Category Archives: Cities

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.

Guest Post, Issues and Ideas, Staunton

GUEST POST: Does Rural Urbanism = “White”?

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Today I am sharing my space with Katie McCaskey of Urban Escapee. She and I are examining different shades of the words “rural urbanism”. Below she examines the racial element and on her blog I explore the place-related element. Enjoy!

Our rural urbanism captured my attention when I moved from New York City to Staunton, Virginia (pop. 22,000) and started an independent business.

Paradoxically, it was “rural” Staunton’s urbanism which attracted me back to it. The “Main Street” downtown is intentionally dedicated to independent businesses, and, the walkable infrastructure, free city trolley, and Amtrak access are all appealing lifestyle amenities. In fact, the infrastructure itself influenced the decision to start a neighborhood grocery; there had been such a thing at the turn of the last century and coming from New York my husband and I were spoiled by the walkable convenience of neighborhood shops. That resulted in George Bowers Grocery, which expanded last year to include a cafe/beer garden.

I’m very excited about what these pockets of “rural urbanism” can offer for our futures. In fact, I got so excited I wrote the “Micropolitan Manifesto” about the opportunities and possibilities present, especially when you factor in building your own business. But, one thing worries me:

Is it just for white people?

Of course, I don’t think so, But, I’m white, and, admittedly it didn’t cross my mind until a black friend from New York pointed out that the title of my blog and upcoming book (“Urban Escapee”) sounded like, well, “white flight”. The unspoken assumption: “By ‘urban’, don’t you mean ‘black’? And, aren’t small towns, especially small towns in the South, filled mostly with white people?” Who would build a business there?

Uh, no.

I was talking about “escaping” the constraints of big city living and, later, escaping from the notions of what is/isn’t possible in our country’s smallest urban pockets. Yet, it continued. Another reader ranted about the use of the word “pilgrim” in a quote used to describe adventurous entrepreneurship in our micropolitans.

So what’s the real problem?

I see two big issues that contribute to social misconceptions about our smallest urban centers, aka, micropolitans:

1) Diversity. Diversity has always been a part of “small town America”, but, its an identity only recently openly and honestly explored… one example is the identity series of Appalachia at TheHillville.com. Mass media culture has meant mass storytelling about our diverse geography and a bland retelling of who lives where. Only now is a wider range of experience and perspective being shared and discussed.

Moreover, at the same time our country as a whole is becoming more diversified—and this is a trend is present in micropolitans, too. See the book: “Small, Gritty, Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World” by Catherine Tumber, concerning immigrant patterns moving to smaller cities, not larger ones.

2) Opportunity. There is legitimate concern about the future of work in our smallest urban centers. Will limited jobs just go to the wealthiest and most educated? Will the telecommuting elite push out the work opportunities for those without these advantages? Or will it create jobs unattainable for current residents?

Real issue: rural gentrification?

Perhaps the fear that urbanism in its smallest (micropolitan) form is really a fear about displacement; a fear about loss. I’m in no position to speak about the loss many minority populations experienced during the “urban renewal” policies of the sixties. Yet, I’ve witnessed white populations fearfully anticipate shifts that might displace them…shifts that have to do with the changing nature of work as much as cities themselves. For example, there is much anxiety that the “come here’s” will boot out the “been here’s” when it comes to downtowns. That fear isn’t cut along racial lines as much as between socio-economic classes.

As we move into the “urban century” as Neal Peirce calls it, we need to remember two things about our micropolitans: they are increasingly diverse and their social and physical landscapes will inevitably change as does the geography of work on simultaneously global and local levels.

Katie McCaskey writes about indie entrepreneurship in micropolitan cities. Her book, “Urban Escapee: How to Ditch the Commute, Build a Business, and Revitalize Main Street” will be out later this year. Be notified about the book and micropolitan topics by subscribing here, and join the discussion on Facebook.

Durham, Photospiration

Photospiration: Find Your Cool In Durham

 

What is cool? There’s a new book about that, but it’s focused primarly on African-Americans. What about everyone else? What makes something cool? Why are people coming back downtown? This sign on the back of a building in Durham invites people to come to their main street and find it.

I just look at the buildings and think about how cool the mural itself is. Every time someone comes to the Durham Performing Arts Center, The American Tobbaco Complex, the Durham County Courthouse or Beyu Cafe they see this banner.

So I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to come back to this sign, but I know I’ll be  cool nonetheless.

Photopiration. Commentary. News you can use. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for more.

Durham, Issues and Ideas

Durham, The City As A Bull

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I couldn’t talk about Raleigh without talking about Durham. Durham is known locally as the Bull City. Looking at the logic I applied to Raleigh, I found that Durham has community characteristics that resemble it’s nickname. These characteristics are not so much in how the city is shaped, but how the city has been shaped by it’s people.

First, the city has a lot of spunk. From the early days of being the Black Wall Street and a tobacco and textile capital, to the current start-up culture brewing downtown, Durham has been a trendsetter and a city of spunk.

Secondly, the city has a lot of fight. For years, especially after neighborhoods were destroyed to build the Durham Freeway, the city has had to fight to maintain a good image. Major crime activity and the image that created loomed over the city for years. Now, Durham is turning around, with neighborhoods all over the city regaining prominence and new companies looking to Durham as the place that the want to start.

Finally, the city has a heart. People wrote Durham off for years. However, it didn’t mean that people that loved the city didn’t stay and make it better. While there’s a lot of attention coming to the start-ups and business opportunities, historians such as John Hope Franklin were able to base their life’s work there and build pillars of history, along with the people of Hayti, who never stopped believing and organizing their communities.

And come to think of it, if you take a look at the map again. There is kind of a bull shape in there. Using the Durham Freeway as the arch of it’s back, RTP as a tail, Downtown as a heart and Duke and NC Central as horns(partially symbolizing brains too) along with Northgate, Ninth Street, Southpoint and South Square as legs, we have a rough bull shape in the geography.

But then again, it’s really what’s inside that makes Durham bullish and ready to seize the day.

Durhamians (I don’t like the other term, it sounds like we are parasites), new, old and somewhere in between. Tell me what you think. Be sure to join me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. I’m also going to be in Chapel Hill on April 21st speaking on a panel on the reverse migration of African-Americans. Find out more about where I’m going and speaking this spring.

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

Issues and Ideas, Raleigh

Raleigh: The City as an Oak Tree

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Shimmer Wall

I spent my New Years weekend in my adopted hometown of Raleigh. I watched as they dropped an acorn to ring in the New Year, a nod to the city’s designation of the “City of Oaks”. I hung around for a couple of extra days as well to chill out. As part of my vacation, I was banned from using my computer or tablet and ordered to go window-shop and relax.While on that 24 hour sabbatical from my most trusted device, I begin to think about how Raleigh itself has the planning structure of a tree.

Downtown literally is at the bottom of the city, forming the roots. Then, the universities and the older suburbs inside of the beltline(I-440) make up the trunk of the tree. All of the suburban roads that start at the beltline (Glenwood Ave. Extension(US 70), Wake Forest, Six Forks, Capital, Falls of Neuse, New Bern, etc.) make up the branches.  Occasionally, you have a Milbrook or a Lynn Rd as cross branches and the branches are sort of framed between the beltlines(I-540 is the outer beltline).

With this pattern in mind, other parts of Raleigh’s sprawl come into play. Each branch has a lot of flowers(flowers being grocery, service retail, schools, churches and occasionally a mall). Branches also have many, many leaves (residential space). Yet, just like a real tree, some branches connect, but others never will meet. Branches will fall, but they return to life. I think of both downtown and North Hills as examples. 12-13 years ago, both were almost dead, now they are the center of a new energy. The universities and their innovations, as well as the laws made at the General Assembly water the roots and seeds that fall from the branches fuel nearby areas (RTP, Cary, Durham).

What do you think? What implications does this idea have on planning for the future in Raleigh? Does this bring some sense into the chaos that Raleigh seems to be sometimes?

Photo Above of the Shimmer Wall of the Raleigh Convention Center. Credit: Flickr user JeffreylCohen via a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.