We demonize the feminine and its sibling marginalizations at our peril, especially when much of what’s coded feminine in this iteration of society and urbanism are the things we all have to do and make to even survive as Earthlings.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

I feel that being a Feminist is more fraught than being Black, Queer or Urbanist, especially when you put all four words together.

Yes, Black and queer can get me killed outside of home. Urbanism debates what kind of home that is. Feminist can get me killed for all three even if the first three don’t succeed.

Of course, this assumes that I have a home and an exterior community that embraces me being Black and queer. Yet, there’s this rub, based on my feminine presentation on what I can and can’t do, even though I have a place of belonging, in both Black and queer communities. 

It’s also two rubs, that femininity isn’t mine as a Black woman or femininity is a colonial construct or femininity is weak or stupid or dumb or crazy.

Hello ableism and misogynoir and classism and colorism!

Today, I declare to you that my femininity and feminism is none of these things. 

I also release the expectations of all these isms and titles.

I call for unity, the kind that doesn’t require me to be extra clothed or extra tough walking the streets.

The kind that says my textile talents are a backbone of our village creation, not a burden of my appearance and supposed brain capacity.

The kind that releases the chains of enslavement, because I’m supposed to be extra strong or wise, but only worthy of exploitation!

I’m breaking through that kitchen picture window.

I’m coming off the mannequin podium and from behind the makeup counter

I’m dressed up and made up and I’m taking it to the streets.

And claiming my corner, with the fruits of the field I cultivate at the end of the rail line.

I’m roaring, but I choose to roar. I’m roaring because roaring is my birthright.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight my working feminist definition.

So how do I define feminist in my practice statement?

A person and a movement that honor genders marginalized under patriarchy, traditionally those tagged as feminine or outside traditional gender binaries.

Did you notice I say nothing about who is a woman or not?  Notice that I don’t include hair length and texture, adornments, mannerisms, smells, vocal quality, or really anything bodily.

I take it back to what creates this distinction in the first place and that is patriarchy. Outside of patriarchy, which yes, this is something we have zoomed back pretty far in human history to find, especially if we are thinking about the last  300-500 years of many civilizations, any gender can reproduce and yes, more than one gender can and does exist in  the human species and has for years.

It does not diminish us to function more like our fellow animal creatures. If anything, it may be their advantage that so many are not pressed about gender and yes, some even change their sexual roles, with the aid of other members of the species.

Just like we have to walk away from skin color marginalization, we have to do the same with other body parts and functions. 

We have to stop creating and building environments that are abelist and sexist for all, not just for certain preferred body characteristics. 

And yes, we can still celebrate our diversity and rejoice and share with each other.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Kate Wagner always writes things that make us uncomfortable about our architecture and this piece is probably the best I’ve read of hers, where we get into why we shouldn’t be doing architecture just for the money and in ways that destabilize the globe, both its resources and people.

I’m striving as  I do my work to not encourage folks to collect Black leaders like baseball cards, but integrate and affirm our humanity as Black/African folks. Really appreciate  Karen Attiah’s note this morning on her thoughts on how we approach Black History  Month and how we’ve left so many leaders to die or dwell in squalor.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

I finally streamed the entire SZA album. I will say that this is absolutely a night/low mood album and to prepare your ears accordingly. Plus, Danyel Smith is always a gift in giving us a mood and a means for reading and affirming our Black woman musical geniuses.

However, as I include a gift link to the New York Times,  I do want to announce again here that as of March 12, in solidarity and to push forward the dismantlement of this idea of a “paper of record” that can do no wrong, even when it consistently dehumanizes non-white, queer, trans, and even poor folks, I am letting my New York Times subscription lapse. Here are the tweets from when I made this decision. If I consume the paper in the future, it will be through library access and even then, I will be featuring writers who I know support trans and nonbinary rights, along with Black liberation and disabled pride. 

On the book side, I’ll be reading this essay collection on Edna Lewis, the Black woman who is not lauded enough as the creator of the concept of serving restaurant food directly from the farm to the table and for lifting up the cuisine many of her ancestors created as enslaved people into a highly regarded cuisine.

Before You Go

This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. 

***

Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering  

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

I took for granted that I grew up in a place that saw itself as a refuge and that had abundance. Now, I’m seeking to create that everywhere I go, embracing that change is also growth.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

I’d like to think that the voices we heard last Friday going into Saturday night in our room at the Millenium Hotel across from the World Trade Center complex were people who were there on September 11, 2001, telling us to have the best weekend we could possibly have.

Now I know that when I talk about this woo/ancestors stuff, y’all might run and click that unsubscribe button with the quickness, but hear me out.

Staying in the Financial District already means we are at the site where enslaved Africans were brought in and sold onto the Lenape lands that became known as New York City and its five boroughs.

However, the minute I got back in our car at Union Station on Monday, and a long-awaited check was in the mail, I knew I had to make a significant move. 

***

Transportation and textiles are what made my hometown more than a colonial village designated as the seat of its colonial power. It bounces back from tragedy and it does its best to be a shelter for all those that wash up on its shores. This is despite not having a natural shoreline and being in the center of a state that doesn’t always appreciate how unique it is.

I was drawn to its much bigger cousin because of its multitude of transportation, textiles, and human beings from a very young age. However, when I watched the Manhattan skyline shatter in the course of 90 minutes, I decided that I needed to live somewhere where the skyline just doesn’t. Now, DC was already a second choice living place for me, and it wasn’t without scars that same day, but it just felt safer to be somewhere that never really visibly changed.

Then I visibly changed. Then I started to move. Then I realized that it’s nothing wrong with having a city be a 24-hour ecosystem. There’s no sin in being awake in the middle of the night. There’s no sin in a lot of the things I care about the most.

What I needed so much, and what I’ve been moving about for years to find, is a city of refuge.

A city with unlimited opportunities and spaces for me to grow. A city with raw materials that I could draw from, that would regenerate itself and create wealth for all in its boundaries, while acknowledging that its boundaries can and should grow.

What I know now is that cities don’t have to grow at the expense of others. They can change and that change is a net positive. They can also change negatively, but they can be resolved.

This is what I got from being in New York, especially in the parts of New York I spent last weekend in, last weekend. 

Sometimes when you’re in a place that doesn’t change, it can stifle you. However, everywhere needs to change and now, I have a little bit more motivation to get that change started.

Next week, I’ll talk about pushing back against those that say I’m too (insert sexist or misogynoric statement here) to do the things I want to do in my city of refuge.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight my working urbanist definition.

So I’m changing the order of the principles this week with my reflection, because I wanted to highlight the working definition I use in my more academic examination of what I mean by urbanism, against what the Charter of the New Urbanism defines as urbanism before I talk about how my perceived femininity makes city dwelling less of a refuge and more of a fortress.

So, my definition:

A person and/or a movement that promotes the conglomeration of ideas, services, and objects in centralized locations, governed democratically, given freely and fairly, and connected by public transit and other people-powered transportation networks such as sidewalks and multi-use bicycle and pedestrian paths. Not mutually exclusive to rural expressions, but the natural output of natural and rural environments that have high levels of human interaction.

So as I’ve typed this (and yes, even after I presented this in person just a couple of weeks ago) I realized the definition is missing housing. This is not an on-purpose omission. However, the more I think about it, I feel like housing is a human right and is assumed to be part of this definition. But, one of the other things I’ve learned is that I have to be specific in all my definitions.  So, expect a revised version of this definition the next time you see it.

One that firmly defines what it means for me to feel like I’m at home in a city.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

As sad as I am to hear that an eighth student has died on NC State’s campus this year, the third of suicide, I’m happy to see the Indy Week, an alt-weekly I never missed picking up on Friday afternoons on campus,  publish a reflection on how we as Black folks need space to “fail” and to get the help we need even if we are not children of promise.

And I’m happy to have made my home in a state that demands we teach gender variety and “say gay” at school!

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

Of course, I made sure I streamed Janelle Monae’s first official single in five years. Will we be getting an album set in our present-day dystopia? And Apple dropped this Mariah Carey single right next to it on my personal new releases dashboard. 

Shelfwise, via Scribd, I’ve been reading poet and Vibe Check podcast co-host Saeed Jones’s 2019 memoir. As someone in the same age bracket that also lost a parent in their mid-twenties (and is coming up on the tenth anniversary of losing that parent), all I can say is that I am working to make sure my memoir manifesto has enough happiness in it so that people know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but only if the people in our lives show up for us as consistently as we do for ourselves. 

Before You Go

This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. 

***

Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering  

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Because I defined myself for myself, I’m already living in my Black queer feminist future. However, it still comes with a lot of awe and absolute linkage to my past as a child of those brought to the so-called North Carolinian shores and cultivated through what makes us a city. Oh, and I did ok “outside” this week! 

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. Ok, now, onward to our reflection this week, which I kinda teased above.

I took a deep breath when I sat on the fancy hotel bed Monday afternoon and cut my strings to my green crocheted dress. 

I always do some kind of drum roll or breathing practice when I cut a garment’s final strings or send a piece out for final edits or push the publish button on a set of Breakfast Links or a really important, but possibly controversial piece or a design frame that’s going to influence how people comprehend a very important set of information.

And add on that, that we are still in a global airborne respiratory pandemic and we are in a gun violence epidemic and people really are being loud and wrong about Black folks and queer/trans folks and even bodies that have uteruses being able to use them how they see fit. We have solutions for all of these things, but none of them are used enough for us to truly feel safe, even in an academic space where discussion is supposed to be safe.

But Monday afternoon on that bed, with the sun streaming in from nearby Central Park, I found peace and convergence. 

I had just read my slides again to make sure they would make sense, especially when people weren’t going to see my mouth. The pictures on the slides, the gestures my hands make, my Southern yet Black language inflections,  the variegated blue and yellow tones in the green dress and the purple designer but more durable shoes, plus my purple strands making their lecture room debut, would have to do.

And they did, they so did. 

If you were in the room on Tuesday afternoon and wondered why I spent so much time talking about humanity when you might have expected me to say build a sidewalk X inches wide, flush to the ground and take down X fences around parks,  or put X more subway stops in Queens,  Brooklyn, and upper Manhattan,  know this.

This being that everything we do for people, plan for people, and design for people, starts with us knowing that the people are people. People with all kinds of shapes, sizes, identities, and inner worlds. 

Don’t ever start your plans for people, without knowing their essence. Otherwise, you’ll keep designing the same way, wondering on your inside why it doesn’t seem to work or someone keeps declaring they feel missing or empty or alone in the room or on the plaza or on that very special shiny train.

And when you get to the point in your career, where you’ve reached a pinnacle or you’ve found the Pinnacle to be too much to bear, you’ll have strength in knowing that you are specially trained in the tools to build your pinnacle, and you can draw from these touchy/feely design principles to shape your place. 

You’ll look up and you’ll be in a community that’s home.

Meanwhile, New York.  You captured my heart again. So much so, that I’m doing a bonus round this weekend for one of the big design conferences. Next week, I’ll have more thoughts about experiencing the city itself, especially in the shadows of 9/11 and COVID.

And of course, thank you to the Black Student Alliance of the Columbia University  Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), especially Jennah Jones and Kian Goldman,  for having and hosting me, my fellow panelists Michael Ford and Dr. Deshonay Dozier for mixing some amazing theory and practice into the room with me and of course my dear Les for these beautiful pictures and tagging along. We will be gearing up on February 23rd at 7:30 pm to do a needed conversation on Black LGBTQIA+ health in the frame of the story of Henrietta Lacks and how her experience and our experience with the same hospital differed. The conversation is free and virtual and you can register here. This will be posted online after the event as well.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight the three working definitions of Queer that have been influencing this process.

So, this is my working queer definition from the principles.

Queer: A person who has a gender presentation, gender identity, gender journey/relationship, or sexual orientations that differ from traditional Western colonial thoughts on such ideas. Also refers to cultures that develop from this state of being.

Let me say that I don’t mean to center this against the Western definition on purpose. However, so much of what we understand as sexuality and gender has been funneled through a “Western/European” lens and cemented in the practices of conservative faith traditions that insist on just two genders, based on reproductive capabilities and capacities, with an emphasis on patriarchy.

However, this 2014 speech that birthed bell hooks’ infamous remarks on her personal queerness and the trans imagination, already wrapped up a talk and panel encouraging folks to consider how they were enslaved, builds on Audre Lorde’s admonition to define oneself for oneself, while also allowing folks to create their own imaginations.

As we make our definitions, let’s not forget to imagine first, so we can broaden our worlds! Next week, digging more into the feminist definition.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

So, for the record, still testing negative and still testing regularly (tested right before I went to the building on Tuesday and the last two days, with all my traveling). However, we are in a holding pattern where everyone should still be masking, helping with ventilation and access to medicine. 

It’s either stay in the house as a shut-in and be “forgotten” because you’re too disabled or forced to change because that disability is only cool when its time for a photo op, or be out here with no restrictions and acting like that there’s no such thing as illness and if you claim it is, you are not a real human. So yes, I’m in the travel with restrictions, limit access and lower viral load camp.

I’m very concerned that once we no longer have a public emergency declaration, this might send me back into the house. And all the folks shut in will never have a chance to see the light. We may be an ableist society, but that doesn’t mean we need to stay in one.

***

On one of my next trips to New York, I hope to become part of the “#TamFam” either in the audience or on the stage with this work. Also pinching myself that I was super close to running into Erika Alexander, who in addition to bringing one of my favorite Black feminist urbanist characters to the screen in the 1990s in Living Single continues to make a way for Black women on and off camera. Here’s Erika on Tamron Hall, where she talks about also being on Columbia University’s campus this week receiving an award.

***

And sadly, the quiet part about who is living in center cities and the conflicts created is now out loud in mainstream media, thanks to the Washington Post writing this digital headline: White people have flocked back to city centers — and transformed them (this is paywalled, with no option to gift a link) . 

I will say that as someone who does almost everything these days almost but sleep and get my hair done in Navy Yard (and the same with Les), I’m glad that the changes are concentrated, but if you watch this episode of the wonderful local WETA production of If You Lived Here, you’ll see another example of how its not all sunshine and rainbows with our gentrification. 

I only feel good about this because our financial position has changed. However,  I know the way our finances have changed is not applicable or replicable to anyone but us. I see my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and church families in all the Black folks I see on the edges. Broke living downtown. Doing well in the burbs, but way out and away from where the action is really happening. 

This is where the fire from my work is coming from. DC knows that something is going to have to change. However, will things change where they need to and will we collectively have the courage to make the changes in how we attract, move and house people in this region (and period!)?

***

And that’s a good segue to attaching my complete remarks from Tuesday afternoon. We do not have complete audio, but I’m happy to bring these slides to your school, house of worship, workplace, or fraternal organization. Book one of these sessions and let’s talk more about building an urbanism from a Black queer feminist perspective.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

This year, I’m challenging myself to read more books, versus reading long-form articles and hot takes. I also want to strengthen the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist book canon, by re-reading several of its titles. Realistically, I’ll probably be curating and skimming some of these titles, but I still want to lift them up to you as my readers, in case you’re self-educating, doing teach-ins, or need more materials than your university or school has provided on several of these topics. And sometimes, but not every week, I’ll be sharing some of my musical favorites, as I’ve been resurrecting my musical and DJ roots lately.

I was really pleased to walk into the Tyson’s Corner Center Barnes and Noble last night and find not just an issue of Baltimore magazine, but yet another one dealing with a major social issue that speaks to the marginalization of Black Baltimore, the Highway to Nowhere and said issue being the main focus of the cover. Les and I often peruse the magazines at the Potomac Yard one and I tend to hang out on the crochet, fashion, local use, and sometimes the music and wellness end, especially with so many of the big-name magazines being readily available online. 

I love that Baltimore magazine is not afraid to put social issues up front, highlight innovators and artists challenging systems and structures, plus, they do all the travel and tourist and best doctor/lawyer/real estate agent stuff. I’m sure they had to be nudged at some point to do this, but the point is that they aren’t afraid to make the cover and the front page of the website look the way it does at the moment, rather than try to hide the rough (and sometimes even the diverse) stuff.

More of our local magazines (looking at you Our State and Washingtonian because I care about you the most besides Baltimore), should be more courageous and willing to put these things on the cover, versus sneaking things in the back or waiting until they are more historical than current.

Meanwhile, we were at Tysons so I could join team iPad (and get some steps on my fairly new Apple Watch after seeing how much movement I was able to do in Manhattan), and very excited to try out Apple News and see so many overlapping magazines. I feel like I’m going to power through a lot of ebooks and magazines this way, plus get into doing surface patterns again with Procreate.

This week’s musical selection is my 2013 comprehensive list from Apple Music, which is a list of all the songs I actually bothered to download hard copies and purchase and burn on CDs that calendar year. 2013 was my first business trip to NYC and as I do so again over these next couple of weeks, I wanted us to revisit this volume of songs.

Finally, if you want to hear more of the sound of my voice, check out my recent episodes with the Black Women’s Wellness Agency podcast, where I speak of wellness as someone who is creating a different relationship with the Black feminine and Urban Planning is Not Boring where I tease my upcoming book!

Before You Go

This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. 

***

Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering  

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Black History Month wasn’t always Black History Month. And for me, a proud Black queer feminist urbanist 365 (366 on leap year) days of the Gregorian calendar year, I don’t need that prompt to remember and embody my history. However, I’m happy and ready to plot my Black future and yours too. 

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week is the first of our deep dive into the Whys of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism and how you can apply them, no matter your background. Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. Ok, now, onward to our reflection this week, which I kinda teased above.

I know I sound like I hate February and Black History Month in the lead. I don’t. What I hate is that feeling I have to do extra things above and beyond what I already do, namely on a weekly basis in this newsletter. 

And I already said last week I’m not here to prove anything to you about my identity. However, I enjoy having the opportunity to school you and share with you elements of my life and culture. I love helping people make connections with who they are and the places they inhabit.

I really enjoyed when I was actively teaching the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School (which if you become a Patreon at any level this month, you’ll have access to all the archives) discovering that folks like Mary Ann Shadd Carey, Ida B Wells-Barnett, and W.E.B. DuBois were some of the first Black urbanists and social scholars. They were asking key questions about where we lived and who we lived for and what could we do with this colonized state we found ourselves under, even if we were emancipated from enslavement.

One of the other things I learned was that this work has value and is necessary for everyone, but for different reasons. Hence why I ran an equity caucus and a white space for the course the first time. I realized that running community groups online wasn’t something you do alone, especially if you want to avoid any kind of mistakes or stressors. However, we need something every day that allows us to reckon with our biases and acknowledge our histories.

It doesn’t need to be in just one month, but I know we love having X Month for causes and conditions, and identities that are often marginalized. However, having these months has often become a painful showcase of people trying to look supportive and say all the right things, while going right back to their old ways the next day.

I’m especially frustrated and disappointed this week that I continue to hear that companies inside of the architecture, planning, real estate, and development industries, along with adjacent advocacy groups, movement spaces, publications, and research centers are not reckoning with what makes it hard for marginalized identities outside of their favored months.

Addressing the disparities of the sector and related activities is a key thing I do both in this newsletter, in my lectures, and in my online and offline workshops. This is nothing new. What is new is that after all of the promises and pledges of Juneteenth and Black History Months 2020, 2021, and 2022, we are already starting off 2023 with skewed expectations.

We’ve become happy just to have a person, maybe two or even a good 25-30%  but never a majority, on staff, especially if that person is naturally inclined to be a community builder. We’ve gotten comfortable with doing our salary adjustments. Many more of us have done our implicit bias assessments and training and we know exactly what our biases are. 

We insist that it’s unfortunate that not every firm (or movement or advocacy group or government entity)  is as equitable or knowledgeable or generous with their time and benefits as we are. However, we are now at the point where we have to address that our systems for creating equity are not failing because we aren’t trying.  The system we’ve set up, not just for equity, but for how we conduct business and we share resources is working as it is supposed to because it was not set up for true liberation and abundant resource sharing.

The challenge I want to leave us with this month and every month we celebrate marginalized identities and conditions and places, is to ask ourselves why we chose to create the systems we have, for the things we love to do and promote. 

Why do we have to work to earn things that the Earth can generate on its own? Why do we have to work or look or sound or feel a certain way just to be deemed worthy as a human?

 If we choose to engage in technological processes, why do we put a premium on access to those processes and learning how to make them?

It’s ok to want to barter for something we created, that’s artistic, that’s unique to us, but why does that trade have to be so degrading and at times unequal based on certain capabilities? Why can’t we just share, knowing that many things that are at the human scale are infinite? And for what is not, we have the tools to make these decisions equitably. Why don’t we use them?

And finally, to create the future, we have to understand why we did these things in the past and we have to reckon with what we are doing in the present that’s doing more harm than good when it comes to our work.

We have to stop demonizing people who have the passion to make places but don’t always have a formal title. We have to stop making it seem like a person has to always work, to be worthy as a human. 

No, everyone can’t be planners, architects, or engineers, even run their own venture or write, like I’m doing. However, every single firm, even if it’s just you or a few other people, need to have a plan internally and externally. That plan needs to cover at the minimum, how you will manage when your work in the past has caused cultural harm, beyond an I’m sorry plaque, especially if you have the means to provide repair services for the harm done. In your present, it means to keep doing the work to understand your worldview, and complete transparency around your hiring and firing decisions, as well as choices to work with particular communities. 

As a powerful entity with control of your workforce, your company and the parts of the contract you’re contracted for, you’re still being inequitable if you fall into doing the following:

— Sending the email stating you’re sorry we can’t hire you, but not offering to give feedback or acknowledging the feedback may warrant or need further mediation. If you’re trying to escape a lawsuit or EEOC complaint in the United States, unfortunately, you may not be able to, but you could resolve the situation in mediation and more evaluation of where you sit in the nexus of an inequitable industry and your own personal needs and biases.

— Tokenizing. Clearly, the work that’s been done since the original Untokening is still not sinking in or running up against systemic barriers. Continuing to diversify not just your workforce, but your executive teams, boards, partnerships, and joint ventures is what’s needed to resolve this along with that system dismantlement work.

— Punishing your colleagues and employees internally for not meeting standards but demanding that clients and communities put aside their struggles or that we accept how people naturally do their work and art and practice.  Yes, have a mediation practice, yes, express concern about performance. But don’t be dictatorial to your employees, when you embrace others fully. No, you don’t tokenize externally, but you need to stop doing it internally.

Whatever you do, don’t run away from hard conversations. Otherwise, when the system finally crashes, you’ll be underneath it, instead of part of the solution.

The future, especially the future I can help you create from my Black queer feminist urbanist framework, will help you be part of the solution.  You’ll get new action steps, ways of being, and ways of generating abundance in income and well-being.

Finally, my dear Black siblings. Don’t feel obligated to educate anyone or even do extra digging up of history or culture this month. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get that formal position in the industry, especially if you already have a community tie and you have a means of income that allows you to give back to said community.

Now, if you feel called to explore more of your ancestors and elders and learn more about a place out of genuine curiosity, please do! If you love sharing your thoughts and your knowledge on social media, please do. And finally, it’s ok to not know everything and be on your own self-affirmation journey. It’s ok to want a better job or home or career and start the process of affirming that I’m here for you and I would love to be helpful. 

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight the two working definitions of Black that have been influencing this process.

So, in case you missed it last week, this is my working definition of Black: 

Black: A person of African descent, often with visibly melanated skin, who has been subjected directly or through ancestry to enslavement, colonization, discrimination, or mistreatment as a result of their ethnicity, past and present marginalization, and/or skin color. This also refers to the cultures derived from these activities and their adaptation to their environments.

This is a definition that comes from both my lived experience and my academic environment experience. I was thrilled to find this definition that makes it even more succinct:

“We know race is a construct, an invention of racism. Race was created to justify imperialism and the slave trade. Blackness is not intrinsic to anyone. Blackness is definitely not monolithic. Yet, Blackness, entwined with the enslavement of Africans, colonization of the continent and the subjugation of a massive diaspora– has become an indelible concept” — Sebene Selassie, as quoted in the foreword written by Gaylon Ferguson of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom

So yes, race is a construct. However, we’ve had actual, sometimes positive, sometimes negative consequences over centuries as a result of this construct and we must not ignore or explain away Blackness.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Who was Carter G. Woodson, the founder of what has become Black History Month? Reading this I felt a very familiar sentiment to what I said above. I think if he were here, he would absolutely support the movement to observe this month as Black Futures Month.

My fellow Substacker Robert Jones, Jr. (author of The Prophets) has an amazing primer of Black gender-nonconforming and same-gender loving (terms that speak to Black LGBTQIA+ experiences) histories and the means of uncovering these ancestors and elders.

Meanwhile, people tried to tell me North Carolina was improving on this front, but none of our “safe areas” are immune from statewide intervention from the General Assembly and other entities that emit power from Raleigh which the whole state must bow down. I know we are ready to organize against this “Don’t Say Gay” bill, but how much of this do we endure before we ask our neighbors and family what’s going on with them that they don’t want us to exist? And even better, why do we let them get so loud and emboldened in the first place?

That last question in the blurb above was even more enhanced after I listened to this podcast and commented about what I thought my life would be like if I had continued to do this work in North Carolina.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

This year, I’m challenging myself to read more books, versus reading long form articles and hot takes. I also want to strengthen the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist book canon, by re-reading several of its titles. Realistically, I’ll probably be curating and skimming some of these titles, but I still want to lift them up to you as my readers, in case you’re self-educating, doing teach-ins, or need more materials than your university or school has provided on several of these topics. And sometimes, but not every week, I’ll be sharing some of my musical favorites, as I’ve been resurrecting my musical and DJ roots lately.

So as you saw above in the Principle Corner, I’ve started to allow myself to explore other faith traditions and their intersection with Black ancestry and political status. I happened to be in the faith section of the Columbia Mall Books-A-Million, which despite its size had about ten shelves for all kinds of Christian books and had all the other faith books, including other holy texts that carry similar weight to the Christian Bible, rammed together on a bottom shelf, just inches to the floor. It was a true miracle that I found Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom. I have been attending sanghas off and on both on Zoom and in person since around 2019 and I’m looking forward to learning how my identity meets this faith tradition.

And as I continue to explore new and old music, I have been stuck on Lucy Pearl’s singular, self-titled R&B album from 2000. Reading their Wikipedia, you can see that the supergroup might have been doomed to failure before it even really got started. However, I love the grooves and it’s bringing back my 8th-grade year. That’s one benefit of streaming, for hard-to-find titles. However, I encourage everyone to purchase anything I list that’s actually in print, from online sites like Bandcamp or go to their shows (ok, maybe not Beyonce if you can’t win her lottery!)

Before You Go

***

The  Columbia University Graduate School of Planning symposium on Black Urbanism I’m participating in is open to the public and free and will be held in Fayerweather Hall Room 209 on the main campus Tuesday, February 7 from 1-4 pm  It will also be recorded!   

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in my canon that I mentioned above.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. I’m still working on introducing a paid tier for Substack and Medium users to also function like a tip jar and if you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week!  Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week!

***

Until next time,

Kristen

My urbanism is enough because we are an interconnected web of urbanisms. 

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week is the first of our deep dive into the Whys of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism and how you can apply them, no matter your background. Let’s get started with an introduction

It is what it is. A while back I wrote out what I then called the “why’s” of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism. 

I called them why’s because I didn’t feel wise enough to call them principles. I came up through the old-school CNU salons that mimicked Greek town squares and more formal architectural juries that made you prove your worth at every step.

I understand this method for physical structures and for combating abject hate and antagonism at certain elements of humanity.

However, I’m confident that I have created a set of principles of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism, based on the particular definitions I’ve given them, that will hold up to peer review.

And please, review them and tell me what you think needs adding. Make this your own. Apply this to your hood and your spot and your corner and your people.

This is my gift to the collective, a frame that is rooted in the constructs I and others like me have been given, to get us back to humanity. It is one of many urbanisms, including Black urbanisms.

For the next several newsletters, I’ll be breaking down each principle, but just for the record, let me drop my definitions of Black Queer Feminist and Urbanist so we know what we’re starting from in our analysis.

• Black: A person of African descent, often with visibly melanated skin, who has been subjected directly or through ancestry to enslavement, colonization, discrimination, or mistreatment as a result of their ethnicity, past and present marginalization, and/or skin color. This also refers to the cultures derived from these activities and their adaptation to their environments.
• Queer: A person who has a gender presentation, gender identity, gender journey/relationship, or sexual orientations that differ from traditional Western colonial thoughts on such ideas. Also refers to cultures that develop from this state of being.
• Feminist: A person and a movement that honor genders marginalized under patriarchy, traditionally those tagged as feminine or outside traditional gender binaries.
• Urbanist: A person and a movement that promotes the conglomeration of ideas, services, and objects in centralized locations, governed democratically, given freely and fairly, and connected by public transit and other people-powered transportation networks such as sidewalks and multi-use bicycle and pedestrian paths. Not mutually exclusive to rural expressions, but the natural output of natural and rural environments that have high levels of human interaction.

And in the meantime, I challenge you all to think about what your personal definitions are of your specific identities. How do they create your urbanism?  Map it out, in your head or on paper, or in GIS software, and feel free to share them with me on the socials or reply back.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

So, in addition to editing a lot of stuff for GGWash lately, I also spent a good chunk of time over the last couple of months doing the main design and layout for this year’s Foot Traffic Ahead report, a joint venture between Smart Growth America and Places Platform, LLC. I had the honor of designing the 2019 report as well and I’m really pleased to see how it’s evolved, both in the design story I was tasked to tell and how social equity and the pandemic-related environmental changes have shifted how the report is presented and written. I’ve seen some of your tweets of shock over the city rankings, and trust me, I had those feelings too as I was laying out the pages.

Sadly, the coffeehouse chain I worked at here in DC for a few months after my 2018 summer trips is closing semi-abruptly.  The current employees at my old store are very close to meeting their gofundme goal to cover extra expenses on top of their severance payments.

I’m very proud to be from one of the Southern (US) cities with the most long-term philanthropic support for LGBTQ2IA+ folks. (This might be paywalled).

Even though a lot is not working well in Atlanta at the moment, namely MARTA rail, really cool to read about how MARTA’s bus operators keep winning all those bus rodeos.

I am even more motivated to work on bringing back the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School when I hear about all the queer book bans and of course the AP African-American History ban in Florida. Here’s some suggestions for foundational texts if you’re self-educating young folks in your life (or yourselves, also scroll down to my new book and music recs section for more of these kinds of things). We can’t keep ignoring how educational apartheid affects our maps and our “desirable” neighborhoods and their tenuous economies.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

This year, I’m challenging myself to read more books, versus reading long-form articles and hot takes. I also want to strengthen the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist book canon, by re-reading several of its titles. Realistically, I’ll probably be curating and skimming some of these titles, but I still want to lift them up to you as my readers, in case you’re self-educating, doing teach-ins, or need more materials than your university or school has provided on several of these topics. And sometimes, but not every week, I’ll be sharing some of my musical favorites, as I’ve been resurrecting my musical and DJ roots lately.

I got my hands on some digital copies of Paolo Friere’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, which builds upon the theories of Pedagogy from a Black feminist lens. I’m using these to shape how I prep my reboot of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist school and yes, even how I share and educate with this newsletter. I anticipate that both of these will go to the canon, but I’ll let you know when they officially move up.

And I broke down and purchased Black Women Writers at Work with Haymarket Books’ sale which also includes both the e-book and the paperback for less than $20. I suspect this will move into the official canon as well. Also, I’ve needed something to help me process the lingering survivor’s guilt of this pandemic and After Life seems like a good candidate (and it helped me with my free shipping).

I’ve also set the theme of my yearly playlist as Awake. I’ll share it in full in future emails but for now, it’s lifting me up during my showers and I’ll see how hard it bumps in the car and in the headphones as I roll on Metro. However, I will lift up the latest Oddisee record, To What End. I adore my Mid-Atlantic indie rappers and this record is just a healthy addition to his canon. (I’ve also revisited Little Brother’s May the Lord Watch for a North Carolina reference-focused companion to this thanks to my Apple Music auto-plays). 

Before You Go

The folks at the University of California, San Diego would love for you to know about not just one, but two tenue-track jobs they have available next year. And the City of Kalamazoo Michigan is looking for a Planner I. Plus, some housekeeping about our little space. First the three jobs.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

And…

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING WITH A

FOCUS ON DESIGNING JUST FUTURES

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning seeks faculty candidates at the level of Assistant Professor whose research, teaching, and service will advance scholarship and institutional solutions for designing more just and equitable systems and structures.

This faculty member will advance UC San Diego’s commitment to the inclusion of Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities, anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, and social justice. We especially welcome candidates whose professional experience, community engagement, and personal background have facilitated their understanding of and ability to better serve students from Indigenous and other underrepresented populations.

Faculty hired under this Initiative will join the UC San Diego campus, the UC San Diego Design Lab (https://designlab.ucsd.edu/), and the Indigenous Futures Institute (https://ifi.ucsd.edu/) to forge a new paradigm of engagement and collaboration that draws on the geographic, academic, institutional, and cultural strengths of our tri-national region across Southern California, Baja California, and the Kumeyaay region.

This search is part of a UC San Diego-wide cluster hire on Designing Just Futures (https://www.design-just-futures.ucsd.edu/) that aims to recruit scholars who can contribute to the advancement of design, social justice, and Indigenous, Black, and migrant futures and seeks engagement with scholars across disciplines to address issues of territory, access, and equity, and social and political debates pertinent to Indigenous, Black, border, and migrant communities, while also working within their home departments and professional communities.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03484

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

POSITION: Planner

SALARY: P1 ($54,000 – $77,000)

OPENING DATE: January 4, 2023

CLOSING DATE: January 20, 2023 11:59 PM

LOCATION: Planning Division, 245 North Rose Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan

DEPARTMENT: Community Planning & Economic Development

Description/Distinguishing Features: The primary role of the Planner is development review. This includes working with applicants through the multiple stages of development – from idea to closing out the finished site plan – and with both very experienced and first-time developers. The Planner is the manager of the Site Plan Review Process. This critical process is run administratively and includes staff from departments across the City that come together weekly to support the development process. The Planner runs this committee, facilitating the review of all projects. The Planner must have a strong background in planning and zoning, but also familiarity with building codes, utilities, streets, and stormwater functions. In addition to site plan review, the Planner attends the regular Projects Meetings designed to support development projects in their early stages. The Planner’s role in the development process is critical and requires attention to detail, the ability to facilitate large group meetings, and skill in guiding conversations in order to reach a consensus or understanding of next steps. The Planner also supports the administration of the zoning code, working with the Zoning Administrator and Code Inspectors. 

The Planning Division is part of the Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED). The division leads community engagement across the City; is the primary keeper of the Master Plan, supporting its implementation across all departments; supports Public Services with transportation projects; and administers, updates, and supports development policies from zoning to historic preservation to Brownfield Redevelopment. Within Planning, there are staff who focus on short-range, everyday planning and development support and staff who focus on medium and long-range planning and engagement.

Examples of Duties:

• Guiding applicants through the Site Plan Review Process
• Coordinating the review of projects by staff both within and outside of the Community Planning & Economic Development Department
• Attending development review meetings
• Meeting with prospective developers – big and small
• Working with applicants to troubleshoot development hurdles
• Review plans and provide clear feedback
• Site inspections as necessary to support projects moving through the development process

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in urban planning, geography, landscape architecture, geography, urban design, or a related field; master’s degree preferred. AICP certification is a plus.
• Three or more years of planning experience that includes plan review and meeting facilitation.
• Strong communication skills and ability to discuss and write on complicated topics in a way that is easily understood by both experienced developers and the average resident.
• Out-of-the-box, critical thinker with a willingness to develop new techniques, and turn the critical review lens on internal processes and activities.
• Understanding the development pro formas and ability to speak engineering and design a plus
• Ability to say no while offering alternatives and/or next steps.
• Understanding of the concepts from Congress of New Urbanism, Smart Growth America, Project for Public Spaces, and other similar best practices with training in form-based codes, public engagement, and urban design through such certifications by the Form-based Code Institute (FBCI), National Charrette Institute (NCI), Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), or American Planners Association/Michigan Association of Planners or similar is plus.
• Understanding the greater community vision of Kalamazoo (currently Imagine Kalamazoo 2025) and how it influences all work in the Planning Division.
• Working knowledge of GIS, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and databases. 

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in my canon that I mentioned above.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. I’m still working on introducing a paid tier for Substack and Medium users to also function like a tip jar and if you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model.

***

Until next time,

Kristen

I can’t preach at y’all about moving from industry to collective without making my own pledges. This is how I intend to do it, with ease and with affirmation that I have the right answers already, this calendar year.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week is the third and final in my “Origins” series, as I prepare to make some needed, but growth-minded shifts to the platform.

So let me make it clear that when I’ve been mentioning growth-related shifts at the beginning of this newsletter, what I mean is that  I will be pruning more than growing. I’ll be growing because time will pass. I won’t be chasing things that are already meant to come to me anyway. 

I will be shaping the sustainable and accessible  Black queer feminist urbanism we all need. 

But, I am sharing some tangibles as to what I’m doing in 2023. So, let’s start with number one

•  I will still be editing external publications part-time. This work has allowed me to store up my own independent funding, which I can use to build more time in my day for resting and daydreaming so that my creativity flows with ease. I also need to take care of several personal matters so that my ease of growth won’t be hampered or shaken by things that are missing in my home or technology not working or lack of healthcare. This is also allowing me to stay in the loop and contribute to presenting information on equitable urbanism more broadly and getting myself prepared for creating more publications.
• Next month, I’ll be taking a test drive of presenting in person. I’ll be flying for the first time since October of 2019 to New York to present my approach to Black queer feminist urbanism at a Columbia University symposium on February 7th. I will be masked as much as humanly possible and I will be resting and eliminating as many distractions as possible to rest through the weeks leading up to this. If this works, I’ll be opening up my books to a few other external conferences and campus lecture opportunities. I’m open now for any virtual presentations you want to schedule in March of this year and beyond. 
• If the test drive goes well, I will be booking more in-person events, to promote my book A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future. I will be prioritizing outdoor venues and tying myself into existing outdoor festivals and community events. If you are hosting an event like this sometime in 2023 and 2024 and are willing to host me as a keynote or have a fireside chat with me over my book, please reach out to me. I’m also looking for people to read and review the book in advance. A digital review copy of the book and pre-orders are about 6-8 weeks away, but we are ever closer to this process and I’m so excited to bring this out into the world.
• I am aiming to make my NYC presentation outfit and have been making good progress with the crocheting involved. I hope to make all of the major outfits I wear on stages and I’m also investing in the kinds of shoes that will help me be more walkable as I ease back out into the world. I also will be doing a least, two, if not four more yarn events this year, but that also comes under my in-person training and mentorings.
• I’m reading and re-reading the books on my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon in order to relaunch the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School as an online course option in quarter four of this year. I’ll be talking about what I’m reading in a new section of this newsletter, called On The Shelf, launching in the next newsletter.
• In addition to adding this new section to the newsletter, each newsletter going forward will focus on a why of Black queer feminist urbanism, as I work to illuminate the K. Jeffers Index for Black Queer Feminist Urbanism and add more data and maps for research and well-being, as well as provide a check-in for folks at these intersections and allies to continue their wellness and liberation journeys.
• Continuing to offer the opportunity to sponsor this newsletter and use this as a platform for your job ads, conference announcements, requests for proposals, and other things you want to make sure to reach the audience of marginalized folks in urbanism and their allies. The rates are still the same, but the newsletter will launch on Fridays. Your ad copy and payment will now be due the Monday prior to the Friday newsletter you want to go in and ad space is available for the February 3rd email and later.
• Creating more opportunities to mentor folks wanting to have an urbanism career and teaching companies what they need to do so they can fulfill my wishes from last week’s newsletter and we can continue to grow the formal opportunities of urbanism and fund existing grassroots tactical urbanism efforts.
• Taking on my first board service role in about a decade, as a trustee of Boston-based CultureHouse.

I know this seems like a lot of stuff, but it’s not happening every day and some of it may not happen quite in this order. However, the cornerstone of all this is that I spent active time in meditation and resting (I’m laying down as I type this) to come up with these things. These are all things I wanted to do from my gut and not things I’m forced to do. My challenge to you is can you find those things for you? And then, how can you shift your life so that they create abundance and well-being for you and others?

This is how we get to collective action, with self and community care, versus an industrious, hustling, bustling, exploiting attitude and means of governance and service provision.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Yes, I’m super excited to be under a history-making governor here in Maryland. Only time will tell if things get dramatically better, but so far, things are looking up, both in what governance steps are being taken and how history is being honored and acknowledged.

However, just because I’m inching out the doors doesn’t mean I’m happy about how we’ve abandoned virus mitigation, especially seeing how the World Economic Forum is operating, in-person, with all the filters, tests, and even still masking. How can we get this detailed in our dealings?

Before You Go

The folks at the University of California, San Diego would love for you to know about not just one, but two tenue-track jobs they have available next year. And the City of Kalamazoo Michigan is looking for a Planner I. Plus, some housekeeping about our little space. First the three jobs.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

And…

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING WITH A

FOCUS ON DESIGNING JUST FUTURES

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning seeks faculty candidates at the level of Assistant Professor whose research, teaching, and service will advance scholarship and institutional solutions for designing more just and equitable systems and structures.

This faculty member will advance UC San Diego’s commitment to the inclusion of Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities, anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, and social justice. We especially welcome candidates whose professional experience, community engagement, and personal background have facilitated their understanding of and ability to better serve students from Indigenous and other underrepresented populations.

Faculty hired under this Initiative will join the UC San Diego campus, the UC San Diego Design Lab (https://designlab.ucsd.edu/), and the Indigenous Futures Institute (https://ifi.ucsd.edu/) to forge a new paradigm of engagement and collaboration that draws on the geographic, academic, institutional, and cultural strengths of our tri-national region across Southern California, Baja California, and the Kumeyaay region.

This search is part of a UC San Diego-wide cluster hire on Designing Just Futures (https://www.design-just-futures.ucsd.edu/) that aims to recruit scholars who can contribute to the advancement of design, social justice, and Indigenous, Black, and migrant futures and seeks engagement with scholars across disciplines to address issues of territory, access, and equity, and social and political debates pertinent to Indigenous, Black, border, and migrant communities, while also working within their home departments and professional communities.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03484

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

POSITION: Planner

SALARY: P1 ($54,000 – $77,000)

OPENING DATE: January 4, 2023

CLOSING DATE: January 20, 2023 11:59 PM

LOCATION: Planning Division, 245 North Rose Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan

DEPARTMENT: Community Planning & Economic Development

Description/Distinguishing Features: The primary role of the Planner is development review. This includes working with applicants through the multiple stages of development – from idea to closing out the finished site plan – and with both very experienced and first-time developers. The Planner is the manager of the Site Plan Review Process. This critical process is run administratively and includes staff from departments across the City that come together weekly to support the development process. The Planner runs this committee, facilitating the review of all projects. The Planner must have a strong background in planning and zoning, but also familiarity with building codes, utilities, streets, and stormwater functions. In addition to site plan review, the Planner attends the regular Projects Meetings designed to support development projects in their early stages. The Planner’s role in the development process is critical and requires attention to detail, the ability to facilitate large group meetings, and skill in guiding conversations in order to reach a consensus or understanding of next steps. The Planner also supports the administration of the zoning code, working with the Zoning Administrator and Code Inspectors. 

The Planning Division is part of the Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED). The division leads community engagement across the City; is the primary keeper of the Master Plan, supporting its implementation across all departments; supports Public Services with transportation projects; and administers, updates, and supports development policies from zoning to historic preservation to Brownfield Redevelopment. Within Planning, there are staff who focus on short-range, everyday planning and development support and staff who focus on medium and long-range planning and engagement.

Examples of Duties:

• Guiding applicants through the Site Plan Review Process
• Coordinating the review of projects by staff both within and outside of the Community Planning & Economic Development Department
• Attending development review meetings
• Meeting with prospective developers – big and small
• Working with applicants to troubleshoot development hurdles
• Review plans and provide clear feedback
• Site inspections as necessary to support projects moving through the development process

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in urban planning, geography, landscape architecture, geography, urban design, or a related field; master’s degree preferred. AICP certification is a plus.
• Three or more years of planning experience that includes plan review and meeting facilitation.
• Strong communication skills and ability to discuss and write on complicated topics in a way that is easily understood by both experienced developers and the average resident.
• Out-of-the-box, critical thinker with a willingness to develop new techniques, and turn the critical review lens on internal processes and activities.
• Understanding the development pro formas and ability to speak engineering and design a plus
• Ability to say no while offering alternatives and/or next steps.
• Understanding of the concepts from Congress of New Urbanism, Smart Growth America, Project for Public Spaces, and other similar best practices with training in form-based codes, public engagement, and urban design through such certifications by the Form-based Code Institute (FBCI), National Charrette Institute (NCI), Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), or American Planners Association/Michigan Association of Planners or similar is plus.
• Understanding the greater community vision of Kalamazoo (currently Imagine Kalamazoo 2025) and how it influences all work in the Planning Division.
• Working knowledge of GIS, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and databases. 

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but I have embedded my Bookshop.org booklists here as well since we were having so many issues with the link. Go here for all things books I’ve read and my book when it comes out! 

***

Happy New Year,

Kristen

My relationship with the transportation industry is loads better than it used to be. It can still improve. The transportation industry can also eventually become the transportation movement and collective.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week is the second in my “Origins” series, as I prepare to make some needed, but growth-minded shifts to the platform.

Wow, what a week. I’m happy to report that despite being at Transportation Camp, the Black Professionals Transportation Mixer, Les attending committee sessions at the actual TRB(Transporation Review Board Annual Meeting)  and having a couple of group lunches, one indoors, We are still negative for COVID, even though we are super tired from a very busy and active week. My heart is full and my soul was happy to see all of your beautiful smiling faces. 

Yes, I had to lead with that, because I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to make some needed reconnections and new connections with some dear friends and colleagues in the transportation and equity space. I’ve squashed so many beefs this week. Yes, despite the situation we did raise on Saturday with people still not understanding that equity and inclusion means just that, all kinds of people are going to be equitably included in spaces.

I was so nervous to return to conference life and active transportation work life for not just catching COVID reasons. If you read regularly and if we talk regularly, you know what’s up.

I still read the case and death numbers daily as if it were March 2020. I tried to get my eight free tests when I did my PCR at Kaiser in Camp Springs on Thursday the 12, and they were out at the pharmacy. All this gun and traffic violence. The random heart attacks and unspoken of reasons people seem to die these days. I have regular health care now and I’ve had some major health challenges of my own in the last year, notwithstanding what Les has gone through with her endometriosis.

But the largest reason I was nervous about returning to a major industry/conference room was that even as recently as early 2022, my heart and mind weren’t in a good place with dealing with the industry.

The last time Les and went to Transportation Camp, in 2019,  I had yet to come out to my family and confirm it with many of my friends, even those who are allies, because of me not just being a cis lesbian. I’d just had a meeting about a week prior with the new camp leadership that in so many words stated that they weren’t ready to partner with me as The Black Urbanist. My ex who is also in the industry was still triggering just by being in the room with myself and Les. And then there was the whole thing of Les having to leave the industry and work at an odd place, parallel to me moving to DC and not being able to get into the policy spaces with the shakeup of the 2016-2017 US presidential regime change.

Both she and I were pretty spent by the end of that day. I had no idea that so many of you that day were also distressed, and phoning it in the best we could. 

However, I kept choosing violence even with my industry squad and unrelated family and friends throughout 2019 and at virtual moments for the first two pandemic years because I felt like no one would ever choose me again and I was the only one making hard sacrifices. 

Or if you chose me to go back into a major room of power, say the current federal administration, or even running or writing with a policy group or major industry publication, I would have to change back into more of what I used to look and sound like when I first aspired to work in urban affairs and public service.

I felt too queer, too radical and liberation-minded, too outspoken, and as we got further into the pandemic, too purple-haired and too COVID-cautious to even get back on the mic properly. 

Meanwhile, I started to go inward and meet with all my trauma, all the way back to childhood. The reason why I absolutely had to live somewhere with transit access, was that I just had to get away. I couldn’t explain it until now and for me, being in proximity to a variety of transportation options is a necessity. I also feel a duty to speak up and show up to do what I can to make it easier and safer to use transportation. 

But, I wasn’t the cute straight upwardly mobile Black girl that I used to be. I am a beautiful Black feminine person who believes everyone deserves to be liberated. But being able to declare myself for myself, this evolution of Black queer feminist urbanism that you see here on the page now, I have to thank therapy for, especially for helping me accept that it might not be possible to go back and that what I did in the past can stand on its own and be ok because I’m ok as a person, not just as this platform entity. 

In the meantime, I master more crochet. Les starts endoQueer. Les comes back to professional transportation work first. I pick up virtual speeches, then a project team, and now this mixture of media and communication projects. Then people start inviting us out again. 

And I notice y’all keep opening this newsletter. Sharing it with your friends. Telling Les in the halls and at events that you’re still reading.

And now we are here. In a position to help our friends and colleagues grow and flourish. And in a place where I can hold my own in a still hostile to full equity and liberatory industry and workspace.

It’s so much better than it used to be.

I know many of you might be here for more piping hot tea about some of the things I was privy to thanks to who I spent time with this week. However, there’s no company or person in this work that hasn’t erred in the past or will not err in the future. For that and for us,  I do have a few quick suggestions that I think will make things better:

• Transportation and urbanism is an industry now, but they should be a movement and a collective in the future. We aren’t quite ready for full collective action, because we need to address…

• … How we want to show up to ourselves daily, our family and friends, and to this work and movement. I want to challenge us in 2023 to take this time, especially after your section of the movement’s major gathering, and decide if the way you are perceived and show up is something you’re happy with. I had to recognize that I might not be happy doing the work the way I wanted to before. I had to separate Kristen the person from Kristen the Black Urbanist brand. I had to let my ego sit and recognize where I am most needed and what’s actually of a collective nature and what I do get to keep, like my fiber art.  I had to be ok with being the new Kristen, the real Kristen, and that Kristen and the platform I create to not be accepted at first glance, but still be about the wellbeing of all.

• However, do notice if your urge to leave the industry or dial it down or turn down opportunities is because someone is encouraging you to sit down and shut up, either for their own personal comfort or what they think the industry is ready for. None of what we do will survive without collective action. Sometimes that action does need to be on a large platform or amplified in the streets with a bullhorn.  And if you’re that person encouraging someone to sit down and shut up for any reason, especially if they are already marginalized, but have the ear of the collective and our youth, think long and hard about how that’s really going to play out as you age into your twilight years. Be about preparing to be a good elder and ancestor, rather than holding on to something that time is already sliding out of your hands.

• It’s not too late for us to make sure we sustain this level of support in the United States for active transportation and basic human rights like healthcare access, housing access, and civil rights. Yes, the recent behavior of Congress and the Supreme Court is concerning and disturbing. Yes, states are becoming more hostile. But, everything started as somebody’s dream, even if it was somebody’s nightmare. Let’s dream more beautiful, vibrant dreams and turn them into democratic action.

• Also related, we live on the same Earth and underneath the skin, we all have the same blood and bones. We can be proud of who we are and what we have done and the good deeds of our ancestors, but if we all magically wake up one day liberated from capitalism and imperialism and all the other isms it’s wrought (like creating racism, sex/genderism, classism, ageism, and ableism to make some humans worth more than others), who would we be and what would we do? What if you woke up and you were a different skin tone or you lost some of your ability to do something or you completely changed bodies or genders overnight? Would you be alright? Would you still care about the equity, inclusion, justice, and liberation of others? 

• Finally, let’s be transparent. Be transparent about how we need help. What kinds of skills do we need in our consultancies and communities? Why we haven’t hired and cultivated people in the past? Not being clear about why some projects weren’t won or people weren’t hired can create unnecessary resentment, which leads to both what happened to Les on Saturday and how I started to behave in 2016 up to recently. So many leftist/collective movements end not because of economics, but because of people not healing their internal hurts and pains with themselves and each other.

So, this is where I am after the first big event of the year. I’ll be resting this weekend as we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and all of his thoughts, not just the comfortable ones.

Next week, I’ll be sharing more of what I have planned for 2023 and how I plan to move forward as a better human, not just as a human in this particular space.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

My siblings who are still in the Southern US and other equally hostile areas for being queer are just as worthy of love and respect and yes, they too, create community and opportunity for themselves despite the challenges.

I no longer beat myself up for not being about to get a house in DC, as it seems like hardly anyone Black has been able to buy here over the last 20 years.

However, I had I read this recent The Cut story earlier this week of a white woman bemoaning moving to suburbia from Brooklyn because she couldn’t be in the “scene” and I thought about how much I absorbed these kinds of writings from white writers and only recently due to my own class privilege, am able to see how these stories are deeply flawed. More to come of course, on how these stories don’t hold up in an era of people buying homes where they can and homes in general seemingly only available to the wealthy and well-connected.

But we live in a wonderful time, where there’s so many more prominent Black thinkers pushing back against all the narratives we’ve been sold about places and they get to byline the main stories on housing in major papers. Not just byline, but declare without fear that the housing market is a scam. And yes, in case you didn’t get it the first time, the housing market as it’s run now is a scam.

Before You Go

The folks at the University of California, San Diego would love for you to know about not just one, but two tenue-track jobs they have available next year. And the City of Kalamazoo Michigan is looking for a Planner I. Plus, some housekeeping about our little space. First the three jobs.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

And…

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING WITH A

FOCUS ON DESIGNING JUST FUTURES

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning seeks faculty candidates at the level of Assistant Professor whose research, teaching, and service will advance scholarship and institutional solutions for designing more just and equitable systems and structures.

This faculty member will advance UC San Diego’s commitment to the inclusion of Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities, anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, and social justice. We especially welcome candidates whose professional experience, community engagement, and personal background have facilitated their understanding of and ability to better serve students from Indigenous and other underrepresented populations.

Faculty hired under this Initiative will join the UC San Diego campus, the UC San Diego Design Lab (https://designlab.ucsd.edu/), and the Indigenous Futures Institute (https://ifi.ucsd.edu/) to forge a new paradigm of engagement and collaboration that draws on the geographic, academic, institutional, and cultural strengths of our tri-national region across Southern California, Baja California, and the Kumeyaay region.

This search is part of a UC San Diego-wide cluster hire on Designing Just Futures (https://www.design-just-futures.ucsd.edu/) that aims to recruit scholars who can contribute to the advancement of design, social justice, and Indigenous, Black, and migrant futures and seeks engagement with scholars across disciplines to address issues of territory, access, and equity, and social and political debates pertinent to Indigenous, Black, border, and migrant communities, while also working within their home departments and professional communities.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03484

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

POSITION: Planner

SALARY: P1 ($54,000 – $77,000)

OPENING DATE: January 4, 2023

CLOSING DATE: January 20, 2023 11:59 PM

LOCATION: Planning Division, 245 North Rose Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan

DEPARTMENT: Community Planning & Economic Development

Description/Distinguishing Features: The primary role of the Planner is development review. This includes working with applicants through the multiple stages of development – from idea to closing out the finished site plan – and with both very experienced and first-time developers. The Planner is the manager of the Site Plan Review Process. This critical process is run administratively and includes staff from departments across the City that come together weekly to support the development process. The Planner runs this committee, facilitating the review of all projects. The Planner must have a strong background in planning and zoning, but also familiarity with building codes, utilities, streets, and stormwater functions. In addition to site plan review, the Planner attends the regular Projects Meetings designed to support development projects in their early stages. The Planner’s role in the development process is critical and requires attention to detail, the ability to facilitate large group meetings, and skill in guiding conversations in order to reach a consensus or understanding of next steps. The Planner also supports the administration of the zoning code, working with the Zoning Administrator and Code Inspectors. 

The Planning Division is part of the Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED). The division leads community engagement across the City; is the primary keeper of the Master Plan, supporting its implementation across all departments; supports Public Services with transportation projects; and administers, updates, and supports development policies from zoning to historic preservation to Brownfield Redevelopment. Within Planning, there are staff who focus on short-range, everyday planning and development support and staff who focus on medium and long-range planning and engagement.

Examples of Duties:

• Guiding applicants through the Site Plan Review Process
• Coordinating the review of projects by staff both within and outside of the Community Planning & Economic Development Department
• Attending development review meetings
• Meeting with prospective developers – big and small
• Working with applicants to troubleshoot development hurdles
• Review plans and provide clear feedback
• Site inspections as necessary to support projects moving through the development process

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in urban planning, geography, landscape architecture, geography, urban design, or a related field; master’s degree preferred. AICP certification is a plus.
• Three or more years of planning experience that includes plan review and meeting facilitation.
• Strong communication skills and ability to discuss and write on complicated topics in a way that is easily understood by both experienced developers and the average resident.
• Out-of-the-box, critical thinker with a willingness to develop new techniques, and turn the critical review lens on internal processes and activities.
• Understanding the development pro formas and ability to speak engineering and design a plus
• Ability to say no while offering alternatives and/or next steps.
• Understanding of the concepts from Congress of New Urbanism, Smart Growth America, Project for Public Spaces, and other similar best practices with training in form-based codes, public engagement, and urban design through such certifications by the Form-based Code Institute (FBCI), National Charrette Institute (NCI), Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), or American Planners Association/Michigan Association of Planners or similar is plus.
• Understanding the greater community vision of Kalamazoo (currently Imagine Kalamazoo 2025) and how it influences all work in the Planning Division.
• Working knowledge of GIS, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and databases. 

***

So videos. I basically collapsed into a human burrito last week. However, I am also working on creating a sustainable audio and video recording speed for myself, because I really want everyone to be able to experience my newsletters.The videos are coming, but instead of giving myself a deadline, I’ll be doing these at ease, with some fun elements that will make the video and audio experience even stronger on the platforms I chose to share them on.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but I have embedded my Bookshop.org booklists here as well since we were having so many issues with the link. Go here for all things books I’ve read and my book when it comes out! Also, standby for book tour dates!

***

My capabilities deck is coming. You can reach out to me for press opportunities and schedule time on my Calendly again for 2023.

***

Thank you for supporting the 2022 capital campaign. Thanks to you, this year, I was able to cover my web hosting, enhance this newsletter, and position myself to take on some other client projects. However,  if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. I will also be introducing a paid tier for Substack and Medium users to also function like a tip jar and which will provide detailed reporting as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model.

***

Happy New Year,

Kristen

This year, I’m embracing this platform as a journey first, destination second.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week is the first in my “Origins” series, as I prepare to make some needed, but growth-minded shifts to the platform.

So we are six days into another calendar year. We’re also into our third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and two years out from one insurrection and waiting on the results of a quieter one at the US Capitol. 

I have lots of well-fitting masks, plenty of tests, and a steady income that I make from home, some of which I have you to thank for. I have plans to throw on one of those masks and socialize and present at some conferences and happy hours this year. My book is on my editor’s desk. I have lots of yarn projects on my hooks ready to be stitched up. 

And I’m going into the 13th year of stewarding this platform. However, as I said in the lead and in prior newsletters, doing it all alone is a little off.

When I created The Black Urbanist online platform in 2010, all I wanted to do was hide behind that name and push myself forward behind the safety of that shield. 

However, over time, I realized that this was more than just a project I started based on something I was fascinated with, coupled with my need to practice my writing and editing.

I wasn’t the only one feeling alone in my public administration classes and sadly, I still get those kinds of emails, texts, and direct messages from people feeling alone in the urbanism world, especially queer, trans and disabled folks.

Seeing my work as a journey, not a destination to specific Black urbanism, is helping me with my personal, lived offline Black urbanism. Claiming that stake in my personal Black urbanism, while lifting up the greater movement of Black folks taking up space globally,  will aid me in finishing this marathon, versus treating it like a sprint.

I was alluding to this in this past year’s wishes, which I’ll still be making this year, along with a few other new things to come here in this newsletter and on the big platform.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be pulling back the curtain to how things will be going in 2023 and beyond. 

One change that is obvious for 2023 is that for January, the newsletter will go out on Fridays.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that you can still advertise in this newsletter. Prices start at just $75 a week with a four-week commitment. As you see below, this is a great opportunity for your job announcements, along with conference registrations and requests for proposals and submissions. You can also become a Patreon as an individual and support this work for as little as $5 a month. 

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

So I spent most of 2022 begging everyone to be wiser about how we gathered as respiratory illnesses and exposure becomes a fact of life. This article from Truthout is a good baseline as to where I am now. With pre-testing, air purifiers, ventilation, and Les and I still wearing an N95, KN95, or KF94 mask in situations where I can’t detect risk, our world has opened up a little more this year, along with our goals of building our solidarities and community care.  

Yes, this is how I came to my decision this weekend to be at some of all the transportation gatherings. Yes, that is me in the black face mask and with the purple hair. I do hug, so please say hi! I am still prioritizing outdoor dining and gathering, especially in warmer weather and around heat lamps, so I can savor my food. We’ve also expanded our indoor no-restrictions pod as we anticipate more unrelated health challenges. I also have an in-person panel in New York coming up in which I’ll be masked on the panel. And book events, too! More details to come.

***

And no, it’s not a fluke, some of those things you panic bought on Amazon and Instagram in 2020 may already be broken in 2023. In addition to all the other things broken and diseased in the world, the stuff we use continues to be engineered and designed to fall apart and make us buy more stuff.

***

The US Census Bureau confirms that disabled people often do not return to the same residence after a natural disaster.

***

Finally, it’s not too late to ensure this Black women’s mutual aid society based in Brooklyn’s historic building can be saved.

Before You Go

The folks at the University of California, San Diego would love for you to know about not just one, but two tenue-track jobs they have available next year. And the City of Kalamazoo Michigan is looking for a Planner I. Plus, some housekeeping about our little space. First the three jobs.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

And…

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING WITH A

FOCUS ON DESIGNING JUST FUTURES

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning seeks faculty candidates at the level of Assistant Professor whose research, teaching, and service will advance scholarship and institutional solutions for designing more just and equitable systems and structures.

This faculty member will advance UC San Diego’s commitment to the inclusion of Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities, anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, and social justice. We especially welcome candidates whose professional experience, community engagement, and personal background have facilitated their understanding of and ability to better serve students from Indigenous and other underrepresented populations.

Faculty hired under this Initiative will join the UC San Diego campus, the UC San Diego Design Lab (https://designlab.ucsd.edu/), and the Indigenous Futures Institute (https://ifi.ucsd.edu/) to forge a new paradigm of engagement and collaboration that draws on the geographic, academic, institutional, and cultural strengths of our tri-national region across Southern California, Baja California, and the Kumeyaay region.

This search is part of a UC San Diego-wide cluster hire on Designing Just Futures (https://www.design-just-futures.ucsd.edu/) that aims to recruit scholars who can contribute to the advancement of design, social justice, and Indigenous, Black, and migrant futures and seeks engagement with scholars across disciplines to address issues of territory, access, and equity, and social and political debates pertinent to Indigenous, Black, border, and migrant communities, while also working within their home departments and professional communities.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03484

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

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POSITION: Planner

SALARY: P1 ($54,000 – $77,000)

OPENING DATE: January 4, 2023

CLOSING DATE: January 20, 2023 11:59 PM

LOCATION: Planning Division, 245 North Rose Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan

DEPARTMENT: Community Planning & Economic Development

Description/Distinguishing Features: The primary role of the Planner is development review. This includes working with applicants through the multiple stages of development – from idea to closing out the finished site plan – and with both very experienced and first-time developers. The Planner is the manager of the Site Plan Review Process. This critical process is run administratively and includes staff from departments across the City that come together weekly to support the development process. The Planner runs this committee, facilitating the review of all projects. The Planner must have a strong background in planning and zoning, but also familiarity with building codes, utilities, streets, and stormwater functions. In addition to site plan review, the Planner attends the regular Projects Meetings designed to support development projects in their early stages. The Planner’s role in the development process is critical and requires attention to detail, the ability to facilitate large group meetings, and skill in guiding conversations in order to reach a consensus or understanding of next steps. The Planner also supports the administration of the zoning code, working with the Zoning Administrator and Code Inspectors. 

The Planning Division is part of the Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED). The division leads community engagement across the City; is the primary keeper of the Master Plan, supporting its implementation across all departments; supports Public Services with transportation projects; and administers, updates, and supports development policies from zoning to historic preservation to Brownfield Redevelopment. Within Planning, there are staff who focus on short-range, everyday planning and development support and staff who focus on medium and long-range planning and engagement.

Examples of Duties:

• Guiding applicants through the Site Plan Review Process
• Coordinating the review of projects by staff both within and outside of the Community Planning & Economic Development Department
• Attending development review meetings
• Meeting with prospective developers – big and small
• Working with applicants to troubleshoot development hurdles
• Review plans and provide clear feedback
• Site inspections as necessary to support projects moving through the development process

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in urban planning, geography, landscape architecture, geography, urban design, or a related field; master’s degree preferred. AICP certification is a plus.
• Three or more years of planning experience that includes plan review and meeting facilitation.
• Strong communication skills and ability to discuss and write on complicated topics in a way that is easily understood by both experienced developers and the average resident.
• Out-of-the-box, critical thinker with a willingness to develop new techniques, and turn the critical review lens on internal processes and activities.
• Understanding the development pro formas and ability to speak engineering and design a plus
• Ability to say no while offering alternatives and/or next steps.
• Understanding of the concepts from Congress of New Urbanism, Smart Growth America, Project for Public Spaces, and other similar best practices with training in form-based codes, public engagement, and urban design through such certifications by the Form-based Code Institute (FBCI), National Charrette Institute (NCI), Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), or American Planners Association/Michigan Association of Planners or similar is plus.
• Understanding the greater community vision of Kalamazoo (currently Imagine Kalamazoo 2025) and how it influences all work in the Planning Division.
• Working knowledge of GIS, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and databases. 

***

So videos. I basically collapsed into a human burrito last week. However, I am also working on creating a sustainable audio and video recording speed for myself, because I really want everyone to be able to experience my newsletters.The videos are coming, but instead of giving myself a deadline, I’ll be doing these at ease, with some fun elements that will make the video and audio experience even stronger on the platforms I chose to share them on.

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I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but I have embedded my Bookshop.org booklists here as well since we were having so many issues with the link. Go here for all things books I’ve read and my book when it comes out!

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My capabilities deck is coming. You can reach out to me for press opportunities and schedule time on my Calendly again for 2023.

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Thank you for supporting the 2022 capital campaign. Thanks to you, this year, I was able to cover my web hosting, enhance this newsletter, and position myself to take on some other client projects. However,  if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. I will also be introducing a paid tier for Substack and Medium users to also function like a tip jar and which will provide detailed reporting as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model.

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Happy New Year,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This year, we are wishing and learning at the same time. This week, making Kwanzaa queer, feminist, and urbanist. Also, we have a special message from the University of California at San Diego. Learn more about how you can advertise in this newsletter. Prices start at just $75 a week with a four-week commitment.  You can also become a Patreon as an individual and support this work for as little as $5 a month.

Reclaiming this time of celebration of the emergence of light in the midst of darkness across all peoples, while acknowledging African heritage and community-building requires acknowledging the shortcomings of its founders and declaring the true spirit of community building and honoring the creations and contributions of all genders, and gender presentations and incomes and abilities in the Black community.

When I looked back at my connection of the seven Nguzo Saba to principles of urbanism, I was really pleased with how well most of them held up. I also the seeds of what has grown into my own personal and professional embrace of a Black liberation lifted up by all gender expressions and urbanism with all shades and colors of Blackness. Here are those blended principles in full from 2012:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So if this is what Kwanzaa is, then what’s actually missing as a Black queer feminist urbanist, besides me realizing at that point both internally and externally that broader gender identities exist?

I think I worried at first, much like writer Chanté Griffin in 2018, that having the founder of the holiday participate in torturing women in the Black Power Movement so soon after having created this holiday ultimately challenged this holiday’s feminism.

However, I had aunts and uncles who proudly embraced this holiday, and, throughout my 1980s and 1990s youth, brought me candy and books about the celebration. Several of my Black feminist colleagues back home in Greensboro put on one of the best Kwanzaa celebrations on the East Coast (yes, I’m very much biased). And of course, the second best in my opinion were the fall convocations/Kwanzaa celebrations put on by several Black faculty and staff at NC State during my time there in the 2000s, where I was introduced to the concept of pouring libations and ancestor veneration. 

If anything, processing Kwanzaa in the backdrop of this last decade of Black life globally has made me as adamant as I am about practicing the spirit of Christmas and the other December holidays throughout the year. How can we make every day a holiday? How can we live every day with nia? How can we go forward without punishing each other and instead, lifting each other up? How can move to abolition and rehabilitation in our communities?

Next week, I will be sharing my nia for the new year. Yes, I shared wishes, but here are the tactics I intend to take to achieve those wishes and strategies.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

So like many of you this holiday season, I’ve been catching up on my entertainment. I forgot to drop in here on Friday, that I helped edit this collection of DC songs that speak to DC’s urbanism, of which I contributed one that might be a surprising addition. I also missed this compilation of videos filmed in the DMV  that was published on the site back in early 2020.

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Meanwhile, I’d been anticipating the last chapters of The Best Man movie/miniseries franchise for a while and I was not disappointed. This series along with so many others that emerged in the 1990s set the standard for Black upwardly mobile progressive urbanism. 

Then of course many of these shows and movies became more suburban, churchy, and conservative, while in real life the while in the gentrification, displacement and stagnating wages were bubbling into more awareness of the cruelty of state violence, intimate partner violence, and queer and transphobia in our community.

Thankfully, the advent of the web series brought queer and millennial stories into this cannon of Black urbanism on the screen. And, this particular series returned just in time for us to see how this particular set of characters, portrayed by some of Black Hollywood’s emerging legends, would handle everything we got going on in the world, while still being entertaining. And if you are needing a solid recap of the series from someone who also experienced this series in a similar way, Refinery29 has you covered.

***

And I talked a little bit above about creating new traditions, however, I wanted to highlight how full circle having a Whitney Houston movie, especially one that was honest about how she loved  (and had the full blessing of others involved in her life, which also allowed us to hear her actual voice and songs!) this Christmas. My Dad adored Whitney and while it’s been ten years this year since we lost her, it will be ten years in May since my Dad was taken from us. Meanwhile, I’m happy to have a partner who’s just as obsessed with her, in a different way.

***

And I’ve got more to say about the Descendant film, but for now, all I can tell you is to watch it and be ready to apply it to your community, along with supporting the work of this community. It really illustrates how Black urbanism isn’t exclusive to so-called “cities”, and its practice is just as much of a contested civil right as some of our relationship issues, among other critical questions of the African diaspora.

***

Finally, the tropes that show up in Black holiday films. Spoiler alert, gentrification is one of them.

Before You Go

The folks at the University of California, San Diego would love for you to know about not just one, but two tenue-track jobs they have available next year. Plus, some housekeeping about our little space. First the two jobs.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

And…

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING WITH A FOCUS ON DESIGNING JUST FUTURES

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning seeks faculty candidates at the level of Assistant Professor whose research, teaching, and service will advance scholarship and institutional solutions for designing more just and equitable systems and structures.

This faculty member will advance UC San Diego’s commitment to the inclusion of Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities, anti-racism, anti-oppression, equity, and social justice. We especially welcome candidates whose professional experience, community engagement, and personal background have facilitated their understanding of and ability to better serve students from Indigenous and other underrepresented populations.

Faculty hired under this Initiative will join the UC San Diego campus, the UC San Diego Design Lab (https://designlab.ucsd.edu/), and the Indigenous Futures Institute (https://ifi.ucsd.edu/) to forge a new paradigm of engagement and collaboration that draws on the geographic, academic, institutional, and cultural strengths of our tri-national region across Southern California, Baja California, and the Kumeyaay region.

This search is part of a UC San Diego-wide cluster hire on Designing Just Futures (https://www.design-just-futures.ucsd.edu/) that aims to recruit scholars who can contribute to the advancement of design, social justice, and Indigenous, Black, and migrant futures and seeks engagement with scholars across disciplines to address issues of territory, access, and equity, and social and political debates pertinent to Indigenous, Black, border, and migrant communities, while also working within their home departments and professional communities.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03484

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

***

I know I’ve been promising that I’ll be live on LinkedIn and YouTube and Instagram and I haven’t forgotten! I’ll be doing my wishes video live this  Wednesday, December 28, and a video about these two holiday-themed newsletters Thursday, December 29. Both of these will go live around the noon hour Eastern.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future, which I just chatted with my editor about last week,  but I have embedded my Bookshop.org booklists here as well since we were having so many issues with the link. Go here for all things books I’ve read and my book when it comes out!

***

Although you’ll see me pop up here and there this week, I am on holiday break from any client projects. I’ll be releasing my Kwanzaa email, making those videos, and doing some 2023 strategic planning and newsletter writing. I’ll release my 2023 Capabilities Deck in the first weeks of January along with a video to pair to explain what my calendar will look like in 2023 and how you can plug into it this year. 

***

Thank you for supporting last year’s capital campaign. Thanks to you, this year, I was able to cover my web hosting, enhance this newsletter, and position myself to take on some other client projects. However,  if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. I will also be introducing a paid tier for Substack and Medium users to also function like a tip jar.

***

Happy holidays and talk soon,

Kristen