Happy New Year to all of you! I was looking forward to sharing a bit of news this morning, but it leaked. However, I will take this opportunity to thank my family, my friends and those of you who’ve stuck by this very page from the beginning, back when it was a side piece of my personal twitter and blog accounts, boosted by a class project. All of you who expressed congratulations on Facebook and wished me a Happy New Year and shared tweets and statuses I am deeply grateful. I know this isn’t Thanksgiving, but I was on hiatus on Thanksgiving, so here is my gratitude.

My goal is that 2014 is a better year for me, not just as a placemaker (which apparently is one of many cliché terms now in our sector), but as a writer, an advocate, a seamstress, a daughter, a sister, a niece and a friend.

So that news? I am the first winner of YES! Weekly‘s Essay Contest with my entry, The Harvest of Our Future. YES! Weekly is one of our two local alt weekly newspapers,  and my favorite of the bunch. Jordan, Eric and several others of the staff have long been colleagues and friends in making this a better city, one page at a time and I thank them again for this honor.

Now, before we look at the pretty Rose Parade floats, some other news:

• New York officially has a new mayor and so does Detroit. Chicagoans aren’t killing each other as much. DC admits that they are pricing out millennials.
• Here in Greensboro, what our county commissioners have to face in the new year and our performing arts center has surpassed its 35 million dollar private donation goal.
• All Americans who use transit will see the federal subsidy for it drop, but new bike signaling for roads was approved by the Federal Highway Administration.
• Jose Vilson (@TheJLV) is a man you need to know. He is an AfroLatino man who is not only bucking the trends of education reform in his own NYC classroom, but he is doing it in print and on social media. He’s got a book coming out, but in the meantime, he dropped this wonderful response to all the articles on teachers of color leaving inner city schools and teaching, Why This Teacher Of Color Is Staying.
• Some maps that changed the world.
• I know many of you already knew this, but architecture can save your life.
• Transit being sold like cars? That could work.
• This mall that once ate a stream up is now being turned into a community around the stream.
• And finally, prisoners at a mens prison in Maryland are knitting. And not just blankets for themselves, but comfort dolls for abuse victims and hats for poor kids.