The Risks and Opportunities Well-Intentioned Policies Pose for Urbanized Lower Income Rural Communities

A vibrant, healthy, and equitable California demands attention to and remediation of two of the greatest challenges facing the nation and the world: climate change and race- and income-based segregation that cuts off entire communities from access and opportunity. Thermal in Riverside County has scores of mobile home parks, many of them without municipal water and wastewater service, many of them unpaved, and many of them contending with contaminated water and soils due to contaminated groundwater and inadequate septic systems. [...]was the case in Modesto, California, where the city's master tax sharing agreement was shown to discriminate against island and legacy DUCs and hinder their annexation into the city.9 Hundreds of island and fringe DUCs are similar to Modesto's, shut out of municipal services and investments due to historic and ongoing exclusionary practices and living without some of the most basic amenities including safe drinking water, wastewater services, and sidewalks that are at times only yards away. California Government Code, section 65041.1 outline California's planning priorities, which are intended to promote equity, strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and promote public health and safety in the state, including in urban, suburban, and rural communities: