Equity-Centered Community Design
Creative Reaction Lab
Not long ago, Antionette Carroll, founder of the social justice nonprofit Creative Reaction Lab (CRXLab), conducted an experiment in her hometown of St. Louis. She went into three Aldi supermarkets—one in a predominantly African-American, low-income community, another in a middle-class neighborhood, and a third in a wealthy, predominantly white enclave. “It’s the same store, but the layout was completely different,” Carroll says. In the latter two, produce and healthy snacks greeted customers walking through the doors, but in the lower-income neighborhood supermarket, customers immediately encountered chips and cookies. Even grocery store food aisles, Carroll says, can perpetuate inequality. “That’s a design decision,” she says.
A graphic designer, Carroll has long been interested in both design and social justice, but her thinking about the two…
