Welcome (back) to The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and these are my Black queer feminist urbanist thoughts. I share a reflection up top, then I share other connection points and ways to connect with me in the sections below. I’m back today after several weeks off of this newsletter and my heart and soul are a little raw. I wanted to edit this down, but I couldn’t, I just had to let my fingers go. Plus, today is National Coming Out Day and while some disagree with the notion of coming out, I think it still has value. Read on as I tell you why and what I’ve learned in my two years of being 100% out (and six years of accepting my queerness internally).

Coming out has been the gift that keeps on giving, to my soul. I am now, two years after labeling myself publicly — happily, a genderfluid, feminine-presenting omnisexual person who is still poly, but basically the two relationships involved are with myself and my partner.

Ok, but aren’t we all in relationships with ourselves? We should be, but many aren’t and many do lose themselves in their relationships with other people, romantically, and otherwise.

Something else I’ve learned presenting as one of the “other letters” is that if some gay, lesbian, and sadly even some bisexual and trans people had it their way, people who are gender fluid and sexually fluid would evaporate into the air, for their inability to hold it down in a society that still insists that even people who aren’t in traditional male/female relationships concoct some kind of binary to have order and decency and control over each other.

I’ve also learned that while we all agree that Black is beautiful, we as Black queer people often still crave acceptance. I see disturbing levels of ableism and materialism/capitalism amongst even QTPOC of all shades and ethnicities and I see how African and African diaspora cultures intersect with that.

However, my queerness has made me think harder about what it means to have full autonomy of body, mind, and natural resources. It’s made my urbanism a necessity, not just something nice to have.

Those are my personal thoughts about how my queerness has shaped me in the past two years. Professionally, we’re just getting started with that, here are the three key ways my outward advocacy has been shaped by my queerness.

First, I believe we need sanctuary places for all shades of gender and sexuality — not just the most prosperous or comfortable ones.

Most of you came to this newsletter, especially in the early days, for placemaking and urbanism analysis and so I wanted my first couple of points to speak to how urbanism and design play a direct role in allowing gender and sexual fluidity to not just exist and survive, but thrive and set the tone for moving our culture forward.

Placemaking and keeping must include spaces for socialization. We should be allowed anywhere we want to go and we should have spaces where we connect on what makes us unique and special.

Oh, and you shouldn’t have to make the median area income or above, nor work in one of these spaces, to be able to inhabit them.

Today specifically for those of you who are fortunate to have The Roku Channel, you can see for yourself the impact of having spaces led by women and others who are gender marginalized even within the queer community is not guaranteed and doesn’t always mean gobs of money and support.

However, we need more than the capitalistic bar scene that’s made for hookups and for hooking up only if you look a certain way. There are levels to drag, but not enough places to host those different levels. If we’re going to tell people to read a F*ing book, then we need places to read those books and have quiet conversations.

Don’t get me started on ramps, elevators, and proper ventilation, along with quiet and dark rooms for sensory adjustments (and restrooms). More on that later.

Second, the need for the industry of placemaking/keeping to work through implicit biases and tokenism (along with the work being done around pay equity and hiring equally and equitably)

While I don’t expect solidarity from all of my colleagues, I do try to stay above board and be transparent when I see shady behavior from colleagues, namely some who think that tokenism is still the right way, because it’s better than nothing at all.

And yes, I hear a lot having a partner that’s also in the industry. But. I’m glad she understands a lot of what I go through and I can guide her as we make sense of it all.

But I don’t want this newsletter in this section to become a tea rag either, so I’ll leave it at that.

However, I think we should review how we handle disadvantaged businesses. More cities, namely Baltimore, are including LGBTQIA+ businesses as a protected class. We need implicit bias training especially around understanding how fluidity works and how we have to plan beyond binaries.

And we need to assert that we have the right to exist at work, in whatever gender presentation we are, and that we are professional no matter what. And we don’t need to shrink to stay in a position that doesn’t serve us, because we think we can’t do better at work. I know it can be hard, but we owe this to ourselves to be somewhere, not just after hours, but during hours, that sees us as human.

Finally, we need to be as anti-capitalist and anti-ableist as we are anti-racist and queer/trans-affirming and inclusive.

For the record, I define capitalism as making money on the backs ( sometimes literal, sometimes physical) of other people, rather than working together on an equal and equitable plane to make sure that people can be fairly compensated for their labor.

This is also an illusion to what I’ve said above about my personal disappointment in marginalized communities I’m part of being complicit in the oppressions of others.

However, I do want to commend those actively engaged in mutual aid. Rather than having a reason for needing something, people put up what they need for it or just put it out there for the taking. They barter. They teach all so that more can do certain skills. They work around abilities, instead of punishing others for lack of them.

Now, we are still in a capitalistic society as a whole, so we need to balance paying bills with being generous, but my goal and something I’d like to see the queer community lead on as we organize around our marginalization is figuring out how to take care of folks. Ballroom and chosen family culture is another way we are leading on this.

But that gets us to accessibility. I’ve missed so many “family” gatherings as of late because “family” doesn’t see how vital it is to keep masking. And yes, one-way masking does make a difference, but two-way is even better. If you want to take it back to before the COVID pandemic, to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we have the tools to make HIV undetectable, but we aren’t there with COVID and similar things are happening to bodies where people are picking up and having enhanced responses to other illnesses that are disabling and sometimes fatal. The MPX response was excellent in that we had a diagnostic tool early enough to prevent disease.

And yes, I know we have to live with COVID, but we have to live with it in a better way than we have been. We have to protect the vulnerable and sometimes the vulnerable will be invisible. And not everyone visible, say someone using a wheelchair, has friends to help them up the steps. In that same spirit, you might be up on your shots and you might have only had mild symptoms, but your partner may be more susceptible. Does that make them less of a person?

Some of us would demand that our identities as gender and sexually fluid people be honored, but we can’t get that same respect when it comes to fair wages and labor. Same with finding an elevator and a mask for the indoor spot and level ground and good wind ventilation outdoors. These things are all important and we need to get it right.

Today as many new people make it known who they are — who boldly walk out the door, please don’t shame them or make them feel guilty for not inviting you in a moment sooner than they did. Don’t tell them they are too loud or too much.

And if you have the means to build and uphold better structures, please do, so our bodies and the air we breathe can just flow today and every day.

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.

I know my hometown is fading in relevancy, but still, I would have loved a little North Carolina skyline analysis to include us!

I recorded two amazing podcast episodes this spring and both of them hit the interwebs this fall. I want to thank The Follow podcast for incorporating so many of my influences as show notes. And the Healing Black Futures podcast for just meeting me there.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me and friends of the platform.

Advertising in this section has helped people find jobs and new opportunities. It also gets you and your newfound commitments to solidarity, justice, belonging, and equity in front of those who are your backbone and base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

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Learn how and what you can book me for 2022 and 2023

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If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me.

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My bookshelf over atBookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of the books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon, and other lists because you can never have too many books.

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It’s scarf season and it’s a great time to learn how to make a Kristfinity Scarf! Or if you are in DC on October 16, join me for a granny square demonstration at Eaton DC from 6–8 pm. Your ticket price includes supplies! I will record a portion of this to post later. Special thanks to EatonDC (where I’m a resident fellow this year) and Sweet Pea Fiber(where you might see me at maker’s night just like on the website on Wednesdays).

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I’ll be live on Patreon, LinkedIn, and YouTube talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours at 1:30 pm Eastern today (10/11). Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces. I’m also going to try to be live simultaneously around that time on Instagram.

Until next time,

Kristen

The Black Urbanist Weekly for August 17-30, 2022, Part 3 of the Black Queer Feminist War on Cars.

Are we equipped to win this war when the battleground — literally, the actual ground we are supposed to stand on, is made of quicksand, moats, and castles guarded by people or their systemic ideas that keep us from all experiencing enhanced and enlightened mobility– some would say accessibility?

Ok, we aren’t in medieval times, but sometimes, the Earth we are supposed to navigate outside of a car, looks more like the environment of Super Mario and its various iterations, than a place where anyone who doesn’t use a car is at ease in using. 

And yes, that matters on this so-called battlefield, because what good is fighting if you’re always going to be dodging proverbial (and real) bombs and missiles on the ground? Or if you make it to the castle, there are fire-breathing dragons, loose cannons, and snakes jumping up and biting you out of the moat. Oh and the moat itself, what if the bridge is too narrow or drawn up?

I had to sit on this newsletter a day or two, because my hypothesis this week — that the minute a Black neighborhood, especially in the United States, becomes a true carless village that everything is within 15-minute or more of walking, biking, or rolling distance, goes through its own dark magic “poof” of its own and disappears.

Historically, that poof was burnt down neighborhoods and towns, like the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And as of late, it’s been neighborhoods here in DC, where rent rates and home prices, and property taxes are calibrated to the highest median income, despite there being a clear racial disparity in household median income that’s well documented and has been for years.

Jobs, especially those that pay well, are sometimes on the other side of hours-long transit commutes, that become more expensive as you go further away from your home and sometimes don’t start or end before it’s time to go home, so your destination and journey become even more expensive, maybe impossible.

However, I couldn’t completely say that every neighborhood in DC that’s Metro-accessible and amenity-rich and car-light is un-friendly on the surface to Black folks. Especially when I go to every neighborhood and see us laughing at outdoor restaurant tables, serving in every job function, enjoying all of the Smithsonians, not just our own, and cheering for all the sports, not just the ones we’re overrepresented in.

I especially saw it when I was in Navy Yard on Monday, a Metro Green line neighborhood that is emblematic of what the “new DC” has become. Tall, shiny apartment towers with optimal access and views of the waterfront. Surrounded by office towers of all configurations, where both my partner and I have hot desks in our respective work buildings. Flanked on the lower floors are all kinds of public services — except clothing stores, which still seem to elude Navy Yard.

But, if you don’t mind wearing all Washington Nationals-branded clothes from the ballpark, tourist T-shirts from CVS and Harris Teeter, or the earthy clothes at Whole Foods, you could just do your whole life from Navy Yard. Same with the books on the magazine shelf, even though there are some great bookstores in nearby Capitol Hill.

But speaking of access, let’s break that down for a moment. The one thing that is still missing from Navy Yard, at least for me, is a clear spot that does Black hair. Queer folk’s hair, yes, but what if it’s really tight and densely curly and I want it to be longer than 2 inches? If that’s you, and your salon, please let us know. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping my car to go to my hair person in South Fairfax County that’s made the magic on top of my head known as the blurple hydrate-and-define.

I also would be remiss if I didn’t add that my partner has an amazing Black feminine-presenting primary care physician who is very attentive that just happens to be in Navy Yard. I’m in the Kaiser system for similar reasons and yes, for that, I’d have to go to Capitol Hill.

Even though we don’t live in Navy Yard (yet), we still live just down the green line of the Metro and several key bus lines, in another neighborhood that has a lot of stuff, but just happens to have a six-lane highway bisecting it. At least there are crosswalks, but there could be so much improvement. 

And there will be, Metro has plans to go down that road, literally, and it has a lot of popular support so I don’t see how they wouldn’t just go ahead and let that happen in about 20-30 years.

But what about today?

Even in a high-end neighborhood like Navy Yard with “everything,” with no limits on who can live there if you have one of DC’s inclusionary zoning vouchers or the income from your labor to live there, for Black folks, something is still missing within that 15-minute walk/bike shed.

However, in looking up recent efforts to create a true 15-minute city for all, there’s hope that I’m not the only one flagging that we need to do this in light of the place-based discriminations and disparities that Black folks and other folks of color face, along with ensuring that people can move in the ways they naturally move. We need to leave behind this particular engineering notion of mobility and work on access, especially as we experience the changes brought by major pandemics and major changes in climate and access to capital as an entire human race.

More cities need to break down their median incomes, rent burdens, and commute times, and cross-reference by race, gender, sexuality, and ability, by local service jurisdictions (wards, districts, or sections, depending on how the city council is structured).

More transit authorities need to realistically serve every jurisdiction in its power and no region needs to make a transit system that only works for people who commute to an office, during daylight hours.

Just like we can’t plan for one universal human, we can’t plan for one universal city and one universal Earth, as if the Earth doesn’t re-kindle and reset itself, even if that reset seems violent to us humans! We have time to reset our relationships, so instead of racing to one point, we can go at ease to many places.

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. 

If you missed parts one and two of this Black Queer Feminist Urbanist War on Cars series, go here.

Benbow Park, one of Greensboro’s most legendary Black mid-20th century built neighborhoods,  is closer to getting a historic district designation. I grew up in the shadows of these legends and if I could talk to my dad today, I’m sure he’s fixed a light or two in one of these homes and surrounding others as well. Also, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen such a verdant aerial image over a Black community and definitely my first time seeing one like this over predominantly-Black East Greensboro.

Meanwhile, not only were the Talley and Weatherspoon Student Centers the nucleus of my life at NC State in the mid-aughts, I sat in on one of the focus groups back in 2006-2007 to assess what the centers needed to do. I’m sad that I didn’t get to be a student on campus and experience using the current configuration and renovation of the Talley Union, which is impressive even as a proud alumna and family legacy,  and I’m especially sad that this couldn’t be done without the debt load being on the students, especially since many who paid for the renovation were long gone when the full changes happened. But reading this article about the evolution of the student centers brought back so much good nostalgia of a time I did live in a “15-minute-city” and that my generation wasn’t the only one facing what it meant to be living in a rapidly changing campus and surrounding city of Raleigh. 

And speaking of the Triangle area of North Carolina, a reflection of what it’s become, or not. 

Before You Go

This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially!

I’m keeping my  Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and slides up here, because this is basically the 2022 version of my origin story and how I practice my writing and planning. And yes, I’m happy to come and do this for you in a virtual session! Sign up here. 

Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday. Subscribe to that newsletter, so you can keep up with the latest and greatest urbanism news coming out of DC. Also, you can pitch us articles here (we pay!)

You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks, and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community. Also, check her out on the Black Women’s Health Imperative endometriosis panel.

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two from my bookshelf over at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers, and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon. Those pledges will be going to commission paid guest articles and editors for this platform.

Finally, I wanted to announce that with my shifts in workload, I’ll be launching these newsletters on Wednesdays, still at 11 am, going forward and I’m taking next week off, to give my body some surgery recovery time, hence why this is the weekly for two weeks, lol. I’ll be back on Wednesday, August 31 to conclude this series on the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist War on Cars

Until next time,

Kristen

The Black Urbanist Weekly for August 8-14, 2022, Part 2 of the Black Queer Feminist War on Cars

This battle on cars assumes that we all have the same common enemy and that we don’t harm each other as we battle said enemy. Let’s make sure we understand what the battleground is.

Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that’s Patreons that could be you! Now, back to the main part of the email.

Y’all are still here, so I assume that some of you have keys jingling in your pockets, that aren’t just of your house. And of course, you even have keys to lock things, considering how advanced some of us are living with apps, fobs, buttons, and sensors having replaced metal in a lot of modern buildings and vehicles.

Just like there are several assumptions made above on the content of your locks, we assume so much when it comes to how car dependence affects us.

Ok, let me stop again and define we and us. We, for me, are the mostly white, male, straight, abled, and middle-class land-use and transportation planning, engineering, and administration sector, plus those who do not fit into those characteristics, that insist on upholding this person I described above, as the universal human. 

And of course, depending on the sentence grammar, we are us.

However, as much as we want there to be a universal human, there is no such thing. There are human models though and that, unfortunately, seems to be only understood by car companies and other consumer goods that really want everyone to buy their products.

Of course, we are pushing against car companies here, but we also need to understand that we will continue to lose this battle if we don’t understand that we can’t keep planning and speaking and upholding that universal human from above.

I first learned of this concept during an anti-racist planner’s Zoom meeting last year and I wish I still had the copy of the paper that discussed this phenomenon. 

However, some of the work done around universal design, yields from the idea that there is one universal human, that looks like the pedestrian on the traffic signals, so at least he’s of color sometimes, but he’s still a he unless it’s the one with the skirt, who is a she and the wheelchair which is coded genderless.

On this platform, I purposefully create a universal human that is reflective of who I am in the mirror. For clarity, that’s:

 —Black: American, North Carolina native, Maryland resident, one-time Kansas City resident descendent of the enslaved who were brought to this area through the ports of the British colonies established in and around 1619 and later the segregated folks of North and South Carolina.

—Queer: Genderfluid, leaning feminine, assigned and socialized feminine, loving all kinds of humans, but specifically drawn to the feminine and the androgynous and the non-conforming who have hearts for service to the betterment of the world.

—Feminist: Allowing the feminine, the masculine, and the genderless to coexist harmoniously, celebrating all forms of the feminine and not assuming its weakness.

—Urbanist: Celebrating the way humans come together with their skills, their cultivations of nature, and the creation of structures to share and thrive in human life.

I’ve written before about my whys and base definitions of my generic Black Queer Feminist Urbanist human, however, I’ve realized I need to spell out what I see in the mirror when I apply those labels.

Even though we are talking about the specific battleground of transportation that is equitable for all, we have to establish who we as humans are. We are not the same and we cannot walk (ride, bike or drive) around this world planning for a universal human when we live in a world of humans.

So next time I come to you, I want to talk about how to do better by my humanity in this world on cars, but in the meantime, I want to hear from you, via the comment sections, email replies, tweet threads, and video threads/stitches, what would it look like for you to be the universal human and how you see the war on cars and other “urbanist holy grails” such as eyes on the street, sidewalk ballets, and TOD working (or not working) for your body. I also want to hear from you if you are the current “universal human” and if even that makes sense for planning in your community.

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. 

I’m going to share a notable War on Cars episode in this space every week of this series and I wanted to start with their interview with Gretchen Sorin, the author of Driving While Black, who gives a great overview of how car ownership has historically been seen in the Black community, especially in the US; as well as how our movements and spaces in transportation and around transportation modes have always been fraught.

I am going to spend more time with Rosa Parks and her story, as we’ve been told so many things, yet also hidden from so many key things in the story of a “universal human” of the US mid-century Civil Rights Movement, especially when it comes to transportation and mobility access.

Finally, can anyone’s subway train beat this fox speeding down the London Underground tracks from last week?

Before You Go

This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially!

In case you missed it, you can watch my Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and look at my slides. We did not record the technical assistance sessions, but we’ve heard some good news from our advisees as a result of those sessions. Learn more about my advisees, the community of Royal, FL. Thanks again to the SGA team, my wonderful co-panelists Jupiter Peraza of the Transgender District in San Francisco and Benny Starr of the US Water Alliance, and our keynote, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson.

Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday. Subscribe to that newsletter, so you can keep up with the latest and greatest urbanism news coming out of DC. 

You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks, and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community. Also, check her out on the Black Women’s Health Imperative endometriosis panel.

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two from my bookshelf over at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers, and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.

Until next time,

Kristen

I would have loved to take the bus, but it’s Sunday and it’s not running. I would have taken the train, but it’s after midnight and it’s also out-of-service. Plus, are you going to stand with me on the sidewalk to buffer the street harassment? Bring me replacement parts to put on my picked-apart stolen bike frame? Repair my broken heel from this cracked sidewalk? Can you meet me on my battlefield in this “War on Cars”?

Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that’s  Patreons that could be you! Now, back to the main part of the email.

Thanks for reading The Black Urbanist Weekly! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Before you mash that unsubscribe button, if this in fact is the one post that makes you do it, please hang in there with me.

The shame I’ve had in the past three years of owning a car after 3.5 years of publicly not owning one has been unmatched. 

Why?

Because in the urbanist bible, one of the gravest sins one can commit, is admitting they have a car and like it.

Or so I thought.

I’m empowered to share this story today because of Dan Gordon’s, the co-host of the podcast War on Cars, reflection on what he means by War on Cars. 

I appreciate having more context and nuance in their reasoning for naming the show. However, I yearn for more, and this month, I’m going to write several newsletters to explain why.

This week, let me introduce to some and remind others of my story with how my life has had to be multi-modal by default.

We’re going to drop into my story at the moment my physical body started to abandon me as I attempted to go extremely car-lite almost as soon as I set foot in Kansas City in 2015 to do professional bike/ped advocacy.

I was riding Lulu, the bike I’d purchased in haste at the Target in Mission, Kansas for less than $100, and contorted to fit in my 2002 Honda Accord’s backseat.

I hadn’t gotten my first check yet and so much of what I did get in moving help, had been eaten by finding a pedestrian-friendly apartment near where our offices were then. 

I needed a new bike because the one I had in Greensboro, was the one I abandoned at age 15 in 2000 when I couldn’t take the street harassment of being the only teen in our Black and Brown middle-class neighborhood to continue to ride.

I attempted to ride it again a couple of times, but my legs had grown just a little too much and I sent it to thrift after the local bike shop wouldn’t take it for recycling, rather than packing it on the moving truck.

I didn’t want to give up on being a cyclist, especially after having just spent the prior five years advocating for better bike and ped infrastructure, in the context of my medium-sized city in the Southeastern United States.

There I was anchored by colleges that did have bike paint on the wide streets connecting them. Neighborhoods with great street grids of completed sidewalks with neighborhood retail.

And even in the neighborhoods that took after the development patterns of post-World War II America, pledged allegiance through their water, sewer, and transit systems to the main jurisdictional creation of the area, and drivers would at least slow down their cars, even if they wouldn’t tell their kids to not be mean to folks choosing to walk or bike, especially if they looked as nerdy as I did.

Plus, I was on the frontline committees to bring more traditional bike, bus, and rail transit to Greensboro. I would park my car at my special spot downtown or walk from my apartment when I lived downtown to work and my favorite restaurants and museums. I would park in the back at the suburban-style malls and shopping centers and use that as exercise. 

I drove very slowly, even on the day I backed my mom’s Buick into the fire hydrant in front of our hair salon, in a 1950s-era shopping center where the parking was so flush to the road, I could have as easily backed into a car in the street or a pedestrian on the sidewalk. (This was also as a teen, with a newly minted license, more to come on how wild my traffic crashes have been). 

So, back to the cultural shocks that hit my body the August morning in 2015, I was riding Lulu to a coffeehouse within decent walking and biking distance to both my new home and office.

I realize now that it wasn’t so much the bike, even though it was heavy. It was a different kind of dehydrating sun, and the lack of electrolytes in my water to keep me from sweating into the humility, that gave me an ocular migraine in the middle of the street. Migraines that would become so severe they would last for days at a time and cause me to lose weeks of work.

However, where was I supposed to get that information?

We take for granted that we all use the same internet. We also take for granted that the internet that feels the same and has the same amount of representation of how all kinds of people approach transportation.

That’s of course why I’ve been here and the various places on the internet for going on 12 years, to help you see where you’re missing context and nuance or to support you as you run into others who can’t see your full humanity in spaces that are just as much ours as they are theirs.

So once again, don’t hit unsubscribe, because I don’t want you to miss a single post this month.

I’m spending this August of 2022  on what my battlefield is, and what I see the battlefields of other Black urbanists, especially the queer and/or feminist types, are in this so-called War on Cars. 

I want to create that space on this internet specifically around the concerns Black gender marginalized folks have with the lack of transportation options. I want to lift up how many of us who drive, have the same notion that I opened this email with, of wanting to stay parked but needing to move.

So, strap on your helmets, buckle your seatbelts, and double-tie your shoes. Get ready for a journey that I hope provides at least one cease-fire in this corner of urbanist discourse.

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. 

I want to link again to the main War on Cars article and Jerome Horne’s LinkedIn thread on it. I also want to hear from you throughout the month as we re-think how we talk about our need to let go of cars and do more for transit and pedestrian-friendliness, but be more inclusive on our journey.

I think we as a culture also need to make peace with the idea that 80s architecture is 40+ years old at this point and that it’s not all drug and bad-decision-induced. I love this New York City atrium and I think there’s absolutely a place for it with minor alterations.

Please, please, please — especially if you are like me and can work from home and manage your hours — rest and isolate if you get any of these still circulating viruses and illnesses, for the first, second, or even third time. Please figure out a way to get the community support you need for you and your loved ones. We must shift how we handle our health and continue to model inclusivity in our dealings as professionals and as citizens of the cities, we are shaping. And to those who claim this excludes shift workers on the frontlines — let’s normalize base pay despite actual hours worked and sensible shift scheduling! Support frontline worker unions! Provide proper protective equipment and supplies!

I’m putting this book on Angelina Weld Grimke on my list-to-read to zoom in on what being a Black queer femme in Reconstruction-era, pre-Woodrow Wilson DC would have been like.

Before You Go

This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially!

In case you missed it, you can watch my Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and look at my slides. We did not record the technical assistance sessions, but we’ve heard some good news from our advisees as a result of those sessions. Learn more about my advisees, the community of Royal, FL. Thanks again to the SGA team, my wonderful co-panelists Jupiter Peraza of the Transgender District in San Francisco and Benny Starr of the US Water Alliance, and our keynote, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson.

Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday. Subscribe to that newsletter, so you can keep up with the latest and greatest urbanism news coming out of DC. 

You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community. Also, check her out on this recent Black Women’s Health Imperative endometriosis panel.

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two off my bookshelf over at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers, and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.

Until next time,

Kristen

Not every body can do every thing. Read that again. Why does our infrastructure have to be so limited, so that it can’t pick up the gaps?

Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that would be Rail~volution! Now, back to the main part of the email.

I take for granted that I’m a glasses wearer. Why? Because in this day and time no one seems to care. In fact, it seems like everyone I know has a pair (or two). Some would blame it on the fact that we all look at electronic screens. However, slurs like four-eyes (and for the Black kids of a certain age on the list) Urkel, seem like things of the past.

However, If I didn’t wear my glasses, I would quickly get headaches and I would struggle to drive or even take transit because I need to read the signs.  I am typing this sentence from memory and I’m leaving in the errors deliberately because I have to type from memory because I cannot tell what words I’m actually typing because I took off my glasses. (I did put them back on to add the italics and I put the italics in since there were no errors).

Do I want to type from memory all the time? No. Is it possible? Yes. And because of adaptive devices like my keyboard and my glasses, my severe myopia, and mild astigmatism is masked as a disability. 

Oh and ” everyone’s anxious”, so that also gets brushed off, even though I periodically take medication for generalized anxiety and I find that I’m more introverted than I used to be.

However, as we end this year’s Disability Pride & Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month (now becoming more known as BIPOC Mental Health Month) and honor the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, those of us who spend more time drawing up construction documents, as well as determining who gets to be legally disabled and who has “actual” mental health issues should pause for reflection.

If we haven’t learned anything over these past two years of having global pandemics, then we should reassess what we are actually doing when it comes to accessibility.

Accessibility is a necessity, not a luxury and accessibility goes beyond what’s visible. 

I’ve harped on this before and I’ll do it again, that we were able to reconfigure large swaths of society to get to a point where we had COVID-19 treatment options that were reasonable. However, we failed at maintaining a good equilibrium so that everyone had a fair shot at not having debilitating effects.

This is not me saying no one should be sick, ill, or disabled and that those conditions are solely the person’s fault. This is me saying that we need to offer everyone all options for their healthcare.

In the early pandemic days, we learned that COVID-19 was an airborne virus, hence the recommendation, after realizing that we needed to rectify our shortage of personal protective equipment, that we use said equipment, adapted to the intersections of other chronic health conditions and disabilities.

Then many of us realized that the intersections of chronic health conditions, known disabilities, and even race and class, and gender were insufficient prior to being faced with this common enemy. 

Hence, why you still see me masked, until I know for sure that the air in a room is being purified or I’ve learned that a person has been testing negative consistently. I would love to stop masking, especially in the heat and especially at restaurants and concerts, but I don’t want to be that asymptomatic carrier that causes huge problems for someone else.

I also have the privilege of wearing that mask and working from home and cooking more and all the things those of us with those privileges were supposed to do, as mutual support for those who didn’t have the opportunity to stay home. I have the privilege of knowing about other (re)emerging illnesses like monkeypox and dealing with other personal medical issues by going to my closest Kaiser Permanente medical center.

But, as builders and makers — we are the ones tasked with enacting the accessibility plans and creating the infrastructures so that we don’t have to blink when someone needs accommodations. We are the ones that make virus mitigation and space access a given, not a privilege. 

We make it so folks don’t have to add extra time to call your restaurant. We make it so folks can visit their family and friends even if they live on the top floor. We can all breathe the air because it’s ventilated and purified and make the social connections we all need to survive. We don’t have to choose between medication or assistive technology and paying rent.

I’ll end this part by challenging all of my colleagues, no matter where you sit, stand, or lay on this topic — our bodies aren’t perfect and they aren’t be apologies. Plan accordingly — whether that’s an event, building, educational opportunity, bus shelter, or for your own wellbeing and safety.

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. 

Why I’m one of a handful of people you’re hearing from about Disability Pride Month and how that can change.

What do the symbols of Disability Pride mean and why pride over awareness?

And more on why some mental health organizations are shifting to calling July BIPOC Mental Health Month. My preferred title would be Bebe Moore Campbell BIPOC Mental Health Month, to continue to honor the Black woman who insisted on creating this awareness month and to continue to move away from seeing people of color as a minority when that’s not true globally.

This year’s proclamation by the City and County of San Francisco for Disability Pride Month.

The US Government Accountability Office highlights a few ways they are raising awareness on the lack of compliance to ADA seen in schools, polling places, and in tax filing.

I really don’t know how I’m still managing to not test positive, just like these folks in this Post article. I’m also accepting that posting this particular article may change my fate, but so far, updating y’all on my status hasn’t changed things. And as we talked about above, it’s nothing wrong with having health challenges, but it’s all wrong when everyone doesn’t have the tools they need to thrive.

And likewise, more folks with thoughts on if those of us who are glasses wearers, especially with higher prescriptions are actually disabled or inconvenienced. 

Finally, a cute cartoon on the intersections of being Black and feminine with ADHD. 

Before You Go

This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially. And this week, we have a sponsor, Rail~volution!

Rail~Volution 2022

The always lively Rail~Volution conference is coming to Miami, Florida, this fall, October 30 to November 2. The goal of the conference is to look at the whole community built around transit and connected mobility options, from planning & implementing different modes to station area design to housing. Come to the conference to find out how peers are getting projects done with an eye to the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity, and overall quality of life. 

Registration is now open. And until the end of July scholarship applications also are open. The conference organizers want to create a welcoming atmosphere, where people from diverse backgrounds and positions are able to learn, network, and belong. Recognizing that attending a conference involves a financial commitment that cannot always be supported by an individual or their organization, Rail~Volution provides a limited number of scholarships to reduce or eliminate these financial barriers. The link to the main scholarship application is here:  

bit.ly/RailVolutionScholarship.

There is a different link for local scholarships – for those who live in Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward, or Palm Beach Counties:

bit.ly/RailVolutionScholarshipLocal

Find out more about the conference here:

railvolution.org/conference

There is a virtual option for those unable to attend in-person. It will be a program of 3-5 sessions from the in-person conference, on Tuesday, November 1, only.

# # #

Meanwhile, as promised, you can watch my Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and look at my slides. We did not record the technical assistance sessions, but we’ve heard some good news from our advisees as a result of those sessions. Learn more about my advisees —the community of Royal, FL. Thanks again to the SGA team, my wonderful co-panelists Jupiter Peraza of the Transgender District in San Francisco and Benny Starr of the US Water Alliance, and our keynote, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson.

Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday (here are the ones I wrote from start to finish last  Thursday and Friday), as well as editing a few other pieces. 

You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks, and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community.

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two from my Bookshop.org shop at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers,(including the full link as I’ve been noting several of your issues with the original link) and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.

Until next time,

Kristen

Lead Photo by Igor Rodrigues on Unsplash

I’m in root shock. However, I’m no longer in denial, that cities exist because of active development and policy, and what I yearn for is the cultivation and elevation of villages. And yes, my imagination of what that looks like still matters!

I was recently asked, as I often am, what exactly is an urbanist?

I told this person, for this podcast that will come out weeks from now and may or may not have this line in it, that there are many kinds of urbanism and urbanists.

There are people who love cities and are enthusiasts. There are elected and appointed officials that determine the laws of our cities. And there are people who plan, build and sell/designate on official levels what cities are and what they do. All of these people work together, but they all have a different, sometimes conflicting, vision of what the city should be.

Then, in another recent conversation, I encouraged someone to not shy away from calling themselves an urbanist, especially since the concern was based on how many folks, folks that don’t look like myself and the person I was talking to, are kept outside of the proverbial gate of URBANISM!

And in this week’s letter, I’m here to tell and/or remind you: Don’t let it be policed or determined by someone else, especially if so much of it was denied to you because of your body shape, presentation, color, or perceived amount of money in your pocket or ability to make money.

That even the person who bikes most days, sometimes gets in a ridehailing (because it ain’t sharing if you’re paying someone who you just met thanks to the app), vehicle, because the grocery was just too heavy and the rain poured down just too much.

Or, like me, which I’ll be sharing a bit about at this week’s Smart Growth America Equity Summit, my urbanism as a young person unaware of how things really worked was chasing the places that decided my neighborhood, my people and/or my occupation wasn’t good enough.

Now, it’s making do with trying to better influence transportation policy, since the costs of making transportation more accessible are more achievable than making housing more affordable?

Or is it?

In May of 2016, I wrote one of my few posts directly centered on housing — The Quest for a Forever Home in an Era of Mass Gentrification

This is what I wanted back then:

Right now, that house is in Washington, DC and it’s one of the many row houses. It’s on a bus line or a flat street on which I can bike easily. Metro proximity is a bonus, but I’m ok with it taking me 30-45 minutes to get to outer suburbs or closer to the monument core. Uber and Lyft and my own two feet and the bus and my bike will be my friends. Or, it will be one of those far north or eastern or western houses with room for a car…

There will be three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There will be a bathroom and bedroom on one level, so that my mom can visit and not have to go up or downstairs. There will be a porch or a turret or both. There will be a drugstore or a farmers market or a quirky neighborhood café or all three. I will play soul music mixed with gospel, mixed with the blues, with a shot of go-go out of its windows. There will be parties there, and political strategy and resting and relaxation. It will be a shelter. It will be blue in part or whole. It will be home.

Even back then, in the following paragraph to be exact, I admitted that this could be a dream house. However, I also realized that the shape and form weren’t as important as what I wanted to do there — be a haven for fellow Black folks working and creating towards our liberation.

Plus in the six years since I’ve made this declaration — I’ve actually moved to the DC region, spent time and lived in Baltimore, taken almost all forms of transportation in our U.S. Census Designated Combined Statistical Area, fell out of the gender/sexuality closet, and fell in love because I allowed myself to come out of that closet.

Those things have altered the dream in significantly positive, affirming, and exciting ways and I’ll share those in a future dispatch.

Yet, several negatives out of my control over the past six years really make me question my version of the “American Dream”

First the root shock of seeing so many homes that were “hood”, or more officially, traditionally redlined, blockbusted, or fled in prior years, now be million-dollar homes or constant targets for short sales or other seizures of property.

Then the challenges of living through a pandemic without succumbing to the pandemic AND the rapid changes of governance at all levels to one more hostile to my bodily intersections.

And third, that it’s for want of housing, not for social clout or being seen as a “respectable” person of my gender or race, makes me work twice as hard for half as much in the regular economy.

That’s what made me cynical about so much housing policy. That’s what’s made me not want to talk about it and the time I did do so, now feels more like a dream deferred.

And yes, I’m aware that root shock as Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove writes goes even deeper than individual pains, but their work melds together how addressing root shock is a form of community care that radiates into adequate and fulfilling self-care, therefore restoring it as Audre Lorde’s political act.

Then I remember that June Jordan, even though her urbanist ideas were put to the side, still insisted on having those ideas. And so, like her, I’ll be sharing more of those housing ideas soon.

In the meantime, I’ll be at my regular bus stop waiting for my express bus to downtown to be restored and clamoring for a 10-minute transit service 24/7 that would keep me from cranking up my compact gas sipper as much and saving her for road trips for hikes and beach camping.

And yes, with my partner and our community by our side, imagining our dream home.

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.

This is exactly how much you need to afford the average-priced home mapped by major metro areas. I’m trying to practice what I just told you when I look at how much I would need if I still lived in the two metro areas I lived before based on what I need now, but know that this map made me go < orange cursing emojii> several times.

And another Black (queer) feminist perspective on wanting and being ready for a home, but facing institutions that aren’t ready to grant that privilege (and reckoning with the fact that it’s a privilege and not a right!)

Our queer community spaces are fewer and further between and yes, they should be available and welcoming to all body shapes, sizes, and functions. Oh and that can be done with an eye for historic preservation. (S/O to the old-timey elevators that still work!)

Getting a housing voucher in an expensive neighborhood, in this case, a part of DC,can go south quickly if the neighborhood’s resources are unaffordable and you lose connections with the other social services and family/friendship ties you need to balance not being able to make the median income.

Even though New York City’s Laundromat Project wasn’t able to take over an actual Brooklyn laundromat, the impact it has had in bridging cultural expression to other neighborhood-level service businesses, in the shadow of gentrification, and to working Black and brown artists is inspirational, even without the extra donation boost they received and being able to secure a 10-year lease in a gentrified neighborhood.

The situation in Sri Lanka is heartbreaking, especially considering it happened because of a failure in organic farming. It’s also a great examination of how we need to incorporate past lessons and present successes in our sustainability visions for the future.

Also heartbreaking is the recent altercation in downtown Baltimore involving the corner squeegee workers and a driver with a baseball bat. I loved this call-to-action from a Black man stepping up as a mentor and waymaker to these young (mostly Black and male) workers, rather than continuing the dehumanization that caused the initial violent incident.

I’m also loving the Baltimore Banner as a publication and this

And I’ve always revered PBS North Carolina’s Black Issues Forum as part of my journalistic diet. It of course also normalized folks like me having a voice in major media. I especially loved seeing one, the Pride Month episode with two Black queer women, and two, so many other folks I’ve known and worked with as commentators on other episodes. You can also watch roughly a decade’s worth of back episodes to get a full slice of Black life in North Carolina.

And finally, a Wilmington, Delaware shopping mall has been hiding a fully furnished closed Burger King, with the decor from its last renovation in the 1990s, behind a wall. Mallfans, have at it. Let me know if you find the BK Kids Club, especially their troll doppelgangers.

Before You Go

This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially.

Even though it’s too late to submit to be part of the workshop component, it’s not too late to join us THIS WEDNESDAY, JULY 13TH AT 12 NOON EASTERN, from your favorite screen to explore smart growth strategies for preserving and protecting neighborhood culture during investment and neighborhood change, as well as how factors such as rapid development, gentrification, and rising housing costs affect community culture, cohesion, and belonging at Smart Growth America’s Equity Forum: Upending Cultural Displacement.

Register here — Zoom registration link

In lieu of doing a livestream this week, I welcome you to register and listen to the public part of the panel, which is free and open to the public. Also, in lieu of last week’s livestream, I shared my recent panel conversation on Racial and Health Equity sponsored by EndoBlack, Incorporated.

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two bookshelf over at Bookshop.org and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.

I’m also returning to a familiar place for my byline in the next few weeks, here’s a hint.

Until next time,

Kristen

The Black Urbanist Weekly for July 4-10, 2022

Welcome to this week’s “holiday” edition, as many of us continue our reflection on this “false” independence we are asked to celebrate today. What’s on my mind this week as many more become aware of how tentative our lives are, especially in this particular country, but honestly on the globe as many places become and remain hostile — what if you must shelter in place?

How do you find joy in that place? Peace? Tranquility? Is stability just awkward laughter before drowning in streams of tears? After all, sometimes our disasters rain on top of us, a function of the Earth’s attempt to return to equilibrium.

As a placemaker. A Black Queer Feminist. An urbanist. A human. What does one make of these times?

My answer today and every day is a little bit of something tangible that brings me joy on the inside. For me, that will be breakfast, a yarn thing, maybe a museum downtown just before the fireworks, and writing this newsletter for myself and other journal pages for my personal growth. 

So, here’s the first of the official (US) holiday format of this newsletter. I’ll include the links I find most important in a slightly longer By the Way. And Before You Go, I’ll include my tip jar at the end. And on Thursday at noon eastern. I’ll be releasing a special Open Studio episode where I experiment a bit with my usual format and/or offer a special masterclass outside of the paywall. 

Expect this kind of newsletter after most major US holidays or on weeks I need a smidgen of a breather. Some exciting things are coming up for the fall across the platform and in my work life, I’ll include the link to one happening next week so you don’t miss out next to the said tip jar, but otherwise, this is how we’ll roll. 

By The Way

Dystopia doesn’t have to win. A group of folks in Toronto reversed plans for the hyper-surveilled neighborhood planned for a portion of its waterfront.

Other sista/siblings are looking at how to create space for our Black queer selves that affirms us from all sides, specifically in this article in Detroit, but I’m hearing rumblings of other Black Queer Feminist Urbanisms that I’m really excited to learn more about and see more of.

Before you throw away a state or place because it’s under authoritarian rule, let’s think of the people there, in this case, Florida, who have been trying to make a different future, but they keep getting overruled and oppressed.

And likewise, recognizing how even “safe” states and places are vulnerable to the dark rhetoric and reversal/failure to fully provide and guarantee civil rights for all.

Continuing the process to un-Earth and re-center a Black (America) physical design aesthetic that’s in conversation and collaboration with Afro/Afri-centric architectures globally.

Re-imagining transit for those working with equipment-based service businesses that are dedicated to paying a living wage.

How Prince Georges County, Maryland, the county of my current residence, became the wealthiest Black county in the US and how it’s recently passed that baton to Charles County, Maryland, just to its south. However, so many Black communities aren’t successful, fade away and it’s not their fault.

Recognizing that long COVID is just one reason we need reform in how we manage disability.

To get through these times, we need to build up squad care, side-by-side with self-care, and the questions we can ask ourselves to build up that care apparatus, especially in those moments of harsh reminders that we are in a false state of freedom.

Plus, for those who need to make a move, how to find your place inside movements and the latest map of LGBTQIA+ safety globally.

Before You Go

Even though it’s too late to submit to be part of the workshop component, it’s not too late to join us on July 13th, from your favorite screen to explore smart growth strategies for preserving and protecting neighborhood culture during investment and neighborhood change, as well as how factors such as rapid development,  gentrification, and rising housing costs affect community culture, cohesion, and belonging at Smart Growth America’s Equity Forum: Upending Cultural Displacement on July 13, 2022 at 12 p.m. ET.

Register here — Zoom registration link

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two off my bookshelf over at Bookshop.org and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move.

Until next time,

Kristen