Category Archives: Things At a Place

apartment living, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living, Traveling as An Urbanist

Please Excuse My Absence…I’ve Been On a Journey

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I had no intention of leaving the blog idle for this long. Yet, occasionally, living the actual life of an urbanist gets in the way of being able to write about it.

Yet while away from my urbanist pen, I was able to experience two key events that I think have major significance in the creation of community on a micro and a macro level.

The first is that I finalized my move into Downtown Greensboro. The picture above is from my balcony window. Every day I witness all manner of trains and buses ferry people and things across the state and potentially across the country. Just beyond the train depot (which has been beautifully restored in the last few years), the skyline buildings of Greensboro and our main street slant out and appear to dance before my eyes.

Ok, this is where I stop and admit I have an unnatural love for good urban architecture. But so do a lot of you reading this page, so I’ll carry on.

On the other hand, there’s the instance of travel, the journeys we all undertake in life. At work it is a focus of a traveling Smithsonian exhibit we are sponsoring. I went down to rural eastern North Carolina to help promote the new exhibit last month. I had a great time getting to know my still new colleagues and seeing how it’s really going down in what we call “Down East”. I found a charming main street in one town and the appearance of suburban sprawl like development in the other. There was also a healthy dose of jingoism. The hotel where we stayed was built by the Murphy Family, a pork dynasty that wanted to have a hotel and state-of-the-art Irish bar to entertain people. There was also a master planned upscale retirement community nearby.

Now that I’m finally back home, settled and almost unpacked, I can really soak in what’s going to come next in my chapter as a black urbanist. I see five new elements of my urban experience.

  • Gentrification– I am a professional black person, living in an area that was targeted and won slum clearance just a few short years ago. Now although the neighborhood resembles the French Quarter and also appears to have similar dynamics of race (who lives there, what people do, etc.)
  • Gated communities– When I signed the lease, I forgot that our buildings have controlled access hallways. I appreciate the layer of safety, but I am still not in favor of gating communities down in lieu of dealing with why people feel the need to steal. Are we providing a good economy so that people can have their own stuff and let people have their own stuff?
  • Walking as a primary mode of transportation– I’ve looked forward to this the most. However, in reality, there are many days where I regret having elected to make the 15 minute walk in the 90 and sometimes 100+ degree heat. Yet, I know that once the weather gets cooler, walking is going to help me arrive at the office settled and help me shake off the office when I get home. Plus, my gas hand has sat at a half tank for over a week now. Walking will become less and less of an issue as time goes on. I’ve also noticed how little people actually walk around here too. I’ll be addressing that in a future post.
  • Biking– My dad worked some magic and my old bike is now fully functional. Looking forward to riding it to work and to going out on trails with family and friends. I’ll also be able to advocate even better for bike and pedestrian safety and I’m fully engaged in these modes of transportation.
  • Trains– At least 10 trains come right in front of my house daily. Some I love to see, such as the Amtrak trains. Others are just noisy and I’m thankful that they don’t wake me up. I often sit on my balcony and watch them go by, as well as the city buses coming into what is our multi-modal depot. They also serve as the foreground for the background of our city skyline you see above. I hope to take the train again one day soon to points north, south and east, since it’s now right in my front yard and will add to my urban experience.

Now, that’s settled. Let me get back to living and I look forward to a greater richness in my writings now that I’m finally in the environment I’ve written on and loved on so much.

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)

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.

apartment living, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living

Actually Being Urban Part 1- Apartment Finding

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I’ve been fortunate in the past three weeks to obtain full time employment. What that means is that I finally get to put into practice a lot of the things I preach on this blog and retweet out to others on the social sites. You will also notice a few minor site changes(better tags, better pictures) and hopefully more real stories of what it’s like to live a more urban lifestyle in a suburbanesque locale. In this post I will discuss my apartment search.

Let’s start simple. The top five things I want in an apartment are as follows:

1.    Doors to private areas
2.    Balcony
3.    Second floor
4.    Closet space
5.    Low energy bills

That would be inside the apartment. On the exterior, these are my top five:

1.    Proximity to places I need to go on a daily basis
2.    Fitness Center
3.    Bike facilities
4.    Camaraderie of neighbors and management staff
5.    Proximity to fun activities, walking distance preferred, no more than 3 mile drive away from fun stuff unless it’s truly spectacular(other cities, cultural events, opportunities to speak and network with others)

Going into this, I knew the best option for my wishlist was downtown in a new development called CityView. I’d visited the apartments before, but considering a roommate. Now, I was visiting for myself only and I wanted to make sure things were still cool. Also, I’d heard that there were solid concrete floors in the apartments. I was not a fan of this idea and I needed to investigate that problem as well.

Side rant: If you are putting a feature in just to be “urban” and it’s not practical. STOP. You look stupid and even I as an urbanist don’t buy it.

Yet, in touring the “studio”, I was told that there is carpet in the bedrooms and some laminate wood in the living room on the second and third floors. There are also doors to the bedroom. Two in fact. I was sold.

Or so I thought. I got home and I thought about how dark the place seemed. When I lived in Durham, I had light surrounding my place. Even in my childhood bedroom, and throughout my mom’s house there is abundant light. I needed to look at a couple of other places. I am adding light to both of my lists above.

I won’t name the other three complexes, but it’s not because they are evil. They are in great locations(two are walking distance to a lot of big box and even some college style retail, the other is a little closer to what will be my office downtown). Their staff was super nice and didn’t look at me like I had horns when I wanted to tour their complexes. I learned valuable information from all three on general apartment maintenance and money-saving tips.

It was a 15 minute walk on a stressful day that helped me make my decision. From the time I ran track as a high school student, to migrating across campus for a student government meeting or a movie at the campus cinema (or class, I did a lot of that, but they were closer to my dorm), I found solace in walking or running. I knew that if I chose CityView, it would make no sense for me to drive most days of the week to work. I tend to play downtown as well and all of my playhouses would be on the way to my house. I would be able to blow off pressure from work. I could squeeze in a midday walk home. If I wanted to cut time, I could get my bike back and actually ride it this time.

Then the staff was really, really nice, offering discounts and an opportunity to waitlist until the perfect unit (one that actually does face the city, as some don’t) came available. I kept finding out acquaintances of mine that I think highly of would be neighbors. I toured the sample apartment again and someone was just moving in. I saw that all my furniture (which is very few pieces) would fit and that light would in fact come into the apartment, if it weren’t for facing another one of the buildings in the complex. All the pieces of my vision were coming together. (Including the closet space. One closet is just shelves, the other is hangers. If you know me well, you know that this is the perfect balance).

So in July, I will officially be standing in my front yard, as I am in the picture above. I will be a true urban dweller. And this idea of being a black urbanist will no longer be a total illusion. Plus, I get to tell more stories of what it’s like to live, work and play in the CBD of a smaller, more suburban city.

Photo credit above by the lovely Stephanie Eaton. Please check out her work. If you are in the Greensboro area, she would love to make you look as good as she has me. Also, don’t forget Twitter and Facebook where I keep the peeps informed.