Category Archives: Greensboro

Family and Place, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Transportation, What is urban planning?

What Happens To A Mall Deferred?

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Brother Langston’s classic poem “Dream Deferred” is heavy on my mind today. I woke up this morning after dreaming once again that my beloved enclosed mall, the Four Seasons Town Centre, is dying, along with our surrounding neighborhood. The mall had many glory days from the time it opened in the 1970’s, but starting in the 1990’s, I started having these odd dreams about it’s death.

Sometimes the mall would succumb to an earthquake. The concourses on the bottom floor would have perfect fault lines and the stores would be havens for displaced neighbors, with boxes of care packages instead of designer clothes. Other times, I would be on a boat, sailing past the third floor at ground level, knowing fearfully that my house was completely under the water.

These would just be regular dreams and not allegory if not for the rumors that the mall would be moving about five miles further out from the city. The mall was already on the outskirts, with this new revelation, the mall will be over 10 miles outside of the core of Greensboro. Granted, now that High Point’s mall is pretty much on life support, it makes sense to put it where it’s going, halfway between the two, adjacent to what will be a new suburban freeway.

I understand all the logic that real estate companies use when building shopping centers. Yet, in a a new era of localized retail, from all economic demographics, I question the logic. Why take away what’s a useful town center? Is it really the money or is it the color of the people providing the money? Yes, there have been a few violent incidents, yet, we live in a troubled metropolis, a trouble that is not exclusive to the low-income areas. There are foreclosures, lost jobs, ne’er do wells all over. If you build it, they will all come. ALL. Plus, if this is really a town center, then who are we to restrict the access?

Or is it really? Unfortunately, for many, there is no difference. Date nights, back-to-school shopping, morning walks, graduation dinners, lunch breaks. Maybe I chose the wrong place to go all these years.

I don’t get out there like I used to. I live in a different place. Yet, I know how much this place is needed. I don’t think I’d keep dreaming about it if I didn’t.

Cities, Family and Place, Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, What is urban planning?

Does It Matter Who Owns the Corner Store?

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Recently, a friend on Facebook asked this somewhat quintessential question: Why don’t black folks own businesses in their own neighborhoods? One commenter to this status mentioned that it may be because we (as in black folks) have forgotten to help our own as we have achieved higher and higher financial goals and wealth.

I myself personally believe (and I mentioned this in a comment myself) that black folks went through a period where some of the business types in predominantly black neighborhoods were unwanted and unneeded in their eyes. I’ve even had someone who remembers urban renewal in Greensboro tell me that they willingingly tore down the neighborhood businesses in hopes of something better.

However, in many cases, that something better never came. I am also cautious of some modern “revitalizations”, especially when the lots have been sitting empty for several years with no vision and no purpose.

Meanwhile, I applaud those who took up the banner of preserving the history, the commerce, and the tradition of ethnic enclaves, of all cultures. I even applaud those of other cultures who have come in and filled up the vacant spaces, either with businesses and services more geared to their cultures. I especially love if they maintained the original businesses quality and culture, and improved the original operations.

When community and culture and affordability are respected, then I don’t think it matters who owns the corner store.

We underrated, we educated
The corner was our time when times stood still
And gators and snakes gangs and yellow and pink
And colored blue profiles glorifying that…

The corner was our magic, our music, our politics
Fires raised as tribal dancers and
war cries that broke out on different corners
Power to the people, black power, black is beautiful…

The corner was our Rock of Gibraltar, our Stonehenge
Our Taj Mahal, our monument,
Our testimonial to freedom, to peace and to love
Down on the corner… Common featuring The Last Poets, The Corner, 2005

Yet, when businesses on these proverbial corners completely forget their legacy and their obligation for service, then they fail. If a shop owner follows its teenage customers instead of offering jobs, then they have failed. If women are looked upon as strange invasive creatures and vice-versa for males, then they have failed. Yes, we need safe space to be ourselves as men and women, but at the end of the day, there still comes a time for mutual respect. Elders should shop for free. What about GLBTQ folks and their needs? It’s this vision of the corner store or business as a service that owners need to undertake.

Ultimately, I think that this obligation is what makes it hard for people to maintain such businesses over a long haul. These businesses are more than stores, barbers or beauty salons. They are sounding boards, mini town squares and city halls. If you are not ready to be a de facto mayor or community leader, then you best take your business elsewhere. I believe this is why these businesses fall onto those who either want this charge or those who have no other choice but to run this type of business. I think some black leaders (and I’m sure there are others of other ethnic enclaves who feel the same way) who wanted to run a business that would not become every inch of their lives.

So does it matter who owns the corner store? Absolutely. Yet, it’s not a question of what the owners look like on the outside, it’s a question of what they believe on the inside about their community and their business.

Image credit Flickr user Mr. T in DC under a Creative Commons Licence.

apartment living, Arts Districts, Cities, Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Things At a Place, Transportation, What is urban planning?

Finding Happiness in the “Generic” City

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So I was looking for jobs about six months ago and I came upon my current position through my network of grad school friends. On paper I knew I had what it takes to get the job. I also knew that this was a job that I could grow into and also be myself. Later on, after getting the job, I moved to the downtown area where this job was located. I have a great view of said downtown from this place. I can afford to eat a meal out at least once a week in this downtown. I can walk to work and to those restaurants in less than 15 minutes. Also, I have a car. It’s paid off and I can get to where I need to go outside of downtown in about 15 minutes. My car can also get to the beach in 4 hours and the mountains in 3.5. There’s decent low-cost places to park it. Oh, and I went to grad school in this same place, with one year free and the other for less than $20,000. Oh, and the train station is right next door.

This is my hometown. I have to write its name with the state abbreviation beside it. It’s economically distressed in areas. There’s no light rail. There’s no Trader Joes (yet). My parents live within those 15 minutes.

It could be Anytown, USA, the Generic City.

I thought I’d be living somewhere else by now, but I don’t need to. Even with those drawbacks I listed in the paragraph above.

The New York Times recently published one of their famous stories of how recent college graduates are living in New York. New York for Americans and much of the world is probably the number one name-brand city. A lot of people in the comments claimed that those folks featured were trust fund babies. However, I see in some of these stories echoes of mine. This too is an article for those of us who are fortunate to be working a salaried job. To have state-school level student debt, if any at all. To have a parent who was able to take one in while one worked out their career issues.

My parents, a schoolteacher and an electrician, along with a few other family members and generous friends stepped in to help me out by providing shelter,food,entertainment, money advice and even a few extra dollars to help me get my car, furniture and the like. I call this the village effect. I know everyone has some kind of support network, even if it’s just social services. In the meantime, I went to a state school and financed it mostly through scholarships and grants, taking out loans,then paying back the differential of what I didn’t need. I did the same thing in grad school, only I lived at home and worked as a graduate assistant. In between I worked a few places, but nothing longer than 14 months or permanent. I made some financial mistakes, but I know now what I need to do to fix them. Now I live in a small, but solo apartment in a very nice area of downtown.

Yet, if I’d moved to New York City, or even Washington, DC, my true dream name-brand city, I don’t think I’d be in such good shape, unless I had a job with a crazy high salary. My equivalent job in New York pays exactly the same as it does here in North Carolina. Unfortunately, there’s no cost of living adjustment. On the subject of college, my loans would have eaten me alive. We are going to assume that I would not have received any financial aid, at either a public or private university.

I also think the NYT article echoes a need that some people have to move somewhere with action, but not necessarily with a job or a job that pays all the bills. What I advocate is for a person to move somewhere with a job, but close to a decent airport, train station, Megabus stop or cross-country interstate. If you are living somewhere where you have low rent, then you can save up to take vacations (paid or unpaid). If you are in a mid-sized, but well-located city like I am, a low paycheck goes a long way. Either way, a steady paycheck in this economy goes far longer that no money in a city that may be a name-brand, but with no job prospects for you.

Back to the negatives of this generic city for a minute. There are some missing stores, but they are coming (Trader Joes, we are still waiting). Yet, with that aside, being in this generic city, I know the powers-to-be who are bringing the store in and why we have yet to see it. I’ve also mentioned on my Facebook page about how our 35 year old co-op is moving downtown and assuming the role a Traders has in many a community.

Another negative factor is the local social scene. We are still more of a family town, but we do have singles activities if you look long and hard. For me, it’s taking the steps to one, accept that I have a different lifestyle and two, cultural events aren’t necessarily one-sized fits all.

Once again, this is an elitist article. This assumes that you have a decent job or job offers. You have a choice on where you live. No, scratch that, this is a real article. You only got one job offer and it’s not in that name-brand city you dream about every night. You love everything about your life besides the city on the line of your mailing address. However, in that generic city, you just might be living your dream life after all.

Cities, Durham, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Transportation, What is urban planning?

North Carolina- A Microcosm of the Nation

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North Carolina, my home state,represents a microcosm of the nation.

How does it do that? Land use,economic development patterns, and population.

Land Use

Within a 7 hour drive, one could be at the peak of a mountain or digging their feet under sea level. In between there are rivers, lakes, swamps, hills of red clay and sand and even a bit of desert. Both the Piedmont Triad(Greensboro and vicinity) and the Research Triangle have suffered from droughts, rendering many areas barren and some lakes empty. Contrary to popular belief, we also get snow. The mountains see it every year and in the Piedmont it’s been a welcome suprise roughly every other year. Even the coast has seen snow in my lifetime.

Economic Development and Patterns

Secondly, our cities and towns reflect all the major industry patterns of America. We have a finance capital (Charlotte), which has now staged a major international event in hosting the Democratic Convention. We have a Silicon Valley(Raleigh, Durham and the surrounding town/suburbs) which has created a major international network of technology and scientific innovation. It has also hosted an international event, the 2010 NHL All-Star Game. The midwestern former milltowns are evident in Greensboro. It struggles to recreate new industry, but has seen seeds of light, much like Detroit and Cleveland have. It also struggles with some sense of direction, much as Chicago is right now. Hollywood can be found down on the coast in Wilmington, which is also our state’s major port town. Some could bill Asheville as Portland, with slightly more mountain terrain and a little bit of bad racial history. Throughout the state major agricultural activity continues to occur, through traditional farms, organic farms and processing facilities.

Population

Population numbers tell us immediately we are All-American and all-global. Greensboro and Durham are one of the largest refugee resettlement areas in the United States. For many years, migrant workers have filled our remaining farms, processing centers and mills with cheap labor. According to Hannah Gill, a Research Associate at the Center for Global Initiatives and Assistant Director at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Latino population of North Carolina has doubled since 2000 and it’s not all from migrants or from births. Black roots in North Carolina stretch from all over the state. I’ve not known of a place where we do not exist. I have country relatives and I’m not my family’s only urbanist. The Lumbee, the Cherokee and other native tribes have a rich history here, which cannot be ignored or erased. Indus Region natives are congregating around the technology firms of the Research Triangle. I could go on and on about all the people from different places, but I would be going on for hours. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there is someone in this state, either temporarily or permanently, from every nation on this planet. If they aren’t here now, then they’ve been here at one point.

One moment to address the The South’s ugly head. It lives in places throughout the state, places that industry left years ago, that poverty has ravaged and that leaders seem to believe don’t need help at all (at least not publlicly). There’s still our purple politics (blue in the major cities, red elsewhere).Lastly, it’s seen in our tenuous relationship with race as it comes to who who deserves opportunities to grow. Oh and let’s not mention school funding and redistricting and the continuous practices of sprawl. Amendment One. That bit of the Old South still makes us southern.

Which comes to my wrap-up here. North Carolina may be south of the Mason-Dixon line, but we are not ambiguous or limitless or lifeless, or all bad. We may not have Major League Baseball, but all the other professional sports are here and there’s always the Durham Bulls, they were famous, right? Rail transit’s on it’s way. The option to live, work and play in a dense area is alive, especially in Charlotte with it’s mainstream, full service grocery and downtown Target. I can always go down to my grandparents and plant a garden and get a feel of the land. I’ve not been mistreated and when I am, I keep on walking down the street. My job, my home, my degrees and my family are not harmed by one person’s act of hate. Yes, there are still folks that can say that, but so can folks in a lot of other states. We are not alone in needing to address residual race, class and sexual orientation issues.

At the end of the day, I hope all of you got a good taste of why I like calling North Carolina home. Also I hope you have seen why you may also be calling North Carolina home, no matter where you live.

Greensboro

Actually Being Urban Part #3-Working Downtown

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For the past three months, I’ve been engaged in my third experience of working in a dense, downtown environment.

Hands down this has been my best experience and the most personally fulfilling. I work to promote the presentation and the funding of humanities projects throughout the state of North Carolina. This means that I get to travel out of the office very frequently, occasionally visiting nice old main streets and the growing, modern downtowns. I’ve met all these wonderful creative people inside and outside of the office. Yet, I don’t have to travel to enjoy my job. Much of my enjoyment comes from being able to work in a dense, vibrant environment. There are three main benefits though to having this job in relation to the urbanist experience.

Benefit #1 is with transportation. With living downtown, I have the option to drive or not to drive. When the weather is nice, I walk the five blocks to work. When the weather is bad or when I know I’m going to need to leave downtown as soon as work is done, I only have a three minute drive to a parking deck which is paid for by my office. I have yet to take my bike out, but that’s also an option. One of my colleagues walks daily, rain or shine to work and speaks of how it helps him clear his head. Another takes the train in from the RTP area periodically and uses the time in between the work and  train schedules to get caught up on work and enjoy bits and pieces of downtown Greensboro. All the others drive, but appreciate being able to park so close to our building without having to pay out of pocket.

Benefit #2 is the variety of experiences. It’s not unheard of for me to run into one of my old grad school classmates who works at city hall, an old family friend on their day off or even one of my colleagues who managed to slip out to lunch before me. And then there are street musicians, canvassers and other out of the box types you don’t necessarily expect in Greensboro. Unfortunately, the vibrancy of downtown is not continuous. On my morning walks downtown feels like a ghost town. Other nights it’s almost too packed out with people. Yet, even when I’m the only one walking down the street, I appreciate the store windows and their event announcements, perfectly styled clothing and enticing food smells making me decide even before breakfast what I want to eat for lunch or even dinner.

My third and final benefit is that our office windows face out to the Center City Park. When I don’t feel like walking all the way home at lunch, I come down here and seek solace on one of the many park benches. A couple of other colleagues are the same way. While sitting there, I bear witness to the true diversity of the people of Greensboro. There are the men who appear to be retired and come down to talk jive to each other. There are the children whose parents bring them to run around the fountain. On Wednesday’s at noon there’s live music and if I stay late enough there’s exercise by the fountain on Monday’s and Wednesdays. Ultimately, the park is a nice break from being stuck upstairs all day, especially since my particular office does not  have a window, nor the downtown view. That’s ok. I’d spend most of my time staring out the window and failing to get actual work done.

As a child, I always imagined myself going to work downtown. I’ve done stints of work in office parks and on campuses. They have their perks, but nothing to me says “I’m going to work” like working downtown.

Wonder how else I’ve “been urban”, check out parts 1, and 2 here. Photo above I took in August of 2011 of my office building and the surrounding park and parking deck I occasionally use. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

apartment living, Durham, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, tips for urbanist living

Actually Being Urban #2- Finding Diversity and Cleaning Clothes At the Laundromat

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So your clothes are dirty. The hamper is overflowing. No big deal right? The washer and dryer are in the closet. Or maybe you have to lug them downstairs, but nevertheless,  laundry machines are never too far away. Unless you are me and living in Downtown Greensboro, without the rental machines that cost way too much to rent. I tried to put it off, but I knew eventually I’d have to trek out to the laundromat.

Most bonafide urban dwellers either have machines in the basement or they have a nearby (read: walking distance) laundromat that they can use. Yet, here in Greensboro, there are no real downtown laundries. The closest one, near a gas station, with free dryers, just happened to be out of order on Sunday. (After this revelation, I took advantage of being out in the car and got a breakfast biscuit- another only-in- a-car-dependent-place “luxury.”) I then went to the laundry/bar near campus. It looked dreary, so I drove on past it. After circiling through another laundry parking lot where I saw questionable looking men(as a woman, I don’t take too many chances. I hate to label folks on looks, but these men looked like prunes and not in a good way). I finally settled on a place with older machines, but next door to an Ace Hardware store. It was a very diverse crowd, the machines were very clean to be so old and it only cost me $9 to do the bulk of my laundry.

As you can see with this paragraph above, there are a lot of issues and lessons when it comes to doing laundry here in the city of Greensboro. Here are the major ones:

–Non-drivers with no laundry machines are really out of luck– Not completely, there’s always loading laundry on the bus. I’m sure folks do it in other places. However, where I live, going to a public laundromat (versus one in the basement of a building) signals even more than the act of being on the bus in the first place that something may be amiss. None of these stereotypes should even be a factor. Going to do laundry should just be going to do laundry. Only, instead of owning machines, you rent them and not for $45 a month.

–Assuming that everyone living downtown is affluent enough to have their own machines is a failure in logic.– There should be more chances to share machines at my apartment complex. After all, laundry is for many, not just myself, a bi-monthly or monthly exercise. Also, if enough people have dry cleaning, a managed apartment complex or condo building could either operate it’s own dry cleaners/laundromat or make special arrangements with a nearby one. I think it’s great that we have the option to hook up machines, but the $45 per month rental fee for those who don’t could be better used to provide professional laundry services or self-serve laundry. Or even better, provide dry cleaning and automatically provide laundry machines, like my old apartment in Durham did.

–The laundromat is one of the most diverse spaces of commerce– I consider it a space of commerce because I had to pay for the use of my machines. However, this is more of a service than a place that encourages mass consumption such as a Walmart or even a mall/lifestyle center. Anyway, you can meet all types of people from all walks of life. You can also take time away from your busy schedule and dig into a book or writing as you wait for your clothes to wash and dry. It is this part of the experience that turns the laundromat into a great third space and what I enjoyed most about my experience.

Ultimately, I learned that there is no shame in going to the laundromat. I knew that anyway, but being in a place that cultivates that shame makes it tough. I did my laundry in 3 short hours(as compared to 5-10 when using home machines). I caught up on reading. I saw people that I wouldn’t normally see. And I got one step closer to actually being urban.

The picture above is the actual laundromat I patronized. Share your laundromat stories, theories and ideas on my Facebook and Twitter pages.

Arts Districts, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living

Strengthening and Creating the Urban Arts District

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From my observations, downtowns across America live and die by their arts institutions. I know this is the case in Greensboro. We are currently debating the need for a new performing arts center downtown, thanks to the need to update our current civic center auditorium and the opportunity to pay down debts.

Yet, if we are not careful, this will become a misguided initiative, much like Nathaniel Hood has stated in his tome against entertainment districts. I believe that arts districts must be organic and cater to already established needs. Thankfully, there are arts leaders in Greensboro who are also like-minded.

This past week, (July 8-14 of 2012) I ran across an article in the News and Record, our local major paper. A former mayor of ours, Keith Holiday, is now  the executive director of the Carolina Theater, a historic venue that hosts old movies, the Greensboro Opera and a few other local dance, drama, and music productions. Occasionally the venue gets national performers such as Roberta Flack for intimate theater style shows that can’t quite fill the civic center auditorium.

In this article, he touts a plan to build a bigger theater space, similar to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), directly behind the Carolina Theater space. This space is a parking lot owned by the City of Greensboro. The article above has a rendering of what this space would look like. Also included would be a new black box theater on the top two floors of the facility and an outdoor performance space between the two venues.

While this does create a large scale complex, management would be in two hands. These hands are the Carolina Theater(which is nonprofit) and the City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department(government). Also, there are two other theater companies, that also operate as nonprofits, downtown. Combining these with the existing art galleries, dance studios and live music venues, Downtown Greensboro already has an organic arts district. This arts district also incorporates public space and public engagement.

Honestly, because of the abundance of these spaces, we really only need the DPAC sized venue. In addition to the downtown spaces, the universities in town have performance venues. Although not considered traditional arts venues, the NewBridge Bank Park (home to our minor league baseball team), as well as Center City Park, are also worthy of being considered performance space in the downtown area. And then there’s the coliseum complex where the aforementioned civic center auditorium, as well as an arena and several flexible event spaces also reside.

Still, as stated in the News and Record article, there is need for more arts space. There are many people creating and crafting and there can never be enough space for them. In addition, they are generating jobs and a new economy. Coupled with the growing crafters movement, bloggers like myself and traditional creative fields such as architecture, Florida’s creative class is actually alive and well.

Ultimately, an arts district:
– Builds from the bottom-up
– Incorporates and take stock of existing venues, uses and companies
– Thinks ahead, but incorporates all performers and connoisseurs past and present.
– Entertains and feeds the soul

Note that none of these factors mention economic development. I know that this is the cause célèbre of arts venues right now in light of being harassed and pressed by government entities and funders to be self-sustaining. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be a good financial steward. Yet, I am charging cities to think about creating cultural capital and cultural value, then watch the money pour in.
And as I’ve stated before, you cannot be willing to create unless you are willing to fail first.

Since this article was first published, a plan was enacted to use space formally utilized by the YWCA, adjacent to the central branch of the Greensboro Public Library, after a public charette was held to solicit feedback from residents. Many resident-generated ideas ended up in the final recommendation from that charette.

apartment living, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living, Traveling as An Urbanist

Please Excuse My Absence…I’ve Been On a Journey

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I had no intention of leaving the blog idle for this long. Yet, occasionally, living the actual life of an urbanist gets in the way of being able to write about it.

Yet while away from my urbanist pen, I was able to experience two key events that I think have major significance in the creation of community on a micro and a macro level.

The first is that I finalized my move into Downtown Greensboro. The picture above is from my balcony window. Every day I witness all manner of trains and buses ferry people and things across the state and potentially across the country. Just beyond the train depot (which has been beautifully restored in the last few years), the skyline buildings of Greensboro and our main street slant out and appear to dance before my eyes.

Ok, this is where I stop and admit I have an unnatural love for good urban architecture. But so do a lot of you reading this page, so I’ll carry on.

On the other hand, there’s the instance of travel, the journeys we all undertake in life. At work it is a focus of a traveling Smithsonian exhibit we are sponsoring. I went down to rural eastern North Carolina to help promote the new exhibit last month. I had a great time getting to know my still new colleagues and seeing how it’s really going down in what we call “Down East”. I found a charming main street in one town and the appearance of suburban sprawl like development in the other. There was also a healthy dose of jingoism. The hotel where we stayed was built by the Murphy Family, a pork dynasty that wanted to have a hotel and state-of-the-art Irish bar to entertain people. There was also a master planned upscale retirement community nearby.

Now that I’m finally back home, settled and almost unpacked, I can really soak in what’s going to come next in my chapter as a black urbanist. I see five new elements of my urban experience.

  • Gentrification– I am a professional black person, living in an area that was targeted and won slum clearance just a few short years ago. Now although the neighborhood resembles the French Quarter and also appears to have similar dynamics of race (who lives there, what people do, etc.)
  • Gated communities– When I signed the lease, I forgot that our buildings have controlled access hallways. I appreciate the layer of safety, but I am still not in favor of gating communities down in lieu of dealing with why people feel the need to steal. Are we providing a good economy so that people can have their own stuff and let people have their own stuff?
  • Walking as a primary mode of transportation– I’ve looked forward to this the most. However, in reality, there are many days where I regret having elected to make the 15 minute walk in the 90 and sometimes 100+ degree heat. Yet, I know that once the weather gets cooler, walking is going to help me arrive at the office settled and help me shake off the office when I get home. Plus, my gas hand has sat at a half tank for over a week now. Walking will become less and less of an issue as time goes on. I’ve also noticed how little people actually walk around here too. I’ll be addressing that in a future post.
  • Biking– My dad worked some magic and my old bike is now fully functional. Looking forward to riding it to work and to going out on trails with family and friends. I’ll also be able to advocate even better for bike and pedestrian safety and I’m fully engaged in these modes of transportation.
  • Trains– At least 10 trains come right in front of my house daily. Some I love to see, such as the Amtrak trains. Others are just noisy and I’m thankful that they don’t wake me up. I often sit on my balcony and watch them go by, as well as the city buses coming into what is our multi-modal depot. They also serve as the foreground for the background of our city skyline you see above. I hope to take the train again one day soon to points north, south and east, since it’s now right in my front yard and will add to my urban experience.

Now, that’s settled. Let me get back to living and I look forward to a greater richness in my writings now that I’m finally in the environment I’ve written on and loved on so much.

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas

The Real Failure of the Creative Class Is the Fear of Failure

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Seeing Richard Florida speak at CNU 20 last month, all I could think about was one thing and one thing only:

He rated Greensboro, which in addition to being my current city is my hometown, 41 of 49 in his original list of large creative class cities.

No, it’s not the bottom of the barrel, but I have friends in Memphis who are just as discontented with him for being 49. From what I’ve heard of them, their number could be misguided as well. It doesn’t matter that those numbers are eleven years old. They still hurt.

That hurt has me doing a lot of work to prove Florida wrong. Hence why I always come down on city rankings. I’m still somewhat insecure about my city, but I know I’m wrong to be. I write this blog to help clear my head and keep it moving.

At the end of the day, thanks to this self-reflection, I don’t think I’m the problem. Nor is Greensboro in itself. We have art, we have theaters, and we have vibrant gay and immigrant communities. We are gaining jobs among young professionals. We’ve assessed our arts impact. And our alt-weekly newspaper has put this creative class issue front and center this week and will continue to do so at least for the next two years.

So what is the real failure of the creative class?

It is the fear of failure.

A colleague of mine (and friend of the blog) stated this fear so eloquently in a meeting this week. Basically, he reminded myself and others that we should not be in the business of not wanting to create or present ideas just because they could be rejected. He went on to say we should be mindful of how we let opinions and attitudes into our organization that discourage creativity and the creative process. This process includes failure.

I want to take his words a step further and apply them to the community as a whole.

We have to be willing to create and fail, along with our success. We are so focused on making sure our reputations, our money and the illusions of both stay in tact so much that we miss the need to mess up sometimes.

When we talk about a creative class, we must first look introspectively and be willing to support a true creative process.

We must not laugh at our city’s shortcomings (or at least not laugh for long). We must not abandon our properties or let them become slums because we are too cheap to make them any better. We must not assume that a property is a slum because the house is painted purple and the grass spray painted orange (that is if you do have a single-family home, same goes for odd windows, apartment buildings and signage).

We do need to put our money where our mouth is. If you have abundance, be willing to give to create something better. Realize though that not all of your money will be a good return on investment. However, that’s not to say that it never will.

And finally, remember that on paper, any F can be turned into an A. Let’s start doing that in our communities and fortifying the true sense of the creative class.

The photo above, taken by me on Elm Street in Greensboro, is one of the alt-weekly’s newspaper containers. I think it illustrates perfectly what we need to do to get over this creative class hurdle. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Twitter.

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, tips for urbanist living

Does PseudoSuburbanist Equal Hipster?

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As we all browsed Emily Badger’s Atlantic Cities post on her own civic inferiority complex last week, the question above was in quite a few heads, namely my own. Now, I attempt to sort through all the good and bad things that this idea provokes.

First, a primer to this discussion. Take a look at the Urban Dictionary’s definition of hipster and pseudo-hipster. The former is admittedly a new word for what was once known as bohemian culture in decades past. In essence, there has always been a counterculture and hipster is just a new name for it. Yet, the latter definition really intrigued me. I had no clue that it was on the site before I went there. However, upon a closer inspection, I find that this type of person may also be our true Pseudosuburbanist.

This person is going along with the hipster trend because it is the thing to do, no different than how people fell into the suburban pattern of living. Chuck Marhon has a good post up about this type of thinking and how it created and continues to perpetrate the suburban pattern.

While Badger may have defined herself as a pseudosuburbanist a little differently than I will here, the concepts that she discussed can also be identified as pseudosuburbanist problems. If one is comfortable with where they live, no matter what people say about the place, then the technicality of suburb vs. city vs. rural town vs. town-that-used-to-be-independent-until-a-bigger-city-sprouted-up-beside-it is irrelevant.

Let me insert a quick reminder that the real problem with our cities is that walkability, transit connectivity and safe housing are not available for everyone, no matter the income level and the skinniness of jeans.

However, to get back to the idea of PseudoSuburbanist=Hipster, we also need to address the trendiness of coming back to the city. This weekend, I attended a cultural festival that had over 5,000 attendants in a city of 270,000. That’s a picture from it at the top of the post. I think it was great that so many people came downtown, including my own mom, who hadn’t been down there in some years. Yet, are these people coming downtown for the right reasons? Would they come downtown even if it was only quirky stores? Would they come down in some places if it didn’t look like the Design District or SoHo? Will these same people who love this “downtown lifestyle” stay past their children growing older?

In some cases people are staying behind. They are improving their schools, adding playgrounds and also interacting with multiple cultures and generations.

Yet, there are far too many people who are gentrifying areas to the point that some slums now have a neo-suburban feel. Not all of this is the fault of the people themselves. It’s the fault of the old real estate adages, some of which are still codified into housing covenants. The most offensive of these adages is that Anglo=value and non-Anglo group= poor and less valuable. Also, a clean neighborhood isn’t bad, unless clean means more white people and less people of other cultures, no matter their income level or style of living.

I think this is the pseudosuburbanism and pseudohipsterism that we really need to concern ourselves with. Otherwise, here’s to hipsterism. It’s high time the mainstream culture start to accept that it’s a salad bowl and not a melting pot. And this PseudoSuburbanist concept? That wouldn’t even exist and that’s not a bad thing.

Photo above was shot by myself, with my new hipster toy of the moment, my Apple iPhone. Want to challenge my logic? Start by visiting me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.