This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, Non-Binary Femme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This newsletter is happy to be unmasked, outside, in a nice park with sunshine.

I’m Kristen, and this month, of all months, I‘m proud to be one of the many Black people assigned female at birth, but living and loving beyond the binary.

For it’s this month we honor those who just learned of their emancipation from chattel slavery long after they should, because of where they lived. More on these folks in a couple of paragraphs.

This month we honor the Black woman, living and loving outside of the binary, who decided to throw the first brick at the Stonewall Inn and call up her sister siblings, many of whom had already been resisting with force against the forces that told them they had no place at all in this country, much less this earth. Now, we all get to bask underneath their rainbow, as we continue to finish the work.

And yesterday specifically, we also think of the Black people, living and loving outside of the binary, those who fought in wars for a country that thought them not human and sometimes still think them not human. And their people who first saw fit to honor them.

And 100 years ago this week, just hundreds of miles from where those people were delayed freedom, so many of their Black siblings lost the buildings and many of the people who believed that freedom and reparations had truly come.

And because we are still waiting for those things to come, I am proudly on my Black Urbanist journey to my Queer Feminist Future. And I want to help you do the same.

First of all, my book is releasing this fall and those of you on my Patreon list have first dibs. Plus, you’ll have access to my book club selections, special interviews, and lectures from me and some of my fiber and other art!

It’s so great to be here in your inbox again.

Until next time,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This newsletter is both lamb and lion as we go from the second March of the pandemic and the second pandemic April rains on us.

Every week, I shampoo, condition and style my hair. One week out of the month, I go, fully masked, to a person in a salon suite and they do all that for me, plus, cut my hair and color it, when it needs it. 

(You can thank her for my galaxy hair I debuted during my birthday month).

She, like me, is a young Black woman with colorful hair in its natural state, that owns the means of her production. 

She and folks like us in collective beauty studios and art and design studios and kitchens and vehicles of all sizes all over the world and in individual homes are examples of how marginalized people can and do create their own economies that are fair and equitable.

I can’t completely celebrate our resilience because access and control of resources isn’t true for far too many people in the world, especially non-white people who are enslaved, underpaid, undermined and flat out colonized and stolen from, as well as maimed or killed by state-sanctioned forces, some that have no desire to even reform, much less abolish themselves and repatriate back to the natives and exploited of the land.

Sometimes those of us who have been gifted titles and authority in and over communities struggle with what would happen if our current roles become obsolete. You’ll read that paragraph above and you’ll feel guilty or angry or some other kind of in-between space that comes from having had to play the game too long.

I wanted to focus my monthly letter on this to help use center our post-pandemic shift and challenge us to take this remaining moment of pause to reflect on what’s worked and what we can do to work better and connect better.

Are we ready to help others repatriate, divest, grow? Are we ready and able to heal?

In the spirit of showing up and being there for each other, I’m going to be doing something different for April. I’m bringing back live webinars! This is my way of easing into being outside and seeing more folks.

For those of you who are active in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School Pilot Groups, check your emails and the platforms for special messages and Doodle polls for events on either April 5th or April 7th. It’s not too late to join one of those pilot groups, you can learn more and join at www.theblackurbanist.com/school.

Many of you are curious about the survey and the initial results. Join me on April 6th to check out the results and what I hope to do with them. I’m also doing a webinar to talk about the progress of my survey on Black Queer Feminist Urbanism on April 6th. The time will be announced later this week in a separate email/social announcements/updated blog post. This webinar is free and open to all Patreon supporters, and $10 for all those who are not already Patreons.

If you haven’t had a chance to contribute to the survey, but want to, please do! This survey is open to everyone, even though it’s collecting data for a specific group of people. I’ll also be sharing some of the things I’m learning about various self-identified groups and general information I’ve collected around affordability and land-use.

Finally, be sure to follow me on Instagram @blackurbanist and @kristpattern, where I’ll be going live every once in a while documenting my various trips as I head back outside distanced and post-vaccination, as well as opportunities on the latter to connect with my journey to environmentally sustainable and fair-trade fashion.

If you’re reading this right now, this means you’re still here and I’m grateful. Hang in there and we’ll be in touch soon, on Zoom or somewhere else safe.

Kristen

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I was relatively quiet during Black History Month, because I realized I didn’t need to be as loud.

Loud about making sure Black Lives Matter and even Black history. 

You know, because we live in a world where power companies ruin lives, but have time to make Black history posts on social media.

When LinkedIN (and so many other corporate logos) were the colors of the Pan-African flag, but the actual Black and African people were routinely silenced and shadowbanned during one of the most important liberation movement moments in our lifetime.

When Audre Lorde is the Google Doodle on her birthday (that she shares with Toni Morrison and my paternal grandmother), but that same company proved her point that the masters tools can’t dismantle the masters house, when a Stanford-educated, award-winning  contemporary Black woman employee that they asked to challenge them on equity, gets fired because of a hot email. 

I think that’s exactly why I’ve been quiet this month, relatively. Because we are in need of hot, piping emails. 

Like this one.

Because I grieve and I mourn that all this equity we’ve gotten so enamored with lately, is honestly just seats at the table and check boxes, and clout chasing, and not restitution and reparations and co-conspiritorship and healing.

Because I never knew that my grandmother was born on the same day as Audre and Toni. She died in a cloud of trauma 11 years before I was born and I’ve only ever seen two pictures of her.

Yet, in those pictures, I still saw a woman who despite everything she lived though up until those points, she had a quiet dignity. 

I was told by my dad and his siblings that her table was never empty and if someone needed a bite to eat, there was always one at her house. Much like my maternal grandmother, who’s also recently set up an eternal kitchen on the other side, leaving us to the memory of the physical one that never closed and didn’t cost anything to drop in.

It’s on the strength of my grandmothers who knew how to create spaces in spite of the deepest days of segregation and Jim Crow, who broke barriers (my maternal grandmother was one of the first Black cafeteria managers in Alamance County, NC), that I have sought to make this a space where other Black womyn, and Black queer, trans and non-binary folks, can be at home, both in the active built environment and land use industry and period, in those communities that have been created by those spaces.

I want to first thank the 23 Black womyn-identified folks who took my survey last year, as well as those of you who fall under the Black womyn-identified, trans, queer and nonbinary community from this year’s survey (and especially those who took it twice). You sharing this information will make it better for all of us. I will be digging deeper into those answers, especially with the pandemic and its effects. I’ll also be reaching out to you later this year for some focus groups (that will be paid!).

Secondly, allies and accomplices who got access to the survey this year, your opinions have been especially valuable as I compare and contrast perception of what spaces are friendly to us as Black queer people, and especially those of us women/femme identified. A couple of you highlighted how as non-Black POC, there are still disparities in how you’re treated and how your neighborhoods are fairing. Plus, you helped put several metro areas higher on the list of myself and Les’s rankings of our personal happy places. Here are those metro areas listed in alphabetical order:

Atlanta

Chicago

Dallas-Fort Worth

Detroit

Los Angeles

New York (Tri-State)

Philadelphia

Piedmont Triad, NC (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point)

Pittsburgh

Research Triangle, NC (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary)

San Francisco Bay Area (Oakland, Silicon Valley)

Minneapolis/ St. Paul

Washington, DC (inclusive of Northern Virginia, and the adjacent Maryland Counties)

I know deep in my heart that this list is incomplete. These cities listed above have at least 100,000 Black woman-identified people. Several of you passed our personal likes tests, but you have less than 100,000 Black women. Know that we’ll be calling up those of you who reped and campaigned really hard for us to move to your smaller cities. And I know Baltimore, New Orleans, Charlotte and Birmingham can check all these boxes, but I only had one or none responses, so based on this very small sample of folks, this is where we are.

So head over to the main survey and  please keep sharing(or come back and finish)  because I know some of these metro areas do have those spaces and some of you who haven’t had a chance to share do have the keys to that information. Also, Black woman-identified and non-binary femme folks, the orginal survey is open and I would love to get your open-ended answers on our personal “happy place” questions and include you in that paid focus group if you’re interested.

Oh, and the contest winner has received a separate message from me, with information on how to claim their prize.

Finally, those of you who are in The Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School pilot have a new lesson from a slightly hidden, but very relevant historical figure, Mary Ann Shadd Cary. 

Plus, for those of you in the Mighty Networks pilot and who are pledged at at least the $10 level on Patreon will be treated to a conversation with the authors of Retrofitting Suburbia, Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Wilkerson, that we will be recording next week and releasing towards the middle of the month, to honor Women’s History Month and to continue our everyday celebration of Black History Month. 

Those of you subscribed at the new Public Lecture level(and who are in our special BIPOC community on Mighty Networks)  will get new interviews like this, a deep dive into my survey methodology(also coming later in March) and instant access to old podcast episodes.

You’ll also be supporting the creation of spaces where being unapologetically Black and woman-identified and/or queer, trans and nonbinary are joys and culture adds, not a nuisance.

Because we are a wildfire. Not of destruction, but of live-giving energy.

Roaring into March like the lions we are.

Thanks for being here and I’m happy I can be here for you,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is a special edition!

Hello everyone! I wanted to drop back onto the site in the middle of the month, because this is a very special month. 

I am a proud Black Queer Feminist Urbanist non-binary femme person. And I’m dedicating my work and platforms to asking if the spaces I like to inhabit are safe, affirming and secure for me and those like me.

This month in the United States, as we reflect on Black people’s past present and future, I want to take this opportunity to ask you, all of you, to reflect on a series of questions I first presented last year, strictly to other Black womxn-identified people who reside in what is known as the United States, to comment on both whether or not things I love are available ,if they’ve experienced certain land-use and development challenges, and if they are thriving in spite of all the things that challenge us.

The pandemic paused our first survey, but now I’m reopening the survey to everyone, so I can build a body of data to measure how Black Queer Feminist folx can thrive in spaces in general and as urbanists! 

This data will be available for all who need it so we can have better measures around how urbanist theory and practices intersect with Black Queer Feminism. 

The survey is also shorter this year and can be anonymous or you can choose to tell me who you are and contribute more ideas in a future survey.

And yes, there will be a reward! One lucky person will receive a $25 digital gift card! I’ll announce the winner in my regular newsletter at the end of the month.

Several of you did last year’s pre-pandemic survey and I’m grateful. Others of you have done this year’s survey and shared it far and wide, and I’m also grateful for you too.

I’m finding out some very interesting things with these surveys and in my usual end/beginning of the month newsletter for February/March, I’ll share a few of those findings, plus, an invite to a special conversation that you won’t want to miss and for those of you enrolled in the school pilot/online circles, two new lessons centered on Black women’s political power, will also drop on February 28th.

In the meantime,

Fill out the survey

Share the survey on Twitter:

I’ll be back in your inbox on February 28th with some findings and more announcements.

See you soon,

Kristen

Starting tomorrow, we will enter our normal period of mass celebrations and acknowledgement of Black history. 

However, for those of us who have started to and always live our lives inside and out around the principle that Black lives, all of them, matter, this month is a challenge and a call to us to usher in the Black future.

Time does not stand still, so it is coming anyway. 

Holding back parts of that future was never acceptable, but now it is no longer tolerable or humane. 

For me, my first step in this process was welcoming the future in my mind and imaging joy and abundance for myself and others.

I grew up with all the threats of violence and famine, the scary dystopian prophecies that spread far across galaxies and others that stayed close to home.

Often those fears flood back. In 2019 it was right after I read  Butler’s Parable of the Sower for the first time and sat in fear of so many people knowing who I really was and failing to provide me with the income and resources I needed or stripping those resources away.

That was rooted in fears I’ve had since childhood and that showed up in my early adulthood years in North Carolina of not having control, of being a sin, of never being good enough, of being too good. 

In my nomadic and diasporic years of late, the feeling that I’ve never be good enough bumps up against the cost of living and doing business in places that are further along on the measures of my humanity as it comes out of the box. 

This pandemic time has been a grounding and healing force. More people have began to understand that we do not have time to waste to get things right when it comes to civil and human rights. 

And yes, those of us who are place-keepers and makers are the front lines of ensuring positive futures.

I’ve elected to ensure that future is Black, Queer and Feminist, coupled with Urbanist, in its purest sense of supporting a transect of development and support of people and places.

You of course can be part of that vision! Here’s how:

• Share this newsletter
• Join us in one of my online circles as we pilot becoming a full school
• Fill out my survey on if your city is supportive to Black Queer Feminist Urbanists, either like me or similar to me.
• Mark your calendars and watch your social feeds for several virtual conversations with me and others, as well as more opportunities to learn about the school and online circles.

Thank you for filling out existing surveys, participating and getting value out of the circles, inviting me for keynotes and to contribute articles and and for facilitating my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Future!

This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is the one that will transition us from December 2020 to January 2021.

I expected this year to be special, because it was my 10th anniversary year creating this platform. I expected to have this big 10th anniversary party with a big cake and all my family and friends surrounding me and reading from the finished A Black Urbanist and preparing to go on book tour.

But the year I got was good too. How?

• Coming out publicly and to family, which has allowed me to breathe in a way I’ve not been able to in years. Also, reconnecting with family in general, thanks to check-in Zooms.
• Having major interviews and bylines in Sierra Magazine and Streetsblog, along with those Zoom panels and keynotes despite working on a tray table in my bed.
• Collaborating with several pro-Black planners and urbanists to start building up a Black urbanist media and thought-leadership collective, plus drafting a curriculum and support network of my own, that honors Black queer feminist people and their work in the canon of urbanism and placemaking.
• Helping Les start podcasting, work-from-home in defiance of her office’s declaration of essential work and taking her advocacy work to the next level with endoQueer.
• Using my sadness at the loss of beloved people, stores, institutions and the ability to go out to eat and to concerts, to get better at my crochet, go on lots of harbor trail walks and drive around the metro region and get a sense of how vast the suburban areas are on both sides of the Potomac.
• And, because a lot of the wishes from prior years came true.

In fact, let’s revisit some of those wishes…

2011

I want to make it clear right now, that I do not see myself as THE Black Urbanist. As in the only and the best and the most important one. I want this site and it’s companion Twitter to inspire more theses, Twitter accounts, conversations and real-life solutions. I want to see other cultures represented in building styles, businesses and on bikes. The urban fabric would not be where it is without the culture that infuses its transit-oriented bones. If you are interested to contributing to this site in some way, let me know, I’ll be glad to have you!

2012

Reducing My Dependence on Chain Retail

This one is hard. I am a mall rat. Also, if I fail to support my local mall, we will lose some of the good remaining retail near my home. However, I realize more and more that the possessions I have do not matter as much as the people I have and that I share said possessions with. I think that I can make the most of being in a suburban area, by reducing my car trips to shopping areas and taking up more DIY projects. Also, when I can, I want to carpool. My belly will love it when I stop going to Bojangles as much and I’ll begin to use the things I already have more and save for travel.

Becoming More Competitive In a Glocal Market

Yes, I used the word Glocal. I am hoping to become location-independent in the next few years. This way, I could pick areas that are walkable/bikeable, but reasonably priced. Many bastions of walkability area are too affluent and pricey for the space provided. However, a nice small town with a lot of downtown stock (Sanford, NC and many New England towns come to mind), would be perfect. I could even set up a more permanent shop such as a coffee shop or fruit stand if I wanted, because I have an income stream that allows me to contribute to an area that needs it. I am still open to being somewhere large and already vibrant, but without commuting expenses. I would like to start a family. Unfortunately, there is a great fight for urbanist and family friendly areas that are affordable. I want to set roots so that I can help ease that transition for myself and others.

2013

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.

2014

More opportunities for youth to learn good citizenship

I’ve bled a lot of ink and blurred a lot of pixels about the cost of not engaging all of our youth and our citizens. The issue is near and dear to my heart, because I became engaged in placemaking and civic governance as a young child. My parents made sure I went to the library and they encouraged me to learn. So many people don’t have parents that do that, but there’s plenty of people in our community who can serve in that role for our youth. I want to find a way to do more of this myself, in a more productive and proactive way. I also think that if we don’t engage our youth, we will never be able to realize our placemaking dreams.

2015

Truly Open Streets

Remember this picture of me? I was playing on a B-cycle demonstration bike on the street that I helped paint, to have an open streets event there. Yet, from then to now, not just in Greensboro, but in many other cities, the streets haven’t been so open. In fact, many have been hostile. My wish is that we can start looking at people on our streets, not as threats, not as people to shake money out of, not as places to speculate our real estate futures and to shoot to kill, but as places where we can celebrate our achievements and what it means to be human. I might be wishing this every year, but I’m going to get us started there. If we block the streets in 2015, I pray that it’s to have a party, be at peace and be better neighbors.

2016 into 2017

Steady Rents and Mortgages

Every city that has at least a major employer; homes that resemble craftsman bungalows, art deco apartments or colonial row houses; has a college or two or three; and has reasonable diversity in population is seeing some form of gentrification, proportional to the average median household income. Every city has people who can’t make ends meet and in some places, it’s worse than others, because salaries are holding steady for a lot of industries, especially at the minimum wage and entry levels. But, if the housing market could as a whole lower their costs by maybe 10% on services, rents and the like (as well as themselves start to rely less on bank loans and a bit more on cash), maybe we could fix this. This will be a continuing wish, because I know what I just proposed isn’t practical. What however is practical, is empowering people to create craft and trade guilds and turn neighborhood association funds into a means to fund labor and supplies for these maintenance and building crews. My friend John Anderson has a great argument for continuing to mentor and cultivate tradesmen, especially in underserved communities who need lots of housework done, but may not have what it takes to hire outside workers.

Understanding of How Housing Policy and some Transportation Policy Has Created A Number of Social Ills.

Again, this combines elements of the two wishes above. People need to know the history of their neighborhoods, their states and their country. If you don’t like not having public transit, find out where the stops are and why your system exists. Same with your neighborhood and why you may have seen a restrictive covenant in the deed, even though technically those are illegal. At the very least understand why your Realtor still may have suggested a certain group of neighborhoods and why certain neighborhoods command high values (It’s not just because of proximity to Trader Joe’s). I want to use this space and other forums to help people understand why so many of our urban and suburban racial battles have roots back even further than the greater civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe you weren’t aware of the origins of Oregon, but this post touches on that and how in least one state, capturing the American Dream was completely banned well into the 20th Century. (I’m also aware of the irony of this link in the light of the other link from wish 1.)

2017

That I wasn’t so afraid of the future and neither were so many other people

This is the linchpin to me of the most recent round of elections in the United States, as well as the last few election cycles. We’re afraid to die. We’re afraid of losing control. We’re afraid of never being in control. This is just a portion of the phenomenon that allows evil to raise up through our civic spaces, but it’s worth looking at by itself.

On a more personal level, I’ve been more afraid since the election. Mostly because I was afraid long before the election. I feel safe to say that I left both my hometown and the one I adopted from June 2015-September 2016 because I was afraid of being myself in the spaces I conducted myself in. I feared that I wasn’t square enough to be in elected and appointed politics. I felt super black, and not in a good, fists up, I matter kind of way. I felt smaller and smaller. I felt like I had to be involved in small town nitpicky things. I felt like I was running out of people. And energy. And time. So I’m in the D.C. Metro finally. I can’t say that it’s for good, only because life happens and life happens outside of me.

For our greater populace, we may not like each other. We may feel like people are invading our personal space and messing with our ego, but the world needs some of that. We need all kinds of spaces, safe, and unsafe. We need dense and open spaces. May we continue headfirst to the transect and may we look at everyone first and foremost as worthy of love and worthy of the best. Then stop building bad things, taking away good social programs that work and condemning folks to judgment places that probably don’t look like what you think they do in your head.

2017’s epic lessons learned post and my opening wishes for 2018

A lot has changed, but the forward motion of being myself, partnering with someone who loves me and supports me and raising money has come true. Still working on the marginalized peoples part.

2018 going into 2019

I couldn’t write it at the time, because I wasn’t ready, but much of what I did write in drafting this post became my coming out day post of this past year.

2019 into 2020

Everything I said last year is still true and in the wish column. Media, North Carolina, mask it up and get it together.

And now, going from 2020 into 2021, here’s what I can add:

• Kristpattern and the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School create the passive income I need for me to be comfortably location-independent and that allows me to do the work I want to do, when I want to do it and take care of my family, my friends and my partner.
• The industry continues to do the work it promised to do to increase racial equity. This means being pro-Black, pro-gender non-conformity, pro-all class levels, paying equitably and retroactively, understanding when it’s time to pass the baton and restoring the legacies and work of those it stole or suppressed in route to catering to a white supremacist, whiteness first ideal. Oh and those of us who are Black — never stop using our radical imaginations, claim our space and heal on the inside and heal our communities.
• I can finally release A Black Urbanist Journey, with audiobook, e-book and in print and on tour.
• I continue to love, nourish and cherish my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Southern self and know that I have everything I need, if only on the inside.

After all, I’ve learned over the last decade that the best wishes capture feelings, not so much specific items. If anything, those feelings create the action items and goals.

And in this time, where I can’t guarantee I’ll be alive next year, let alone next week, my biggest wish for 2021, is to be sitting in front of a computer, writing out 2022’s wishes, in good health and at peace.

As I’ve said throughout this pandemic, I hope you’ll be there with me too. Thank you for being here with me today and be sure to keep in touch via @blackurbanist or @kristpattern. And if you can, support this venture financially for the cost of a trip to the coffee house, via Patreon.

That’s all for 2020!

Love,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is the one that will transition us from November to December of 2020.

When I originally sat down to write this letter, I couldn’t think of a single thing to be thankful for. After all, this year continues to be this year. 

But, when I look back over this year, I can honestly say I achieved exactly the intention I set for this year — to amplify the voices, work and and witness of Black women-identified & queer folks in the greater urbanism world. 

Did it happen exactly as I spelled out in my goals newsletter back in early January? No, but 2020 didn’t go as planned, period.

Yet, I’ve heard from so many of you that despite the calamities of this year, there was a lot of awesome and extraordinary. Same with me!

You’ve invited me to keynote and share thought leadership on several wonderful industry panels, podcasts and at virtual design days and class meetings across the world.

You’ve allowed me to mentor you as you create planning and urbanism platforms of your own and helped me curate one of many safe spaces for us as non-white urbanists on and off the internet.

Black women specifically — you gave such excellent feedback in my survey on your experiences in various metro areas and work various elements of place and urbanism (and it’s not too late to share or amend your thoughts!)

And I’m in the early stages of creating the educational media platform of my dreams, thanks to those of you on Patreon who donate at any level, and especially those of you who are receiving the Book Club/School videos directly. 

All those other goals are coming, but need a little more time to incubate. This year could be its own chapter in my book. However I’m so happy I got done what I got done and thus far have been relatively healthy. 

And of course, I’m still here period. We’ve lost so many folks to COVID-19 complications and other sicknesses and sudden deaths. 

I can’t end this without thinking about how Octavia Butler, who many of us have drawn wisdom from this year and I see as one of our great Black woman urbanists, set a goal to be a bestseller.

She wasn’t a New York Times bestseller until recently, but she sold enough in her lifetime to attract the attention of the MacArthur Foundation, who gave her one of their “genius” grants. The grants vary in amount, but their purpose is to make sure you don’t have to worry about expenses.

To me, that counts and I believe she believed it counted too. You can see the words straight out of her journal and check out the bus route and library where she wrote several of those bestsellers in this wonderful interactive map the Los Angeles Times put together of her writing world in the  Los Angeles Metro region. 

Let’s let her intuition and grit and flexibility around her intention, my gratitude towards you and the fact you survived to this point of the year, ignite your radical imagination as placemakers, policy builders, mentors, makers and designers to continue to improve our world.

After all, we had an election miracle. And a Black woman vice-president elect. Don’t tell me what’s impossible.

See you back here on New Year’s Eve with my annual dose of urbanist wishes and goals!

P.S. : As a gift to you, I’m opening up and sharing this video of the Black Queer Femnist Urbanist Book Club/School, on the Black maps created by the scholar authors of Chocolate Cities: A Black Map of American Life. Existing Patreons and folks in the Mighty Networks group, you have a new chapter upload and more to come very soon! Purchase the book via my Bookshop.org store and support the site and get free shipping until the end of today (11/30/2020).

(Image: Me on the National Mall on a nice quiet Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. Les did a great job taking this picture).

This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is the one that will transition us from October to November of 2020.

This time of year has always been full of spookiness. This year is overdelivering.

But, I still have that hope I talked about as we started this month because as I stare down my own fears, I’ve been able to pull up many at the root and replace them with fulfilling fibers and fruit.

I could have been afraid to address industry and academic disparities ten years ago this month, and not launched this platform.

I could have stayed afraid to address many of the things I talked about on National Coming Out Day, but I’m glad I did because spiritual bondage and failure to be intersectional in how we make policy will create goblins we’ll never be able to settle.

I could be mourning at the feet of my beloved, but now dead online-only suburban clothier New York and Company, but instead, I picked up my crochet hooks and I’ve gotten re-acquainted with both my local yarn shops and the still remaining big-box craft suppliers and the wonderful community of folks I’ve encountered as I’ve breathed new life and fiber into Kristpattern.

Where fear tries to live, I replace it with clear analysis, action, and hope.

As we go into this month where we express gratitude, let us not forget the folks who originally claimed the lands many of us sit on. Let us not be afraid of continuing to dismantle the terrors of anti-Blackness, queer and transphobia, sexism and misogyny/misogynoir,  xenophobia, classism, colonialism, ableism and ageism and so many others that are felt but in-descriable.

Now, to the candy and enjoying my Lovecraft Country/Josephine Baker/Roaring 20s but make it 2020 Pandemic inspired costume, which you’ll see on all of my socials later today. 

Keep up with my socials so you’ll know when I drop things and consider supporting me at any level via Patreon.

And yes, the book is still coming.  

Take care of yourselves and I look forward to seeing you all soon!

P.S.  In my most recent chapter breakdown of Chocolate Cities: A Black Map of American Life, live today in both my Patreon and Mighty Networks book clubs, I break down how many cis-masculine Black men create villages, and I promise, I recorded these videos before the recent news around certain Black male celebrities endorsing our sitting president).

(Post image by Ben Cheung via Pexels).