Category Archives: Politics of Place

Cities, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Retail, What is urban planning?

Mixed-Use Ain’t Always Pretty

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Over the last couple of weeks I was made aware of the attempts by a community in Raleigh to determine once again, what they think looks right in a community. As far as I know, the accessory dwelling battle continues to happen in Raleigh and it’s cranked up again in DC. This latest situation is a bit different.

A woman wanted to take advantage of state funding for those who are willing to take care of developmentally disabled people. She built a staircase onto the exterior of her home in order to comply with state-mandated safety regulations for people who operate state-funded homes for disabled people.

Yet, her neighborhood association has slapped her with fines and demanded she tear down the staircase. All the usual arguments are there: property values, appearances, etc. Yet, to me, it speaks again to how housing and building codes, as well as incentives for a certain style of neighborhood, are pushing communities backward.

Communities are more than their buildings. If people can’t learn, make a living, raise a family, worship, or entertain themselves in a neighborhood, then there’s a problem. Even if one of the above is missing, one should still be able to have a link, that they don’t have to drive themselves or fill up with expensive fuel, to get there.

Furthermore, if we want to bring back the element of freedom to the American Dream, why are homeowners so worried about structural elements or even the appearance of more traffic or people than a house normally holds? Why do areas such as this one in Brooklyn get taken out by developers even though they are wildly successful? This is even more problematic in New York, as there are more connections to areas that have a different mix of retail. If urban planning at it’s core was began to deal with sanitation issues, then why has it evolved into or maintained elements that declare situations such as an abundance of working class occupations, housing, and businesses a nuisance? Let’s not even get started with the racial inequities built into what’s known as urban planning.

Yet, at the end of the day, we have to remember that mixed-use, which I’m going to define here simply as a community with multiple activities and types of activities, isn’t always pretty. The successful shopping district may not look like Michigan Avenue in Chicago. A home-based business may require an oddly placed staircase instead of an extra cell phone line. A granny pod in your backyard may be your only solution to age in place and next to your children and grandchildren.

Time is up for us to privilege looks over function. Especially if we expect everyone to buy into the “back to the city” placemaking movement and stop harassing those who don’t fit the mold of what neighborhoods should look like.

Image by Flickr user Shards of Blue.

Cities, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place

Maintaining Good Places, My One Wish for 2013

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Every year for the last two years, I’ve put up my wishes for the urban fabric. This year, my wish manifests in one word:

Maintain.

It’s nice to have brand new town center neighborhoods, but let’s not forget to maintain the old ones, especially those that were already town centers.

It’s nice to have brand new transit lines, but lets not forget to maintain the old buses and trains, so they won’t fall apart and stop coming on time.

It’s nice to have new civic centers, but let’s not forget to maintain the old recreation centers, that serve so many children and their parents who need a nice community place, for a reasonable cost.

It’s nice to have new markets, but let’s not forget to maintain the old ones, lest they start to sell moldy or old food, because they don’t believe they have the clientele or the money to support good food.

It’s nice to have new homes, but let’s not forget the old ones, the ones that are well made, with unique, authentic features. Also, let’s not forget those who live in these older homes, that may have paid off their homes and have lived honest lives. Let’s help them maintain their American Dream, especially if they’ve been there for 30 years, fought for this country, endured racism, sexism, classism and any other isms. Sometimes, gradual change is good enough.

It’s nice to have all these new things, but if people can’t maintain sanity, cordiality, neighborliness or a general positive sprit, then people have failed before they have even walked out of the door.

And with that, I hope to maintain this page more this year, to bring you more of my ideas and commentary. I hope to maintain a space where all community voices can come out and talk about what creates real community.

Education, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place

Kwanzaa’s Seven Principles and the Community

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Millions of people are celebrating Kwanzaa this week. Founded by Maulana Karenga in 1966, the holiday started out as a cultural celebration for African-Americans and a replacement for what were thought to be non-African affirming holidays such as Christmas. However, over the years, the celebration has a evolved into a celebration of Pan-Africanism coupled with the other holidays celebrated in and around December. People all over the world and from all different backgrounds are celebrating Kwanzaa.

The holiday is observed over seven days from December 26 through January 1. Physically, people interact with symbols such as African and African-inspired clothing, corn to represent agricultural traditions, and lighting a kinara, a menorah-like candle figure that has seven candles, three red, three green and one black. They are lit each night to honor the Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of Kwanzaa. These principles are the heart of the celebration and considered the heart of what it means to be African or African-American according to Karenga.

It’s these principles that I want to highlight. I believe that these principles can go beyond the seven day celebration and become part of our daily community life, no matter the cultural tradition. In fact, Karenga has stated that these principles are part of a “communitarian African philosophy.” With evolutionary science in agreement that civilization as a whole began in Africa, we are all Africans anyway. In his 2012 statement on the holiday, he calls for continued examination of who we are as people and to fight for social justice for all.

The Nguzo Saba itself is as follows:

  • Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
  • Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
  • Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
  • Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses, and to profit from them together.
  • Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
  • Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
  • Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in God, our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

How would these principles connect to other urbanist creeds and general community goodwill?

First, Umoja speaks of keeping people together. Although race is arbitrary, the good traditions from different cultural groups should be celebrated and cultivated. Yet, a unity that is unjust should not be tolerated. The re-segregation of schools and continued segregation of neighborhoods by race and class are detrimental to a society that seeks to maintain growth and prosperity.

Kujichagulia speaks of branding oneself, instead of letting others define you. Some of the new city branding projects sound great, but fail to reach out to average community members and leaders of communities that have been excluded. The principle is better manifested when all community leaders and members come together to define themselves, instead of yielding all control to PR and marketing experts.

Ujmaa manifests itself in tactical urbanism, and other forms of grassroots planning and activism. I see this principle in the community gardens, community policing that builds instead of breaks trust, and in faith communities who continue to invest and include the communities they surround instead of walking away when many of their congregants do. I  also see this principle in the Occupy movement, especially around the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Ujamaa  in some respects equals Buy Local. It talks about local commerce, something that’s trended in many circles over the past few years. Yet, to me it speaks to the need to support good, just, honorable businesses.While this is easier said than done in a world of Walmart being the only affordable option in many households, we need to do what we can to force all businesses to do better to serve instead of sell to customers. I  also want to use this point to disparage the belief that there is no need for culturally-based stores. Some of the same people who would laugh at the black bookstore selling incense, gladly support the local, family owned sushi bar or Irish pub. Mind you, all these businesses could be donating money to schools and senior centers. They could employ youth who need something to do besides walk the streets and terrorize others. They could be paying workers a fair wage and also making good, strong products.

Nia is pretty self-explanatory. Everything has a purpose and everything should have a purpose. That purpose should not be self-serving. If I were to choose a planning/urbanist element to pair with this principle, it would be the community plans, maps, and the process of creating such. These documents serve as the basis of our efforts and help us remember our purpose in creating communities.

Kuumba goes beyond its basic principle. It honors the creative arts and the creative mind. It is here where the creative class principle makes sense. The creative class is not the whole of the community, but it is worthy of respect. Eventually, if creativity is not respected, there will be no innovation and adaptation to changing realities, from natural disasters, to obsoletance of technologies.

Finally, Imani goes beyond religious belief. Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to believe in the ability of your fellow man or woman to do whatever has been granted for them to do. Everything is not simultaneous, fast, or easy. In many communities, it’s been faith that has kept them from completely dissolving and giving up their culture and value to outside groups. Faith is what has kept inventors, builders, and other creators doing what their titles entail. Faith is the heart of all the above elements of community.

To close, we should not completely divorce Kwanzaa from its African culture or celebratory elements. Yet, we should honor the community building elements of Nguzo Saba as we continue in our quests for creating great places.

Image credit: Flickr user soulchristmas.

Alexandria, Cities, Family and Place, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, What is urban planning?

What If The City Doesn’t Want You Anymore?

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A study of urban political systems is a study in the history of cities spitting out or sectioning off their least desirables, namely lower class and people of color of any class. First, it was the gentry of the streetcar era that found they could move further away from their servant class. Then it was housing covenants that kept out non-whites from post-war suburbs. The 1960s brought urban rewewal and slum clearance. Today, we have people who are underwater in shoddy built suburban houses because the city was such a bad place, we needed to get everyone out. Meanwhile, shiny new condos and apartments are filling cities. Sadly, or should I say ironically, some of these places are failing to sell units. A great primer on this history is the textbook City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America by Dennis R. Judd and Todd Swanstrom.

One major example of failed “urban renewal,” which I was not familiar with until recently, is the World Trade Center complex. The area was a vibrant neighborhood until the Port Authority decided to start being a real estate developer instead of a promoter and operator of decent ports and commuter subways. City Journal has more details on how the taxpayers of New York are dealing with a potential white elephant, which now has not just one, but two tragic events attached to it.

Another example of modern urban renewal is the “entertainment district” that many downtowns have become, including my own. As a woman, I can do all of my shopping downtown, and there are a couple of affordable boutiques. Yet, men are out of luck. Outside of thrift stores, there are no suit shops for men. The restaurants have a new allure, yet, we don’t have shiny new stores downtown at all. I love the local consignment shops and the old theater that plays classic movies. Yet, what about the chain stores that fill our shopping malls and power centers that attract the mass majority of the population?

Once upon a time, downtown was the shopping mall. Department stores were locally owned and did not pay workers inhumane wages. Another concept that’s now foreign downtown is the supermarket. The farmers market we had was great, but it only operates in the summer. What am I supposed to do about fresh food during the winter months if I want to be true to my walkable, urbanist principles? What if I had no car because I was broke, but I was trying to live in a place where everything was close by? Downtown looks cute architecturally, but it far underperforms for the style of real estate it contains.

Those are the surface problems with cities pushing folks out. The real problems come when the suburbs they come into are suburbs in the truest since of the word. They were only subdivisions to begin with and there are no centralized services, shops, or even schools. People complain about parents not coming to schools in low-income areas. The suburbs make it worse by forcing these people to go even further to their schools, possibly via a non-existent bus. What does one make of the dead Kmarts and dead Borders that were so hot when the demographics of the neighborhood were different? Granted, Borders was part of an overstreched business model, but the one in the “inner-ring” suburb I grew up in, up the street from the dying mall, died first.

So hence why I fault those that want to willingly be part of a failing system that traps people. Many suburbs are truly towns and offer people services in walking distance, as well as concern for all it’s citizenry. Yet, too many suburbs are housing subdivisions with nothing to offer. With cities that practice covert forms of urban renewal and suburbs that don’t want to recognize their role as small cities or big towns, we are left with not only suburbs of self-hate, but hateful, hostile cites as well.

One last note before I close out this post. Posts like this and my previous post expose how different governments consider one place a town, a city, or a suburb. I see Greensboro as one big suburb with two to four walkable urban areas, some with all the necessary services such as Lindley Park and others without such as Downtown proper. In other states, a suburb may be an actual city such Alexandria, VA, but thanks to the media, overshadowed by it’s neighbor across the Potomac River.

Either way, there is no excuse for governments of any type to contribute to the demise or the migration of their citizenry. Putting a subdivision next to a landfill, selling out downtowns to one developer, and continuing to pursue loop roads that are known contributors to sprawl are not good. Governments, as well as residents, need to come to terms with being good citizens. Stop stealing, whether it’s your neighbor’s car or “prime land” that’s already a small-scale, but thriving community.

Photo of Downtown Greensboro by Flickr user dmattphotography.

Cities, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Transportation

Suburbs of Self-Hate?

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I’m seeing lately that communities of color are buying into suburban ideals that are actually hurting rather than helping the community. This article in the Atlantic Cities talks about how this has happened in some Asian communities in California and I’ve seen it firsthand in the Black community here in North Carolina. (Latino readers, I’m not going to speak for you here since I have no evidence, but I don’t doubt it happening there too).

What disturbed me the most about that article is that people were leaving the city because of bad schools and crime. It makes me ask, attends these schools and who committs those crimes? If these are our neighbors, are we giving up on our own people? I know race is arbitrary, but culture is not, nor is neighborliness.

I do understand the embarrassment, real safety risks involved in staying in certain neighborhoods, especially as a member of non-white group or even as a white person who’s been unfairly targeted for ridicule or persecution. I understand the feeling of entitlement once one has come upon a better social class and standing to move somewhere where the class is well known and celebrated. I know that it speaks to victory over ones oppressors to move on sometimes.

Yet, when will we take responsibility for what’s in our neighborhoods and stop running away when problems start? Are we sometimes holding the very same attitude as our oppressors?

Suburbia, in many cases, was built for purposes of isolation. I do understand that folks like nature and that’s well and good. However, the proliferation of gated communities (for average, non-celebrity Americans), zoning restrictions that assume malefeasance out of its citizenry, and even charter schools are doing more hurt than harm.

We have to realize that we have to take the good with the bad. If the man on the corner calling out crazy stuff is physically harming you, then yes, please report him to the authorities. That kid that’s bullying your child may actually be the victim. We actually need to question our children more, especially when they claim they are not learning or being bullied. Are we sure THEY aren’t mistreating fellow classmates or cheating on tests? If the problem is inside the four walls of your home, moving to a different place will not change it. In fact, you may find youself to be the new nuisance in your new neighborhood

I also understand wanting a more rural setting. But if you want that, consider an actual rural setting. Or, be mindful of other ways you can be environmentally friendly, such as growing food in your yard, carpooling, or lobbying for better, more connected infrastructure in your new neighborhood.

Please folks, stop this whole running away to the suburbs because of the Other. Look hard in the mirror and make sure the Other isn’t yourself. Stop hating yourself. The time is up for racializing our neighborhoods and this kind of “grass is greener” thinking.

Photo credit: flickr user Derek Bridges.

Cities, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Raleigh, Things At a Place, Transportation, What is urban planning?

My Own Letter to the Nation, In Terms of the State and the City

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Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?
Where are you going to?
Do you know?- “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)”

On Election Night, President Barrack Obama earned a second term. Pot and gay marriage are legal in more states. The governor’s mansion and the General Assembly in North Carolina are all Republican, save one good friend of mine and a few others sprinkled here and there. We elected other local folks to our school board, our executive cabinet and our county commission.

We are also still dealing with the aftermath of another storm that shifts the political climate, along with does major, possibly irreparable damage to communities. This tests local governments and shows how much a community really needs a backbone.

My friend Kaid Benfield has laid out a good set of mandates for the federal and state governments as far as planning goes.

I want to take it further, as we are now back into the city council cycle in Greensboro and we are dealing with a new regime in the state government. Don’t believe me? I had a front row seat to the last campaign and I am already hearing chatter about who is going to run next and how. Also, with the election of Trudy Wade in our fifth district to the state house, we have a wide open seat that represents one of our wealthiest areas. This area is also an attractive area for our newcomers and this person, whomever it is, needs to be focused on the future.

So what are my mandates for the next four years? Here’s a start

–Real talk around commuter rail and light rail in all of our major cities and connecting our major cities. Governor-Elect McCrory opened the Blue Lynx line in Charlotte, working with city leaders of all stripes to get that done. I want him to keep the efforts going by Governor Perdue and others to maintain federal high-speed rail funding. I also want funding to go to adding a third train from Charlotte to Raleigh that leaves at midnight and arrives in Greensboro at approximately 1:30 AM. The Piedmont train is almost always on time. The Carolinian has issues due to it’s leaving the state and going all the way to New York. Get this train to an on-time schedule, and use this to build on an already established commuter rail system that’s gaining ridership at a rate higher than any line in the country.

–Keep our university system affordable. Do not let the passing of Bill Friday give you permission to completely dismantle what is already a great system and a revenue generating system even with the lack of income from students. Don’t build up physical campuses at the expense of having good research faculty, good and caring teaching faculty and students, and students who finish in a timely manner without debt. We will fail in North Carolina without proper higher education, that doesn’t choke students with debt.

–Continue to increase pedestrian, bike and other inner-city infrastructure– We have a lot of good bones here in Greensboro and in other towns and cities across the state and the nation. The General Assembly needs to revoke the privilege to allow cities NOT to demand that landlords be accountable for their houses. Far too many renters, many who have already suffered from foreclosures, are struggling with being able to stay in homes that have toxic issues. Also, we need a decent water and sewer system on the east side. Part of the excuse for not investing in this area is this issue of water/sewer and we need that covered, so that we can deal with the very reall inequity that still exists in East Greensboro. Similar areas in Raleigh and Charlotte, with lower-incomes and browner people, still have lots of mainstream business and retail opportunities. We need to do what we can (save adding the road into NC A&T’s farm), to get the East side at parity. Also, we can support another performing arts center, concentrated in the downtown area, if we work to make sure our transportation and also the groups who need to use it for their own personal economies and wellbeing (dancers, actors, singers, other local artists),know it’s theirs.

-Finally, lets keep grassroots efforts moving. I’m looking forward to this film and discussion on next Wednesday on the film Fixing the Future. A lot of people organizing this event I consider friends, colleagues and fellow foot soliders into what makes Greensboro great. I know of two active Better Block projects run by friends in Memphis and Durham. The folks here in Greensboro represent co-op businesses, environmental groups and others concerned with giving back to their own community. Oh, and we’ve done very well with having food trucks here in Greensboro, thanks to grassroots and mainstream support. As my friend Rosetta Thurman has stated, we cannot afford four more years of leadership by proxy.

Let’s do this people! What are some other things on your wishlist for this next election cycle and the next four years.

Cities, Family and Place, Greensboro, Guest Post, Politics of Place

Guest Post-An Open Letter on the State of Greensboro

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In honor of Election Day in the United States, I wanted to post this reflection of the political climate of Greensboro, where I live and work and inspired to be a placeist most of all. It’s written by my friend Graham Sheridan, a 23 year old Greensboro native and a graduate of Grimsley High School and Washington and Lee University. He is currently a Master’s student at Brown University in Providence, RI, in public administration. We met last year on the campaign trail for city council. My candidate lost, his won. We both love Greensboro with all of our hearts, so campaigning and making sure good people got on city council, was personal. Also, as Millennials, we have a very different view of some of the old struggles of our hometown. Without further ado, I’m giving you Graham’s letter, which outlines this different view:

An Open Letter on the State of Greensboro

This is the sort of piece editors usually write on the eve of an election – a sort of “the choice before us is clear” piece. But the choice is not clear, or, more aptly; I am not sure what the choices are. Instead, I intend to look at how Greensboro is doing today, examine what trends push our town, and see not who, but what ideas, can put our city on the best course for the next ten years.

When I was campaigning for Councilwoman Hoffmann, people would balk a little at how much money and effort went into her election. I would always answer that Greensboro, especially Mrs. Hoffmann’s district, has graduated from being a Big Town to being a Small City. We ran a Small City campaign in order to win. In Charleston, SC for example, city council and county commission candidates spend big money on staffs and field offices. In 2009, Mayor Johnson learned the hard way that Greensboro has grown to be a small city. She is a politician of the Big Town era, and a lot of the people who voted against her were newcomers and neighborhoods that were annexed into the city, people who did not grow up in Big Town era Greensboro. Nonetheless, almost everyone on City Council today is a holdover of the Big Town era or still clings to the Big Town power structure for support. The old structure proves hard to shake off.

The Big Town model was based on four quadrants – professional class white people, working class white people, professional class black people, and working class black people. These quadrants dominated economic and social life in Greensboro for many years. The professionals had white-collar jobs at the mill or at Jefferson Pilot, or were lawyers, doctors, shop owners and the like. Working class people worked on the floor in the mill or in the rail yard or some such. These divisions were easily seen and completely understood. On occasion there were a couple of exceptions made, for example, some Jewish people were worked into the system. Now, things are a much more mixed up in Greensboro. We live in a multi-ethnic, multilingual city. Jobs are spread around more companies. Unlike previous eras, we lack a monolithic all-controlling employer who can dictate and bankroll what happens in town. For example, when people in Greensboro wanted to start a golf tournament, the Bryan family just wrote a check. Notice how many places and institutions in Greensboro are named for the same few people, people who dominated their quadrants. These quadrants no longer describe our population, and Greensboro’s economy no longer centers on one or two huge employers.

I wonder if even what we have left of the Big Town power structure would still be in place if so many of Greensboro’s new citizens were not immigrants without voting ability. When I go to the Super G International grocery I wonder how different city council would look if even 15% of those residents voted in municipal elections.
Most of the Super G’s customers, however, are left out of the Big Town power structure, because they do not fit any of the quadrants.

A few factions dictate the opinions and votes of the people within the Big Town power structure. The Country Club and the African-American Church get notoriety as the two most noted and visible. These still dominate the conversation in Greensboro, and tend to get their people elected. However, these organizations are starting to show cracks. Especially in the 2009 election, when the Tea Party, organized locally as Conservatives for Guilford County (C4GC), was able to get several of its people in office. Or in 2011, when some of the African-American groups tried to unseat Councilman Jim Kee, who still won handily.

De Tocqueville worried in the mid-1800s that democracy would fall to the tyranny of the majority, that the rights of smaller groups of citizens would not be protected. In Greensboro we do see this in votes like Amendment One[our ballot initiative to amend the constitution to define marriage in North Carolina]. But what we really live in is a tyranny of the participators. Some people have outsized influence because they participate and pay attention and lobby. Others, who may have real concerns, because they fail to participate, never get heard. Some companies and groups that that employ a lot of people do not participate very much in local politics. This does not fit the definition of tyranny per se, because anyone can enter and start participating at any moment, but the political circles take effort and time to break into.

This self-selection creates some of the conundrums of connecting with voters for Mrs. Hoffmann, especially our experiment with public office hours, when we post a place and time on her Facebook for the public to come speak to her and voice their concerns. Most of the people who have something to tell city council can just pick up the phone and call Ms. Hoffmann whenever they want. She knows what they think, because they show up and tell her. So they have no need to come to the public office hours. Other people, who do not pay attention, would not know to look for Councilwoman Hoffmann’s office hours, and probably do not know their councilperson’s name. Thus, we have a huge self-selection problem. So very few people show up to have coffee with Councilwoman Hoffmann. The people who self-select to care about politics, and by extension to run for office, are not necessarily the best people to do the jobs, or lobby city council. But what should those public officials really be doing? What actions could they take to bring serious positive progress to Greensboro? Or is Greensboro okay?

To me, most of our civic issues come back to the same core: the dissolution of Greensboro’s Big Town Institutions, and debate surrounding what Small City institutions our citizens and businesspeople should create to take their place. The Big Town institutions and Big Town civil society were demolished by a one-two punch: the closure of the Big Town economic drivers, and integration.

In Richard Russo’s Empire Falls everyone in the small town of Empire Falls, Maine waits in vain for the old textile mill to open back up. It was the center of the town, and with its passing went the beating heart of livelihood in the little town. You can see that desperation in the News & Record sometimes. People imagine that some company (Dell, Citi, HondaJet) is going to come to town and employ 4,000 people. This, of course, is not going to happen. But people are upset, because the old institutions – the mills: and Jefferson Pilot – no longer exist at the scale they once did. Lorillard still makes cigarettes in Greensboro, but a few engineers run an automated factory, not thousands of people hand-rolling cigarettes.

The Performing Arts Center debate, too, has Big Town/Small City groups at odds. Some of the more progressive voices in town, and many of the Small City young people, see this as a straightforward choice between progress and stagnation. A lot of the Big Town politicians see it as West Greensboro spending money on their pet projects rather than on East Greensboro. Those Big Town politicians, however, ignore what really happened to East Greensboro.

The second blow of the one-two punch knocking out the Big Town institutions, integration, has changed much of Greensboro’s landscape. You can tell this especially in our debates about grocery stores in East Greensboro. The ones that used to be there packed up and left because some of the old, beautiful, neighborhoods around A&T that used to be Black Gentry neighborhoods have been abandoned. What were once mixed-income areas are no longer. Wealthy black families moved west or to black gentry suburbs along Alamance Church Road. Jonathan Franzen recently wrote in the New Yorker about “the obliteration of all social distinctions by money.” Many members of the Big Town power structure have a hard time accepting this. We celebrate every citizen’s ability to choose where she wants to live and go to school without fear of discrimination. Still, now that these changes have come, we must examine how to protect and reinvigorate neighborhoods left behind by social change. The old quadrants (professional white people, professional black people, working white people, and working black people) no longer apply geographically as they once did. Those raw economics, rather than public projects such as the Aquatic Center, are to blame for many of the problems in East Greensboro.

Integration has also taken a toll on two of the major institutions of East Greensboro – NC A&T State University and Bennett College. Just as wealthy African-Americans have been integrated into white neighborhoods, high-achieving black students have been integrated into white schools. We have our first black president and he went not to Morehouse and Howard Law but to Columbia and Harvard Law. The collapse of the black gentry neighborhoods and the openness of UNCG have made Bennett an ever-less appealing place to go to school. A&T has the advantage of being a state school, but I worry about its place in culture and its status among employers. NC State has the advantage in recruiting and placing the best black engineers now. We may be seeing the last generation of black leaders who were educated at HBCUs. In the face of this distress, A&T is expanding. It does still admirably serve well its function of training African-Americans in the sciences. Maybe the leadership hopes that being North Carolina’s backup engineering school will prove a worthwhile niche. Equality and choice are exactly what Jessie Jackson fought for, but it takes a toll on his alma mater NC A&T SU.

Technology, globalization, and integration have blown open the old Big Town economy and Big Town power structure. Many of the institutions that brought Greensboro through the 20th century are no more. Our town needs new ideas, entrepreneurs, and energy to be a part of the 21st century economy. Additionally, the new citizens of all types contribute to Greensboro’s energy and excitement.

We have great opportunities that come from the cracks in the Big Town power structure. Activists can get more done, because they can cross quadrants and build alliances based on common interests. They do not have to worry about angering the man who employs 15% of the town. The mill town and company town Small business owners have more of a say, and, for example, when M’Coul’s Public House worries about how noise ordinances will affect the St. Patrick’s Day party, powerful people listen.

However, the trade-off of the erosion of the Big Town structure is that civic life is ever more important. In the Performing Arts Center debate, we hear people scream, over and over, “find private funding!” These people hearken back to the Big Town days, imagining that a Joseph M. Bryan will come along and throw in $10 million and a Performing Arts Center will happen. Those days are over. Greensboro’s society grows more meritocratic and more based on activism, mutual respect, and a cosmopolitan mix of people of all sorts. Instead of living under a rich benefactor, we must come together and make public decisions of what to do with communal money. The democratic process takes longer, just ask the members of the council-appointed Performing Arts Center Task Force (full disclosure: the author’s mother is on the task force) but the process is necessary for decisions concerning large amounts of public money.

The Performing Arts Center debate, really, just illustrates the new normal in decision-making for Greensboro. Good old-fashioned community organizing will be the rule from now on to affect change in the town. It worked for the opponents of the White Street Landfill being re-opened. The Big Town people on City Council, who thought they could pit one quadrant against the others failed to see the new Small City mentality. Groups, especially the Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro, were adept at crossing quadrants, and getting people who lived far from White Street interested and activist on their neighborhood’s behalf.

To sum up, we no longer live in the Greensboro of the 60s. We see that everywhere; from how many people line up to live in CityView to political organization of night club owners. The Big Town structure endures, but in a weakened state. The power has spread to more people. The question now comes: what do the people want to do with the power? What kind of town do they want to live in? We must ask them.

Family and Place, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Transportation, What is urban planning?

What Happens To A Mall Deferred?

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Brother Langston’s classic poem “Dream Deferred” is heavy on my mind today. I woke up this morning after dreaming once again that my beloved enclosed mall, the Four Seasons Town Centre, is dying, along with our surrounding neighborhood. The mall had many glory days from the time it opened in the 1970’s, but starting in the 1990’s, I started having these odd dreams about it’s death.

Sometimes the mall would succumb to an earthquake. The concourses on the bottom floor would have perfect fault lines and the stores would be havens for displaced neighbors, with boxes of care packages instead of designer clothes. Other times, I would be on a boat, sailing past the third floor at ground level, knowing fearfully that my house was completely under the water.

These would just be regular dreams and not allegory if not for the rumors that the mall would be moving about five miles further out from the city. The mall was already on the outskirts, with this new revelation, the mall will be over 10 miles outside of the core of Greensboro. Granted, now that High Point’s mall is pretty much on life support, it makes sense to put it where it’s going, halfway between the two, adjacent to what will be a new suburban freeway.

I understand all the logic that real estate companies use when building shopping centers. Yet, in a a new era of localized retail, from all economic demographics, I question the logic. Why take away what’s a useful town center? Is it really the money or is it the color of the people providing the money? Yes, there have been a few violent incidents, yet, we live in a troubled metropolis, a trouble that is not exclusive to the low-income areas. There are foreclosures, lost jobs, ne’er do wells all over. If you build it, they will all come. ALL. Plus, if this is really a town center, then who are we to restrict the access?

Or is it really? Unfortunately, for many, there is no difference. Date nights, back-to-school shopping, morning walks, graduation dinners, lunch breaks. Maybe I chose the wrong place to go all these years.

I don’t get out there like I used to. I live in a different place. Yet, I know how much this place is needed. I don’t think I’d keep dreaming about it if I didn’t.

Cities, Family and Place, Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, What is urban planning?

Does It Matter Who Owns the Corner Store?

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Recently, a friend on Facebook asked this somewhat quintessential question: Why don’t black folks own businesses in their own neighborhoods? One commenter to this status mentioned that it may be because we (as in black folks) have forgotten to help our own as we have achieved higher and higher financial goals and wealth.

I myself personally believe (and I mentioned this in a comment myself) that black folks went through a period where some of the business types in predominantly black neighborhoods were unwanted and unneeded in their eyes. I’ve even had someone who remembers urban renewal in Greensboro tell me that they willingingly tore down the neighborhood businesses in hopes of something better.

However, in many cases, that something better never came. I am also cautious of some modern “revitalizations”, especially when the lots have been sitting empty for several years with no vision and no purpose.

Meanwhile, I applaud those who took up the banner of preserving the history, the commerce, and the tradition of ethnic enclaves, of all cultures. I even applaud those of other cultures who have come in and filled up the vacant spaces, either with businesses and services more geared to their cultures. I especially love if they maintained the original businesses quality and culture, and improved the original operations.

When community and culture and affordability are respected, then I don’t think it matters who owns the corner store.

We underrated, we educated
The corner was our time when times stood still
And gators and snakes gangs and yellow and pink
And colored blue profiles glorifying that…

The corner was our magic, our music, our politics
Fires raised as tribal dancers and
war cries that broke out on different corners
Power to the people, black power, black is beautiful…

The corner was our Rock of Gibraltar, our Stonehenge
Our Taj Mahal, our monument,
Our testimonial to freedom, to peace and to love
Down on the corner… Common featuring The Last Poets, The Corner, 2005

Yet, when businesses on these proverbial corners completely forget their legacy and their obligation for service, then they fail. If a shop owner follows its teenage customers instead of offering jobs, then they have failed. If women are looked upon as strange invasive creatures and vice-versa for males, then they have failed. Yes, we need safe space to be ourselves as men and women, but at the end of the day, there still comes a time for mutual respect. Elders should shop for free. What about GLBTQ folks and their needs? It’s this vision of the corner store or business as a service that owners need to undertake.

Ultimately, I think that this obligation is what makes it hard for people to maintain such businesses over a long haul. These businesses are more than stores, barbers or beauty salons. They are sounding boards, mini town squares and city halls. If you are not ready to be a de facto mayor or community leader, then you best take your business elsewhere. I believe this is why these businesses fall onto those who either want this charge or those who have no other choice but to run this type of business. I think some black leaders (and I’m sure there are others of other ethnic enclaves who feel the same way) who wanted to run a business that would not become every inch of their lives.

So does it matter who owns the corner store? Absolutely. Yet, it’s not a question of what the owners look like on the outside, it’s a question of what they believe on the inside about their community and their business.

Image credit Flickr user Mr. T in DC under a Creative Commons Licence.

apartment living, Arts Districts, Cities, Food, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Things At a Place, Transportation, What is urban planning?

Finding Happiness in the “Generic” City

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So I was looking for jobs about six months ago and I came upon my current position through my network of grad school friends. On paper I knew I had what it takes to get the job. I also knew that this was a job that I could grow into and also be myself. Later on, after getting the job, I moved to the downtown area where this job was located. I have a great view of said downtown from this place. I can afford to eat a meal out at least once a week in this downtown. I can walk to work and to those restaurants in less than 15 minutes. Also, I have a car. It’s paid off and I can get to where I need to go outside of downtown in about 15 minutes. My car can also get to the beach in 4 hours and the mountains in 3.5. There’s decent low-cost places to park it. Oh, and I went to grad school in this same place, with one year free and the other for less than $20,000. Oh, and the train station is right next door.

This is my hometown. I have to write its name with the state abbreviation beside it. It’s economically distressed in areas. There’s no light rail. There’s no Trader Joes (yet). My parents live within those 15 minutes.

It could be Anytown, USA, the Generic City.

I thought I’d be living somewhere else by now, but I don’t need to. Even with those drawbacks I listed in the paragraph above.

The New York Times recently published one of their famous stories of how recent college graduates are living in New York. New York for Americans and much of the world is probably the number one name-brand city. A lot of people in the comments claimed that those folks featured were trust fund babies. However, I see in some of these stories echoes of mine. This too is an article for those of us who are fortunate to be working a salaried job. To have state-school level student debt, if any at all. To have a parent who was able to take one in while one worked out their career issues.

My parents, a schoolteacher and an electrician, along with a few other family members and generous friends stepped in to help me out by providing shelter,food,entertainment, money advice and even a few extra dollars to help me get my car, furniture and the like. I call this the village effect. I know everyone has some kind of support network, even if it’s just social services. In the meantime, I went to a state school and financed it mostly through scholarships and grants, taking out loans,then paying back the differential of what I didn’t need. I did the same thing in grad school, only I lived at home and worked as a graduate assistant. In between I worked a few places, but nothing longer than 14 months or permanent. I made some financial mistakes, but I know now what I need to do to fix them. Now I live in a small, but solo apartment in a very nice area of downtown.

Yet, if I’d moved to New York City, or even Washington, DC, my true dream name-brand city, I don’t think I’d be in such good shape, unless I had a job with a crazy high salary. My equivalent job in New York pays exactly the same as it does here in North Carolina. Unfortunately, there’s no cost of living adjustment. On the subject of college, my loans would have eaten me alive. We are going to assume that I would not have received any financial aid, at either a public or private university.

I also think the NYT article echoes a need that some people have to move somewhere with action, but not necessarily with a job or a job that pays all the bills. What I advocate is for a person to move somewhere with a job, but close to a decent airport, train station, Megabus stop or cross-country interstate. If you are living somewhere where you have low rent, then you can save up to take vacations (paid or unpaid). If you are in a mid-sized, but well-located city like I am, a low paycheck goes a long way. Either way, a steady paycheck in this economy goes far longer that no money in a city that may be a name-brand, but with no job prospects for you.

Back to the negatives of this generic city for a minute. There are some missing stores, but they are coming (Trader Joes, we are still waiting). Yet, with that aside, being in this generic city, I know the powers-to-be who are bringing the store in and why we have yet to see it. I’ve also mentioned on my Facebook page about how our 35 year old co-op is moving downtown and assuming the role a Traders has in many a community.

Another negative factor is the local social scene. We are still more of a family town, but we do have singles activities if you look long and hard. For me, it’s taking the steps to one, accept that I have a different lifestyle and two, cultural events aren’t necessarily one-sized fits all.

Once again, this is an elitist article. This assumes that you have a decent job or job offers. You have a choice on where you live. No, scratch that, this is a real article. You only got one job offer and it’s not in that name-brand city you dream about every night. You love everything about your life besides the city on the line of your mailing address. However, in that generic city, you just might be living your dream life after all.