I know they are sites of capitalism, but when I go to the mall, I’m there to find things I need to make my own tools of system dismantlement and comforts through the storm. As we re-examine many of these spaces, they will thrive only if we see them as
How Do You Define Your City? And Does Your City Define Itself In the Same Way?
When I go home to Greensboro, this is what’s around the corner. My little edge city. (Image from a YouTube screenshot). My whole writing existence, at least at this blog and a little bit at my one just before that, has been making sense and defining the cities I’ve lived
Letting Go Of Being a Hometown Heroine And Embrancing My Role as an American Expat in America.
I never thought I would ever live or work outside of Greensboro again. I’ve always felt like if I wasn’t there that the city wouldn’t figure out how to fix itself. That if my work didn’t have a connection to home or if it wasn’t respected at home, then it
Why I Love IKEA
The answer’s simple— it lets me feel like I’m worthy of having a wonderfully designed home, no matter what that home is. However, there’s a long answer to this and I discovered it on my recent trip to the College Park, MD IKEA. I’ve also talked about it in my book.
Building on Theories and Practice of Black Urbanism in Our New World
I have always owed a great debt to the work of Sara Zewde, especially the usage of the term black urbanist and talking about black urbanism. Zewde is currently a principal at Asakura Robinson a designer at the Seattle-based firm GGN and in 2010, published her MIT graduate thesis, Theory, place, and
How I Get Around the DC Metro Without A Car (And You Can Too!)
I mentioned in a prior post that I do a fair amount of walking and I no longer have my car now that I’m in DC. I wanted to break that down and help folks getting started here without a car to understand how car-free life works. This is very
Why All the Development in the World Doesn’t Matter if You Don’t Know Your Soul
Politico has written some great longreads recently on cities in the Piedmont region of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. So good, they have helped me refine and shape my urban theory. Namely, they’ve helped me be at peace with just being an urban theorist and influencing the world in that way. Before
The Real Answer to Why I Moved, for the Second Time in 18 Months, to DC.
People have been asking me why I moved. I’ve given them answers and sometimes they’ve not been as foolproof as I’d liked for them to be. And now a month out from the move, I feel like I can answer the question a bit better. “But you can buy a
By Kristen Jeffers
Cities/Cityreads/Commons/downtown/Family and Place/gentrification/Government/Housing/How-To/Issues and Ideas/Podcast/transit/urbanism
On the Second Presidential Debate of 2016 and Knowing Your Truth About Where You Live
I wanted to discuss a comment about cities that came up in the debate/ town hall last night. Note, this is not a post endorsing one or the other, although I’ll say that I’m with her. But the issue brought up is one that trips up a lot of people
What We Need Is More, Not Less, Transit In Our Major Cities
There’s a reason I walk around with my DC SmartTrip card hanging around my neck. And I post time-lapse Instagrams and such of the KC Streetcar working well. Why I wish I could park my car for good and why I relish walking in even 90 degree heat, if it
