About Us
OUR MISSION
HPG is a designer and facilitator of culturally enriched and trauma-informed community engagement processes that provides an accessible way for frontline communities to participate in local planning, development and design of land use and the built environment- including green infrastructure, social networks, cultural corridors and waterways within the Hood. Hood Planning Group is on a mission to inspire and empower Bay Area ‘hoods to reclaim their built environment through community-centered environmental and mobility planning, ‘hood activations, and multi-stakeholder collaboration on policy.
Keta Price, The Hood Planner
(she/her/Goddess) Keta Price is a third generation East Oakland native passionate about the intersections of racial and economic justice in city planning and development. Throughout four community planning processes, Keta co-developed community engagement and outreach plans that met residents where they were. From leveraging trending Tik Tok challenges, hosting backyard events, cultivating a resident leadership cohort to collaborating with local BIPOC artists and the tech industry, Keta has committed the past five years exploring organic and creative ways to engage low-income Black and POC residents in neighborhood planning and development. Keta obtained an A.S in Mathematics and Natural Science from Merritt College, Home of the Black Panthers.
Xion Abiodun
(She/her) Xion Abiodun is a student at the Peralta Colleges, and is from East Oakland California. She is passionate about creating a healthier environment for the people in her community, especially the ones that look like her! She has hosted tree-planting events in the past, and regularly partners with organizations who make an effort to make Oakland a healthier place. She is also big on providing people, especially youth of color, with financial opportunities by paying them to plant with her! She knows POC everywhere are disadvantaged economically so she is actively trying to change that, one day at a time! Xion is also an entrepreneur and has received an A.S. in Business from Laney College.
.jpg/:/cr=t:25.94%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:66.67%25/rs=w:1209,h:605,cg:true)
OUR STORY
Established during May 2022, Hood Planning Group was created by Marquita 'Keta' Price. Eager to transfer to UC Berkeley and complete her Urban Studies degree, yet pressed about the real time negative decline of her East Oakland neighborhood, Keta made a passionate choice to independently research and study how to plan hoods now and do school later. From January 2017- March 2022, through her role at an East Oakland grassroots group, Keta became well known as The Hood Planner for her alternative and sometimes unorthodox approach to community engagement and addressing the racial and socio-economic tensions caused by traditional city planning.
After growing as a self identified urban planner for five years, Keta recognized the lack of capacity for Black and POC community centered consultants to lead community driven environmental and transportation projects in the hood. Naturally a team player that work well with others, Keta decided to create Hood Planning Group as a platform for Black and POC independent planners, graphic artist, landscape architect and urbanist to creatively work together on small to mid-sized neighborhood level environmental and transportation planning projects.
Keta met another East Oakland native interested in environmental justice, through working on the San Leandro Creek, Xion Abiodun. Xion joined the Hood Planning Group to help communities plan and develop more healthier and sustainable neighborhoods for people that look like her.
Hood Planning Group is currently seeking to expand our team of passionate, skilled and dedicated individuals, both formally and non formally trained in urban studies, project management, environmental and transportation planning, policy, and sociology.
