Category Archives: Conferences and Symposia

#cnu24, CNU, Conferences and Symposia, Detroit

Why is CNU Still Relevant in the Design, Development and Governance Conversation? (A #CNU24 Reflection)

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As of Saturday June 11, the Congress for New Urbanism has convened for 24 times. Since its inception, it’s gone through an evolution, an evolution powered by its roots in the architectural tradition of design and critique. It’s precisely this history which makes it still relevant in the greater design, development and governance (which I’m going to shorten to DDG) conversation.

Exactly why is CNU still relevant? For three reasons: the new focus on diversity of both voices and vernaculars, the approachability of the conference venues and the ability to debate the principles of new urbanism and push for their integration into other key parts of the DDG conversation.

Diversity in Voice and Vernacular and Body

First of all, my introduction to CNU  happened because of my willingness to speak up and speak out against the seemingly lack of diversity, at least in online spaces, in the DDG fields. I was invited, as part of what was then a separate track of NextGen ideas, to speak on diversity and equity. I felt unworthy to do it alone and I brought in two people who I knew would knock out the conversation in their respective spaces.

Fast forward to 2016. While Andres Duany has always brought a bit of the Cuban/Latin vernacular into his talks, you couldn’t beat the multitude of people of color, both women and men, on various stages in this conference. From Pashon Murray bringing the group her work with Detroit Dirt and the local ground perspective, to Mitchell Silver bringing in planning and landscape architecture and good governance, to Tony Garcia holding down the banner for the small scale public project work to myself debating the racialized aspect of the gentrification conversation and why we should use more words in talking about place-based social ills to task and Army base planner Alexander Dukes sounding off on the autonomous cars debate. Not to mention so many other attendees of color, from not just Detroit, the Midwest and the United States doing great work in many fields and other presenters of color who I may have forgotten, being that I was only in Detroit for the Friday and Saturday portions of the Congress.

Finally, on the diversity front there’s a growing Women’s Caucus. Women of all stripes have struggles in an industry cluster that has often failed to pay, respect, promote and engage women on the same levels as men. While I love writing and graphic design, those areas of the project often bill lower and are often the domain of the women in the firm. Then there are the issues around work-life balance, especially in design firms that seem to know no end to the workday. I’m looking forward to helping get this started and supporting the other ladies, with both moral and technical support.

Approachability of Conference Venues

Detroit is the poster child of urban decay, grit and resilience, along with car culture and sprawl and highways. Yet, it provided this year’s Congress with the dream venue, a walkable cluster of theaters, hotel ballrooms, parking lot vendor bazaars(also with many vendors of color)  and even an open street with the planned weekend closing of Monroe Street through Greektown for us to enjoy. You could also get a quick sense of the downtown via the People Mover and Ubers and bikeshare bikes were at the ready to whisk you away to the Eastern Market and Lafayette Park.

Even though I was staying with my aunt (and also visiting mom) in the upper Northwest corner, while I was downtown, the venues were compact. Many mentioned how much they were able to enjoy proximity to venues at the various hotels and AirBnB options, in addition to others leveraging family and friends. I also purchased food from the food trucks and shades from the fashion truck. I missed out on the downtown bowling, but enjoyed giving my presentation in a presentation venue that was essentially the top floor loft space of a bar and maintained the relaxed feel you expect from such a space.

And lastly, with the Pecha Kucha, the dance party and the closing party, we blended our conference and regular Detroit fun and idea sharing together. It felt like the best of the CNU 19 Madison project lodge and yet it was a long way from that congress’s $75 closing party.

Ability to Debate Amongst New Urbanism and Also Through Other Design, Development and Governance Principles

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Having been at this blog and my design, development and governance education and career for almost six years now, I’ve had the opportunity to not just attend five CNUs, but also two state level APA conferences, two New Partners for Smart Growth, several Streetsblog trainings and meetups, one state-level City and County Manager Association conference, another city governance focused training two N.C. State Urban Design Conferences, a major design charrette where lots of out-of-town professionals were brought in and the inaugural Strong Towns meetup. As I’ve written before, it’s vital in our sector to present ones work and discuss best practices.

I used to think that my value in the space was getting paid to present my work (and it is, to a certain extent still). Yet, now that I’m doing field work, I’ve found the best thing for me to do is to go to as many of our conferences and tell the story of my work and remind folks of my design philosophy. My goal in my career is to be able to have a solid balance between field work (project design and stakeholder engagement) and peer critique, debate and training (keynote speeches and workshop facilitation, along with actual debates like on Friday night that other can spread the word about inside and outside the room).

Lastly, most other conferences in our field only exist to throw information at folks for the sole purpose of retaining licensure in that discipline’s certification. CNU, while offering licensure and education of its own under it’s own and other licensure programs, centers idea exchange for the sake of idea exchange, and not just from the big deal people. Now this is something that has evolved over the years and there is still an emphasis in the main program of “big deal” folks. Yet, there’s nothing stopping me from showing up in town, getting my own venue and telling people I’m going to be hosting a talk, book signing or the like and getting them to show up. In the past two years, efforts have been made, if I announce it with enough advance notice, to get it in the main program book and on the website.

Remember, I am a young writer, without licensure, but with plenty of passion and skill in interpreting what’s going on in the DDG world. I’m a black woman who’s not very wealthy. I shouldn’t be here. Yet, in its current iteration, CNU’s big tent allows me to flourish without limits. There may be people in the fold who are my polar opposites and may even say harmful things not just to our profession, but the world in general. Yet, at the end of the day, the greater force of the movement is behind open doors, diverse voices and spirited debate. The relevance comes in allowing more people like me to come inside and be welcomed immediately. Even if it’s just me doing the welcoming.

I’m Kristen Jeffers. Over five years ago I started this space to discuss diversity in the design, development and governance professions. I currently write this blog and also do stakeholder engagement, speaking and other writing work. I hold a Master of Public Affairs with a Concentration in Community and Economic Development. I am a North Carolina native living in Kansas City. You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook, as well as Instagram. You can email me. You can get emails from me. Learn more about who I am and why I do what I do. And here are all my prior reports on CNU.

#cnu24, CNU, Conferences and Symposia

5 Years of the Congress for New Urbanism: CNU 24 Conference Preview and Where and When to Find Me There!

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Name any professional conference where a relative newcomer can come in, either invited or uninvited, state that at a certain time and certain place, they are going to put out an idea, record said idea and have a parent of a movement show up and give you props on what you said, even though you’ve never met before?

That’s how the Congress for New Urbanism has been for me, for the past 5 years. It’s a conference that has changed my life and career in many ways.I’ve since written a lot about the Congress gathering itself, most of which you can find here.

And now, as I look to my fifth congress in five years, this is what I’m looking ahead to the most:

  • Seeing people who have led me to so many articles, charrette opportunities (including my recent stint in Birmingham!), and lasting friendships.

So two  questions before I start this journey into urbanism nerd camp this year:

Why am I not on the convention floor?

First of all, in a decision that CNU has been debating for years,there’s not a convention floor! In order to integrate ourselves into the life of Detroit, namely downtown, we are doing our big presentations at big theaters and doing a lot of cool stuff at bars, parking lots and at local businesses. We are also crossing the border into Windsor, Canada and hanging out with some of our Canadian friends. You’ll still get your certification trainings and your big bold speeches, but not in a convention center. Also, because this idea, pioneered in our NextGen project management is actually mainstream now, there are more opportunities for you to try out parts of the congress, like my debate on Friday, for free.

When will you actually be able to see me at CNU 24?

This question speaks to my arrival on Friday morning and not last night or this morning. I’ve got a few work obligations to take care of, but I’ll be around just in time for these things:

  • Small Developer Meetup (tail-end) on Friday morning
  • Jane Day presentations, namely the morning ones.
  • The Debates– again, come hear me talk about gentrification and why there’s more to it than just that one word.
  • A portion of the dance party
  • The Civic Tech Forum
  • The Chapter Party
  • The Pecha Kutcha
  • The Closing Party
  • Other events as determined by my time and schedule. As always, the best way to find me is to tweet at me @blackurbanist and also check my Instagram and Facebook feeds for pictures of where I’m at. Some of you also have other ways to contact me. Use those as well. My phone number is still the same. And none of the events are in their proper order, so again, check the official schedule for dates, times and locations.

I have no doubts that this won’t be another awesome gathering of all kinds of place-related and practicing people. If you cannot be there in person, either in whole or part, the #CNU24 hashtag is a great place to start, to get photos, thoughts and maybe video from the festivities, along with links to pages like this with conference commentary.

Photo above from Wikimedia Commons

#trbam, Commons, Conferences and Symposia

Highlights from Transportation Camp DC 2015 (#transpo15)

Bask at our written session board. (Full digital list here)

Session Board, via Stephanie Nguyen

Four-hundred people attended all or part of the day, the largest DC Transportation Camp ever. (Image via TransitScreen)

Big Conference Room by TransitScreen

We voted in a poll using Easy Buttons. (Image via Nicola Ivanov)

Easy Button Poll, by Nickola Ivanov @baronnik

These are the results of that poll.

Results of Easy Button Poll-Via Transporation Camp

Transit rockstars shared their stories. (Image via Brendan Casey)

Transit Rockstars 1 by Brendan Casey

This is an impromptu game of Cards Against Urbanity.

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Fellow Streetsbloggers Greater Greater Washington talked how we do what we do and how we can do it better. And here’s their ten best tips at a glance. (Image by Nolan Levenson)

GGW Best Blogging Practices Session via Noah Levenson

We helped our friends in Maryland prepare and succeed with having a Republican governor who is anti-transit, namely the Purple Line. (Image via Ted Van Houten)

How to Survive a Republican Admin, image by Ted Van Hougten

We created our own bike boulevards. (Image by Meghan Makoid)

Bike Boulevard game via Meghan Makoid

And I finally met so many of you in the DC area, as well as from across the world face to face. It was fun! See you again throughout #TRBAM. Look for a daily recap post similar to this on each day I attend sessions.

 

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Email Format

Conferences and Symposia, Links

Greetings from APA Virginia’s Annual Planning Conference (#APAVA14).

Hey everyone. Taking a real vacation of sorts to address the APA Virginia membership tomorrow on “The New Diversity of Planning” and “Planning Around A Civic Inferiority Complex.

Here’s a photo of where we are at right now. (It’s cloudy, you don’t need to be jealous).

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Meanwhile, if you are here at the conference and coming to the page for the first time, you can do a couple of things.

Read my about page. This will help you during my talk tomorrow morning to get a sense of my background and what I’m doing with this site and my various workings.

Learn what I mean with the civic inferiority complex. Bonus points if you read up on how it affects the “voting with your feet” phenomenon.

Follow me on Twitter.

Subscribe to my email list. (You get essays, podcast episodes and the like before anyone else).

Keep up with planning and development news in North Carolina with my sister site, North Carolina Placebook. You can get that info directly in your email box too.

Special thanks to Earl Anderson, Andy Boenau, Malcolm Kenton and all of you lovely people that I’ve met this week here at the Wintergreen Resort.

Come back here as I’ll be updating this post with pictures and speech audio as soon as all those things happen.

Conferences and Symposia, Essay, placemaking

Why I Love Conferences

Why I Love Conferences Kristen Jeffers The Black Urbanist

It is that time of year again when many of us who blog and write and speak gather at industry conferences. Or is it always that time of year?

Back in the day, maybe you went to your state American Planning Association (APA) conference or the big national one.  Architects had AIA or NOMA or maybe the Congress for New Urbanism.(CNU) Transportation folks did the  Transportation Review Board Annual Meeting , the National Bike Summit, Railvolution or something else similar. Anyway, you did your one conference, got your continuing education credits and came back to the nest (or bunker) and went at it another year.

Nowadays, between TEDx, Pecha Kucha, and Ignite in the tech/mainstream world and Transportation Camp and similar unconferences in our world, not to mention the South By Southwests, SparkCons and Middle of the Maps that just do a lot of everything.

And I can’t get enough of these gatherings, no matter where they are and what purpose they serve. I get a thrill from presenting my thoughts as a keynote. I love bringing together my friends to have a guided conversation. And of course, there are the social activities that come from these gatherings. This is networking at its finest.

Why do I love them so much? I think it’s one thing to write in isolation, with the occasional Facebook share, comment or email to a colleague that happens with an online or even printed article. Yet, for me, as an extroverted writer and speaker, the joy that comes from gathering with my fellow urbanists or marketers, or professional black women or young women with side gigs or just chillin’ with my best friends and family is healing. It’s why so many of us when we can or on a regular basis attend worship services or fellowship meetings or yoga classes. You grow and you change and you heal from being around like minds.

An additional piece I like about conferences and convening is that when done the right way, these events change lives outside the conference hall. One example in the placemaking movement is the Tactical Urbanism push, which started as a Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) NextGen conversation and has now been published into a full length book that’s making the rounds of the mainstream. I’ll never forget the time I participated in this effort to create a promenade on a local street: (I’m in the pink hoodie).

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I want to add that conferences that don’t have a good mix of keynotes, breakouts, formal and informal networking sessions fail. Some of the best connections and most valuable business deals happen in the exhibit hall. Another failure comes when your content isn’t compelling. I know occasionally, one has to explain the mechanics of a situation, especially in a continuing education class. Yet, we remember most the vibrant teachers, the ones who have found the human touch in the most boring of subjects.

I’m going to leave you with a set of videos produced on why people go to the CNU every year. I look forward to seeing you this season on the conference circuit. Subscribe to my email list (Go ahead and put your email in the box below)

You’ll be able to find out where I’m going, and who I’m going with. @blackurbanist on Twitter is your best real-time connection to what I’m doing on the convention floor. I’ll also be creating a running Storify. My Twitter is also a good place to find out about special events and opportunities to meet with me at these venues.

And finally, thanks to those of you who have brought me to your gatherings. If you want me to come and speak at your gathering, please contact me. Unless it’s local, I do ask that you work with me to offset travel costs and time spent preparing my remarks, but I can work with the smallest budget, to maximize both mine and your learning time.

#CNU20, Issues and Ideas, tips for urbanist living

Design Can’t Save Us, but We Can Save Through Design. A #CNU20 Reflection

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It’s been roughly 48 hours since the last session at CNU 20 and I’ve been home about 24 of those hours with a sore throat and bruised heels from all the great debates, ideas, dances, food and fellowship that I encountered at the Congress.

There were so many diverse viewpoints this year that it has taken me to this point to be able to sit down and write the proper response to how I felt at the Congress. After reading several other recaps, especially this article from an independent news organization and being asked to discuss diversity again by those not in attendance, I am ready to talk about what CNU 20 means now and going forward.

First, we must remember this is not your average conference. Yes, it is programmed as such, but it evolved from an invitation-only gathering and discussion of friends and leaders who were concerned with how to fix something that is broken. I encourage anyone who comes to Congress, no matter if they are on the program or not, to engage and express your opinions. Yes there will be push back. No, you will not like what the other person has to say or how they say it sometimes. Yet, deep down inside, all these opinions are grounded in truth. To me, calling something a congress means it’s a place for discussion and debate.

Secondly, New Urbanism as a whole is very misunderstood. It is easy to think that the Charter only supports pastel colored faux downtowns with high rents and white people only. However, it is this first paragraph that really should be blasted out before any other conversation or design plan occurs or is drawn outside the safe space of the Congress:

The Congress for the New Urbanism views disinvestment in central cities, the spread of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricultural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society’s built heritage as one interrelated community-building challenge.

Please highlight the last five words and do not forget them when you are challenged by friends, see something stupid being produced or promoted as urbanism or placemaking or think that the movement has no room for you.

Third, I am especially proud of my NextGen colleagues. We are represented on the board. We are creating Strong Towns. We are coding for the people. We are rebuilding Soulsville. We are chairbombing and paintstriping our ways in to better blocks. We know it’s vital to include diversity and respect the character and the culture of the places we want to fix. We are reclaiming public space and the ability for many owners and renters to have a part in the urban fabric. We are telling people that it’s ok to love your city, even if it’s not all there yet. We love our spouses even when they don’t quite understand. And finally, we know that this list of activities is limitless. Also, we need to replace the Next with Now. Next year will be our 10th auxiliary Congress. Yet, I couldn’t help looking ahead to CNU 30 and seeing our names as the keynotes and plenaries, with our projects becoming the new standards. It’s really already at that point and it will just be set in stone by the time we make it to 30.

Last, I know I was somewhat of a quiet force this year at the Congress. Being such a firecracker last year and knowing how such behavior can ruin reputations in the outside world, I wanted to just lay low and be strategic. However, I think our Congress suffers if we lay low too much. We need the f-bombs along with our chair bombs. We are no longer here to just change neighborhoods, we are here to change the entire world. Noise needs to be made about oversized and overpriced new urban projects that price people out. Just as we love compact urban development, we need to think about cooperative economics. Yes, people outside of CNU have been saying this and other things about community justice and better design for years. Let’s stop fighting over who said it first and start drawing up workplans. Too much talking and we’ll keep losing people to unemployment, obesity, financial ruin and other things I believe the charter exists in order to fix.

With all that said, I really enjoyed seeing everyone who came this year. Those of you who I spent the most time with know who you are and need to know that you better answer texts, and FB messages when I decide to show up in your city.:P I look forward to continuing to spread good news about our various neighborhood projects, writing more about placemaking and coming to meetups and better blocks or whatever we decide to do this year.

I hope to see all of you in Salt Lake City. Let’s change the world and make lots of noise. After all, design alone will not save, but we can save through design.

#CNU20, Traveling as An Urbanist

Updates and Annoucements from #CNU20-Open Source, Panels, Articles, Etc.

Hey everyone. Hope you are having a great time at #CNU20

First of all, check out my travel story at Next American City.

Then, be sure to follow me @blackurbanist on Twitter and Instagram for live tweets and shots.

Tomorrow (Saturday), I’m presenting twice on the Civic Inferiority Complex. First at approximately 11:44 AM on Saturday morning and second during the Saturday afternoon Open Source time at 3:45. We will meet down where the breakfast table is in the convention center and move if need be. Be sure to bring a pen and paper as we are going to work through your own Civic Inferiority Complex.

Third, I am so happy to see all of you in the flesh again. I know there are folks who are here in spirit and I feel that too. Also, if we have just met this week, it’s very nice to meet you. If we haven’t met yet and you see me in the convention hall or at one of the bars, please say hello.

*Folks who are paid members of CNU-PLEASE VOTE FOR BOARD MEMBERS BY NOON TODAY*

And for those folks who are at home or elsewhere. My UNC Global American South panel is here. Take a couple of hours and listen to powerful conversation on the migration of African-Americans and what everyone in the south needs to do to create community.