arizona's
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Office of Equity as she shares her data-driven approach to incorporating equity into how
the city makes decisions.
First of all, Laura, thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
No problem.
So, before we get into the work that you and the rest of the team that you have at the
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Mayor's Office of Equity are doing, could you give us a little background on Tucson
for those of us that aren't 100% familiar with the city?
Yeah.
Tucson is Arizona's second largest city by population.
We have around 540,000 people in the city proper and about double that in the whole
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metro area.
It's a very diverse city.
We're just 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
It was originally established by the Tohono O'odham people and only became part of the
United States in like 1850.
So there's also just a lot of Hispanic tradition.
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It's about 42% Hispanic, actually, and then we have smaller percentages of Black and African
American people, Native American and Asian people, and then a lot of Caucasian white
people.
The Hispanic culture comes out in things like our Day of the Dead celebration.
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We're the City of Gastronomy, so we have just a lot of Mexican food that's really
good.
It's a really fun, exciting city to be part of.
It sounds like it, and it sounds like it's the kind of place where there's a lot of diversity
in terms of different kind of subgroups of people that are unique to themselves, which
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is why I imagine Mayor Romero started the Office of Equity, right, to kind of help the
city better understand who you're serving and how to deliver services to folks to kind
of meet them where they are.
Definitely.
Yeah, we have a lot of different kinds of people, and she's really leading the charge
in how we make sure that we're really reaching everyone and not just the people who have
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kind of always traditionally benefited from city services.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But you guys aren't new to using data to try to help you uncover these kinds of insights
about the city, right?
I mean, you've been using GIS for a long time.
You've been doing a lot of mapping.
Can you kind of talk through that a little bit?
Yeah, the city actually has a pretty robust data and GIS component.
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We have the IT department as sort of the central resource that supports all of our GIS platform
and our databases.
And then every department has at least one GIS person, if not many more.
And so we use data in a lot of our work and our decisions, basic things like managing
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assets, but also just to make decisions about where do we need to prioritize housing based
on our homeless encampments and that population?
Where do we need to plant more trees if we're missing tree canopy in certain areas?
That's actually an equity issue if you look at the demographic trends with our tree canopy,
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you'll see that we're missing the most tree canopy in our areas that are predominantly
people of color and low income.
And even just things like where do we need to repair potholes?
Yeah, it's interesting how you're using data to kind of fill in the pieces of the puzzle
that aren't readily apparent over time.
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It's not just about the service delivery side of it, maintaining a city and making sure
that it's being built and growing and getting better over time, but that you're trying to
expand that capability more and more by collecting more data and analyzing it in interesting
ways.
But you personally are not new to this.
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You've been in this industry for a while, right?
Yeah.
So I started doing GIS back in undergrad in early 2005.
Then I stayed in geography to get three different degrees, all in geography and GIS.
And then right out of school, I started at the city of Tucson six years ago.
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I started in IT and working on that team that I told you is sort of the central GIS resource,
the GIS IT team.
And there I supported the rest of the city.
So we maintain that platform, but also when other departments don't have the capabilities,
maybe they don't have the GIS person or they only have one who specializes in one type
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of work, then we could come in and say, hey, we can build that app for you.
We can build that Hub for you, help you design a data collection process.
And through that, I really got to sort of touch everything that the city was working
on and learned what really interested me.
So I moved from there to housing and I helped support a planning team, making maps and helping
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them just do more with the data that they had.
And that kind of also introduced me more to equity because housing, affordable housing,
lack of it, it's really an equity issue.
And so when the Office of Equity came up and the city manager's office, it just made a
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lot of sense to me because it's an office that it's like IT where it touches every department
and I can use it to have a really positive effect.
Yeah, it sounds like it.
It's kind of like with your skills that you built through your formal education and then
all the time that you've been at the city that you've got both the brains and the muscle
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to be able to combine that to do even more good in the city.
That's really inspiring, I think.
And I think the other interesting thing is that you all have really put a lot of effort
into transparency.
So it's not just using data internally for your own purposes to, like I said, uncover
the puzzle and understand where to deliver services better and faster and more efficiently.
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But it's a lot of trying to post information out there so that citizens can understand
what's going on and where and how it affects them.
Yeah.
So the city is really doing a lot to push the envelope and how we engage with the community.
It's just a real part of the organizational culture that we want to hear from the constituents
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that we serve.
And we think of them as, you know, I report to the city manager, he reports to mayor and
council and they report to the citizens.
So at the end of the day, they're really the people we're serving.
So how can we hear from them and also reach them and make sure that they understand what
we're doing and why.
And so I kind of got into the engagement side of the city through technology.
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So I'm not just out there talking to people necessarily, but I am helping other people
build technologies to talk to people.
So I really work a lot in Hub, which we, the city uses a lot to like put out our new projects,
put surveys up there to get feedback, post recordings of what we've done, event calendars,
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all of those things, reporting the data that we've collected through dashboards.
So that's kind of where I see my place in all of that.
I think that's really similar to a lot of the customers that I talk to that they're
not trained communicators, they're trained technologists.
And so they're leveraging the skills that they have to augment other people's capabilities
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and make their jobs easier.
But I think it all points to how, you know, you guys at Tucson are taking kind of an all
the above approach to engagement.
It's not just, okay, we posted some stuff to our website, good luck citizens.
Like we posted it, it's transparent, but not really because you don't know it's there.
Or it's in the filing cabinet in the basement.
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Like why?
Right, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, how did you not know that was there?
Yeah.
You know, I think it's interesting because it takes more effort initially, but it seems
like the dividends really pay off.
I think that the way that you and the city of Tucson approach engagement is by using
technology as something that enables you to do that work even better and faster.
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But when I speak to a lot of customers that are in a similar position that are interested
in engaging their citizens more, they're interested in taking equity into account and their city
operations, they don't really know where to start.
But you have built a strategy that helps you understand what the most appropriate uses
of technology are and how to approach the challenge of including equity into your city
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operations in a way that's more thoughtful and consistent.
Could you talk about the data strategy a little bit?
Yeah.
The Tucson Equity Data Strategy is one of the big things that I started working on when
I got to the Office of Equity.
And what gave me the thought for it was, like I said, I have interacted with a lot of different
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departments.
I understand kind of where the strengths are, where there's things that are missing.
As soon as I started at the Office of Equity and even before that, I would get a lot of
questions about demographics and surveys and how to best ask questions like that.
And so I just kind of understood like, okay, if we want to help people start incorporating
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equity in the work that they're doing, we need to make sure that they have the resources
to do that and that they understand how.
Because I'm just one person, I can't do all of the equity analysis for every project we
do, especially if we want to really bake that into the daily city operations.
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So I identified five areas where I thought that we could help as an office.
The first is demographic collection standards and really just equitable data collection
practices in general.
So that's helping them understand what kinds of questions to ask, how to make sure that
those are inclusive, and really just how do you analyze data in a way that is not going
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to do more harm.
And so part of that includes providing Survey123 templates so that all of those
questions and things are sort of pre-made so that staff, or really this is all public
facing anyone in the community, that survey is ready to go.
They just need to add their own questions in to make it just as easy as possible to,
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you know, we don't want equity to be hard.
The second thing, and this is probably the sort of biggest component of TEDS or it has
the widest impact, is our Equity Priority Index.
And that is taking a lot of different demographic variables that make up what makes a person
socially vulnerable.
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So these are things like being below the poverty line, having a disability, being a child,
being elderly, and it kind of rolls all of those up into one map layer and assigns each
area like a block group or a neighborhood a score on the sort of vulnerability scale
of being vulnerable.
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And then the flip side of that is like being more resilient.
So if life threw something at you, you lost your job, you lost your home, how likely are
you to be able to bounce back after that?
And so that helps us understand, you know, where do we need to be prioritizing our resources
when we go out to do different projects, whether that's repaving or facilitating new broadband.
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It really is just designed to help guide our location strategy as a city.
All of that is rolled up into the third thing, which is our Equity Data Hub.
And that is an open data Hub where we have written or we've worked with Esri to write
a script for us that will process demographic data in all of the city's different geometries.
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So, you know, demographic data comes in block groups and census tracts, but we also do a
lot with our neighborhoods and our planning boundaries, our police zones, all of these
different areas where we also want the demographics associated with that.
And doing that apportionment is not something that everyone can do to get those numbers.
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So this is all going to be pre-apportioned to our geometries and it'll be automated.
So every year we'll have those annual estimates.
So they're all using the same data.
We're not all referring to different numbers for the same area.
One of the other things is a just a simple web map that lets people just click on an
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area of town or really anywhere in Arizona and return these really nice infographics
about that area.
And so this tool, we call it the Census Lookup app.
It is designed for people who don't have any familiarity with data.
So whereas the Open Data Hub is for someone who wants to download some data or, you know,
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do some analysis, this is just like, I need to know the demographics of people within
a one mile radius of this park for this grant that I'm working on.
And you can do this, it takes about, you know, five minutes.
So that's kind of part of this, trying to make this all accessible to the most possible
people.
And then the last thing is just the TEDS toolkit, which is really all of these things that I've
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already mentioned, but then additional resources that help guide you through that.
So tutorials on how to do different things, some Python scripts that will help you once
you've collected your data, how do you analyze that quickly and easily to get information
by demographics?
Like, why did you collect that demographic information if you don't know how to analyze
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it?
So just little things like that to try to make it easier for people.
Yeah, that's a lot to unpack.
It's really good stuff.
I mean, and so a couple of reactions, you know, the first thing is, I obviously, you
know, working for Esri, I love that it's so GIS focused.
It's so location aware and hyper local.
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So that makes total sense to me.
And I like how you're using the technology and you're using the "Science of Where" to drive
a lot of these things forward so that it's more intuitive for people.
I guess if I really wanted to drill down on one thing, it's that you are building these
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tools so that the experts within departments in the city don't have to learn how to do
all this stuff for themselves.
It's like, okay, I need a hammer.
I don't need to know how to build a hammer myself.
I could just go and grab it and use it.
Or I need a screwdriver.
Go over to the toolbox, pull the screwdriver out, like done.
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They still have to somewhat understand why they're using these tools.
You know, like, okay, I've got a nail.
I need a hammer.
I've got a screw.
I need a screwdriver.
But it's not that everybody in the city has to become experts on GIS.
They don't have to become experts on data.
They don't have to be experts in equity.
They can just rely on you and the Office of Equity to guide them in the right direction.
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So yeah, and I like also how, you know, you mentioned that, you know, that way, you know,
when you're providing all this data, you can have one single source of truth, you know.
So like I've visited some city websites in the past that, if you're trying
to look for like, what's the population of the city, like you go to the Census Bureau
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and you get a number and then you go to the city's website and you get a different number
and then you go to a different page on that same city's website and you get yet another
number and it's like, okay, which one is the right one?
So it's just, yeah, kind of goofy.
That's actually sort of the impetus of the index where we had like five different equity
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indices all using different variables, different, you know, vintages of data.
And if you say, well, hey, we prioritize this based on the equity map.
And it's like, oh, which one did you use?
It's just all different.
And some of them are, none of them are up to date.
So it's like, well, how can we just, you know, provide one that everyone can use?
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Well, and I'd imagine if you're using more than one index or more than one equity index
in particular, that that becomes a real huge maintenance nightmare, right?
That wasn't being maintained.
So that takes care of that.
You know, it's all out of date.
And I mean, yeah, that was part of the problem is none of them were maintained.
So that's what this does, it's automated so that every year it'll be updated.
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Yeah, it makes total sense.
So let's focus in a little bit more on the Equity Priority Index itself, because I think
that in and of itself is really interesting.
And a lot of people that I've mentioned this to before we talked, like, oh, wow, you know,
you should really see what they're doing in Tucson with this index.
And they're like, well, what's an index?
Is it like a stock index?
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You know, is it going to tell me like what stocks to buy?
And I was like, no, that's clearly not what they're doing.
So can you kind of explain, you know, to a very basic level, like, I think you already
did, but just like, what is an index?
And how in particular does it help a department incorporate all these different facets of
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equity into their decision making?
Yeah, so I think about an index as, you know, a lot of times in GIS, we just put everything
in a different layer and turn them on and off and say, well, you know, how do these
overlay with one another?
There's a high concentration of people of color here and a high concentration of people
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below poverty.
And so an index, instead of having to turn off 12 different layers for every variable
of interest, every demographic characteristic, it just takes all of those characteristics
and rolls it into one number.
So you end up with a table with each variable as a column, and each variable gets a score
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from zero to 100.
And then you roll those up, do the math, and you get a final score combining all of them.
So it's more complicated than that, and that you have to think about the methods that you
use to combine those different things.
There's, you know, depending on the goals of the index, you'll use different techniques.
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But you end up with basically a map where the higher the score, the more vulnerable
that population is.
And that population would be considered more vulnerable if they have more people who haven't
been educated, more people with a disability, more elderly people, more people without a
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car.
And then the areas with the lower score, those are going to be the more resilient folks who,
you know, they have more resources.
And the way that the departments use this, at least for our index, our index is the vulnerability
index, which is different from like an opportunity index, which I think, you know, both of those
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could in different ways be called an equity index.
But we're focusing on just the people aspect of ours, it's just the demographics, so that
departments can then bring in their subject matter specific data.
So for example, you know, I just met with the IT department, they're working on a project
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to encourage internet service providers to provide fiber and broadband services in unserved
and underserved parts of the city.
Those areas might not be traditionally lucrative for them to be developing in if people are
low income.
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So we're developing a plan to encourage them to work there.
So we want to look at places where you have a combination of these vulnerable populations,
but also people who don't have internet.
We have to look at where the infrastructure exists so that it needs to be nearby.
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So we can kind of roll those up into a larger broadband equity index.
And that data that the department brings, that can be anything from pavement quality
or climate related things.
And so the equity index kind of is just the foundation that people can build those more
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tailored indices on.
And that kind of meeting departments halfway and really just making the index more useful
so that hopefully they don't feel the need to keep cranking out those different indices
that are not being maintained if we can help them do it themselves.
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That helps me understand it a lot better.
And I think it helps explain to folks that aren't used to thinking in this kind of way.
Is if you talk to engineers, like you kind of mentioned, you know, specifically traffic
engineers have ways of giving a score, a single score to a segment of road and saying, okay,
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this has a PQI score of 90, you know, and that means something.
And it takes into account all these different things, all these different factors.
But what you're really doing is you're adding on to that, not just what's the score in terms
of is the road alligatoring or is it, you know, splitting or does it need to be re-topped
or something?
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You're adding in how that asset in the city really impacts the people that live near it,
which goes back to GIS and ties back into the science of knowing that real things in
the world affect real people.
It's not just all numbers and spreadsheets.
So I like the idea.
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Yeah.
So I just like the example of pavement or what you're talking about, because a lot of
people I hear say, well, what does equity have to do with that?
The road is either bad or it's not.
It needs to be repaved regardless of who's living there.
And we just need to fix the worst first.
And the answer to that is you kind of alluded to this, but that's going to have a different
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impact on people depending on sort of their situation in life.
So if you hit a pothole and you're someone who's working in an hourly job and this means
that you can't get to work that day, you might lose your job.
Your car's axle is messed up.
You can't afford to repair it.
Whereas someone in a more affluent area, they might have a job where, oh, it's fine.
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I can come in when I can.
I'll just call an Uber.
I'll just get the car towed.
No big deal.
Thinking about it like that, it's like, well, yeah, let's work on the areas where this is
going to have a more significant impact on people.
And again, you're not picking winners and losers.
I mean, the same amount of work has to happen over time.
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It's just a matter of prioritizing where, it's triaging really.
It's like what doctors do in war zones.
It's like, okay, everybody needs to be treated, but these folks are really critical and we
need to address that first.
And then once we have the breathing room, we'll go back and help these other people
as well.
Right.
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And that's kind of hard to communicate to people.
They feel like, oh, I'm being left out.
Like I'm not going to get what I need because of this.
So that is kind of one of our really big challenges is getting that across to people that this
doesn't mean that we are ignoring you.
It just means we're making sure that we don't ignore those people.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's not a zero sum game just because I'm not getting something this year doesn't mean
I won't get my road repaved next year when it maybe is more appropriate to do it.
You know, it doesn't happen right away.
Yeah, I like that.
I think it humanizes the work that cities do in a way that is not just we keep saying
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equitable, but it really is.
It's humanizing in a way that's equitable, but it's also when you take a step back and
take yourself out of it, it just makes sense.
So kind of taking a step back a little bit, looking at engagement as something that encompasses
all these different components.
You're looking at the science, you're looking at all these different equity markers.
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I think it's interesting how engagement is this continual process that you have to keep
kind of chipping away at over time.
But you have very clear goals that you're trying to hit.
That's why you're engaging.
So kind of taking a step back a little bit, we've talked a lot about the work that you
do to put a lot of this stuff online, not just for departments to use, but for citizens
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and residents to be able to go and find and learn and take surveys and things like that.
But that's not the ultimate objective, right?
Is to have everything in only one place.
You disseminate this information around in a lot of different places.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's easy for me to get caught up in the technical aspect because that's
my wheelhouse.
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But it's really amazing what the different departments do to engage with citizens.
And I really started to get an understanding of that when I was at housing.
Up until then, I built the tools and then they went off and did the engagement and then
I'd hear from them, well, how did it go?
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And then when I was in housing, I would actually go to the events and, you know, really see
what is going on.
And I really started to understand that it's difficult to talk to people.
It's difficult to communicate complex ideas, especially about sensitive issues where people
are worried they're not going to get the resources they need or they're not going to be heard.
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So we do a lot of, and the city as a whole, just going to where people are.
So we hold our own events at city locations and offer snacks and things like that.
But we also go to parks, existing community events.
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Ward 1 did this whole door knocking campaign where they literally went around to every
single door in Ward 1 to just say, "Hey, how are you doing?"
"What's on your mind?"
And we have this, even this Community Ambassador model that different departments have used
where you identify members of the community who are familiar with that community and
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they go out and represent the city and they help you communicate your message in a way
that they know is going to make sense.
And I really think we need more of those.
And our office is hoping to be able to support that in the future.
Yeah, that's really cool.
And I think as a resident of a city, obviously not in Tucson, unfortunately, but it is hard,
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not just hard for the city to communicate to people, it's hard for citizens, residents
to know what's going on because you might not know where to go.
But the way that you're doing this, where you have these Community Ambassadors that
are providing that personal touch, you're going to these events, you're handing information
out, it makes it so much more likely that those two worlds will intersect.
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I love that.
I think that's really cool.
And I guess for the folks that don't know where to start, like it's great to look at
examples like you, Laura, and the City of Tucson and say, "Wow, that's where we want
to be."
Okay, well, how do I get there?
What's my roadmap?
So what would you say to those people?
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If I can't call up Dr. Laura Sharp Consulting Services, LLC because it doesn't exist yet.
Where in the world do I start with this?
I do think that equitable public engagement is becoming more and more discussed.
I know that our office is, we have a public engagement person who's developing an equitable
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public engagement plan.
And so I think that in the future, there will be manuals on what that might look like.
But I think when you're just starting, it's about building a culture where people value
what the citizens are saying.
And that's kind of what I was saying earlier about Tucson is that we have that culture
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as an organization.
And I can't entirely say where it comes from, but it's like each department has at least
one or two people who are really pushing for that.
And then the mayor is really supportive of that and uses that in all of her work.
And so I think it's a combination of "be the change you want to see,"" like you're doing
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the work, encourage everyone else to do that same kind of work, but also encouraging leadership
to support that as well and make sure that they understand that.
And I think Tucson, we benefit from the fact that our mayor and council are so supportive
of the work that we're doing.
And I sympathize with people who don't have that kind of support because it can be difficult.
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And I think you just have to know that it's worth it and to keep pushing.
That was Dr. Laura Sharp from the City of Tucson, Arizona's Office of Equity, sharing
her data-driven approach to equity and engagement.
To learn more about the Office of Equity, visit equity.tucsonaz.gov.
And if you happen to live in Tucson, share your thoughts with the city by filling out
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the survey that they have on that site.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a colleague and don't forget to check
out the other podcasts available from Esri, including "Field Notes" and "Reinventing Planning."
Learn more at Esri.com.
From Esri, this is Engagement Matters, a show about people whose work depends on engaging
(00:10):
with stakeholders to make meaningful change.
No matter how you define your community, you can learn from the experts we talk to as they
share their stories about motivating groups of people to care about issues and take action.
On today's show, we'll talk with Dr. Laura Sharp from the City of Tucson, Arizona's
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Office of Equity as she shares her data-driven approach to incorporating equity into how
the city makes decisions.
First of all, Laura, thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
No problem.
So, before we get into the work that you and the rest of the team that you have at the
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Mayor's Office of Equity are doing, could you give us a little background on Tucson
for those of us that aren't 100% familiar with the city?
Yeah.
Tucson is Arizona's second largest city by population.
We have around 540,000 people in the city proper and about double that in the whole
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metro area.
It's a very diverse city.
We're just 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
It was originally established by the Tohono O'odham people and only became part of the
United States in like 1850.
So there's also just a lot of Hispanic tradition.
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It's about 42% Hispanic, actually, and then we have smaller percentages of Black and African
American people, Native American and Asian people, and then a lot of Caucasian white
people.
The Hispanic culture comes out in things like our Day of the Dead celebration.
(01:58):
We're the City of Gastronomy, so we have just a lot of Mexican food that's really
good.
It's a really fun, exciting city to be part of.
It sounds like it, and it sounds like it's the kind of place where there's a lot of diversity
in terms of different kind of subgroups of people that are unique to themselves, which
(02:22):
is why I imagine Mayor Romero started the Office of Equity, right, to kind of help the
city better understand who you're serving and how to deliver services to folks to kind
of meet them where they are.
Definitely.
Yeah, we have a lot of different kinds of people, and she's really leading the charge
in how we make sure that we're really reaching everyone and not just the people who have
(02:47):
kind of always traditionally benefited from city services.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But you guys aren't new to using data to try to help you uncover these kinds of insights
about the city, right?
I mean, you've been using GIS for a long time.
You've been doing a lot of mapping.
Can you kind of talk through that a little bit?
Yeah, the city actually has a pretty robust data and GIS component.
(03:14):
We have the IT department as sort of the central resource that supports all of our GIS platform
and our databases.
And then every department has at least one GIS person, if not many more.
And so we use data in a lot of our work and our decisions, basic things like managing
(03:38):
assets, but also just to make decisions about where do we need to prioritize housing based
on our homeless encampments and that population?
Where do we need to plant more trees if we're missing tree canopy in certain areas?
That's actually an equity issue if you look at the demographic trends with our tree canopy,
(04:02):
you'll see that we're missing the most tree canopy in our areas that are predominantly
people of color and low income.
And even just things like where do we need to repair potholes?
Yeah, it's interesting how you're using data to kind of fill in the pieces of the puzzle
that aren't readily apparent over time.
(04:22):
It's not just about the service delivery side of it, maintaining a city and making sure
that it's being built and growing and getting better over time, but that you're trying to
expand that capability more and more by collecting more data and analyzing it in interesting
ways.
But you personally are not new to this.
(04:43):
You've been in this industry for a while, right?
Yeah.
So I started doing GIS back in undergrad in early 2005.
Then I stayed in geography to get three different degrees, all in geography and GIS.
And then right out of school, I started at the city of Tucson six years ago.
(05:09):
I started in IT and working on that team that I told you is sort of the central GIS resource,
the GIS IT team.
And there I supported the rest of the city.
So we maintain that platform, but also when other departments don't have the capabilities,
maybe they don't have the GIS person or they only have one who specializes in one type
(05:34):
of work, then we could come in and say, hey, we can build that app for you.
We can build that Hub for you, help you design a data collection process.
And through that, I really got to sort of touch everything that the city was working
on and learned what really interested me.
So I moved from there to housing and I helped support a planning team, making maps and helping
(06:01):
them just do more with the data that they had.
And that kind of also introduced me more to equity because housing, affordable housing,
lack of it, it's really an equity issue.
And so when the Office of Equity came up and the city manager's office, it just made a
(06:23):
lot of sense to me because it's an office that it's like IT where it touches every department
and I can use it to have a really positive effect.
Yeah, it sounds like it.
It's kind of like with your skills that you built through your formal education and then
all the time that you've been at the city that you've got both the brains and the muscle
(06:45):
to be able to combine that to do even more good in the city.
That's really inspiring, I think.
And I think the other interesting thing is that you all have really put a lot of effort
into transparency.
So it's not just using data internally for your own purposes to, like I said, uncover
the puzzle and understand where to deliver services better and faster and more efficiently.
(07:10):
But it's a lot of trying to post information out there so that citizens can understand
what's going on and where and how it affects them.
Yeah.
So the city is really doing a lot to push the envelope and how we engage with the community.
It's just a real part of the organizational culture that we want to hear from the constituents
(07:33):
that we serve.
And we think of them as, you know, I report to the city manager, he reports to mayor and
council and they report to the citizens.
So at the end of the day, they're really the people we're serving.
So how can we hear from them and also reach them and make sure that they understand what
we're doing and why.
And so I kind of got into the engagement side of the city through technology.
(07:58):
So I'm not just out there talking to people necessarily, but I am helping other people
build technologies to talk to people.
So I really work a lot in Hub, which we, the city uses a lot to like put out our new projects,
put surveys up there to get feedback, post recordings of what we've done, event calendars,
(08:23):
all of those things, reporting the data that we've collected through dashboards.
So that's kind of where I see my place in all of that.
I think that's really similar to a lot of the customers that I talk to that they're
not trained communicators, they're trained technologists.
And so they're leveraging the skills that they have to augment other people's capabilities
(08:47):
and make their jobs easier.
But I think it all points to how, you know, you guys at Tucson are taking kind of an all
the above approach to engagement.
It's not just, okay, we posted some stuff to our website, good luck citizens.
Like we posted it, it's transparent, but not really because you don't know it's there.
Or it's in the filing cabinet in the basement.
(09:08):
Like why?
Right, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, how did you not know that was there?
Yeah.
You know, I think it's interesting because it takes more effort initially, but it seems
like the dividends really pay off.
I think that the way that you and the city of Tucson approach engagement is by using
technology as something that enables you to do that work even better and faster.
(09:33):
But when I speak to a lot of customers that are in a similar position that are interested
in engaging their citizens more, they're interested in taking equity into account and their city
operations, they don't really know where to start.
But you have built a strategy that helps you understand what the most appropriate uses
of technology are and how to approach the challenge of including equity into your city
(09:56):
operations in a way that's more thoughtful and consistent.
Could you talk about the data strategy a little bit?
Yeah.
The Tucson Equity Data Strategy is one of the big things that I started working on when
I got to the Office of Equity.
And what gave me the thought for it was, like I said, I have interacted with a lot of different
(10:20):
departments.
I understand kind of where the strengths are, where there's things that are missing.
As soon as I started at the Office of Equity and even before that, I would get a lot of
questions about demographics and surveys and how to best ask questions like that.
And so I just kind of understood like, okay, if we want to help people start incorporating
(10:46):
equity in the work that they're doing, we need to make sure that they have the resources
to do that and that they understand how.
Because I'm just one person, I can't do all of the equity analysis for every project we
do, especially if we want to really bake that into the daily city operations.
(11:08):
So I identified five areas where I thought that we could help as an office.
The first is demographic collection standards and really just equitable data collection
practices in general.
So that's helping them understand what kinds of questions to ask, how to make sure that
those are inclusive, and really just how do you analyze data in a way that is not going
(11:35):
to do more harm.
And so part of that includes providing Survey123 templates so that all of those
questions and things are sort of pre-made so that staff, or really this is all public
facing anyone in the community, that survey is ready to go.
They just need to add their own questions in to make it just as easy as possible to,
(11:56):
you know, we don't want equity to be hard.
The second thing, and this is probably the sort of biggest component of TEDS or it has
the widest impact, is our Equity Priority Index.
And that is taking a lot of different demographic variables that make up what makes a person
socially vulnerable.
(12:18):
So these are things like being below the poverty line, having a disability, being a child,
being elderly, and it kind of rolls all of those up into one map layer and assigns each
area like a block group or a neighborhood a score on the sort of vulnerability scale
of being vulnerable.
(12:39):
And then the flip side of that is like being more resilient.
So if life threw something at you, you lost your job, you lost your home, how likely are
you to be able to bounce back after that?
And so that helps us understand, you know, where do we need to be prioritizing our resources
when we go out to do different projects, whether that's repaving or facilitating new broadband.
(13:07):
It really is just designed to help guide our location strategy as a city.
All of that is rolled up into the third thing, which is our Equity Data Hub.
And that is an open data Hub where we have written or we've worked with Esri to write
a script for us that will process demographic data in all of the city's different geometries.
(13:30):
So, you know, demographic data comes in block groups and census tracts, but we also do a
lot with our neighborhoods and our planning boundaries, our police zones, all of these
different areas where we also want the demographics associated with that.
And doing that apportionment is not something that everyone can do to get those numbers.
(13:54):
So this is all going to be pre-apportioned to our geometries and it'll be automated.
So every year we'll have those annual estimates.
So they're all using the same data.
We're not all referring to different numbers for the same area.
One of the other things is a just a simple web map that lets people just click on an
(14:15):
area of town or really anywhere in Arizona and return these really nice infographics
about that area.
And so this tool, we call it the Census Lookup app.
It is designed for people who don't have any familiarity with data.
So whereas the Open Data Hub is for someone who wants to download some data or, you know,
(14:35):
do some analysis, this is just like, I need to know the demographics of people within
a one mile radius of this park for this grant that I'm working on.
And you can do this, it takes about, you know, five minutes.
So that's kind of part of this, trying to make this all accessible to the most possible
people.
And then the last thing is just the TEDS toolkit, which is really all of these things that I've
(15:00):
already mentioned, but then additional resources that help guide you through that.
So tutorials on how to do different things, some Python scripts that will help you once
you've collected your data, how do you analyze that quickly and easily to get information
by demographics?
Like, why did you collect that demographic information if you don't know how to analyze
(15:21):
it?
So just little things like that to try to make it easier for people.
Yeah, that's a lot to unpack.
It's really good stuff.
I mean, and so a couple of reactions, you know, the first thing is, I obviously, you
know, working for Esri, I love that it's so GIS focused.
It's so location aware and hyper local.
(15:43):
So that makes total sense to me.
And I like how you're using the technology and you're using the "Science of Where" to drive
a lot of these things forward so that it's more intuitive for people.
I guess if I really wanted to drill down on one thing, it's that you are building these
(16:03):
tools so that the experts within departments in the city don't have to learn how to do
all this stuff for themselves.
It's like, okay, I need a hammer.
I don't need to know how to build a hammer myself.
I could just go and grab it and use it.
Or I need a screwdriver.
Go over to the toolbox, pull the screwdriver out, like done.
(16:23):
They still have to somewhat understand why they're using these tools.
You know, like, okay, I've got a nail.
I need a hammer.
I've got a screw.
I need a screwdriver.
But it's not that everybody in the city has to become experts on GIS.
They don't have to become experts on data.
They don't have to be experts in equity.
They can just rely on you and the Office of Equity to guide them in the right direction.
(16:48):
So yeah, and I like also how, you know, you mentioned that, you know, that way, you know,
when you're providing all this data, you can have one single source of truth, you know.
So like I've visited some city websites in the past that, if you're trying
to look for like, what's the population of the city, like you go to the Census Bureau
(17:11):
and you get a number and then you go to the city's website and you get a different number
and then you go to a different page on that same city's website and you get yet another
number and it's like, okay, which one is the right one?
So it's just, yeah, kind of goofy.
That's actually sort of the impetus of the index where we had like five different equity
(17:32):
indices all using different variables, different, you know, vintages of data.
And if you say, well, hey, we prioritize this based on the equity map.
And it's like, oh, which one did you use?
It's just all different.
And some of them are, none of them are up to date.
So it's like, well, how can we just, you know, provide one that everyone can use?
(17:55):
Well, and I'd imagine if you're using more than one index or more than one equity index
in particular, that that becomes a real huge maintenance nightmare, right?
That wasn't being maintained.
So that takes care of that.
You know, it's all out of date.
And I mean, yeah, that was part of the problem is none of them were maintained.
So that's what this does, it's automated so that every year it'll be updated.
(18:18):
Yeah, it makes total sense.
So let's focus in a little bit more on the Equity Priority Index itself, because I think
that in and of itself is really interesting.
And a lot of people that I've mentioned this to before we talked, like, oh, wow, you know,
you should really see what they're doing in Tucson with this index.
And they're like, well, what's an index?
Is it like a stock index?
(18:38):
You know, is it going to tell me like what stocks to buy?
And I was like, no, that's clearly not what they're doing.
So can you kind of explain, you know, to a very basic level, like, I think you already
did, but just like, what is an index?
And how in particular does it help a department incorporate all these different facets of
(19:01):
equity into their decision making?
Yeah, so I think about an index as, you know, a lot of times in GIS, we just put everything
in a different layer and turn them on and off and say, well, you know, how do these
overlay with one another?
There's a high concentration of people of color here and a high concentration of people
(19:27):
below poverty.
And so an index, instead of having to turn off 12 different layers for every variable
of interest, every demographic characteristic, it just takes all of those characteristics
and rolls it into one number.
So you end up with a table with each variable as a column, and each variable gets a score
(19:50):
from zero to 100.
And then you roll those up, do the math, and you get a final score combining all of them.
So it's more complicated than that, and that you have to think about the methods that you
use to combine those different things.
There's, you know, depending on the goals of the index, you'll use different techniques.
(20:12):
But you end up with basically a map where the higher the score, the more vulnerable
that population is.
And that population would be considered more vulnerable if they have more people who haven't
been educated, more people with a disability, more elderly people, more people without a
(20:32):
car.
And then the areas with the lower score, those are going to be the more resilient folks who,
you know, they have more resources.
And the way that the departments use this, at least for our index, our index is the vulnerability
index, which is different from like an opportunity index, which I think, you know, both of those
(20:55):
could in different ways be called an equity index.
But we're focusing on just the people aspect of ours, it's just the demographics, so that
departments can then bring in their subject matter specific data.
So for example, you know, I just met with the IT department, they're working on a project
(21:16):
to encourage internet service providers to provide fiber and broadband services in unserved
and underserved parts of the city.
Those areas might not be traditionally lucrative for them to be developing in if people are
low income.
(21:37):
So we're developing a plan to encourage them to work there.
So we want to look at places where you have a combination of these vulnerable populations,
but also people who don't have internet.
We have to look at where the infrastructure exists so that it needs to be nearby.
(21:59):
So we can kind of roll those up into a larger broadband equity index.
And that data that the department brings, that can be anything from pavement quality
or climate related things.
And so the equity index kind of is just the foundation that people can build those more
(22:19):
tailored indices on.
And that kind of meeting departments halfway and really just making the index more useful
so that hopefully they don't feel the need to keep cranking out those different indices
that are not being maintained if we can help them do it themselves.
(22:39):
That helps me understand it a lot better.
And I think it helps explain to folks that aren't used to thinking in this kind of way.
Is if you talk to engineers, like you kind of mentioned, you know, specifically traffic
engineers have ways of giving a score, a single score to a segment of road and saying, okay,
(23:00):
this has a PQI score of 90, you know, and that means something.
And it takes into account all these different things, all these different factors.
But what you're really doing is you're adding on to that, not just what's the score in terms
of is the road alligatoring or is it, you know, splitting or does it need to be re-topped
or something?
(23:20):
You're adding in how that asset in the city really impacts the people that live near it,
which goes back to GIS and ties back into the science of knowing that real things in
the world affect real people.
It's not just all numbers and spreadsheets.
So I like the idea.
(23:40):
Yeah.
So I just like the example of pavement or what you're talking about, because a lot of
people I hear say, well, what does equity have to do with that?
The road is either bad or it's not.
It needs to be repaved regardless of who's living there.
And we just need to fix the worst first.
And the answer to that is you kind of alluded to this, but that's going to have a different
(24:05):
impact on people depending on sort of their situation in life.
So if you hit a pothole and you're someone who's working in an hourly job and this means
that you can't get to work that day, you might lose your job.
Your car's axle is messed up.
You can't afford to repair it.
Whereas someone in a more affluent area, they might have a job where, oh, it's fine.
(24:30):
I can come in when I can.
I'll just call an Uber.
I'll just get the car towed.
No big deal.
Thinking about it like that, it's like, well, yeah, let's work on the areas where this is
going to have a more significant impact on people.
And again, you're not picking winners and losers.
I mean, the same amount of work has to happen over time.
(24:51):
It's just a matter of prioritizing where, it's triaging really.
It's like what doctors do in war zones.
It's like, okay, everybody needs to be treated, but these folks are really critical and we
need to address that first.
And then once we have the breathing room, we'll go back and help these other people
as well.
Right.
(25:12):
And that's kind of hard to communicate to people.
They feel like, oh, I'm being left out.
Like I'm not going to get what I need because of this.
So that is kind of one of our really big challenges is getting that across to people that this
doesn't mean that we are ignoring you.
It just means we're making sure that we don't ignore those people.
(25:32):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's not a zero sum game just because I'm not getting something this year doesn't mean
I won't get my road repaved next year when it maybe is more appropriate to do it.
You know, it doesn't happen right away.
Yeah, I like that.
I think it humanizes the work that cities do in a way that is not just we keep saying
(25:53):
equitable, but it really is.
It's humanizing in a way that's equitable, but it's also when you take a step back and
take yourself out of it, it just makes sense.
So kind of taking a step back a little bit, looking at engagement as something that encompasses
all these different components.
You're looking at the science, you're looking at all these different equity markers.
(26:14):
I think it's interesting how engagement is this continual process that you have to keep
kind of chipping away at over time.
But you have very clear goals that you're trying to hit.
That's why you're engaging.
So kind of taking a step back a little bit, we've talked a lot about the work that you
do to put a lot of this stuff online, not just for departments to use, but for citizens
(26:39):
and residents to be able to go and find and learn and take surveys and things like that.
But that's not the ultimate objective, right?
Is to have everything in only one place.
You disseminate this information around in a lot of different places.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's easy for me to get caught up in the technical aspect because that's
my wheelhouse.
(27:00):
But it's really amazing what the different departments do to engage with citizens.
And I really started to get an understanding of that when I was at housing.
Up until then, I built the tools and then they went off and did the engagement and then
I'd hear from them, well, how did it go?
(27:21):
And then when I was in housing, I would actually go to the events and, you know, really see
what is going on.
And I really started to understand that it's difficult to talk to people.
It's difficult to communicate complex ideas, especially about sensitive issues where people
are worried they're not going to get the resources they need or they're not going to be heard.
(27:43):
So we do a lot of, and the city as a whole, just going to where people are.
So we hold our own events at city locations and offer snacks and things like that.
But we also go to parks, existing community events.
(28:04):
Ward 1 did this whole door knocking campaign where they literally went around to every
single door in Ward 1 to just say, "Hey, how are you doing?"
"What's on your mind?"
And we have this, even this Community Ambassador model that different departments have used
where you identify members of the community who are familiar with that community and
(28:25):
they go out and represent the city and they help you communicate your message in a way
that they know is going to make sense.
And I really think we need more of those.
And our office is hoping to be able to support that in the future.
Yeah, that's really cool.
And I think as a resident of a city, obviously not in Tucson, unfortunately, but it is hard,
(28:48):
not just hard for the city to communicate to people, it's hard for citizens, residents
to know what's going on because you might not know where to go.
But the way that you're doing this, where you have these Community Ambassadors that
are providing that personal touch, you're going to these events, you're handing information
out, it makes it so much more likely that those two worlds will intersect.
(29:11):
I love that.
I think that's really cool.
And I guess for the folks that don't know where to start, like it's great to look at
examples like you, Laura, and the City of Tucson and say, "Wow, that's where we want
to be."
Okay, well, how do I get there?
What's my roadmap?
So what would you say to those people?
(29:33):
If I can't call up Dr. Laura Sharp Consulting Services, LLC because it doesn't exist yet.
Where in the world do I start with this?
I do think that equitable public engagement is becoming more and more discussed.
I know that our office is, we have a public engagement person who's developing an equitable
(29:57):
public engagement plan.
And so I think that in the future, there will be manuals on what that might look like.
But I think when you're just starting, it's about building a culture where people value
what the citizens are saying.
And that's kind of what I was saying earlier about Tucson is that we have that culture
(30:20):
as an organization.
And I can't entirely say where it comes from, but it's like each department has at least
one or two people who are really pushing for that.
And then the mayor is really supportive of that and uses that in all of her work.
And so I think it's a combination of "be the change you want to see,"" like you're doing
(30:44):
the work, encourage everyone else to do that same kind of work, but also encouraging leadership
to support that as well and make sure that they understand that.
And I think Tucson, we benefit from the fact that our mayor and council are so supportive
of the work that we're doing.
And I sympathize with people who don't have that kind of support because it can be difficult.
(31:10):
And I think you just have to know that it's worth it and to keep pushing.
That was Dr. Laura Sharp from the City of Tucson, Arizona's Office of Equity, sharing
her data-driven approach to equity and engagement.
To learn more about the Office of Equity, visit equity.tucsonaz.gov.
And if you happen to live in Tucson, share your thoughts with the city by filling out
(31:35):
the survey that they have on that site.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a colleague and don't forget to check
out the other podcasts available from Esri, including "Field Notes" and "Reinventing Planning."
Learn more at Esri.com.
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