All posts by Kristen Jeffers

Cities, Politics of Place, tips for urbanist living, Transportation, What is urban planning?

The Case for a Lazy Urbanism

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I need to be honest. Sometimes I don’t want to write this blog anymore. Yes, I’m in love with the city and the greater sense of place found in all forms of natural and unnatural terrain. However, we all know that just because we love something, doesn’t mean we want to be with it or them all the time. Sometimes they might even drive us crazy and make us want to either throw it away or cut off the relationship for good.

Honestly though, sometimes we are just lazy. That’s not a bad thing, especially with urbanism. Yes, the urban environment is largely an object of creation and reinvention, but eventually, you want to get to the point where all you NEED to do with it is to provide maintenance. If you want to make something new, great! Here’s to you great urban pioneer!

However, some people just aren’t the pioneering and creative type. They like that there’s sidewalk cafes, but they don’t want to build them. Or maybe they are the lounge singer, but not the painter that owns the art gallery. Just because someone is creative doesn’t mean they can create and engineer everything about a city. Some things are meant to be felt, not made.

With that, I would now like to make my case for a “lazy” urbanism. What does your city need for people who like or have to just “be” in a city and not build a city?

Connected transit with 5-15 minute headways

In plan English, this means that the bus or train is there when I get there, no matter when I decide to walk out my front door, leave my job, or leave the club. I don’t have to worry about downloading the latest transit app. Heck, I don’t even have a cell phone. I’m old and I don’t like them, but I need the bus to be on time. Oh and please don’t break down train. Ain’t nobody got time for that. (Seriously, it fit and it’s true.)

A 50-50 mix of chain and local establishments in the urban core

Sometimes I want my Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. Sometimes I want my hand-mixed Sprite substitute with the lemon and line syrups and club soda. The coffee shops don’t have to sit side-by-side, but they need to be close by. If we expect people to live a more urban lifestyle, then we need to start building the chains they love back into the central business district.

Everything I need in walking distance

Some folks measure this in a concentric circle, with the inner layer being 5 minutes away and the outermost layer being 15 minutes. Yet, some people walk everywhere  and it’s not because it’s fun and cute. Those folks are walking to the doctors office, the unemployment bureau, maybe even the homeless shelter. The fun and cute folks don’t want to be more than five minutes from your car if you decided to drive to downtown (or the “town center”). Either way, people who are lazy urbanists expect to have things on their doorstep. Or, they can’t help themselves unless the help is only a few doors down.

The right housing at the right mix and price

Housing is bankrupting people across social and economic classes. Much of it built in the last 30-35 years has also been made cheaply. Despite this, many people are paying far more than its worth because the first three principles above are in full effect in some areas, but not all areas. Or, you need more space for kids or you need room for accessibility. It’s really sad that both housing (and food for that matter) are our two largest expenses (if you exclude health care and education, two other major necessities).

No logos, no slogans, no special “make the city better” organizations

The city is just because it is. Having a brand is ok, but at the end of the day, you don’t live in your city because it has a logo that looks suspiciously like Walmart’s. You live there because it provides everything you need (or a job that lets you get to everything you need, there’s a difference). I like having special programs, but if that’s the only thing driving folks to the city, then there’s a deeper problem. Cities work when all forms of economic development, as well as sensible architecture, are employed, not one or two, with haphazard plans.

I need urbanism to mature to a point where I can have a conversation with my family about what I write about and not have to dumb down the language. Where sprawl repair, tactical urbanism, and good governance are just simply

PLACE.

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.

Cities, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place

Maintaining Good Places, My One Wish for 2013

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Every year for the last two years, I’ve put up my wishes for the urban fabric. This year, my wish manifests in one word:

Maintain.

It’s nice to have brand new town center neighborhoods, but let’s not forget to maintain the old ones, especially those that were already town centers.

It’s nice to have brand new transit lines, but lets not forget to maintain the old buses and trains, so they won’t fall apart and stop coming on time.

It’s nice to have new civic centers, but let’s not forget to maintain the old recreation centers, that serve so many children and their parents who need a nice community place, for a reasonable cost.

It’s nice to have new markets, but let’s not forget to maintain the old ones, lest they start to sell moldy or old food, because they don’t believe they have the clientele or the money to support good food.

It’s nice to have new homes, but let’s not forget the old ones, the ones that are well made, with unique, authentic features. Also, let’s not forget those who live in these older homes, that may have paid off their homes and have lived honest lives. Let’s help them maintain their American Dream, especially if they’ve been there for 30 years, fought for this country, endured racism, sexism, classism and any other isms. Sometimes, gradual change is good enough.

It’s nice to have all these new things, but if people can’t maintain sanity, cordiality, neighborliness or a general positive sprit, then people have failed before they have even walked out of the door.

And with that, I hope to maintain this page more this year, to bring you more of my ideas and commentary. I hope to maintain a space where all community voices can come out and talk about what creates real community.

Education, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place

Kwanzaa’s Seven Principles and the Community

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Millions of people are celebrating Kwanzaa this week. Founded by Maulana Karenga in 1966, the holiday started out as a cultural celebration for African-Americans and a replacement for what were thought to be non-African affirming holidays such as Christmas. However, over the years, the celebration has a evolved into a celebration of Pan-Africanism coupled with the other holidays celebrated in and around December. People all over the world and from all different backgrounds are celebrating Kwanzaa.

The holiday is observed over seven days from December 26 through January 1. Physically, people interact with symbols such as African and African-inspired clothing, corn to represent agricultural traditions, and lighting a kinara, a menorah-like candle figure that has seven candles, three red, three green and one black. They are lit each night to honor the Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of Kwanzaa. These principles are the heart of the celebration and considered the heart of what it means to be African or African-American according to Karenga.

It’s these principles that I want to highlight. I believe that these principles can go beyond the seven day celebration and become part of our daily community life, no matter the cultural tradition. In fact, Karenga has stated that these principles are part of a “communitarian African philosophy.” With evolutionary science in agreement that civilization as a whole began in Africa, we are all Africans anyway. In his 2012 statement on the holiday, he calls for continued examination of who we are as people and to fight for social justice for all.

The Nguzo Saba itself is as follows:

  • Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
  • Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
  • Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
  • Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses, and to profit from them together.
  • Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
  • Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
  • Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in God, our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

How would these principles connect to other urbanist creeds and general community goodwill?

First, Umoja speaks of keeping people together. Although race is arbitrary, the good traditions from different cultural groups should be celebrated and cultivated. Yet, a unity that is unjust should not be tolerated. The re-segregation of schools and continued segregation of neighborhoods by race and class are detrimental to a society that seeks to maintain growth and prosperity.

Kujichagulia speaks of branding oneself, instead of letting others define you. Some of the new city branding projects sound great, but fail to reach out to average community members and leaders of communities that have been excluded. The principle is better manifested when all community leaders and members come together to define themselves, instead of yielding all control to PR and marketing experts.

Ujmaa manifests itself in tactical urbanism, and other forms of grassroots planning and activism. I see this principle in the community gardens, community policing that builds instead of breaks trust, and in faith communities who continue to invest and include the communities they surround instead of walking away when many of their congregants do. I  also see this principle in the Occupy movement, especially around the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Ujamaa  in some respects equals Buy Local. It talks about local commerce, something that’s trended in many circles over the past few years. Yet, to me it speaks to the need to support good, just, honorable businesses.While this is easier said than done in a world of Walmart being the only affordable option in many households, we need to do what we can to force all businesses to do better to serve instead of sell to customers. I  also want to use this point to disparage the belief that there is no need for culturally-based stores. Some of the same people who would laugh at the black bookstore selling incense, gladly support the local, family owned sushi bar or Irish pub. Mind you, all these businesses could be donating money to schools and senior centers. They could employ youth who need something to do besides walk the streets and terrorize others. They could be paying workers a fair wage and also making good, strong products.

Nia is pretty self-explanatory. Everything has a purpose and everything should have a purpose. That purpose should not be self-serving. If I were to choose a planning/urbanist element to pair with this principle, it would be the community plans, maps, and the process of creating such. These documents serve as the basis of our efforts and help us remember our purpose in creating communities.

Kuumba goes beyond its basic principle. It honors the creative arts and the creative mind. It is here where the creative class principle makes sense. The creative class is not the whole of the community, but it is worthy of respect. Eventually, if creativity is not respected, there will be no innovation and adaptation to changing realities, from natural disasters, to obsoletance of technologies.

Finally, Imani goes beyond religious belief. Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to believe in the ability of your fellow man or woman to do whatever has been granted for them to do. Everything is not simultaneous, fast, or easy. In many communities, it’s been faith that has kept them from completely dissolving and giving up their culture and value to outside groups. Faith is what has kept inventors, builders, and other creators doing what their titles entail. Faith is the heart of all the above elements of community.

To close, we should not completely divorce Kwanzaa from its African culture or celebratory elements. Yet, we should honor the community building elements of Nguzo Saba as we continue in our quests for creating great places.

Image credit: Flickr user soulchristmas.

Cities, Family and Place, Greensboro

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

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 theblackurbanist@gmail.com.

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!

Podcast

The Black Urbanist Podcast-Episode 1

Audio 1 Comment

Happy birthday to me! I’ve chosen to share a gift with you, the first episode of my podcast. Stream right here and please share this gift with others.

For those of you who want to go back and read the Grist.org article I mention in the podcast, you can go here.

Also, be patient with me. I recognize there’s a bit of an echo and I may have been talking a little fast. These things will get worked out in subsequent episodes. Also, let me know of anything I may have missed. And above all, share and enjoy!

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.