Like this luggage, sometimes I linger in the sunset at the crossroads of whether or not it’s worth picking up the baggage and moving on. (Credit: Flickr user: C.M. Keiner)

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my post graduate school place of residence. There are days that I would like to spend that time in Greensboro around my many friends. However, on other days I feel like my talents could be better used elsewhere. I would set sail on the high seas and I’ll never look back here save visiting family. But many other days I’m in the middle. Should stay in Greensboro and keep working with the system to make changes or leave Greensboro and go be an ambassador for the cause of building Greensboro?

This last sentence is an idea that’s been bandied around by Aaron Renn and several others. Renn’s version is the cultivation, sometimes by the original city’s chamber of commerce, of alumni groups for cities. The idea goes something like this. Say I went to DC. I would get together with the Greensboro Former Residents Group. We would dine on Stamey’s Barbecue, fight over Tobbaco Road bragging rights and take special trips home for the Wyndham Championship golf tournament. We would get tickets for the ACC tournament at the Verizon Center. Most importantly, we would have a special fund for scholarships for Greensboro resident high school students to go to college in DC and we would help recruit businesses to Greensboro. With this being a DC club, we’d probably have political sway too.Your alumni group would and should look and feel different.

I brought this idea of American expats up to say that its ok. Boosterism only goes so far if you can’t get a job in your hometown. Right now, I have my schooling and a nice job with a nonprofit to hold on to. However, if things change or a better offer comes somewhere else, I’ll once again leave my hometown and go to where that opportunity is.

I asked my Twitter and Facebook friends about this idea and got a lot of shout outs along with couple of serious answers.

Asa Yoel(@asayoel) is a student at UNC-Charlotte, but reps Staten Island. He told me via a DM that he felt he couldn’t do what he was doing in Charlotte in Jersey. That something being studying transportation and urban affairs at UNC-Charlotte. Fortunately, Whitney Muse (@arieswym) gave me lots of positive answers about her hometown. Originally from Philly, she moved to Jersey to Rutgers for college, home for a while to work with the Obama campaign, and is now doing grad school in DC and hoping to do international affairs. She has nothing but love from Philly and believes she could have achieved her dreams there. However, with a full-ride to Rutgers, she was taking that and running with it.

The Pew American Mobility report has stated that 50% of Americans do not live in their hometown.  I say this to caution anyone who wants to slam their hometown, either for no opportunities or slam others for not staying in a place. I find that entrepreneurs can make it anywhere, while those who need the structure of an office are at the whim of where the jobs are.

I am not sure where I am on that yet. Meanwhile, if I ever decide or get an opportunity to leave, I would. However, I’ll be proudly carrying a case of Natty Greene’s beer and talking to anyone who will listen about the opportunity to go to a wonderful city in NC with five universities, cheap office space and nice homes and history.

It really did all start with a map. I’ve told my story before, but I wanted to revisit it again this week as we will be talking about grassroots planning.

This week also marks the launch of my new weekly e-newsletter, the Blackurbanpaper. Be sure to use the purple box on the top right to subscribe so you don’t miss an issue. If you already subscribe to my posts via email, you are all set to receive the newsletter.

Anyway, back to the story. Lately I’ve been feeling a little lost. I don’t exactly want to draw plans (although I like sketching in my notebook) as a career. Also, I’ve never pounded the pavement to save my neighborhood either. Never had to really. I’ve always lived in stable environments, but had a hunger for making less sustainable and stable communities better. After wrestling over this question in the middle of the night, at CNU and in the middle of downtown Greensboro, I’ve determined that there’s not really a need to put a label on what I do. Well, besides the one that adorns the top of this page. So what do I think makes me qualified to be an urbanist? Here are my reasons:

• I love my city and I want to see it grow.

• I never stopped believing in the idea of the city, even as I’m forced by economics to live in more suburban terrain.

• I think we can solve a few social problems with improved urban and suburban forms that promote connectivity.

• As a person of color, many of us found opportunity and then lost it in the urban form. I think we can regain opportunity in this new smart city framework, as well as regain the connectivity and community my elders speak of.

• I have no problems using the city bus, riding a bike AND driving a car, when appropriate.

• I believe community goes beyond, but is strengthened by a positive built environment.

Even though I made my decision to become a writer and public relations guru for great causes and companies, I feel like I still need to tell this story. The story of the city. The story of the community.  The story of life.

I know I don’t have all the answers. I’m not the expert (yet). I know that my definition doesn’t match perfectly the Charter of New Urbanism or even popular opinion on what a city is. However, I’m going to keep doing what I can to make my community better. Even if some days it’s just putting up another post on this blog. Hopefully someone will read it and know how important it is to make their community a better place.

Recently the national-award winning, Duany Plater-Zyberk designed community of Southside in Greensboro lost a key tenant, Vintage 301. Outside of Manny’s Universal Café, this was the only restaurant in the neighborhood and only consistent draw of people outside of the small neighborhood inside. While there are a few hair salons and other small businesses left, the neighborhood has gradually gone from mixed use back to urban-esque suburbia.

I say this to deal with the idea that is at the core of much of new urbanism:

If you build it they will come + a cleaner urban form= success despite our economic and social failures

Yet, at the end of the day, many of us have no disposable income. We can’t sell our houses or afford to buy new ones. Some of us can’t even afford to rent homes, rent or buy cars or even eat. We want to start businesses, but you need money to do that too. Some existing business and homes are getting choked by the increased tax values. Cities are not working carefully with small businesses to deal with tax liabilities (yet continually give breaks to big ones who can more than afford to pay).

So what does one do in a situation like this? What does this mean for urbanism (and suburbanism and ruralism)? I’m not sure of all the answers, but it starts in one place, working together.

When we lose money and get poor, we often retract into the worse of ourselves. We hoard, we covet, we criticize. The fear of losing our identity swells far and above our own minds and makes us create false stories about our friends, family, colleagues and leaders. With this negativity, we find it hard to go on in our present state and we spend time over-analyzing how others seem to be getting along.

I think this negativity is at the root of where we stand as a country right now. However, I recently learned that no matter what, it’s better to be grateful for what does exist. Even though I can’t rent a house, I am able to live with my mom and help her with things at our house. The bus still runs from 5 AM to 11PM here in Greensboro and 24 hours in some places. I could ride a bike. And at the basic level, I’m breathing, seeing, walking and talking and writing this post.

To bring this tangent back to a close, we have to look past the built environment for a minute and work on restoring the souls of our fellow community members. We have to have hard conversations and ask hard questions. We have to make hard demands. Yet, I don’t know of a person who has some means, yet is complaining about lost of livelihood, that doesn’t have something they can share. Maybe it’s a shoulder to cry on, an extra shirt, an extra plate or a ride to work.

Still, we will not be able to fill our communities and embrace a density until we desire to live in harmony again. A harmony that looks past differences in matters of the heart and makes sure people can have the freedom to wake up and live comfortably.

Just like I called on DC residents on Twitter to do, it’s not about race-baiting, it’s not about keeping improvements off the streets, it’s about getting our city economics back on track, and remembering all legal business is good business. Even if it’s just an upscale wing joint that moves into the old Vintage 301 space.

You either pay exorbitant amounts of money to it or you have moved to a community on purpose to get away from it. You probably want to get rid of it, especially if you want to tear out your front yard or save for retirement without watching that $300 a month go down the drain. Yet, you might like your neighbors and the National Night Out picnic and block party every year is fun.

I’m talking about the neighborhood association and its related fees.

Neighborhood associations at their root go along with what I consider to be a successful community. They allow neighbors of all stripes and kinds to gather to solve problems, keep areas clean and presentable and provide families and friends with the opportunity to gather.

However, some neighborhood groups are contentious. With the cost of food and gas increasing, it is harder to justify spending money to give to neighbors who fight over what colors should be banned from houses. Also, many neighborhood associations are spending money defending their boundaries and fighting city governments. While this activity is expensive, and can be productive are these legal battles draining the productivity out of your neighborhood?

I’m not sure if this is what happened to my neighborhood, as we have never had one. The adjacent older neighborhood did but, according to a cousin who lived in the neighborhood at the time, the organization was cliquish and slightly discriminatory. Once the clique moved away, the organization died, along with the neighborhood pool the fees maintained. Despite these circumstances, we need to restart this group, with my end of the neighborhood included.

I also believe that neighborhood association funds can be better spent. Take this  example of  neighborhood association fees collected as a giving circle. In this giving circle the minimum payment is agreed upon and put in a hat and saved up, to be redeemed once a quarter for a specific community project. An example quarterly project schedule is below:

• Winter: Snow and Ice Removal- (If the climate is warm, then dedicate this money to a spring time community garden or holiday decorations)
• Spring: Community Garden setup
• Summer: Clean-up of common areas such as parks, pools and neighborhood welcome signs
• Fall: Fall Festival

Your four projects can be more tailored to your individual community’s needs. Also, consider having a fund set aside to pay for lawn care or other emergencies that happen to neighbors.  Even better if the four activities above can be done with sweat equity and all money collected can start a community foundation.

In my neighborhood, I would like for us to re-open the pool, clean up and build a few new neighborhood signs and have an official National Night Out event. We could also partner with the nearby shopping mall, three churches and elementary school for events. Also, we should go past preventing crime and keeping strange children off the streets. We also have a few bus stops that can be adopted through a program our city offers. All need benches and regular upkeep, as they are used by a number of neighbors throughout the day.

So you are now thinking, do I still need to be giving $300 a month to my association. Yes and no. If your association is engaged in greater community building activities such as those mentioned above, yes. You also can reduce that number and still have a good impact. Below are the effects of spending a $1 a month, $5 a month and $300 a month on a community. These numbers are based on a community of 50 homes with fees docked from property taxes and sent back to a neighborhood 501c3.

$1 month/$12 per year per neighbor= $600– While a bit small for an emergency fund, this can be split into three $200 parts to give towards a neighborhood boy or girl to clean up the common areas throughout the summer, seeds for a community garden and/or paying the same kids to shovel snow or dedicated to one big national night out party so that neighbors can meet each other and work on building bartering and trusting relationships. Also, if your neighborhood association is brand new, you can dedicate some of this funding to becoming a tax exempt organization.

$5 month/$60 per year=$3000– As you can see, we already have a nice increased sum here. You can pay for tax exemption, put $1500 away for a neighbor in need and then use the other $1500 to work on the community initiatives mentioned above.

$300month/3600 per year=$180,000– So this is the net gain for a $300 month neighborhood association fee. If you only use $1500 for the small community initiatives, you have a nice sized fund to start a community foundation fund for scholarships, medical bills, even small business ventures. This also covers legal fees, but my hope is that you are moving away from litigious activities.

No matter what, your neighborhood needs an association. Cities with less formally defined neighborhoods could start with census tracks. Neighborhoods could merge if there are not enough households to obtain a certain funding level. Even if no money is collected at first, a neighborhood watch will keep neighbors informed of basic needs. Those concerned with privacy should have the option of opting out of the neighborhood association. Renters should also be informed of meeting times and projects and invited to participate, especially if they have resided in the neighborhood longer than some homeowners.

I have mentioned to a few neighbors that I would like to implement the $5 a month model, so we can clean up our neighborhood signs and maybe look into adopting the bus stop.

So community developers and neighborhood leaders, what am I missing? What are some solutions in practice to the issues surrounding neighborhood associations? Are you a community who is putting similar practices at work with success?