Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! New Things to Come for the Black Urbanist

Wishing everyone a prosperous holiday season, where giving and loving is number one in all of our communities! Meanwhile, a few reflections on what's next on the blog.

Christmas Tree at Center City Park

Good morning all from Greensboro, where it’s been Christmas for several hours now. Tomorrow we start the Kwanzaa and the extended Christmas season.
We welcome 2013 in a few days.

It’s that notion of 2013 that I want to meditate on right now. In 2012, I celebrated two years of putting together this blog, which has now grown into a full-fledged website. As you will see if you are reading this on the website, I’ve done another redesign. With this redesign, I will be expanding my editorial content, adding more audio, video, book reviews, and even more of the placemaking commentary you’ve come here to enjoy, learn, and share.

I’m also looking to hear from you! If you have something that you think would be a good fit for the page, such as an urbanist commentary on a place in North Carolina, where people of color stand in the new urbanism, or the story of how you created a better block with barely any capital besides sweat equity, I want to hear it! Email me at [email protected].

I am once again grateful to The Atlantic Cities, The Congress for New Urbanism, Piedmont Together, Sustainable Cities Collective, my undergraduate alma mater, my current employer ,and many others who have shared my work this year. I am also thankful to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, for conferring on me the status of being a Master of Public Affairs with a concentration in community and economic development. Were it not for my course in urban political systems, this blog website would not exist.

I’ll be on Facebook and Twitter throughout the holiday as well as working out the kinks on this page. I’m still working on getting the podcast so it can be downloaded, but in the meantime, please share the stream with others.

Merry Christmas! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy New Year! Happy anything else I forgot! Let’s celebrate in the community today and everyday!

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The Black Urbanist is written by me, Kristen E. Jeffers. I hold a Master of Public Affairs focused on community and economic development from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, which I just finished in May of 2012. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in communication with a concentration in public relations from North Carolina State University in 2007. My main gig is being the Public Affairs Officer for the North Carolina Humanities Council, which I also started in May of 2012. I released my first e-book, "Killing the Civic Inferiority Complex" in May of 2012. In May of 2011 I presented at my first CNU NextGen on Cultural Urbanism. At the 2012 CNU, I debuted the concept of the Civic Inferiority Complex. Also in 2012, I spoke at the UNC Global American South conference on the reverse migration of African Americans. I am a featured contributor to "The Atlantic Cities" and "Sustainable Cities Collective." I have also contributed articles to "Grist", "Next City", "Better! Towns and Cities", and "Urban Escapee."
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