Category Archives: tips for urbanist living

Arts Districts, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living

Strengthening and Creating the Urban Arts District

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From my observations, downtowns across America live and die by their arts institutions. I know this is the case in Greensboro. We are currently debating the need for a new performing arts center downtown, thanks to the need to update our current civic center auditorium and the opportunity to pay down debts.

Yet, if we are not careful, this will become a misguided initiative, much like Nathaniel Hood has stated in his tome against entertainment districts. I believe that arts districts must be organic and cater to already established needs. Thankfully, there are arts leaders in Greensboro who are also like-minded.

This past week, (July 8-14 of 2012) I ran across an article in the News and Record, our local major paper. A former mayor of ours, Keith Holiday, is now  the executive director of the Carolina Theater, a historic venue that hosts old movies, the Greensboro Opera and a few other local dance, drama, and music productions. Occasionally the venue gets national performers such as Roberta Flack for intimate theater style shows that can’t quite fill the civic center auditorium.

In this article, he touts a plan to build a bigger theater space, similar to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), directly behind the Carolina Theater space. This space is a parking lot owned by the City of Greensboro. The article above has a rendering of what this space would look like. Also included would be a new black box theater on the top two floors of the facility and an outdoor performance space between the two venues.

While this does create a large scale complex, management would be in two hands. These hands are the Carolina Theater(which is nonprofit) and the City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department(government). Also, there are two other theater companies, that also operate as nonprofits, downtown. Combining these with the existing art galleries, dance studios and live music venues, Downtown Greensboro already has an organic arts district. This arts district also incorporates public space and public engagement.

Honestly, because of the abundance of these spaces, we really only need the DPAC sized venue. In addition to the downtown spaces, the universities in town have performance venues. Although not considered traditional arts venues, the NewBridge Bank Park (home to our minor league baseball team), as well as Center City Park, are also worthy of being considered performance space in the downtown area. And then there’s the coliseum complex where the aforementioned civic center auditorium, as well as an arena and several flexible event spaces also reside.

Still, as stated in the News and Record article, there is need for more arts space. There are many people creating and crafting and there can never be enough space for them. In addition, they are generating jobs and a new economy. Coupled with the growing crafters movement, bloggers like myself and traditional creative fields such as architecture, Florida’s creative class is actually alive and well.

Ultimately, an arts district:
– Builds from the bottom-up
– Incorporates and take stock of existing venues, uses and companies
– Thinks ahead, but incorporates all performers and connoisseurs past and present.
– Entertains and feeds the soul

Note that none of these factors mention economic development. I know that this is the cause célèbre of arts venues right now in light of being harassed and pressed by government entities and funders to be self-sustaining. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be a good financial steward. Yet, I am charging cities to think about creating cultural capital and cultural value, then watch the money pour in.
And as I’ve stated before, you cannot be willing to create unless you are willing to fail first.

Since this article was first published, a plan was enacted to use space formally utilized by the YWCA, adjacent to the central branch of the Greensboro Public Library, after a public charette was held to solicit feedback from residents. Many resident-generated ideas ended up in the final recommendation from that charette.

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.

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.

tips for urbanist living

Five Ways Government Workers and Officials Are Master Placemakers

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On Memorial Day, we celebrate the sacrifice of the many men and women of our Armed Forces that have passed on either in battle or having lived a full civilian life. My PaPa was a World War II veteran and his presence was missed as we gathered around the table and the grill at my house yesterday.

Before everyone came over, I was sitting at my kitchen table writing in my urbanist journal and I thought about how some other, more mundane, public servants actually make our places. I’m talking about everyone from the mayors, to the town and city planners, to the grant administrators, to the classically trained government service generalists (MPA’s, MPP’s and the like) such as myself. Even people such as firefighters and police can be placemakers, as they are the ones who spearhead events like National Night Out and make sure we have safe places to go.

In essence, I came up with yet another list of five specific ways us government workers, elected officials and those of us without a fancy planning firm behind our name make or break great places.

–We are charged with creating rural and urban transit systems: Generally, we have the final say about how people get around. Drivers licenses, bike lane approval, and the number of buses or train cars are all government worker decisions.
–We can and must wrangle the political system: This includes public comment periods, concerns about Agenda 21, and just general concerns about getting ourselves into too much civic debt. Also, we may have been in a political campaign, which if done right means we shook every hand and kissed every baby in our community. We know our community and we know how to mobilize them for good will.
–We know how to finance our initiatives: Instead of drawing pretty pictures that can cost whatever it takes, we take grant allotments and make it happen on the budget we have. Often that means we get have to get the community involved or there is no project. And with tactical urbanism and other small-scale movements that incorporate elements of new urbanism, we can have a taste of full community involvement along with good urban design.
–We make laws that encourage or discourage good placemaking: The zoning code or lack of one is in our laps. Same with housing a planning department. Or the decision to go with form-based or Euclidean zoning. Plus, there’s all the behavioral laws that can encourage or discourage good placemaking.
-And finally we can turn spaces into civic spaces: We create the public parks and public squares. We protect the first amendment and allow free speech. We can also deny civil rights in our spaces. Ultimately, we hold the keys to space, unless it’s under tribal control or agreed upon to be shared in some other international agreement.

So to all my folks who are closer to the government side of the sector, take pride. Without us, there wouldn’t be a placemaking discussion at all.

I also welcome continued discussion on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Image above by Flickr user WELS.net under a Creative Commons License.

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.

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.