I would have loved to take the bus, but it’s Sunday and it’s not running. I would have taken the train, but it’s after midnight and it’s also out-of-service. Plus, are you going to stand with me on the sidewalk to buffer the street harassment? Bring me replacement parts to put on my picked-apart stolen bike frame? Repair my broken heel from this cracked sidewalk? Can you meet me on my battlefield in this “War on Cars”?
Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that’s Patreons that could be you! Now, back to the main part of the email.
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The shame I’ve had in the past three years of owning a car after 3.5 years of publicly not owning one has been unmatched.
Why?
Because in the urbanist bible, one of the gravest sins one can commit, is admitting they have a car and like it.
Or so I thought.
I’m empowered to share this story today because of Dan Gordon’s, the co-host of the podcast War on Cars, reflection on what he means by War on Cars.
I appreciate having more context and nuance in their reasoning for naming the show. However, I yearn for more, and this month, I’m going to write several newsletters to explain why.
This week, let me introduce to some and remind others of my story with how my life has had to be multi-modal by default.
We’re going to drop into my story at the moment my physical body started to abandon me as I attempted to go extremely car-lite almost as soon as I set foot in Kansas City in 2015 to do professional bike/ped advocacy.
I was riding Lulu, the bike I’d purchased in haste at the Target in Mission, Kansas for less than $100, and contorted to fit in my 2002 Honda Accord’s backseat.
I hadn’t gotten my first check yet and so much of what I did get in moving help, had been eaten by finding a pedestrian-friendly apartment near where our offices were then.
I needed a new bike because the one I had in Greensboro, was the one I abandoned at age 15 in 2000 when I couldn’t take the street harassment of being the only teen in our Black and Brown middle-class neighborhood to continue to ride.
I attempted to ride it again a couple of times, but my legs had grown just a little too much and I sent it to thrift after the local bike shop wouldn’t take it for recycling, rather than packing it on the moving truck.
I didn’t want to give up on being a cyclist, especially after having just spent the prior five years advocating for better bike and ped infrastructure, in the context of my medium-sized city in the Southeastern United States.
There I was anchored by colleges that did have bike paint on the wide streets connecting them. Neighborhoods with great street grids of completed sidewalks with neighborhood retail.
And even in the neighborhoods that took after the development patterns of post-World War II America, pledged allegiance through their water, sewer, and transit systems to the main jurisdictional creation of the area, and drivers would at least slow down their cars, even if they wouldn’t tell their kids to not be mean to folks choosing to walk or bike, especially if they looked as nerdy as I did.
Plus, I was on the frontline committees to bring more traditional bike, bus, and rail transit to Greensboro. I would park my car at my special spot downtown or walk from my apartment when I lived downtown to work and my favorite restaurants and museums. I would park in the back at the suburban-style malls and shopping centers and use that as exercise.
I drove very slowly, even on the day I backed my mom’s Buick into the fire hydrant in front of our hair salon, in a 1950s-era shopping center where the parking was so flush to the road, I could have as easily backed into a car in the street or a pedestrian on the sidewalk. (This was also as a teen, with a newly minted license, more to come on how wild my traffic crashes have been).
So, back to the cultural shocks that hit my body the August morning in 2015, I was riding Lulu to a coffeehouse within decent walking and biking distance to both my new home and office.
I realize now that it wasn’t so much the bike, even though it was heavy. It was a different kind of dehydrating sun, and the lack of electrolytes in my water to keep me from sweating into the humility, that gave me an ocular migraine in the middle of the street. Migraines that would become so severe they would last for days at a time and cause me to lose weeks of work.
However, where was I supposed to get that information?
We take for granted that we all use the same internet. We also take for granted that the internet that feels the same and has the same amount of representation of how all kinds of people approach transportation.
That’s of course why I’ve been here and the various places on the internet for going on 12 years, to help you see where you’re missing context and nuance or to support you as you run into others who can’t see your full humanity in spaces that are just as much ours as they are theirs.
So once again, don’t hit unsubscribe, because I don’t want you to miss a single post this month.
I’m spending this August of 2022 on what my battlefield is, and what I see the battlefields of other Black urbanists, especially the queer and/or feminist types, are in this so-called War on Cars.
I want to create that space on this internet specifically around the concerns Black gender marginalized folks have with the lack of transportation options. I want to lift up how many of us who drive, have the same notion that I opened this email with, of wanting to stay parked but needing to move.
So, strap on your helmets, buckle your seatbelts, and double-tie your shoes. Get ready for a journey that I hope provides at least one cease-fire in this corner of urbanist discourse.
By the Way
If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section.
I want to link again to the main War on Cars article and Jerome Horne’s LinkedIn thread on it. I also want to hear from you throughout the month as we re-think how we talk about our need to let go of cars and do more for transit and pedestrian-friendliness, but be more inclusive on our journey.
I think we as a culture also need to make peace with the idea that 80s architecture is 40+ years old at this point and that it’s not all drug and bad-decision-induced. I love this New York City atrium and I think there’s absolutely a place for it with minor alterations.
Please, please, please — especially if you are like me and can work from home and manage your hours — rest and isolate if you get any of these still circulating viruses and illnesses, for the first, second, or even third time. Please figure out a way to get the community support you need for you and your loved ones. We must shift how we handle our health and continue to model inclusivity in our dealings as professionals and as citizens of the cities, we are shaping. And to those who claim this excludes shift workers on the frontlines — let’s normalize base pay despite actual hours worked and sensible shift scheduling! Support frontline worker unions! Provide proper protective equipment and supplies!
I’m putting this book on Angelina Weld Grimke on my list-to-read to zoom in on what being a Black queer femme in Reconstruction-era, pre-Woodrow Wilson DC would have been like.
Before You Go
This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially!
In case you missed it, you can watch my Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and look at my slides. We did not record the technical assistance sessions, but we’ve heard some good news from our advisees as a result of those sessions. Learn more about my advisees, the community of Royal, FL. Thanks again to the SGA team, my wonderful co-panelists Jupiter Peraza of the Transgender District in San Francisco and Benny Starr of the US Water Alliance, and our keynote, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson.
Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday. Subscribe to that newsletter, so you can keep up with the latest and greatest urbanism news coming out of DC.
You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community. Also, check her out on this recent Black Women’s Health Imperative endometriosis panel.
If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two off my bookshelf over at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers, and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.
Until next time,