Key to the planning profession is engagement. Most of a planner’s work necessitates engagement of institutions and of people in order to effectuate change, and change (or prevention thereof) is the planner’s currency. Specifically this course will look at community engagement, or engagement of the public within a defined geography. What is community? How is it defined? What does it look and feel like? And how does it manifest itself, or not, as part of the planning process? Communities in the United States are rarely equitable, particularly as it relates to planning. How then can community engagement be equitable? How does a planner conduct equitable community engagement? How does one even define it or recognize it? This course will examine all of this and take a brief look at best practices in the field. In particular, this course will examine the New York City community board, which is not just a convenient petri dish for studying equitable community engagement but in many ways is a laboratory where equitable community engagement will be defined, tested and perhaps ultimately succeed or fail.