All posts by Kristen Jeffers

Kristen Jeffers has always been interested in how cities work. She’s also always loved writing things. She went off to a major state university, got a communication degree and then started a more professional Blogger site. Then, in her graduate seminar on urban politics, along with browsing the urbanist blogosphere, she realized that her ideas should have a stronger, clearer voice, one that reflects her identity as a Black southern woman. And with that The Black Urbanist blog was born. Seven years, one Twitter account, one self-published book, two podcasts and a litany of speeches and urban planning projects later, here we are.
Weekly Newsletter

Pride, in the shadows of grief

Welcome to Kristen’s Gentrification Defying Front Porch, the Sunday newsletter where I talk about what’s really on my mind and share some of my crafting and adventures from throughout the week. While I’ll be taking a summer vacation from the livestreams after tomorrow, and doing a season podcast episode on Friday, I’ll still be writing these quick notes from vacation!

This morning I did something child me was ashamed to do. I put on farm-appropriate clothing, including protecting my hair with a headscarf, and did some serious strawberry picking. That’s me in the field above.

I needed to do something to physically ground myself to the Earth and Les and I have come to enjoy what has been a semi-annual tradition we always hope to make annual.

I’ve been sitting over the past week with a boatload of grief. 

I had a wonderful time last weekend connecting with people who actually care about humanity, many whom I share a craft space with and others who are fellow Black queers from southern states making a way in the DC area.

But by Friday, I decided to record a bonus episode of the podcast to help me anchor my grief boat and express lament that so many folks aren’t doing right by themselves and each other. You can listen here on YouTube (along with all the other platforms that Defying Gentrification is on)

The last week of May symbolizes a lot of death in my life and the June 1 sighting of the Pride rainbow doesn’t always signal the end of the storm, especially not in a year when we continue to choose genocides, both loud and quiet over and over again.

In addition, more of that grief surfaced when I took what could be one of my last DC Circulator rides and wrote the following on my Instagram about it while having some fun in editing speeding up the 15-minute ride from Eastern Market to the stop closest to our home at the Wharf.

I had read an article about its demise from my prior client/organization and it reminded me of so much of what I was starting to feel when working there and being out of alignment with the mission.

However, like always, I’ve had my craft.

I’m piecing together this outfit for my 20th high school reunion, and getting excited for this hybrid event where I get to connect with people who knew me then, and know how far I’ve come and also whom I have done the same and want to support as we all grow into the next elders.

Next week, the tiles will be an actual shirt and maybe I might extend it into an entire dress!

I’m dedicating this email, not to those who won’t listen,  but to everyone who also grieves, who captures that righteous anger, and fuels a true path to liberation and revolution.

After all, in addition to my reunion and Pride events and crafting, I have a new job contract starting Monday 6/10. 

I hope I can channel some of that income into (FINALLY) hiring the right assistance and creating the fort and magic I need to resist this wave of Earthly destruction.

I hope to see you at 11 am Eastern tomorrow on the livestream, but if not, until next time…

Kristen

Weekly Newsletter

[PODCAST] Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles

I  knew this week sitting down with Chicago-based journalist Arionne Nettles was going to be a great conversation, but I was very excited about what she had to share, about how Black migration and neighborhood choices past and present are in defiance of gentrification.

And our hot topic this week is the terrible parking meter deal that the mayor of Chicago made in 2008, that’s actually not how you want to pay for parking.

Listen below:

The Grief that Gentrification Brings – Defying Gentrification

Even though this was a rough week for me, I decided that I wanted to let you in a bit and drop a few moments of a chat on how gentrification compounds my grief. This is a raw edit with no full ad and no full segments, just me reflecting on how I've been grieving this week for years and how gentrification adds to that.Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedInYou can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
  1. The Grief that Gentrification Brings
  2. Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles
  3. Resourcefulness and Reparations in North Carolina with Christine Edwards
  4. Kristen's Personal Gentrification Defying Playbook
  5. Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defying-gentrification/id1738831138?i=1000656591057

About Our Guest

Arionne Nettles is a university lecturer, culture reporter, and audio aficionado. Her stories often look into Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing, and race & class disparities, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, Chicago PBS station WTTW, and NPR affiliate WBEZ.

She is a lecturer and the director of audio journalism programming at Northwestern University’s Medill School as well as host of the HBCU history podcast Bragging Rights and Is That True? A Kids Podcast About Facts. Her book, We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything, will be published by Chicago Review Press in 2024.

Hot Topic Reference article

https://news.wttw.com/2023/07/27/wttw-news-explains-what-happened-chicago-s-parking-meter-deal

Purchase Arionne’s book from my Bookshop —

Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedIn

You can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.

Weekly Newsletter

[Livestream recap] The need for guaranteed housing

I am so happy that I can do these live streams and so many of you come by week after week to listen! I focused on talking about yesterday’s email where I talked about how our urbanism movement needs to evolve into a land stewardship movement and how I fell into this movement because I was always told that I needed to live somewhere else.

If you missed me live, watch me right here on YouTube

Here are some of the things I referenced:

Housing First definition — https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

Philosophers on guaranteeing housing — https://blog.apaonline.org/2022/04/18/the-necessity-of-guaranteed-housing/

Ramit Sethi, who believes we should rethink putting all this energy into buying homes for investment, rather than investing in the stock market https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/

HUD work on Vienna’s social housing — https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html

And here’s how to support this work:

Make a monthly pledge on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/kristenejeffers

Upgrade to paid on Substack

https://theblackurbanist.substack.com/

Shop my Bookshop

https://www.bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers

Keep watching this and other videos on YouTube

Book me for hosting, speeches and workshops! I would love to come to your organization and help you defy and end gentrification! — https://calendly.com/kristenejeffers/panel-work-project-team Book a one-on-one session to develop your own personal defiance strategy for gentrification —

https://calendly.com/kristenejeffers/career-life-or-business-coaching

Podcast, Weekly Newsletter

Making my own way

This week’s letter is a page out of my journal. I know, many of you think that this is my journal and it used to be, but I do write some things for myself these days. However, when I finished writing this one, it felt too much like a post/letter to share, and here it is. Plus, yes, I wrote this in bed between working with my yarn spool above that looks like a tomato and my comfort plushies. It’s been that kind of week, and I don’t mind sharing that with y’all. Yes, even y’all LinkedIn people. It’s Sunday, one and two, I’m a Black queer feminine person. Rest is resistance for me y’all. Here’s that entry, lightly edited.

For over a decade, I thought that if I just moved to the right place, with the perfect urban form, the perfect people would pop out and with the right urban form, everything would be ok.

However, over the past decade, I realized that my methods of making place for myself were not yielding and they were unrooted and unfriendly to advocacy.

Humans evolved into nomadic, then stationary people. Even when we were nomadic, but especially as stationary people, we became territorial, stagnant, and antagonistic. We began to embrace scarcity over abundance.

Now this isn’t to say we shouldn’t continue to ground ourselves, grounding is a key part of our connection with the Earth. 

But we lack balance in how we care for the Earth and that balance is reflected in how we care for others.

First and foremost, we should be practicing conservation, but not without compassion. 

Here’s some tangible examples of how we do that:

— Take our solutions to the root, rather than blame people for doing what they have to do in the moment to survive.

— Release our need to worship and honor defense, warmongering, and unrenewable resources.

— Ask ourselves what views and manifestations of the divine presence do we really serve and are those accurate manifestations or ones geared to a particular, singular goal of just one chosen people? 

I myself am releasing my own thoughts and beliefs about buildings first. 

I believe that we can regenerate buildings, but we can’t regenerate living creatures and beings. 

I believe our urbanist movement has failed because it failed to unpack why certain things were built where they were before considering how to fix those things under the current colonial economics.

It allowed not just racism (begat by capitalism) to stand, but also ableism and classism, and patriarchy.

The industry’s equity has failed us. Equity is no longer the standard, we need land liberation, restoration, and regeneration.

Our existing built environment organizations need to not just ensure their day-to-day activities and operations are mindful of ableism and classism, they need to root it out. Then problems like racism and transphobia and misogyny go away because at our core, we don’t use them as reasons to not build or honor what has been built, but in a different way.

Our overemphasis on policing and the limits of budgets is failing us. Our failure to nurture and teach building and development skills, then nurture the nature connections of communities, and their needs besides what a building looks like is causing a shift in my desire to promote and honor organizations that I used to worship as the gold standard.

I’m in defiance and I’m in search of a solution. I am creative and abundant. I am nomadic and grounded. 

Lastly, I realize that as an avid reader, I never had a lot of books that showed people like me in my home state thriving in communities. I was constantly reinforcing that something was wrong with my community because it only existed in my imagination.

And, as a child of an authoritarian religion that claimed the Earth would regenerate after some of us died and went to heaven and others went to hell, unpacking that level of trauma has also been a major goal and release of my past few years and I need real, reliable, affirming community to do so.

This is why I’m intent on defying gentrification and ending imperialism. 

This week on the podcast, I Zoomed with Christine Edwards and we talked about how we’ve been resourceful, with mentorship, and her work in helping Asheville with its groundbreaking reparations program. I’ve included the video version here on YouTube and I would love for you to subscribe over there, especially if you want to see these full video versions of the podcast.

And of course, please continue to listen on all other podcast platforms and rate and review there as well. Here’s all of the episodes at a glance.

The Grief that Gentrification Brings – Defying Gentrification

Even though this was a rough week for me, I decided that I wanted to let you in a bit and drop a few moments of a chat on how gentrification compounds my grief. This is a raw edit with no full ad and no full segments, just me reflecting on how I've been grieving this week for years and how gentrification adds to that.Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedInYou can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
  1. The Grief that Gentrification Brings
  2. Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles
  3. Resourcefulness and Reparations in North Carolina with Christine Edwards
  4. Kristen's Personal Gentrification Defying Playbook
  5. Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore


Plus, you’re welcome to come by tomorrow morning, Monday, May 20 at 11 am Eastern, for my ask me anything, where you can ask me anything and comment on these thoughts, within reason. Register right here and I hope to see you there.

Podcast, Weekly Newsletter

[Podcast] Episode 7 — Resourcefulness and Reparations in North Carolina with Christine Edwards

This week on the podcast, I’m joined by Christine Edwards of Civility Localized, a Charlotte-based public engagement firm that is changing the game on so many levels.

But most of all, this is an episode of two Black Southern women who are connected in some shape or form to North Carolina, talking about how we both are motivated and have or haven’t been supported by that state.

The Grief that Gentrification Brings – Defying Gentrification

Even though this was a rough week for me, I decided that I wanted to let you in a bit and drop a few moments of a chat on how gentrification compounds my grief. This is a raw edit with no full ad and no full segments, just me reflecting on how I've been grieving this week for years and how gentrification adds to that.Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedInYou can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
  1. The Grief that Gentrification Brings
  2. Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles
  3. Resourcefulness and Reparations in North Carolina with Christine Edwards
  4. Kristen's Personal Gentrification Defying Playbook
  5. Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore

About our Guest

Christine Edwards is a civic firebrand who has immersed herself in helping urban communities grow with dignity. Since founding Civility Localized in 2018, her work has affected change nationwide through innovative outreach strategies that support racial equity, reducing barriers to participation, and encouraging sustainable growth for cities. Christine earned her Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Urban Management and Policy from UNC Charlotte. Christine’s work has been featured in Fast Company, Axios, The Business Journals, Queen City Nerve, Mountain Xpress, Pride Magazine, QCity Metro and many other local and national publications. Christine serves as a board member for Generation Nation, an organization cultivating the next generation of civic leaders and is a member of the board of directors for the Humane Society of Charlotte. She enjoys southern food, and loves seeing urban policy theory play out in daily life.

Also, I had to have an NC-related hot topic this week and it’s about this new mask and protest banning bill, that’s just the latest of laws making me not want to move home again, despite my love and homesickness.

Read the hot topic reference article here — https://www.wral.com/story/nc-senate-votes-to-ban-people-from-wearing-masks-in-public-for-health-reasons/21433199/

And I found two Black North Carolina authors for you to read this week, you can purchase then in my Bookshop.org store:

Never miss an episode, subscribe to my Substack or on LinkedIn

You can also find me, Kristen , @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.

Weekly Newsletter

[Livestream recap] Land justice, finding an urban planning program that speaks to your values & podcast recs!

This week on Ask Kristen Anything about Gentrification for May 13, 2024, I had three wonderful questions that gave me a chance to share my tips for land liberation (Spoiler alert: one of them is investing in guaranteed housing, not just affordable housing).

Plus I shared how I would approach studying urban planning (and public administration) if I was just starting as an undergrad. I also shared other podcast recommendations and reminded everyone that I too have a podcast called Defying Gentrification.

The Grief that Gentrification Brings – Defying Gentrification

Even though this was a rough week for me, I decided that I wanted to let you in a bit and drop a few moments of a chat on how gentrification compounds my grief. This is a raw edit with no full ad and no full segments, just me reflecting on how I've been grieving this week for years and how gentrification adds to that.Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedInYou can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
  1. The Grief that Gentrification Brings
  2. Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles
  3. Resourcefulness and Reparations in North Carolina with Christine Edwards
  4. Kristen's Personal Gentrification Defying Playbook
  5. Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore

Some useful links I shared:

Planners Network —

www.plannersnetwork.org

Tysir’s Salih work to break down Audre Lorde’s “masters tools” quote and relate it to three past revolutions that have failed to finish their course and have rooted existing conflicts

https://www.instagram.com/p/C643ItCt0Ol/?igsh=cDdpdW91eGo5MHJy

And a comprehensive list of mutual aid and action times compiled in their Linktree

https://linktr.ee/red_maat?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZOQ0U_ZwnCjVwN_E2OA7XjVLZ30m3bd4WKXWf1kyO029v2maAT_mcwkaA_aem_AYLeGJnusmBav156_Luq_TqhuAU1-yUdXZuwFg1-ITpCxEBbrTl-_3P79gcjynCbZPFbfLu0cbQYLVVv0Vzf1xJN

The US Housing and Urban Development Annual Household Median Income Calculator (This is what is used to determine fair market rents and other rates of public assistance)

https://www.huduser.gov/Portal/datasets/il.html

The books The Color of Law and Just Action (note I am a Bookshop affiliate and will get some of the proceeds from this sale)

And finally, my other sibling podcasts I mentioned today which you can also find on YouTube or your other favorite podcast players:

Queer for Cities

Urban Planning is Not Boring

Architecture is Political (Arch is Polly)

Four Degrees to the Streets

****

Want to get more advice from me, targeted to your situation and your growth? Book a paid session with me on Calendly and I can go even deeper on questions like this to make sure you and your community have what you need to succeed

Join us every week on Mondays at 11 am and listen in to learn and grow with me, and in the meantime, you can find me @blackurbanist on all socials or follow me Kristen Jeffers, on LinkedIN.

Weekly Newsletter

Out of my mother’s hands, my hands make a better Earth

This craft that is saving me came straight from my mom’s hands.

This was my mom’s birthday card. I took this picture knowing you probably wouldn’t see it in some form until at least Mother’s Day. I called my mom today in lieu of mailing another card.

I am a second-generation sewist and for years I couldn’t see how that could merge with my desire to live in a fast-paced city.

And yes, somehow, I always felt I was good enough for DC and politics and not New York and fashion.

I’m glad we live now in an internet and world that allows for both, but sadly only for certain people.

We cannot go on allowing some of the world to thrive and to do so on the backs of others.

WE ONLY HAVE ONE EARTH!!!!

You can’t bomb and drill and starve folks on one side of it and think that that doesn’t affect part of the other!!!!

But if you’ve been here for a while, you know that’s what I stand for. 

And through this craft from my mother’s hands, I will create generational abundance for myself and everyone.

Meanwhile this week I got some crocheting done on the bus…

Wider angle of Kristen crocheting on the bus that shows another new project from this week, her Kristfinity scarf that matches her other sweater.

…and at the ballpark

Kristen's crochet on her lap covered in an ankara print skirt and looking down at the seats at Nationals Park

…and  I made a new necklace that I plan to wear as a reminder to heal the EARTH and end all warmongering empires and genocides.

Kristen looking at the camera in her new necklace which is a lace-like square ruffled on a wire hoop. She's wearing red and black for Sudan and Palestine and the greater Pan-AFrican cause

Until next time, maybe tomorrow’s live stream at 11 am Eastern?

Kristen

Weekly Newsletter

One month podcasting + now on YouTube

Hey y’all! Thanks so much for a spectacular first month of the Defying Gentrification podcast. And, no, you didn’t miss an episode this week. 

I decided to take a step back and make sure some of my administrative ducks were in a row. 

Starting with the biggest one: the podcast is now on YouTube, which you can watch here.

Subscribe there and join the 71 already subscribed folks to get me to my first 500 subscribers and fully monetize my channel. 

Speaking of who is watching, so far the podcast has been played and downloaded over 700 times across all major networks, save YouTube. 

Lastly, I would love to have you as a guest! Please use the Calendly form below to set up a time.

And yes, we will be back on schedule next week with my Ask Kristen Anythings on Monday, but we will be at 11 am Eastern again, get the link to stream below.

Until next time,

Kristen

Weekly Newsletter

Standing proudly on top of my hive

Welcome to my Sunday newsletter! I call it the gentrification-defying front porch because this is my note where I share pictures and talk about my art projects and activities. It’s also a bit more stream-of-consciousness, and hopefully a lot of fun! If you want more art all the time, follow me at @kristpattern.

This week I’ve had to learn that it’s time to take up space and there’s a good way to be a queen bee, like, Yimbee! Yimbee made her debut at the Greater Greater Washington Spring Soree and she was a delightful surprise to everyone in attendance.

I was a little sad because in two weeks I will be an editor emeritus (for now), but I couldn’t help but see signs of my need to start taking up space and to own my Queen Bee status and be ok with being a blue chair in a brutalist space.

Being that blue chair in the past is what has allowed me to afford a life where I can swing on an adult-sized swing on the Wharf recreation pier in the middle of the day.

It’s helped me find a person who’s a bigger bookstore nerd than me.

And to rediscover textiles and fiber and to see the inspiration for my next chapter in lots of spaces

So I’m gathering my works in progress (WIP) and learning how to start smart.

This week on the podcast, I share some of my personal needs to defy gentrification and on Monday at 11 am Eastern on my weekly livestream I will talk about more concrete things I do to defy gentrification.

Listen up and join me! If you miss it, I’ll be in your email with a recap.

Until next time,

Kristen 

Podcast, Weekly Newsletter

Kristen’s Personal Gentrification Defying Playbook: Defying Gentrification Episode 6

Happy Friday y’all.

I spent some time this week on a solo episode talking about my personal needs to defy gentrification. My hot topic is something I’ve been boiling over for decades, teen curfews.

Also, I apologize for the rough audio, I had to do another take and didn’t realize my mic wasn’t working well.

But, I figured out how to upload the main episode feed here with a transcript! However, I would love it if you still streamed on Apple and Spotify, to continue to grow my numbers and catch up on any episodes you may have missed! We are at 500 downloads and counting with a month into being back on the podcast mic! Also, please rate and review at those platforms as well.

Finally, if you want to upload the raw RSS feed into your favorite podcast player, you can do so as well.

RSS feed

Or you can listen to all episodes right here on WordPress:

The Grief that Gentrification Brings – Defying Gentrification

Even though this was a rough week for me, I decided that I wanted to let you in a bit and drop a few moments of a chat on how gentrification compounds my grief. This is a raw edit with no full ad and no full segments, just me reflecting on how I've been grieving this week for years and how gentrification adds to that.Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedInYou can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
  1. The Grief that Gentrification Brings
  2. Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles
  3. Resourcefulness and Reparations in North Carolina with Christine Edwards
  4. Kristen's Personal Gentrification Defying Playbook
  5. Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore

SHOW NOTES

Hot Topic Article from NBC Washington

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/prince-georges-county/prince-georges-county-fast-tracks-teen-curfew-bill-after-national-harbor-brawl/3600453

What’s happened since they implemented the curfew

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/prince-georges-county/its-100-different-national-harbor-marks-first-weekend-of-emergency-youth-curfew/3603452

What I said in 2013 when my hometown of Greensboro, NC faced the same issue, and what my solutions were then

Thoughts on Bringing Our Youth Back Downtown

Parameters of DC’s Summer Youth Program

https://summerjobs.dc.gov/page/faq-hsip

Sins Invalid Disability Justice Paradigm

https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/10-principles-of-disability-justice

Purchase from my Bookshop.org store and support the podcast! 

Support the show financially by going paid on  Substack or Patreon

You can also find me @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.

See you on Sunday for my front porch essay and on Monday for my ask me anything/live talkback