Tag Archives: Cities

Atlanta, Cities, Food, Politics of Place, Transportation

Transit + Roof + Food + Education + Job + Proximity + Sense of Place = Good Life. A Broken Equation?

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Another fantasy transit map showed up on the Internet the other day. This map  took Amtrak’s current service and spruced it up to show how quick a 220 mph train would service the lines. Sadly many people derided it as a fantasy. The Cato Institute shot it completely down.

Most people derided the map as fantasy not because it’s a boondoggle now. It is because it could become a boondoggle in the future. All levels of the government in this country, but namely state and local governments, have failed at being good stewards of the populace with it’s provisions, such as transit. It’s a popularity contest in most neighborhoods, towns, and cities to be an elected official. And then there is the horror of living in an unincorporated or under incorporated area, that tries to self govern with a homeowners association or through some sort of commercial management company, with no concern for letting people live their lives. Oh and the normally progressive press hasn’t been so helpful either. Public service? Afterthought.

Many of these communities cannot even put food on everyone’s table. People walk the streets who would rather have homes. People have homes that are over or undervalued at the wrong times. Some people get dumped out of their homes because they aren’t pretty enough. The transit that does exist never comes on time or it’s too broken to be of any good. Corporations are people that the government serves and they get the say in who eats, rides, lives, or even walks in their community.

It should be no surprise then that when polled, citizens continually rag on the true effectivity of the government. Atlanta citizens just did the same thing in a survey by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta area citizens recently voted down a transit initiative to attempt to bring the proper level of public transit to the area. The number one reason the initiative was voted down was a lack of trust. Atlanta residents were given a bum deal when MARTA was first built. Public housing has all but been wiped out and there’s not been adequate replacements. Public schools encouraged students to cheat. Even though jobs are scarce, people are being encouraged to NOT go on welfare. The comment sections of many of these articles reveal that only certain people are deserving of jobs, homes, schools, and other public benefits.

Therein lies the problem. Many people, in fact too many people, are selfish and greedy. Too many of these selfish and greedy folks are people of power. One minute you want people to work and pay taxes, yet you don’t want to pay them well enough to be taxpayers. One minute you want people to have jobs, but you want to do more with less workers. When you try to pander to anti-poverty, social justice, smart growth, new urbansim, or good governance, any good that comes from these initiatives is negated from ill application. My friends at Placemakers have a wonderful (albeit technical) list of why smart growth/new urbanism is failing in some communities. They also get to the heart of the matter. People need to be connected. Not selfish or greedy. Also, It’s simply about creating good places. We need to move away from the jargon as well.

Hence the need for advocacy. We need to make the case to our leaders that more needs to  can be done. I am proud to be a part of a movement that takes the conversation on where we live and how we live to a different level through analysis, advocacy, and solutions. After all,  our next civil rights battle is the streets. Who can be on them at night and at day? Who can afford to be on them? Who can build on them? Who can ride on them? And whether or not they should be built or maintained at all? We need to make sure the equation above never returns null.

Cities, Guest Post, Politics of Place

Guest Post: Yes, A City Can and Should Have It All.

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I recently had one of those old-fashioned, in-person-type conversations with Kristen.  We discussed the [Greensboro] performing arts center plans, and how she believes supporters should bill the project as the Greensboro Civic Auditorium rather than Performing Arts Center.  She’s right about this. Performing Arts Center means very little to most people and at worst gives off a snobbish tone.  It gives off an old-fashioned aura, of a place of bad middle school field trips.  Civic Auditorium, on the other hand, gives off the air of the Forum, the great public gathering place.  One of our neighbors to the north, Roanoke, VA, pulled this off with the Roanoke Civic Center.  With this in mind, we should examine the downtown events that will benefit from having a great downtown civic auditorium.

First, we have very well attended, arts-and-culture-focused festivals. Over 90,000 people come downtown for Fun Fourth, our Independence Day festival. The Fun Fourth events fill downtown with people and activity.  Adding to that with talks, music, and movies in our Civic Auditorium, and with concurrent events in pre-existing downtown spaces will help us keep up the momentum of an already successful event. Next, our United Arts Council is the second year of its new 17 Days festival. In its first year, the festival drew big name acts like the Avett Brothers and filled the city with visitors.  Additionally, our First Fridays and the[December] Festival of Lights keep getting bigger and bigger.  We can use another great downtown venue to grow these events.

This model of growth, building on arts, tourism, and fun, worked for our neighbor Charleston. Charleston, which has lots of visitors and event spaces, is conducting a $142 million renovation of the Gaillard Auditorium, one of the main spaces of its world-famous Spoleto Festival.  Charleston wants to keep up with modern sound systems and theater technology. Many other events can use the space, and new ones can always spring up.  Charleston has created many new festivals and gatherings in the last 40 years: Spoleto, Charleston Food and Wine Festival, the Lowcountry Oyster Festival, the Family Circle Tennis Tournament, and others.  These keep the city full of tourists and businesspeople who come, spend money, and leave. Greensboro should draw some lessons from our neighbor to the south.

A few months back, Kristen wrote a piece about the civic inferiority complex.  That no matter what, we need another status symbol company – an Apple Store, a Nordstrom’s, a Trader Joe’s, or a Whole Foods – to make us a “real town.”

The performing arts center debate shows the same sort of complex, as though we are not classy enough for an arts venue.  We hear “Greensboro is not an arts town, it’s a family town” (as though you cannot be both) or “we are more of a sports town” or “we’re not the kind of people who would use that.”   Those who believe this about our town misjudge our citizens – Greensboro has filled venues for arts events over and over again.

Instead of waiting on others (like Nordstrom’s or Apple) to come build these things, we should demonstrate our status through our own achievements as a city.  Strive forward with an aspirational building, with the knowledge that Greensboro can grow into its new clothes.  New South Wales did not wait for a company to build the Sydney Opera House, the province did it itself.  I am sure some people at the time said that Sydney was not ready for such a venue, that Sydney was not an Opera Kind of Town.  UNESCO named the building a World Heritage Site in 2007.  That, my friends, shows the power of vision and ambition.  Charleston was once not the Charleston that we know today.  Civic leaders, including Mayor Joseph P. Riley, in his 40th year of service as mayor, pushed for development and arts to create today’s Charleston.

In addition to building the new, we should take care of the old.  In Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Angel Taveras campaigned in 2010 on a fix-up-the city platform.  True to his word, this year he put a $40 million bond issue on the ballot for Providence road repair.  Given the terrible shape of Providence’s streets, the fact that Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and the huge popularity of Mayor Taveras, the voters gave the Mayor’s bond 90% of the vote.  Greensboro should look at this as a model.  Having a great city means not only building new venues and amenities, but caring for the ones we have as well.

Previous councils chopping maintenance budgets and the failure of some bond referenda in the past (including ones to fix up War Memorial Auditorium) have left the Gate City with a backlog of deferred maintenance.  The Cultural Arts Center, the Grimsley High School pool, many of our community centers, War Memorial Stadium, and even the Melvin [Municipal] Office Building could use some work.  Perhaps a major maintenance bond could get through the city council or a bond referendum.

Mayor Taveras showed every neighborhood in Providence how the bond would improve their streets, campaigning throughout the town with a map of every single street in Providence with streets selected for maintenance highlighted, should the bond pass.  This worked, and 90% of voters pulled the lever for Taveras’ initiative. Greensboro could use a Taveras-style push for repairs, as an economic development initiative and because we should care and maintain our shared property.

However, this should not be an either-or choice, as in either the PAC or maintain everything else.  We need to bring the whole city into the 21st century.  Perhaps while we are at it we can get Duke Energy to bury some more power lines, rather than hacking at our trees.

We need a ten-year plan that includes building the PAC and providing upkeep to all municipal buildings in need.  This could come from one bond, or a series of them.  It could all come from the budget in other ways, though I doubt that would happen.  All the amenities, public spaces, and people make Greensboro what it is, the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.  We should not let the spaces we have languish, nor should we ever stop improving or innovating.

Images above all belong to me, clockwise from top: DC Metro in Alexandria, VA, July 2012; Performing Arts Center Charrette in Greensboro,NC, October 2012;Brunch at Yolk in Chicago, November 2012; Airpoet Sign at Busboys and Poets, Arlington,VA, December 2012 and Carolina Theater, Greensboro, NC, July, 2012.

Greensboro, humor, snow

Why Do Southerners Go Crazy Over Snow?

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Editors note, January 4, 2018: I wrote this when I still lived in Greensboro and was still allowed to marvel at the snow. Since I wrote this I feel like it snows in Greensboro and points south and slightly west at least once a year when it didn’t use to. It also gets cold. However, I think it’s worth reminding people everyone’s not prepared for inclement weather of any type.  Especially my friends and colleagues that I’ve picked up out West and in the MidAtlantic states. Go here though to prepare for walking and biking in extreme cold and extreme heat.

Last night (January  18, 2013) in Greensboro, Richmond, Charlotte, Raleigh, and yesterday afternoon in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, it snowed. That’s kind of a big deal for us.

Chicagoians, New Yorkers, Canadians, and any and all others who see snow once a week from September to March can go ahead and laugh.

Why does the sight (and to be honest, the thought) of snow make us go crazy and strip grocery shelves of bread and milk? Here are my thoughts as to why:

–First, 90% of our snow forecasts never happen. There should be a YouTube file of all the times our local weather folks go out in their weather gardens and start getting us hyped up over one snowflake or the temperature that might drop below freezing at just the right time. I also give points to this being our first snow forecast of the year and it actually happening. Especially since I did my Target run at 4:30 p.m. in a torrential rain downpour. By 7:30 this was a snow pour, with thunder and lightning. Yeah, how about that weather.

–Because 90% of our snowcasts never happen, We can count the times we’ve seen snow on our hands. While this is more true for Gen X and Millennial southerners, my boomer parents and war generation grandparents still get just as excited. Maybe it’s because my parents remember helping me make a snowman in 1988 that was twice my height (I was 3). Maybe it’s because they remember how in 1993 we had a mixture of snow and ice just like we did last night. The power went out.  Meanwhile, 2000 shut down the whole city for 8 days. We went to school for extra hours for the rest of the year after that. 2001 gave us the thought of a white Christmas. 2010 actually brought us one.

–And here we are now at 2013. I’ll be putting on my snow boots to get to work soon, but for now, I’m going to enjoy the thought that it’s just enough to be pretty and not enough to be a major hassle.  Even the train (and the buses) are running. Well, the Piedmont is. Check it out at the station below. Queue the thoughts of Thomas the Tank Engine in the snow. The power will come on soon. The sun is shining.

I will step away from the humor again for a moment and wish for safe travels for those of you who are traveling. Call the power company until they get the power back on. If they can stop cutting down our trees because we protest, they can do their basic job of restoring power too. Oh and I think the sun will melt the snow off my car. I’m thankful I’m walking distance.

Amtrak's Piedmont arrives for it's morning run on January 19, 2013. (Photo Credit Kristen Jeffers)
Amtrak’s Piedmont arrives for its morning run on January 19, 2013. (Photo Credit Kristen Jeffers)

Anyway, happy snow day fellow Southerners! Be careful no matter what you have to do, take lots of pictures, and add this one to the finger count. Also, here’s the link to the latest reports from the News & Record, with a nice picture right outside my office.

Cities, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Retail, What is urban planning?

Mixed-Use Ain’t Always Pretty

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Over the last couple of weeks I was made aware of the attempts by a community in Raleigh to determine once again, what they think looks right in a community. As far as I know, the accessory dwelling battle continues to happen in Raleigh and it’s cranked up again in DC. This latest situation is a bit different.

A woman wanted to take advantage of state funding for those who are willing to take care of developmentally disabled people. She built a staircase onto the exterior of her home in order to comply with state-mandated safety regulations for people who operate state-funded homes for disabled people.

Yet, her neighborhood association has slapped her with fines and demanded she tear down the staircase. All the usual arguments are there: property values, appearances, etc. Yet, to me, it speaks again to how housing and building codes, as well as incentives for a certain style of neighborhood, are pushing communities backward.

Communities are more than their buildings. If people can’t learn, make a living, raise a family, worship, or entertain themselves in a neighborhood, then there’s a problem. Even if one of the above is missing, one should still be able to have a link, that they don’t have to drive themselves or fill up with expensive fuel, to get there.

Furthermore, if we want to bring back the element of freedom to the American Dream, why are homeowners so worried about structural elements or even the appearance of more traffic or people than a house normally holds? Why do areas such as this one in Brooklyn get taken out by developers even though they are wildly successful? This is even more problematic in New York, as there are more connections to areas that have a different mix of retail. If urban planning at it’s core was began to deal with sanitation issues, then why has it evolved into or maintained elements that declare situations such as an abundance of working class occupations, housing, and businesses a nuisance? Let’s not even get started with the racial inequities built into what’s known as urban planning.

Yet, at the end of the day, we have to remember that mixed-use, which I’m going to define here simply as a community with multiple activities and types of activities, isn’t always pretty. The successful shopping district may not look like Michigan Avenue in Chicago. A home-based business may require an oddly placed staircase instead of an extra cell phone line. A granny pod in your backyard may be your only solution to age in place and next to your children and grandchildren.

Time is up for us to privilege looks over function. Especially if we expect everyone to buy into the “back to the city” placemaking movement and stop harassing those who don’t fit the mold of what neighborhoods should look like.

Image by Flickr user Shards of Blue.

Alexandria, Cities, Family and Place, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, What is urban planning?

What If The City Doesn’t Want You Anymore?

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A study of urban political systems is a study in the history of cities spitting out or sectioning off their least desirables, namely lower class and people of color of any class. First, it was the gentry of the streetcar era that found they could move further away from their servant class. Then it was housing covenants that kept out non-whites from post-war suburbs. The 1960s brought urban rewewal and slum clearance. Today, we have people who are underwater in shoddy built suburban houses because the city was such a bad place, we needed to get everyone out. Meanwhile, shiny new condos and apartments are filling cities. Sadly, or should I say ironically, some of these places are failing to sell units. A great primer on this history is the textbook City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America by Dennis R. Judd and Todd Swanstrom.

One major example of failed “urban renewal,” which I was not familiar with until recently, is the World Trade Center complex. The area was a vibrant neighborhood until the Port Authority decided to start being a real estate developer instead of a promoter and operator of decent ports and commuter subways. City Journal has more details on how the taxpayers of New York are dealing with a potential white elephant, which now has not just one, but two tragic events attached to it.

Another example of modern urban renewal is the “entertainment district” that many downtowns have become, including my own. As a woman, I can do all of my shopping downtown, and there are a couple of affordable boutiques. Yet, men are out of luck. Outside of thrift stores, there are no suit shops for men. The restaurants have a new allure, yet, we don’t have shiny new stores downtown at all. I love the local consignment shops and the old theater that plays classic movies. Yet, what about the chain stores that fill our shopping malls and power centers that attract the mass majority of the population?

Once upon a time, downtown was the shopping mall. Department stores were locally owned and did not pay workers inhumane wages. Another concept that’s now foreign downtown is the supermarket. The farmers market we had was great, but it only operates in the summer. What am I supposed to do about fresh food during the winter months if I want to be true to my walkable, urbanist principles? What if I had no car because I was broke, but I was trying to live in a place where everything was close by? Downtown looks cute architecturally, but it far underperforms for the style of real estate it contains.

Those are the surface problems with cities pushing folks out. The real problems come when the suburbs they come into are suburbs in the truest since of the word. They were only subdivisions to begin with and there are no centralized services, shops, or even schools. People complain about parents not coming to schools in low-income areas. The suburbs make it worse by forcing these people to go even further to their schools, possibly via a non-existent bus. What does one make of the dead Kmarts and dead Borders that were so hot when the demographics of the neighborhood were different? Granted, Borders was part of an overstreched business model, but the one in the “inner-ring” suburb I grew up in, up the street from the dying mall, died first.

So hence why I fault those that want to willingly be part of a failing system that traps people. Many suburbs are truly towns and offer people services in walking distance, as well as concern for all it’s citizenry. Yet, too many suburbs are housing subdivisions with nothing to offer. With cities that practice covert forms of urban renewal and suburbs that don’t want to recognize their role as small cities or big towns, we are left with not only suburbs of self-hate, but hateful, hostile cites as well.

One last note before I close out this post. Posts like this and my previous post expose how different governments consider one place a town, a city, or a suburb. I see Greensboro as one big suburb with two to four walkable urban areas, some with all the necessary services such as Lindley Park and others without such as Downtown proper. In other states, a suburb may be an actual city such Alexandria, VA, but thanks to the media, overshadowed by it’s neighbor across the Potomac River.

Either way, there is no excuse for governments of any type to contribute to the demise or the migration of their citizenry. Putting a subdivision next to a landfill, selling out downtowns to one developer, and continuing to pursue loop roads that are known contributors to sprawl are not good. Governments, as well as residents, need to come to terms with being good citizens. Stop stealing, whether it’s your neighbor’s car or “prime land” that’s already a small-scale, but thriving community.

Photo of Downtown Greensboro by Flickr user dmattphotography.

Cities, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Transportation

Suburbs of Self-Hate?

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I’m seeing lately that communities of color are buying into suburban ideals that are actually hurting rather than helping the community. This article in the Atlantic Cities talks about how this has happened in some Asian communities in California and I’ve seen it firsthand in the Black community here in North Carolina. (Latino readers, I’m not going to speak for you here since I have no evidence, but I don’t doubt it happening there too).

What disturbed me the most about that article is that people were leaving the city because of bad schools and crime. It makes me ask, attends these schools and who committs those crimes? If these are our neighbors, are we giving up on our own people? I know race is arbitrary, but culture is not, nor is neighborliness.

I do understand the embarrassment, real safety risks involved in staying in certain neighborhoods, especially as a member of non-white group or even as a white person who’s been unfairly targeted for ridicule or persecution. I understand the feeling of entitlement once one has come upon a better social class and standing to move somewhere where the class is well known and celebrated. I know that it speaks to victory over ones oppressors to move on sometimes.

Yet, when will we take responsibility for what’s in our neighborhoods and stop running away when problems start? Are we sometimes holding the very same attitude as our oppressors?

Suburbia, in many cases, was built for purposes of isolation. I do understand that folks like nature and that’s well and good. However, the proliferation of gated communities (for average, non-celebrity Americans), zoning restrictions that assume malefeasance out of its citizenry, and even charter schools are doing more hurt than harm.

We have to realize that we have to take the good with the bad. If the man on the corner calling out crazy stuff is physically harming you, then yes, please report him to the authorities. That kid that’s bullying your child may actually be the victim. We actually need to question our children more, especially when they claim they are not learning or being bullied. Are we sure THEY aren’t mistreating fellow classmates or cheating on tests? If the problem is inside the four walls of your home, moving to a different place will not change it. In fact, you may find youself to be the new nuisance in your new neighborhood

I also understand wanting a more rural setting. But if you want that, consider an actual rural setting. Or, be mindful of other ways you can be environmentally friendly, such as growing food in your yard, carpooling, or lobbying for better, more connected infrastructure in your new neighborhood.

Please folks, stop this whole running away to the suburbs because of the Other. Look hard in the mirror and make sure the Other isn’t yourself. Stop hating yourself. The time is up for racializing our neighborhoods and this kind of “grass is greener” thinking.

Photo credit: flickr user Derek Bridges.

apartment living, Brooklyn, Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Things At a Place

Identifying Real Place Inferiority

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Ambulance Chaser

Upon opening my inbox and my social media streams on a recent morning, I was met with this article. In the article, published by the News & Record and written by a fellow blogger Michael Turner, laments the lack of an identity that we have here in Greensboro.

He has some good things to say, but the real problem is not that we don’t have an identity, the problem is that we feel like we are lesser than someone else when it comes to our city. I’ve said this before and I will say it again-ALL CITIES HAVE PROBLEMS. Not just cities, but towns, suburbs, farms and anything else that’s either incorporated and providing municipal services or working hard to make sure the cows come home from graze.

The problem of having no identity is nowhere near as bad as the problem of no heat, no water and no way of getting medical supplies and food. Thanks to Sandy,at least 7,000 people in New York are having that very problem. To cap it off, they still have rent due. Their landlord- the public housing authority. There are middle class people, including first responders, who are facing devastation they never thought they’d see. One minute, they are living the American Dream in the NYC area despite 9/11. The next minute, their home is gone. Do you think they care as much about the ideal and image of NYC or do they care about rebuilding their home or getting basic needs?

I’ve written articles here before about making the best of what you have and creating your own identity wherever you are. Yet, I say this not to force people to stay in unsafe(as in, you hear gunshots nightly and you have stuff stolen on a regular basis and someone’s been assaulted) conditions. I say this once again as I’ve said it before, that the message of place inferiority rings hollow when one has money and connections to make things better.

Please remember our fellow brothers and sisters who are still struggling to make that happen. Many are not lazy, most are just out of luck.

Image above courtesy of Flickr user Andreanna Moya Photography.

apartment living, Arts Districts, Food, Issues and Ideas, Sylva, Transportation, Traveling as An Urbanist, What is urban planning?

Becoming A Placeist-The Black Urbanist on its Second Anniversary

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After two years of writing this blog, it has come to my attention that I am simply a placeist. Not in the Urban Dictionary manner that sort of has undertones of being a racist or any other -ist that is negative. It’s in the sense that I see benefits in all types of land use (as well as drawbacks). I love buildings. I love people. I love cars, trains, planes and buses. All in equal measure. It’s hard for me to continue to keep just being an urbanist. I will keep the name of the blog as is, because there’s still cognitive dissonance with it and the word Black when it refers to my ethnic background. They are separate and I will advocate continually for their separation. The largest forum I have is my blog and Twitter handle.

However, in practice, I’ve seen that we do better when we recognize there are benefits to all land use, in moderation and in reason. So what exactly makes me a placeist? Here are a few things:

–Some days I just need my car. I have a bad back and lifting groceries is hurtful and becomes expensive due to chiropractic adjustments. Also, my job is a statewide job. I need to be able to get to city to city in a timely manner. Now if we had a full blown, New Jersey Transit-esque train system in North Carolina, I could think about selling my car. That and full grocery delivery.

–Some people with yards actually use them. They plant food and sell it to folks. They hold block parties. They build accessory dwellings when they are legal. They have backyard concerts. They use it to enjoy a piece of nature and then get back to solving problems of the world. However, the problem comes when those yards don’t have sidewalks or even roads that make it easy to get all over the city on foot or even just down to the corner drug store.

–Some cities and their dwellers are too expensive, too status quo and too conservative– Although I love the newer hipster businesses, I love the old greasy fish, burger and pizza joints too. My purse does too and since I’m walking home daily, I need all the protein I can get. Also, good design, good working appliances and fixtures and good location should be just guaranteed, not an “urban amenity”. And what of people who stay in their own neighborhoods and never branch out? Who want to do something new, but never stop talking about it. Creativity is not all due to osmosis; you have to be doing something on your computer at the Starbucks, not just reading someone else’s punditry.

–Some suburbs are dead– I’m watching the one I grew up in, which in reality was the annexed outskirts of a city, die. The businesses are vacant, dirty or predatory. People do harm there because they can. I hate going out there because it feels dead. It’s one thing to have vibrant businesses that aren’t as shiny and slick. It’s another thing to have businesses that are beat-down looking and beat down their people through predatory lending, high prices or rotten food. On top of that, the good stuff is going even further out or coming back into the core of the city. The bus can take folks into the core, but that’s given the bus even comes close by at all. Suburbia was not made for the poor, yet it’s gradually becoming the domain of the poor in many areas.

–We need our farms– How else will we eat? Corporate farming has been good and bad for feeding America. Yes, less of America goes hungry, but they also have diseases and conditions that were not evident before corporate farming. Also, there’s the whole food market that’s been turned upside down by Walmart, the government and other major food companies. Yet, at the end of the day, the ability to be partially or fully self-sufficient through your farm is noble and should continue to be honored by society and the market.

There are more bold points and I’ll be writing about those in the coming weeks online and offline. Yet, what really made me change my mind about this whole urbanist-suburbanist-ruralist dichotomy is that thing we call the mountain town. It and its cousins the beach town, and the college town throw everything we know about placemaking out the door. It’s equal parts resort for the rich and occupation for the working poor. There is unmatched beauty and intense knowledge exchange. There are quirky haunts like the soul teahouse and the gourmet Mexican restaurant.

Big cities used to hold a monopoly on these types of things. However, with the internet and other technology, once remote places aren’t so remote anymore. What I love especially about the towns defined by the geography, is that the restriction of either beach or mountain peak force towns to be built compactly. Especially in the mountains. Eventually, Walmart runs out of room because it’s competing with a mound of granite that is way too expensive and impractical to blow up.

Nowadays, I’m about good places, period. Therefore I go forth as the Black Urbanist, Placeist at Large.

Arts Districts, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living

Strengthening and Creating the Urban Arts District

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From my observations, downtowns across America live and die by their arts institutions. I know this is the case in Greensboro. We are currently debating the need for a new performing arts center downtown, thanks to the need to update our current civic center auditorium and the opportunity to pay down debts.

Yet, if we are not careful, this will become a misguided initiative, much like Nathaniel Hood has stated in his tome against entertainment districts. I believe that arts districts must be organic and cater to already established needs. Thankfully, there are arts leaders in Greensboro who are also like-minded.

This past week, (July 8-14 of 2012) I ran across an article in the News and Record, our local major paper. A former mayor of ours, Keith Holiday, is now  the executive director of the Carolina Theater, a historic venue that hosts old movies, the Greensboro Opera and a few other local dance, drama, and music productions. Occasionally the venue gets national performers such as Roberta Flack for intimate theater style shows that can’t quite fill the civic center auditorium.

In this article, he touts a plan to build a bigger theater space, similar to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), directly behind the Carolina Theater space. This space is a parking lot owned by the City of Greensboro. The article above has a rendering of what this space would look like. Also included would be a new black box theater on the top two floors of the facility and an outdoor performance space between the two venues.

While this does create a large scale complex, management would be in two hands. These hands are the Carolina Theater(which is nonprofit) and the City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department(government). Also, there are two other theater companies, that also operate as nonprofits, downtown. Combining these with the existing art galleries, dance studios and live music venues, Downtown Greensboro already has an organic arts district. This arts district also incorporates public space and public engagement.

Honestly, because of the abundance of these spaces, we really only need the DPAC sized venue. In addition to the downtown spaces, the universities in town have performance venues. Although not considered traditional arts venues, the NewBridge Bank Park (home to our minor league baseball team), as well as Center City Park, are also worthy of being considered performance space in the downtown area. And then there’s the coliseum complex where the aforementioned civic center auditorium, as well as an arena and several flexible event spaces also reside.

Still, as stated in the News and Record article, there is need for more arts space. There are many people creating and crafting and there can never be enough space for them. In addition, they are generating jobs and a new economy. Coupled with the growing crafters movement, bloggers like myself and traditional creative fields such as architecture, Florida’s creative class is actually alive and well.

Ultimately, an arts district:
– Builds from the bottom-up
– Incorporates and take stock of existing venues, uses and companies
– Thinks ahead, but incorporates all performers and connoisseurs past and present.
– Entertains and feeds the soul

Note that none of these factors mention economic development. I know that this is the cause célèbre of arts venues right now in light of being harassed and pressed by government entities and funders to be self-sustaining. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be a good financial steward. Yet, I am charging cities to think about creating cultural capital and cultural value, then watch the money pour in.
And as I’ve stated before, you cannot be willing to create unless you are willing to fail first.

Since this article was first published, a plan was enacted to use space formally utilized by the YWCA, adjacent to the central branch of the Greensboro Public Library, after a public charette was held to solicit feedback from residents. Many resident-generated ideas ended up in the final recommendation from that charette.