Issues and Ideas

The Future of the Black Experience in Urban Development

The last two posts explored what urban development has meant to the black community in honor of Black History Month. This time I’m sharing what I think the future needs to be to strengthen and honor black neighborhoods and communities, while including them in the sustainable community movement.

  • Education systems that offer students more options and are more accountable. We need our public schools to begin to function more like some of our charter and private schools, offering students more opportunities to learn and more accountability at an early age. Not through test scores that are inflated, but through actual learning measures and workplace interests. This article in the New York Times presents a good start. Our colleges and universities need to ensure that students are connected to employers or seed funders to find a place in the global economy. They also need to ensure more traditional age students graduate within a decent time frame and without heavy loads of debt.
  • A return to farming. While this may conjure up images of plantations and sharecropping, worldwide there are shortages of land for farming due to over-industrialization and USDA policies favoring large scale agricultural operations. Even if it’s just something simple as community gardens, or what Detroit is doing, we can all try to contribute something back to the land.
  • Neighborhood watches, community associations and other groups that are committed to preserving communities. Not only do these groups allow neighbors to get to know and trust each other, they are great lobbying groups when initiatives go to city councils that may affect neighborhoods fairly or unfairly.
  • Political and organizational leaders who actually care. Doing the same old-same old, trying to profit off of other people’s backs and voting down initiatives because they endanger the profitability of themselves should not be tolerated with black leaders, much like we don’t tolerate them out of leaders of other backgrounds. While wise old leaders who care about people should stay, others should step out of the way for the youth to come in and work to improve their communities.

Now I ask everyone else, what can black communities do to make sure they are a part of the sustainable growth movement this time and not sitting on the sidelines?

Issues and Ideas

Successful Sustainable Community Projects Affecting the Black Community

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Last post we explored how movements in history relate to the black experience and what we define as smart growth policies today. Here are how some sustainable community/smart growth policies are affecting the black community today.

Harlem Children’s Zone

Since 1997, Geoffrey Canada has been helping children and families in Harlem by concentrating all social services within a few blocks of each other. The program started in 1970 as Rheedlen, a truancy prevention program. Over the years, as the crack epidemic swept through Harlem, the organization shifted and grew to help maintain stability in the neighborhood. In the early 1990’s, they began tracking and evaluating their programs to make sure they were working, something that was innovative for non-profits at the time. The zone concept began with 24 blocks in 1997, and has now expanded to 100 blocks. Support is provided for parents from before birth until graduation from college.

Greening the Ghetto

Marjora Carter and her movement to re-green the Bronx added another black voice to the sustainable community movement and the green movement. Carter came up with her vision after not being able to find a job after college. She was walking her dog and she walked up on the Bronx riverfront and started envisioning a riverfront park with pedestrian and bike paths. That park opened in 2001 and in 2003 she started Sustainable South Bronx to build the green movement in the Bronx has been instrumental in creating green jobs, building rooftop gardens, planting trees and other efforts to bring progressive green and sustainable policies to the Bronx. Recently moving on from Sustainable South Bronx, she has established the Majora Carter Group which is sought after nationwide for advice on sustainable development issues.

Willow Oaks

Hope VI has been used in varying degrees to help clean up shady housing projects. However, it often fails in its promise to bring mixed incomes and instead results in pushing out residents. Right in my city of Greensboro, the community of Willow Oaks is a small example of what can happen when residents have a part in cleaning up their neighborhood. The neighborhood began its years as Lincoln Grove, a working-class area. However, with the arrival of the Morningside Homes federal housing project in the 1950’s, the area began a downward spiral. Crime rates rose, culminating in the 1980 Klan-Nazi shooting which would reverberate throughout the entire city of Greensboro and beyond. In addition, the units resembled military barracks more than homes and spent many years in disrepair. However, in 1996, Morningside residents, along with 50 other organizations including the City of Greensboro, new urbanist land developers and NC A&T State University began creating an urban village they renamed Willow Oaks.  Today there are waiting lists for the senior citizens home and the townhome village. Single family homes have been built, many occupied by professors at NC A&T. Low-income housing is scattered throughout the neighborhood and looks no different than the market-rate dwellings. Construction is under way on a community/child development center and retail in walking distance of the homes.

Community Gardens in Detroit

Since the 1980’s Detroit has been predominately black. In addition, with the shift in the auto industry in the last 30 years, it’s also been predominately empty. Lots of community leaders have worked to start filling some of those empty lots with community gardens. Over 1000 community gardens exist in the Detroit metro area. So far they have provided work for unemployed Detroit residents and fresh food options in a city which only has 7 full service supermarkets. While many gardens are held by community and school groups, the wide amounts of available land have began to attract private investors, notably John Hantz and his Hantz Farm project. He hopes to pioneer modern organic farming techniques and rebuild property values by buying up over 5,000 acres, creating a scarcity situation. In an area where home prices average at $15,000, property value growth will actually rebuild communities, instead of push out homeowners as is the case in most gentrifying and redeveloping neighborhoods. I’ve personally witnessed how much this movement has grown in the area, as my aunt, a Detroit-area elementary school principal, has sponsored a plot of land at a nearby community farm for her students, along with keeping a rain garden on her campus.

These are only a few of the many projects undertaken in and  by traditionally Black communities and leaders of color to rebuild once blighted communities and also incorporate modern urban planning and architectural elements. Next post will discuss what I believe it will take to continue these efforts and birth new ones.

Traveling as An Urbanist

Quotes and Notes from the NCSU College of Design Urban Design Conference 2011(#ncsuudc2011)

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First of all, I want to congratulate the NC State University College of Design, the City of Raleigh Planning Department and all the sponsors for putting on a sharp, timely and powerful conference. I also want to thank those sponsors who were able to keep the student rates of attendance low. Also enjoyed meeting almost all of the speakers and a few attendees. Let’s keep in touch!

The North Carolina State University College of Design, in conjunction with the City of Raleigh Planning Department gathered a conference of urban  leaders and students of all stripes  focused on the theme Sustainable Suburbs-ReImagining the Inner Ring in Downtown Raleigh on Saturday February 12. Through host Marvin Malecha, Dean of the College of Design, and moderator Mary Newsom, associate editor at the Charlotte Observer and author of the Naked City blog on urban development, design and policy, attendees learned suburban solutions from the following speakers/panelists:

  • William “Bill” Hudnut- The Fork in the Road Facing First Tier Suburbs
  • Patrick Condon- Seven Simple Urban Design Rules to Save the Planet
  • Ellen Dunham-Jones Retrofitting Suburbs
  • John Knott- Sustainably Restoring the Health of Our Cities
  • James Rojas- Latino Urbanism: Transforming the Suburbs
  • Patrick Phillips- Not Your Father’s Housing Market: Observations Following the Crisis and What it Means for Sustainable Suburbs
  • Everyone, with Mitchell Silver- The Suburban Challenge, Beyond Design

Every presentation agreed that we need to begin retrofitting suburbs, and incorporating diversity, better transportation options, financial stability and homes that reflect character of people and neighborhoods they are in. In addition, several speakers and attendees were past, present and future presidents/national board members of the main professional organizations for designers and planners. This wealth of leadership and knowledge, along with the presence of elected officials and other decision-makers made this conference stand out as a practical, inspirational resource, not just an ideas fest. Here are some of the best quotes of the day:

  • “We cannot ignore the suburbs…they can be sustainable”- Marvin Malecha
  • “[this is] the century of the suburb”- Mary Newsom
  • Green is green, not Red or Blue [politics]- Bill Hudnut
  • “1st tier suburbs are fork in road, metropolitan pivot point”-Bill Hudnut
  • Density doesn’t need to look dense- Patrick Condon
  • Elderly Boomers are Yeepies-youthful, energetic,elderly people into anything- Ellen Dunham-Jones
  • [I am] in the human habitat and community development business- not the development business- John Knott
  • Core of city problems is the ignorance of history of the area, especially low/middle income areas.-John Knott
  • Upwardly mobile immigrant households will be a new market for McMansions-Patrick Phillips
  • NC State University is putting eight dollars back into economy for every dollar it puts in- Marvin Malecha

Additional conversation focused on the need for collaboration between professional groups(planners, architects, academics, etc.), a special need for more city and county managers, as well as elected officials in the room and a special challenge to the students, especially those under 30. Also, Rojas’s presentation spoke for itself, pictures telling the story of how a culture outside of the mainstream approached the suburban landscape and story.

I also like to note that this site is a manifestation of the challenge to people under 30, to do what I can to re-design the world. I may not be a technical design person, but I know I can tell the story. To anyone reading this who was attending today, let us continue this challenge together.

Traveling as An Urbanist

Highlights of the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference 2011 (#NPSG2011)

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Of course the hotel is transit accessible, but you couldn't capture my glee when I walked out to this station Friday after following signs labeled trolley station. Hotel is to the right of this picture.

As I mentioned before, I spent Friday February 4th, 2011 at the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Charlotte, just an hour and a half from my home in Greensboro. Many of you readers were either there in the flesh or there in spirit, so you were able to see and hear some of the conversations that went on yesterday. I hope to spotlight some of the presenters and other conference goers that I met, so I will leave the recaps to others. However, I am going to touch on a few highlights that made this conference a highlight of my year so far:

The Location

First of all, I commend the Local Government Commission for choosing Charlotte. If anyone is an example of how suburban communities are taking back their urban cores, Charlotte is one. When I arrived and parked and started walking and using transit, I thought I was in another state. Uptown(Charlotte wants it’s citizenry to think of a positive ideal when going to their downtown), was quite dense and  full of a good mix of chain stores and cool local spots. You also have two successful sports stadiums, fun museums, and the nucelus of financial power in the state, if not the Southeast and most of the nation. The Westin Charlotte, where most of the conference sessions were held,  is a visually spectacular building. I’ve driven past it a number of times and wondered quite possibly how people could people fit in the building. It’s so skinny. Yet, is not a key principle of smart growth, namely New Urbanism, if it can be smaller, make it smaller? The exterior was tastefully contemporary, a perfect backdrop to a conference celebrating progressive design and policy in land use. The icing on the cake was finding out that the hotel was Lynx accessible. It was rainy this weekend and being able to hop on a warm light rail train was just in time. Sadly, we do not have this system directly to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, but hopefully dignitaries with means will see how much of an asset this is and will make the necessary financial and regulatory decisions to make that happen.

The Agenda

The agenda featured over 100 sessions on a variety of topics, including many on environmental justice and diversity in the sector. Although I was only able to attend the Getting It Right:Training the Next Generation of Sustainability Leaders and Practitioners and Environmental Justice and Community Engagement: Can Inclusive Engagement Lead to Just and Smart Growth? sessions, I learned so much and had many of my beliefs affirmed about equity and diversity in the realm of smart growth and sustainable communities.

The Connections

I think the Westin did a great job of having refreshments arranged such that people could get a coffee (or tea, thank you Starbucks and Tazo!) and chat about issues they saw. This is how I met Brian Faulk, who is the publications director for the Center for Applied Transect Studies. We had a nice conversation about my recent post on Grist, the true viability of urban agriculture and why we need not forget equity in our building patterns. I had no idea at the time exactly who he worked for, but after reading the website and putting two and two together, it was pretty cool to be able to have a random conversation with someone so close to the founder of New Urbanism. In addition, I was able to finally meet Elisa Ortiz, who is the Outreach Manager for Smart Growth America and her colleague, Shelley Hazle, who is the Smart Growth Leadership Institute’s State Coordinator. Shelley spoke in the first session I attended above and Elisa and I are both a part of the YNPN family, as well as a co-Nonprofit Rockstar. I also enjoyed meeting several fellow grad students, other panelists and a few of the sponsors.

Those three things made my short day at the New Partners Conference so worth it. If you were there, what did you think? If this was your first time in Charlotte, did you like it? Would you come back again?

Traveling as An Urbanist

Smart Growth and Urban Design Conversations Coming to North Carolina

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Charlotte at night, home of this week's New Partners for Smart Growth Conference

This week, Charlotte will be hosting the New Partners for Smart Growth conference from Thursday through Saturday. I plan on spending Friday at the conference learning about efforts North Carolina and other states are taking to make its streets complete, involve schools in smart growth planning, engage rural communities and further environmental justice issues.

On Saturday February 12th, I will be attending Day 2 of the NC State Univeristy College of Design’s Urban Design Conference. Presented in coordination with the City of Raleigh Urban Design Center, the conference will focus on the theme: Sustainable Suburbs, Re-Imagining the Inner Ring. I feel this is a perfect topic, as Raleigh is rapidly suburbanizing and not in a good way. However, I am looking forward to hearing how City of Raleigh leaders are addressing the situation through identifying areas that can be re-developed in a more urban pattern. Also, Ellen Dunham-Jones, who co-authored Retrofitting Suburbia, will be speaking again on her work. Check out her TED talk here.

Registration is still  open for this conference, click here for more information.

Also, if you will be in town for either of these conferences, please let me know so we can connect. For those of you who cannot make it, look in this space in the upcoming days for conference recaps and pictures.

Issues and Ideas, Wishes

My 2011 Wishes for the Urban Fabric

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Another side wish, more festivals that get people on the streets. (Fun Fourth Festival 2009 Downtown Greensboro, from my personal collection)

As those of you accessing from the direct link can see, I’m all moved in. Still working out some kinks, but I am very happy to be at WordPress(and Blue Host). Also, if you see anything offensive in the Google ad links, let me know and I will see that those are taken down. Now to the meat of the post.

This Grist A-Z has me thinking about what 2011 will mean for communities too. I’m not the greatest at fortune-telling, but I do have a few ideas. Here’s what I hope to see:

–Continued change under new DC Mayor Vincent Gray– Having studied the early failures and witnessed modern marvels and dissatisfaction with Black mayors, I hope that Gray can be spoken of in the same breath that many speak of Cory Booker. Smart growth principles are not just the domain of whites, nor are cultural businesses and informal community networks that of minority communities. I hope his One City initiative works and sparks collaboration.

-Speaking of Cory Booker– I hope he can continue the growth and innovation in Newark. In addition, he’s a great role-model for a city leader, utilizing Twitter, the Huffington Post and other mediums to talk to his city, as well as the nation, about how not just cities can improve, but the people inside them too.

–Another major company to locate in our new Triad-area aeropolis- Here in Greensboro, it’s painfully obvious sometimes that we live in the shadows of Charlotte and Raleigh. When manufacturing died, so did we as being a major force for employment. However, we are only 90 minutes away from each city, sometimes less  depending on traffic. Local economic development officials are wise to continue the focus on the airport and other aircraft related operations.However, I hope we can encourage more air-related research and development operations to locate here as well. Their energy, innovation, taxes and donation dollars benefit not just their companies, but their neighborhoods and the city as a whole.

–Not waiting until the money is there to start a project– Despite the threat of no funding, cities cannot stop with the efforts to build high-speed rail. I saw with my own eyes how beneficial the Florida high-speed line would be to surrounding communities and I hope that the focus doesn’t stop. I hope the community and private industry can rally around the idea of high speed rail in Ohio and Wisconsin, to show their respective governors how much needed these systems are and what they missed by rejecting them. I want more places to be like Braddock, PA. This town was all but written off, but the mayor and the remaining town members have come together to live sustainability and rebuild their town in such a manner. the Middle Tennessee Transit Alliance is rallying the troops in Nashville about a better transit future.With very little money. I want us to .

–More cultural urbanism– 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!

What are your wishes for urbanism, urban life and related topics for 2011?

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Cityville- The Experiment

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I hate Facebook games with a passion. However, the blinking lights of a particular one really caught my eye as an aspiring city planner: Cityville. Made by the creators of Farmville, this game takes everything you loved about the farm, crops and all, and brings it to the city. While those of you who prefer SimCity may be disappointed by the lack of true interaction, be excited, you get to incorporate your real friends!

For my city, the goal was to incorporate smart growth principles as much as possible. I even named the place Sustainability. Another goal was to not spend any real money in the game, but earn as much with fake money as I could.

I started out with the house options they gave me and a few plots of strawberries. A few hours later I broke ground on my downtown, adjacent to my farm operation. My first business opportunity besides the farm was a bakery(?!). My second and third options were a flower kiosk and a coffee shop.

At this point, I knew things were going downhill. Although I figured out I could move my buildings, roads and decorations(trees, flowers, even a brown cow) around, to build the city would require spamming my friends. I could build a city hall and a post office, but if no one wants to work at them, then they don’t open. And if they don’t open, I can’t increase my population. Also, the natives get restless and unhappy if they don’t have open community buildings. I also have a limited number of things(collecting rent, harvesting crops) that i can do before my energy levels run out. If I don’t earn more energy on my own fast enough, then I have to buy energy, with real money.

Either way, I’m gradually adding new buildings and figuring out what crops don’t wither if I can’t get back to them on time. As I advance in levels, I get more energy whenever I come into the game. All these things are helping me see how much the game isn’t that far off from real life. You have to staff your city buildings by spending money and/or getting friends to work there. You have to plant crops to supply your businesses(or get involved in lucrative shipping or agribusiness contracts). People will not be cool going to the same places all the time. Houses don’t fit where you want them and should be connected to streets. The only disappointment seems to be lack of transit, however, everyone in my city(really a town at this point) walks wherever they need to go.

Although there are times when the game is exhilarating and times where it bores me to tears, I’ll stick with it until I can get a sprawling (but sustainable) metropolis.

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On Smart Growth: Attitudes that Need to Die for it to Really Work

Wonder what I really think about smart growth?,Enjoy this post, from August of this year, that talks about how I see smart growth evolving to work.

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter on how smart growth has made some neighborhoods flat out unaffordable. I agree, especially in that many smart growth and sustainable community measures are based on maintaining in some cases very outdated ideas. What I’m about to propose in this blog is fairly radical. I probably won’t live to see some of these attitudes die. I might lose my house as a result. However, we need to start chipping away at the following attitudes that are silently destroying communities and their ability to be sustainable.

1. Houses and the land they sit on need to be money generating machines and insanely expensive.
My mom got a great deal on our house. Such a great deal she immediately had thousands in home equity she could borrow against. However, my mom’s never been one to take out a loan she didn’t need, buy more house than we could afford and run out to buy a new car at the first crank. However, some folks weren’t so studious with their finances. Granted, some rental situations are bad (landlords not fixing things, kicking people out for no reason), but just because you have neighbors that cook curry occasionally doesn’t necessary mean you should risk your whole life savings on something that you essentially rent for 30 years or more anyway. Richard Florida’s idea of reforming renting and owning has merit. Also, I’m appalled at how inflation has driven up home prices. If we could ever accept a new paradigm of land ownership that didn’t place such a high premium on it, so many other housing issues wold be affordable.

2. Public Schools are beyond repair in some neighborhoods, therefore won’t move there or we’ll put our kids in private/charter school.
I toured  my mom’s pristine newly built public middle school yesterday afternoon (August 10th). I attended the original middle school up the road and suffered through mold allergies and sometimes broken equipment and chairs as a student. However, I was an honor graduate of the adjacent high school and magna cum laude graduate of North Carolina State University. As I passed this old building in my car on the way to the new one, I saw the new baseball field and also the new band transfer truck trailer. Both that were paid for by parent boosters. Yet, I am willing to bet that the brand new academic building will be trashed by the students within a couple years. Why, because it happened with the new addition to the older school building. It’s not always the curriculum, the teachers and the lack of technology(which the new building has plenty of). Sometimes it’s what we will value enough to pay for or take care of even though the school system won’t. Maybe we should value our schools, whether we liked going to them and/or we had children in them or not. We could say that all schools deserve some love, even if it means we have to give some of the resources ourselves. Maybe we wouldn’t have need for some of these shady new consultants that are taking the government’s money for school reform with no results. We could take that money and do what we as community members know works. I know some people will want more religion in your child’s schooling. There are ways for that to happen too while maintaining our school buildings which come standard in our neighborhoods thanks to our tax dollars. (Maybe taking the kids to church, synagogue, mosque for the extra training…) ?

3.Transit is bad. Always.
Yes, transit has it’s holes. I’ll be addressing them in a post in the near future. with the prevalence of electronic gadgets and less time to do more, being able to sit on the bus or train and read, write or listen to something is  awesome. Also, with the prevalence of social media, groups of citizens can gather to raise awareness of how much they love transit and also what needs to be improved. Greater Greater Washington does a bang-up job of doing so.

4.Too much color in a neighborhood means the neighborhood isn’t good enough.
Yes, I just pulled the card. I won’t go into too much depth here, but I will say that we need to stop being afraid of our neighbors based solely off of stereotypes of their nationalities, religions and orientations. Especially if those neighbors are willing to get your mail when you are gone,  mow your yard when you are sick, beat down the kid who tried to break into your house and give you great advice on your new tomatoes. Even if they are quiet neighbors, you never know when they’ll step up to the plate and be your best friends. Plus, what goes on behind closed doors and tall fences isn’t our business anyway, right? We’ve had too much government and developer forced segregation.

As you can guess, this is more of a rant than a full blown solutions post. However, we can’t keep ignoring some of these elephants in the room if we want true sustainable communities. What are some other attitudes we need to get over to help our communities become better?

Copyright 2007-2010 Kristen E. Jeffers

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On the Bus Chronicles: Getting My Feet Wet

I’ve been selected as a rider ambassador for my local commuter transit system. As part of my duties, I’m to utilize some form of transit (bus, carpool or vanpool) twice a week. This is the account of my first ride on the bus on November 24, 2010.

11:49 AM ET

I was supposed to do this a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll admit, I chickened out. A part of my rider ambassador responsibilities is to talk to people. I’m only good at that when I think my ideas won’t get shot down. In the meantime, the bus just drove past. I was expecting it to come down the road from the highway, but it appears to have come out of nowhere.


Oh well, even though the bus was 10 minutes late according to the schedule, I’m glad that it just came. It also put out a person. So for now, I’m going to put down my pen, leave my car and head to the stop so I don’t miss the bus again. See you on the bus

12:46 PM ET

So I got to the stop and ended up having a nice chat with a long-haired handsome stranger. A very-well dressed long-haired handsome stranger. He’d just left a seminar at the convention center adjacent to the bus stop. He asked me for a light and as I’m not a smoker, did not have one. We chatted about culture for a bit as we waited for the bus to come back. He’s Native American, orginally from somewhere up north and travels a lot by bus, all over the country. He works in construction and we bonded over talking about prior lives in Raleigh. He also mentioned how great it was to be in Greensboro with all the cultures, but his desire to stay out of the black-white drama divide.

As we got on the bus(and the driver looked at me for being too slow and talking to much, as well as sticking my farecard in wrong), I shared with him about the new Megabus coming to Durham. Way to go for me sharing about a bus system I’m not technically supposed to be advocating for. However, good transit is good transit.

Meanwhile, the bus got to the commuter hub, where all the buses from the main three cities in the Triad, the shuttles to the airport area office parks and the airport shuttle convene. The stranger left my bus for the High Point bus. I had to leave my bus, rescan my card and get back on. The driver thought I was trying to steal a ride at first, but realized I was just that naive.

As I’m waiting for the bus to leave so I can get back to my car, I’m noticing the bus is doing a good job waiting for folks to get off the buses from various other areas. The buses are also clean and full of a diverse crowd of people. We are moving again, so I will report back when I return to my stop.

12:54 PM ET

So I made it back safely to my car in about an hour. Looking back on the ride, it was pretty smooth, even seated sideways. (I’ve ridden so many public buses  sideways, the angle doesn’t phase me). I also saw a HEAT, the college connector bus come through just as I’m writing this in my car. If I had wanted to, I could have picked up the bus and gone over to campus. Well, I know for next time.

One last thing. For being a commuter line, proximity to the stop leaves something to be desired. I had to cross five busy lanes of traffic with no crosswalk. Oh well, that’s something the mall owners should address with the transit authority.

Stay tuned for part two, where we will take a quick jaunt downtown in a way I’m not used to.

A Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Resource created and curated by Kristen E. Jeffers