This summer I loved to watch monarch butterflies in my garden, feed on the milkweed and pollinate them. It was a beautiful form of a mutualistic relationship between butterfly and plant. The scene made me think of human allyship and how it is different from mutualism in nature. Being an ally is a conscious choice, whereas mutualism is the result of coevolution and biological necessity; however, like mutualism in nature, allyship is an important action that helps us, as humans, survive and thrive.

For urban planners, allyship is also a crucial part to build an inclusive practice. In my book, The Inclusive Researcher: A Guidebook, forthcoming November 2, 2026, I explore the importance of allyship in developing inclusive environments.

Allyship contributes to creating welcoming communities, accessible environments, and equitable access to resources and opportunities for everyone. Through allyship with people from equity-deserving groups, you can contribute to efforts that foster belonging and build inclusive environments.

Being an ally isn’t about the title, and it isn’t a label that you can give yourself. To be called an ally comes from having your actions recognized by people from equity-deserving groups or their organizations.

As an active practice, being an ally will require you to build an understanding about how you hold privilege relative to others, and how your privilege has an impact on your biases — both conscious and unconscious — influencing decision making. With this knowledge about yourself and how you experience privilege, you can explore how to use your power to address inequities within your work environments and across systems (e.g., institutional, educational, governmental, etc.).

To profess or step in, publicly, in support of an equity-deserving group, without acting in solidarity with them, and for which there is no meaningful benefit to the equity-deserving group, is being performative. By contrast, practising allyship as a planner is about the actions you can take to serve with compassion, centring accountability rather than your own personal performance. Here’s how you can get started.

Educate yourself instead of expecting or solely depending upon members of racialized and other equity-deserving groups to teach you about their histories, successes, and lived experiences. This involves investing your time to learn about histories of oppression and marginalization and accomplishment in your city, region, and beyond, by using available resources. You might explore the impact of historical as well as current policies and practices in planning and urban design systems that create barriers (e.g., physical barriers, prejudices, exclusionary policies, and practices, etc.,) that are harmful to equity-deserving groups. Seek out examples of practices that foster equitable outcomes for equity-deserving groups.

Engage in self-reflection to help you draw from what you have learned about systemic barriers and connect them to current practices you may have adopted through training and education that may contribute to your biases or exclusionary planning practices. Self-reflection can help you to recognize what you know and do, and then, what you can change. To enhance your accountability, ask for and receive feedback to learn more about how you might do things differently.

Prioritize relationship building to go beyond consultation where you see opportunities to do so. What does it take to plan with community members rather than simply for them? Investing in building relationships with equity-deserving groups, organizations, and communities can lead to more practices like co-creating plans, not just more meaningful consultations. Because allyship requires compassionate practice, prepare to yield your power and space to others so they can present their visions for change and lead planning discussions with their own communities. Your efforts can contribute to building more cohesive community networks.

Become a confidant as you foster relationships. Being an ally is less about you and more about listening to what others want to share with you, including their stories, experiences, aspirations, and needs. When you’re invited by equity-deserving groups to ally, ask what’s needed from you or how you can serve, rather than following through on what you assume is needed by them. Do they want your support in advocacy or making interventions or witnessing or something else? Hear what is being shared and listen to what is needed.

Invite diverse perspectives in problem solving and ask what you’re missing from your analysis of a situation or of a solution (i.e., what am I not seeing?). Doing this can enhance capacity in decision making and problem solving, invite innovation, and identify challenges you may have missed. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, respectfully and with humility, if you’re unsure about language usage and terminology.

Be a sponsor by recognizing the potential in protégés from diverse backgrounds. Provide them with opportunities for their professional development and career advancement to build their leadership and technical skills and credibility within the profession. Your sponsorship, along with mentoring and offering promotable tasks can foster their retention and advancement in the profession, too.

While these are just a few of the actions that can help get you started in to build solidarity and foster meaningful relationships with equity-deserving groups, you can also explore active bystander training to learn how to intervene and offer support safely and respectfully. Keep returning to self-education to sustain your efforts to practice allyship and contribute to fostering inclusive and welcoming spaces. Allyship is crucial to helping us all thrive.

Further Reading

Office of Diversity and Human Rights, University of Guelph. “Building Community: Introduction to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” Open Learning and Educational Support, University of Guelph, 2022.

Ravishankar, Rakshitha Arni. “A Guide to Becoming a Better Ally.” Harvard Business Review, June 23, 2023.

Viswanathan, Leela. The Inclusive Researcher: A Guidebook. Purich Books, UBC Press, 2026.

By Leela Viswanathan

Artwork by: Leela Viswanathan