Category Archives: Issues and Ideas

My take on the great debates of the urban policy world

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas

The Real Failure of the Creative Class Is the Fear of Failure

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Seeing Richard Florida speak at CNU 20 last month, all I could think about was one thing and one thing only:

He rated Greensboro, which in addition to being my current city is my hometown, 41 of 49 in his original list of large creative class cities.

No, it’s not the bottom of the barrel, but I have friends in Memphis who are just as discontented with him for being 49. From what I’ve heard of them, their number could be misguided as well. It doesn’t matter that those numbers are eleven years old. They still hurt.

That hurt has me doing a lot of work to prove Florida wrong. Hence why I always come down on city rankings. I’m still somewhat insecure about my city, but I know I’m wrong to be. I write this blog to help clear my head and keep it moving.

At the end of the day, thanks to this self-reflection, I don’t think I’m the problem. Nor is Greensboro in itself. We have art, we have theaters, and we have vibrant gay and immigrant communities. We are gaining jobs among young professionals. We’ve assessed our arts impact. And our alt-weekly newspaper has put this creative class issue front and center this week and will continue to do so at least for the next two years.

So what is the real failure of the creative class?

It is the fear of failure.

A colleague of mine (and friend of the blog) stated this fear so eloquently in a meeting this week. Basically, he reminded myself and others that we should not be in the business of not wanting to create or present ideas just because they could be rejected. He went on to say we should be mindful of how we let opinions and attitudes into our organization that discourage creativity and the creative process. This process includes failure.

I want to take his words a step further and apply them to the community as a whole.

We have to be willing to create and fail, along with our success. We are so focused on making sure our reputations, our money and the illusions of both stay in tact so much that we miss the need to mess up sometimes.

When we talk about a creative class, we must first look introspectively and be willing to support a true creative process.

We must not laugh at our city’s shortcomings (or at least not laugh for long). We must not abandon our properties or let them become slums because we are too cheap to make them any better. We must not assume that a property is a slum because the house is painted purple and the grass spray painted orange (that is if you do have a single-family home, same goes for odd windows, apartment buildings and signage).

We do need to put our money where our mouth is. If you have abundance, be willing to give to create something better. Realize though that not all of your money will be a good return on investment. However, that’s not to say that it never will.

And finally, remember that on paper, any F can be turned into an A. Let’s start doing that in our communities and fortifying the true sense of the creative class.

The photo above, taken by me on Elm Street in Greensboro, is one of the alt-weekly’s newspaper containers. I think it illustrates perfectly what we need to do to get over this creative class hurdle. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Twitter.

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, tips for urbanist living

Does PseudoSuburbanist Equal Hipster?

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As we all browsed Emily Badger’s Atlantic Cities post on her own civic inferiority complex last week, the question above was in quite a few heads, namely my own. Now, I attempt to sort through all the good and bad things that this idea provokes.

First, a primer to this discussion. Take a look at the Urban Dictionary’s definition of hipster and pseudo-hipster. The former is admittedly a new word for what was once known as bohemian culture in decades past. In essence, there has always been a counterculture and hipster is just a new name for it. Yet, the latter definition really intrigued me. I had no clue that it was on the site before I went there. However, upon a closer inspection, I find that this type of person may also be our true Pseudosuburbanist.

This person is going along with the hipster trend because it is the thing to do, no different than how people fell into the suburban pattern of living. Chuck Marhon has a good post up about this type of thinking and how it created and continues to perpetrate the suburban pattern.

While Badger may have defined herself as a pseudosuburbanist a little differently than I will here, the concepts that she discussed can also be identified as pseudosuburbanist problems. If one is comfortable with where they live, no matter what people say about the place, then the technicality of suburb vs. city vs. rural town vs. town-that-used-to-be-independent-until-a-bigger-city-sprouted-up-beside-it is irrelevant.

Let me insert a quick reminder that the real problem with our cities is that walkability, transit connectivity and safe housing are not available for everyone, no matter the income level and the skinniness of jeans.

However, to get back to the idea of PseudoSuburbanist=Hipster, we also need to address the trendiness of coming back to the city. This weekend, I attended a cultural festival that had over 5,000 attendants in a city of 270,000. That’s a picture from it at the top of the post. I think it was great that so many people came downtown, including my own mom, who hadn’t been down there in some years. Yet, are these people coming downtown for the right reasons? Would they come downtown even if it was only quirky stores? Would they come down in some places if it didn’t look like the Design District or SoHo? Will these same people who love this “downtown lifestyle” stay past their children growing older?

In some cases people are staying behind. They are improving their schools, adding playgrounds and also interacting with multiple cultures and generations.

Yet, there are far too many people who are gentrifying areas to the point that some slums now have a neo-suburban feel. Not all of this is the fault of the people themselves. It’s the fault of the old real estate adages, some of which are still codified into housing covenants. The most offensive of these adages is that Anglo=value and non-Anglo group= poor and less valuable. Also, a clean neighborhood isn’t bad, unless clean means more white people and less people of other cultures, no matter their income level or style of living.

I think this is the pseudosuburbanism and pseudohipsterism that we really need to concern ourselves with. Otherwise, here’s to hipsterism. It’s high time the mainstream culture start to accept that it’s a salad bowl and not a melting pot. And this PseudoSuburbanist concept? That wouldn’t even exist and that’s not a bad thing.

Photo above was shot by myself, with my new hipster toy of the moment, my Apple iPhone. Want to challenge my logic? Start by visiting me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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)

#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.

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.

Issues and Ideas

Conference Preview and Repost-The Reverse Great Migration and Urbanism

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Streets like my own are becoming more desirable for Black Americans and others looking for better deals down South

This weekend( April 20-21, 2012)  I have the honor of being on a panel at the UNC Global South Symposium on the “reverse migration” of African Americans. In honor of this, I’m re-posting my original thoughts on this subject. If you are near Chapel Hill this weekend, feel free to come by tomorrow afternoon. The entire symposium is FREE with registration by clicking here. My panel begins at approximately 1:45 PM and runs to 3:45 PM.

 

According to an article last Wednesday in the New York Times, a reverse great migration of African-Americans from the North to the South is occurring. Reasons cited are lack of jobs for young Black graduates, ability to purchase property and retire in comfort for elders and a flip-flopped racial climate. Also, many of the elders have the ancestral draw back to the South. Also, the Washington Post highlighted Section 8 voucher holders, some African-American, who are drawn to the South for it’s abundant suburban housing for affordable prices.

As a young Black woman with family members who have made the move and some considering a move back, I think the New York Times is spot on in its revelations about the retirees and their ancestral ties. I have aunts, uncles and cousins who have bought homes and began to prepare them for retirement. In the meantime, other family members have made homes out of them and they are good auxiliary gathering places for our family. Plus, my family members up North enjoy coming to visit the rural areas and find the pace of life relaxing. I have a set of neighbors originally from New York and another set from Florida who have decided to retire here, for a better pace of life. In other words, urban life is dead for them.

I’m not so sure that the claims of racial profiling and lack of jobs are a function of just New York though. I think all Black youth across the nation are struggling with this phenomenon. However, Atlanta and Charlotte have emerged as areas that honor and respect black culture, as well as provide a variety of nightlife options that appeal to young Black professionals. In addition, despite more young professionals of cultures outside of African-Americans  converging on Washington DC, there’s still a core of young Black professionals who flock there in search of finding people with similar cultural roots. Lastly, many young Black college students and professionals have grown up with diverse cultures and welcome places that offer opportunities to experience other cultures. Racial profiling also seems to be a function of all police departments, however, I don’t doubt that some forces handle this better than others.

So what does this mean for urbanism? For the retirement age folks, it means that we need to work on spreading tactics such as agrarian urbanism. This way, people can have some semblance of a small town life, without giving up the idea of retiring to a farm and mobility if they can’t drive anymore or never learned to drive. For young people, it means to continue to advocate for places to go. Speaking for my friends and me, we love having the city parks, free concerts and also lounge style places to have a drink, maybe dance and have great conversations with each other.

Practitioners should make sure that community organizations and neighborhood groups can express concerns and even participate in the design of retrofitted and new(in reason) developments.  I think these new migrants would welcome bike lanes, increased bus and train service, and community gathering spots that are community and not corporate owned. The key is to make sure it’s presented in language that they understand. Many of these people are coming South to take more control of their lives. Let’s make sure we help them in that ownership and move them to something that will produce the greater wealth and well-being they desire.

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.

Issues and Ideas

For Trayvon, With Love

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You’re probably watching me type this right now. Or actually, I hope you are living out some of your dreams in heaven. However, it would be so much better if you were still down here on Earth.

I started this site because my dad and I used to walk around our neighborhoods too. There was a corner store around the corner from our suburban-style house and we used to go up there and get candy and soda too. Sometimes our neighbors would be outside and we would say hi and get the updates on how they were doing. Sure, some of our neighbors were engaged in illegal activites, but no one ever chased us, called the police on us or felt like it was a crime for us to walk the streets. Not even the white ones.

Yet, you know all too well, that in many neighborhoods, walking is a crime. Either people attack you, so you don’t feel safe going outside or in your case, people think you are a threat, so they follow you and steal your life away.

I know you’ve seen how sad your family is, but also how so many people around the world that never knew them, nor you have stood up and called for justice for your killer. You know your killer is now fearing for his own life and no longer terrorizes that street that you were only visiting for a short period of time. However, he may never get due justice for his twisted thoughts and you have been cheated of time on this Earth.

Yet, all things do happen for a reason, even the tragedies like yours. Once again, we have a reason to think about how we judge people. How they dress, what color they are, what they do in front of their homes.

Most of all, we have an obligation to tell people that it’s not a crime to walk around the neighborhood. We have an obligation to those who do walk around and follow too closely in cars to tell them to stop and ask them to get to know people. To meet their basic needs in ways besides stealing, raping and harrassing other people. To watch over the neighborhood in ways everyone agrees upon, not take it upon themselves to be the viliglante, where there is no real danger.

And finally, so people can use their own two feet to get where they need to go. So they don’t feel inadequate because they can’t afford their own cars. So they don’t feel too young to go places and contribute to society. So they will run errands for little brothers and sisters. So we can stop walling ourselves out from the real world and stop trusting each other.

I’m going to keep this space going precisely to tell people how to engage in their communities again from the inside and out.

So that you are the only one who will serve as a martyr for those who wish to walk and walk while young, black, male and INNOCENT.

Love,

Kristen, a young black woman who is even more compelled today to create real community.