Category Archives: Greensboro

Brooklyn, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, The Thursday List

The Thursday List: News and Views for the Week of May 21, 2012

I’ve wanted to do this for a while, but came up with all kinds of excuses. No more. Even if this is just a public way for me to clear my thoughts on a few articles that have come past my inbox, news feed and stream, then here it is.

However, before I launch in to everyone else’s news, here are my two shameless plugs for my latest post on when it’s ok to quit a city and my e-book on how to make things better. Thank you for supporting both endeavors. For those of you still scratching your heads on what all this means, subsequent editions of the book will introduce more concise definitions and straightforward action steps for your community. I’m not going to put a timeline, but do expect a bigger edition sometime before the end of this calendar year.

Now on to the news:

It’s really sad that going to school on a bike is grounds for suspension and in some cases jail. Many of us saw the Grist article, but it’s this Bicycling.com article that really drives the point home that something needs to be done. It also exposes how little people in the government sector want to collaborate. Holding a master of public administration, I know that in theory this is not the way things should be, but it’s the way we have chosen in recent years to get things done. Yet, I commend anyone who seeks to take public action who’s just a private citizen trying to do the right thing.

The Huffington Post yesterday highlighted just that. Aurash Khawarzad, who I had the pleasure of meeting at CNU 19 in Madison, is the focus of a wonderful article on Do Tank, the tactical urbanism organization and a new organization called Change Administration, which seeks to deal with gentrification by hipsters dead on. Like it or not, even some of the tactical projects can be disruptive to already existing community norms and rituals. However, that doesn’t have to happen. Khawarzad cites his neighborhood and surrounding areas in Brooklyn as examples of how diverse many of our communities are, but how we also have an obligation as privileged people to do what we can to help save communities. I hope to lend my support to this effort and similar ones across the country that are dealing with distressed areas.

Lastly, my home state continues to exhibit examples of my 12 Legit reasons to leave. Case in point, a man who after peacefully demonstrating his desire to not have a Confederate statue replaced in his town, this man’s tires on his business vehicle were destroyed and his car and business were also vandalized, with obscenities related to the president sprayed on them. The man is still pushing on, showing that sometimes, even when it’s past time to leave, you have to keep soldiering on.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend everyone. Be sure to follow me on Instagram and my soon to be revived Tumblr to explore the environment in my own eyes.

Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, tips for urbanist living

Twelve Legit Reasons To Leave Your City (#urbanism #cities #cplan #tacticalurbanism)

Last week, I presented the case on Killing the Civic Inferiority Complex at CNU 20. I also released a companion e-book. It is part picture book of my hometown of Greensboro, NC and part self-help book for those who are having serious issues with the municipality they reside in. All of it is my case for people to find the lights and stop looking at the negatives on the ground in their city.

However, I wanted to go ahead and address reasons why you should NOT remain in a place. Some negatives(and one lone positive) are too much to overcome. Those twelve reasons are as follows:

1. You do not have a job or the job you have does not pay the bills.
2.You cannot start a legit business or the one you have is going bankrupt.
3. Your civil rights (ethnicity, religious, sexual, property) are constantly threatened.
4. Your children’s schools and community activities are failures, no matter the location or operators or actions taken to change these situations.
5. Your parents are treated poorly at their senior centers, despite constant reports and calls and action taken at their facilities.
6. No one, not the police, not the neighbors, not even the code of the street, is keeping your home and your family safe.
7. Your home, be it rental or “owned” or owned is costing you more than it is worth to live in and there are no other affordable areas that are safe, walkable and near jobs and transit.
8. Transit, walkability and other things designated as good placemaking are non-existent and will not be without significant financial burden, or wholesale government changes.
9. Everyone hates you and no longer wants to listen to your ideas for making changes.
10.Your physical and mental health are endangered to the point where you are spending more time popping pills, going to doctors and hospitals and avoiding certain ailment triggers than going out in the community and being happy.
11. Your attempts to find unknown lights failed or are severely thwarted by one of the above.
12. The most positive of them all, you are granted educational, career or some other once in a lifetime opportunity in another municipality.

So, I want to know, could someone still kill a civic inferiority complex in one or more of the above situations? Let me know via The Black Urbanist Facebook Page, @blackurbanist on Twitter or the comments section below. You may end up in the next edition of Killing the Civic Inferiority Complex, in which I’ll discuss these reasons in more detail.

Blog image courtesy of Blush Printables under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Greensboro, Traveling as An Urbanist

CNU, Seeing the Future

Three major things are going on with me right now. The first is that I completed my masters of public affairs! For the last two years, I’ve been studying urban policy from the inside out with a wonderful group of classmates and challenging teachers. It was in an urban policy class that I decided that it wasn’t enough to wax philosophical about placemaking, I needed to tell the world that I was a proud black urbanist.

That declaration led to an article in Grist, which led to a week of sharing ideas last year in Madison, Wisconsin that changed my life. This year, I’m about to get on a plane to West Palm Beach, FL to do it all again.

That gathering, the Congress of New Urbanism, is celebrating its 20th gathering this year. Anyone who has been knows that this is not your average trade show. From bringing back the traditional small town to putting a tent over a bus stop to make it a more humane place to wait, to people who recognize the public health benefits of a more vibrant, dense lifestyle, this thing we call urbanism or placemaking extends past the bricks and the sidewalks and into the hearts of many attendees.

That’s what I will be talking about on Saturday morning in a session on Tactical Urbanism, Economics and Community. My presentation, Killing the Civic Inferiority Complex, will offer steps to help communities of any size and stature take the resources they do have and put their minds together to make them awesome. I’m presenting with a number of place-making rockstars. I’m not sure about video for this session, but if you are in West Palm Beach, you should come to our session after the Saturday plenary at 10:45.

I’ll also be keeping a journal of my experiences at CNU 20 for Next American City. Be sure to bookmark the site for my twice-daily dispatches from West Palm Beach(and the various destinations in-between). I’ll also post teasers here so you won’t miss a thing. And check out this CNU 19 recap while you are at it.

After I get home from WPB, I’ll start my tenure with the NC Humanities Council on the 15th. Looking forward to helping communities find the funding to bring museum exhibits, neighborhood histories and neighborhood book talks alive, among other things. This job will also allow me to live, work and play in Downtown Greensboro.

So here it is, three weeks, three life changing events. Thanks again for reading folks and I look forward to seeing many of you later this week!

Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas

Maybe It’s Not the Food Itself, It’s The Way We Eat

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This morning I saw not just one, but two articles on the food desert issue. Both articles talked about previously hashed arguments on food deserts, as well as new research that suggested that the accepted solution of more supermarkets in poor areas does not work as planned.

I think it’s more than the presence of food, but how we eat. This goes for people who eat everything in sight, as well as people who nearly starve themselves or only eat a certain type of food.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have healthy diets. In fact, that’s exactly what I am saying. But we should stop policing only those who are poor who often eat what’s in front of them, just like we do.

Plus, who really wants to admit they are poor. Eating for some people may be a form of upward mobility. It may be because stuff just tastes better. It may be emotional. It may be cultural. Not all these reasons have to do with the fact that there is or isn’t a Whole Foods around the corner.

Side note of the day: I may be getting fat off of Spinach Artichoke Hummus and Sweet Potato Biscuits, but that’s just me

Still,just as I did above, I can admit that sometimes I eat or drink too much. If that stat that was sited in both articles about poor people eating better than rich in the 1950’s, maybe it’s more than the location and even the cheapness of food. As a whole, despite all our healthy living efforts, we still prioritize and celebrate eating what we want, as much as we want, whenever we want.

If people are wanting to be rich and they see how “rich people” act and that is stuffing their faces, then they will stuff their faces. They will go to Whole Foods with EBT cards. As they have already done, they will lobby and get farmers markets in their communities.

Instead of saying that healthy eating is good, maybe tell everyone that it’s bad. Or, use whole grain cookies or something else that’s delicious and healthy as bait. Maybe we could go back to tilling fields or walking blocks or between cul-de-sacs, depending on which tradition you grew up in.

Ultimately, I think the time of blaming only poor people for their food choices is over. Unless we are doing it all right all the time, let’s just make sure we all go to the doctor, get in our 8 glasses of water and mix in some fruit today.

The photo above is of an establishment that has finally decided to make itself known in Greensboro. I repeat again, this place can also make you fat(and broke)  if you aren’t careful. Keep up with me on Facebook, Twitter and now Instagram, where the lovely image above originated.

apartment living, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living

Actually Being Urban Part 1- Apartment Finding

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I’ve been fortunate in the past three weeks to obtain full time employment. What that means is that I finally get to put into practice a lot of the things I preach on this blog and retweet out to others on the social sites. You will also notice a few minor site changes(better tags, better pictures) and hopefully more real stories of what it’s like to live a more urban lifestyle in a suburbanesque locale. In this post I will discuss my apartment search.

Let’s start simple. The top five things I want in an apartment are as follows:

1.    Doors to private areas
2.    Balcony
3.    Second floor
4.    Closet space
5.    Low energy bills

That would be inside the apartment. On the exterior, these are my top five:

1.    Proximity to places I need to go on a daily basis
2.    Fitness Center
3.    Bike facilities
4.    Camaraderie of neighbors and management staff
5.    Proximity to fun activities, walking distance preferred, no more than 3 mile drive away from fun stuff unless it’s truly spectacular(other cities, cultural events, opportunities to speak and network with others)

Going into this, I knew the best option for my wishlist was downtown in a new development called CityView. I’d visited the apartments before, but considering a roommate. Now, I was visiting for myself only and I wanted to make sure things were still cool. Also, I’d heard that there were solid concrete floors in the apartments. I was not a fan of this idea and I needed to investigate that problem as well.

Side rant: If you are putting a feature in just to be “urban” and it’s not practical. STOP. You look stupid and even I as an urbanist don’t buy it.

Yet, in touring the “studio”, I was told that there is carpet in the bedrooms and some laminate wood in the living room on the second and third floors. There are also doors to the bedroom. Two in fact. I was sold.

Or so I thought. I got home and I thought about how dark the place seemed. When I lived in Durham, I had light surrounding my place. Even in my childhood bedroom, and throughout my mom’s house there is abundant light. I needed to look at a couple of other places. I am adding light to both of my lists above.

I won’t name the other three complexes, but it’s not because they are evil. They are in great locations(two are walking distance to a lot of big box and even some college style retail, the other is a little closer to what will be my office downtown). Their staff was super nice and didn’t look at me like I had horns when I wanted to tour their complexes. I learned valuable information from all three on general apartment maintenance and money-saving tips.

It was a 15 minute walk on a stressful day that helped me make my decision. From the time I ran track as a high school student, to migrating across campus for a student government meeting or a movie at the campus cinema (or class, I did a lot of that, but they were closer to my dorm), I found solace in walking or running. I knew that if I chose CityView, it would make no sense for me to drive most days of the week to work. I tend to play downtown as well and all of my playhouses would be on the way to my house. I would be able to blow off pressure from work. I could squeeze in a midday walk home. If I wanted to cut time, I could get my bike back and actually ride it this time.

Then the staff was really, really nice, offering discounts and an opportunity to waitlist until the perfect unit (one that actually does face the city, as some don’t) came available. I kept finding out acquaintances of mine that I think highly of would be neighbors. I toured the sample apartment again and someone was just moving in. I saw that all my furniture (which is very few pieces) would fit and that light would in fact come into the apartment, if it weren’t for facing another one of the buildings in the complex. All the pieces of my vision were coming together. (Including the closet space. One closet is just shelves, the other is hangers. If you know me well, you know that this is the perfect balance).

So in July, I will officially be standing in my front yard, as I am in the picture above. I will be a true urban dweller. And this idea of being a black urbanist will no longer be a total illusion. Plus, I get to tell more stories of what it’s like to live, work and play in the CBD of a smaller, more suburban city.

Photo credit above by the lovely Stephanie Eaton. Please check out her work. If you are in the Greensboro area, she would love to make you look as good as she has me. Also, don’t forget Twitter and Facebook where I keep the peeps informed.

Greensboro, Photospiration

Photoinspiration: Down on the Farm (and a Little Piece of the City Too…)

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For those of you who were wondering what the land is like down at my grandparents, here are a few pictures from this past  Easter Sunday. I missed you guys last week, but trust me, there’s a good reason coming up on why I was absent. I’m looking forward to some great discussion on the post that results in that week, but until then, I leave you with some pictures of my grandparents farm.

Just beyond the old house there is where the strawberries and corn fields were. One of my great aunts lived in this house when I was little. Later on it became family storage. Also, the grapevine I mentioned in that post was between the tree stump and the remaining tree.

I wish we owned this land just past the fence there. Next to that shed there was a section that was the green patch. Otherwise, my grandfather kept his lawn equipment there. Just to the left outside the frame is my grandparents house.(Nothing super special, average 3 bedroom 1 bath 1960’s spectacular, but the large kitchen is the heart of our family gatherings.

This is our side field. I can’t remember what was here, but now it’s a great spare yard to take advantage of high winds and fly kites, as we did this Easter. Look at my mom’s skills.


Also, check out the Facebook page. I recently had a photo shoot in Downtown Greensboro and I have a few of those photos up. Above is one that is a little too big for Facebook, but perfect for right here on the blog. Thanks again to Stephanie Eaton Photography for a great shoot

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Raleigh

The Urban Hierarchy is Dead

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The urbanist blogosphere has been on fire again over this idea of an urban hierarchy . I love Aaron Renn’s commentary as a whole he’s traditionally highlighted small cities. I also believe that he’s only digging deeper into what others have already said, namely Richard Florida, on the state of our cities.

However, I believe that we err when we stick with this idea that cities are in a rigid hierarchy. We are learning that rigid hierarchies don’t always work well in the corporate and even the governmental sectors. Why do we still lean on them for our cities? Also, why leave out farmland, dense suburbs, watersheds and even outer space? Are we not influenced by these places as well? Do these places not contribute to the growth and prosperity of the inhabitants of Earth?

Kenan Friki over at the New Republic has a similar response to mine. He even gives a shoutout to my current hometown and my adopted one as well, for different reasons. Based on two different, but popular sets of city rankings (export capacity and patent filings) Greensboro and Raleigh are in the top ten. None of the other articles even address North Carolina and its growing popularity as a place to go to college, retire or start businesses. Let us not forget there are also growing placemaking movements here.

The point is, we are no longer in a rigid, true hierarchy of urban areas. Yes, media outlets, the federal government, stock traders, car companies and film stars may concentrate in certain areas, but these areas are more concentrations and gatherings than they are true indicators of influence.

We are a network of places. Some are smaller than others. Some have higher concentrations of different people than others. However, at the end of the day, if one of these network nodes fell off, then we’d all be hurt. For some this hurt would be nothing more than a pinch. Others would be dead. However, there should not be pain, not in a world that still has creativity and innovation despite its dwindling amount of natural resources.

The key to this network of places is first the internet. A dancing pig eating chicken could influence the entire world in seconds. I wrote this post in my childhood bedroom in a mid-sized Southeastern US city that’s had its economy shaken and that people can’t always point out on a map. Unless the power shuts completely off, constant connectivity of myself and that dancing pig is a given.

Secondly, expenses notwithstanding, there are multiple, working transportation technologies to get people around the world. A person can be on the other side of the world within 36 hours. During this trip, they only change timezones, but fail to lose connectivity to information for long periods of time thanks to airport wi-fi if they choose to travel that way.

What makes this connectivity and collaboration shaky is not the rankings of cities, but first the inability to truly respect diversity of thought, person or style. We also have forgotten how to build communities so that the private and the public exist, but don’t overpower each other. We have ceded financial control over to too few entities and we let these entities stop us from expressing our true role as a citzen-driven democracy, at least in the United States. Too many people live in poverty worldwide. We are letting far too many people devolve into stupidity.

I am no longer driven by this urban hierarchy. Especially since so many rankings have poor margins of error and hardly any external validity. I am concerned more about what happens when too many nodes go dark. A whole dark region of nodes or even all the nodes but two (NY or DC) going dark is still a problem. Let’s think about what we all bring to the table as PLACES and PEOPLE.

After all when the lights go out, that’s all that’s left.

Greensboro, Photospiration

Photospiration: Foust Building on the Campus of UNC-Greensboro

The academy. That place where scholars go to learn and grow and thrive.

This picture reflects an image that represents  my second round in the academy. Many people believe that state universities only have mid-century modern, ill-designed buildings. Yet, they’ve never visited either of my alma maters, among a number of the other 16 campuses in the UNC system.  It is in the shadow of buildings like this where I live livability. It’s in this particular shadow where the seed for this very site was born.

And for that, I am grateful.

Photospiration. Me taking time to reflect on the places I’ve been, the places that make me, visions I have that affect my practice. Also, don’t forget to mark your calendars to see me and tell me what you think of the site. Also, join me on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter if you haven’t already. Unless specified, all photos are shot by myself.

Greensboro, Photospiration

Photospiration: The Lincoln National Building in Downtown Greensboro

If I had to pick one building to cite as my inspiration to write about cities, it’s the one above. For those of you who read this story, you know that the one thing I missed the most when sick with the chicken pox was the site of this building. All I had to do as a child was get on my bike and ride up to the corner, push down my kickstand, and there it was, shining in pure glory.

The photo above was taken a few months ago. I can’t remember exactly where I was going. My many community activities bring me to Downtown Greensboro often. I do know that I had a few extra moments alone and decided to shoot a few photos. I’m a block south, the International Civil Rights Museum is to my immediate right outside the frame. Governmental Plaza is on the left.

There’s nothing like 28 stories to overwhelm someone on the ground. You may look at that number and laugh. It’s ok, I’ve been to New York, I know that number is a drop in the pan. However, one must stop and think about the feat of putting homes, offices, schools, stores and the like in sequence one after another, nearly as high as the sky.

Anyway, I would like for you to meet Photospiration. Me taking time to reflect on the places I’ve been, the places that make me, visions I have that affect my practice. Also, don’t forget to mark your calendars to see me and tell me what you think of the site. Also, join me on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter if you haven’t already. Unless specified, all photos are shot by myself.

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas

Five Ways to Kill the Inferiority Complex in Community Building

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Loser

I think a major layer of community building is the inferiority complex. I’m seeing it again as we are preparing to welcome Trader Joes into our community. We spend too much time thinking we need to spend money on expensive stadiums and art centers to be more urbane. If we are over that demon, we bemoan not having an H&M, Shake Shack, Trader Joes or whatever chain store, restaurant or “hot new establishment” that likes to over-hype themselves and make us think we are less than as a city without them.

I like to break down the battle within our civic psyches as the recognition of the setting and the unknown lights. I define the setting as the physical, cultural and emotional space of our cities, that other people compare and judge. It’s what already exists, but we see as being mundane or even demeaning. The unknown lights can also be mundane for some, but they are more positive activities. They are also activities that would be celebrated, if they were in a different form or from a different place.

For my hometown of Greensboro, the setting is:
-A mid sized city (270,000) in the traditional United States South (North Carolina)
-Economic devastation, brought on by the loss of textile manufacturing, something that established Greensboro as a worldwide leader.
-Racial polarization, from key incidents in 1960, 1979 and as city residents have lost jobs and look for explanations
-A shifting center of wealth to the northwest quadrant and outside of the city limits into townships that now serve as bedroom community suburbs.
-A lack of vision for many poor and middle class inner-city neighborhoods, including residential downtown
-An airport that is only a connector and not a hub

And our unknown lights are:
-A school system that is graduating 83% of its students and 100% of those that attend its alternative schools, which are run much like magnet schools in other districts.
-A very vibrant and equal local food market. Co-ops, farmers markets, community gardens and gourmet grocery continues to grow. Communities are mobilizing to provide links to fresh food and necessities.
-A vibrant arts community, with city funded arts classes, an award-winning regional theater company, a unique museum project funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation,neighborhood street festivals and independent handmade markets
-Low-cost downtown living
-Highway connections to larger cities and the entire nation
-Halfway(3 hours each way) to the beach and to the mountains

While some of the setting and the unknown lights are subjective, they are often based on objective notions of how cities run or people think they should be run and built. Killing this complex will help us all appreciate the homegrown elements of community and urbanism we already have. We also may save time and money by not running out to build just to be politically correct or keep up with the Jones’.

So I leave you with your weapons to destroy your city’s inferiority complex.

-Identify your setting and your unknown lights
-Take one part of the setting, gather a group and work on fixing it
-Take one unknown light and work on making it known
-Stop over-comparing your community to the point of disrepair and accidental destruction
-Be creative and repeat the other steps often to fix problems and encourage your community.

What is your setting? What are your unknown lights? What will it take to get rid of the inferiority complex in your city?

Image credit: Flickr user Gary Junglingunder a
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license