Category Archives: Uncategorized

Book Club, Uncategorized

Introducing The Black Urbanist Book Club — New Media for Designers and Builders

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I love reading. Those of you who have known me in real life for years don’t doubt or dispute that. In fact, I’ve spent more money on books than clothing in the past few weeks. So I knew it would only be a matter of time until I introduced a virtual book club/bookshelf.  And to dust off the bookshelf, I present to you:

 

New Media for Designers and Builders Cover

Spiritual, then tactical. Those two words summarize the gist of the wonderful volume New Media for Designers and Builders by architect, fellow new urbanist, and green living advocate Steven A. Mouzon. For those who are familiar with Steve’s Original Green vision, he’s just taken this vision and worldview and applied that to how to use social media. While geared towards designers and builders of the traditional sort, this could apply to anyone who wants to promote ideas versus products.

In fact, Steve believes that we are past the age of the product (faster, cheaper, more efficient) and in the age of the idea. This age of the idea dictates that we are to be more patient, generous, and connected in our practice and communication. There’s no place better to practice those values than in social media. While there’s a case for faster, cheaper, and efficient in social media branding, often times these efforts that emphasize those aspects fall flat. In essence, they are just as bad as the traditional marketing practices they are replacing. When one focuses on doing things patiently, generously and with an eye towards actual connectivity, then social media goes from being a fad and a spam tactic, to being a catalyst for change.

You should pick up the book for more on the specifics of how to use social media in this more meaningful way, but do note that this book was made especially for you to download in iBookstore. However, having the PDF with an open internet connection will be sufficient to click on all the references, plus, interact with a special online comments and discussion section after each chapter. Also, the iBookstore release is forthcoming. A PDF purchase grants you a free iBookstore download, with lifetime free updates.

Many of you know that my primary skill set is social media. For a while, I struggled with bringing that skill within the placemaking realm I wanted to inhabit. Once I heard this vision from Steve, which he’s been working on for quite a while, I knew this is what I had to start doing to make this site and all my social media ventures, better. Also, I ironically am writing this review on a day when I have limited access to the internet and social media. I suggest that you download this book, turn off your wireless connection, grab a pen and paper to record your thoughts for the comment prompts and then make a note of areas where you can especially be better. Also, re-read and re-read. You’ll be seeing a lot of the changes he suggests come into this space and related spaces soon.

Click here to purchase.

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Greensboro’s High Point Road and Lee Street, In Retrospect

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City leaders want to change the names Lee Street and High Point Road, a major east-west connector route in the city which at one time was part of U.S. 29/70, to Gate City Boulevard. While many believe this will help spur economic development, I believe it will make no difference. Disinvestment or reinvestment is more than a name change. In 2010 I wrote the following two posts, published in their entirety below, to reflect on where the city and the road itself was. In the interim there have been some major changes, and this name change is another.  My apologizes for dead links and anything that was blatantly incorrect. This is me writing prior to grad school, as a young citizen in the crux of the Great Recession, frustrated at the loss of a neighborhood that was once a neighborhood of major promise. Or has it been lost?

Part One

Sunday morning this story was on the front page of the  Greensboro News & Record. It told me the details of something I already knew. My neighborhood is seriously on life support. Or not.  The area I’m referring to is the High Point Rd. corridor, a street I can easily walk to within 30 minutes and drive to in less than 5 minutes.

The article touches on some history of the road’s development; I’ll add my own context for you out-of-towners. Lee Street and High Point Rd are essentially the same road. (The changeover happens on the west end of the Greensboro Coliseum complex). Lee Street extends due east past UNCG, serves as the south border of Downtown Greensboro and extends east through mostly residential areas to US 29 and then peters out just past I-85 Business in Southern Guilford County. High Point Rd goes southwest from the Coliseum area, passing under I-40 just at the Four Seasons Town Centre/ Koury Convention Center complex and through a series of strip malls, some with nationally known big box stores, which end, at the city limit at Groometown Rd. The road continues through the Adams Farm and Sedgefield pseudo-suburan areas, through Jamestown, past my own high school and Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) and ends up as Lexington Ave in High Point proper. I’ve never driven it all the way through High Point, but I assume it goes on to Lexington, as it was once signed as US 29/70, a route that currently follows I-85 Business through High Point and goes on to follow and parallel I-85 through Charlotte.

According to the article, Four Seasons Town Centre has survived General Growth Properties bankruptcy with flying colors. Lots of small ethnic owned and themed businesses are mingled in with national chains Borders, World Market, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Anna’s Linens, Office Depot, Burlington Coat Factory, Aldi , Big Lots,Toys R Us,  TJ Maxx and a number of restaurant chains, including one of our two Krispy Kreme stores.

Not only do we still have still have chain stores, but we also regained an 18-screen movie theater and managed to maintain it despite a shooting there in January 2009. If it weren’t for strong NIMBYism in our neighborhood, Wal-Mart could be walking distance, as well as a number of other big box chains that instead have set up shop on the nearby Wendover Avenue corridor over the last nearly 20 years.

Yet it’s the shootings, lootings and other organized crime that the article highlights and poses a problem for many people. It’s also the number of shady businesses such as strip clubs, unkempt motels, sweepstakes parlors and other legal gambling enterprises that have stepped in where all grocery stores have stepped out.

I’ll note here that there is a Harris Teeter on High Point Rd still, but it’s in the Adams Farm Shopping center area, an area that considers itself its own town, despite being annexed into Greensboro for water, sewer and trash and attending Jamestown-area public schools. There’s also a Food Lion in Jamestown proper. A former Lowes Foods sits vacant as storage space for the chain at the corner of S. Holden Rd, across from the Borders and next to the TJ Maxx. One of my good friends worked at the replacement store in Jamestown and he told stories of co-workers who’d been mugged and high numbers of theft at the previous location. Our closest food options are three Food Lions, one on the southeast side of the coliseum on Coliseum Drive in the Glenwood neighborhood, one on S. Holden Rd, down the street from the Borders and one on Groometown Rd, down the street from Anna’s Linens. However, we used to have a Harris Teeter where the Big Lots is and a Kroger where Bed, Bath and Beyond is. Winn-Dixie, a completely defunct chain, was a mile south of the S. Holden Rd. Food Lion.

There are solutions to the dearth of vacant space, lack of food options and crime issues. Amongst the smaller businesses on High Point Rd. a community watch has sprung up. The city of Greensboro has an active redevelopmement plan which included all stakeholders, including nearby residents like myself. The focus is on creating livable streets and urban villages along the corridor.

However, what it boils down to is making sure with all of our well meaning, we do not push out the businesses and residents that create character. A portion of the current plan on the Lee Street side takes significant space away from the nearby historic Glenwood neighborhood. Glenwood is a multicultural working-class neighborhood just south of UNCG. It was one of Greensboro’s first suburbs to the south of downtown when it was built at the turn of the 20th century. However, it does not have a formal historic neighborhood designation. Many homes are ripe for tearing down for dorms and student apartments. The UNCG master plan would like to do just that, while adding an urban village element.

Yet, those of you who’ve read this blog before know I subscribe to the belief that it’s not just expensive stores and shiny new downtown areas that make a good neighborhood. As we continue to flesh out this plan  (the I-40 to Groomtown Rd. corridor plan has not been finalized yet), let’s strive to maintain all character. Let’s find a way to reconcile the current ethnic and working class character of many parts of the street, with the desire to have a walkable interface and plenty of room for the university, mall complex and other areas to grow. In my next post, I’ll be offering my wish list for the area.

Part Two

Fifteen years ago, I had a dream of living near High Point Rd. At the time, Wendover Ave. was still being built up and High Point Rd hadn’t degraded to the level it is at today. It kinda came true when My parents divorced and Mom and I moved into an apartment just off of Holden Rd. Those of you who read part 1 of this post and/or know Greensboro know just about where we are in relation to High Point Rd. I was so happy to be across the street from the grocery store, and near the mall and the brand new Borders. However, I was also freaked out by the new Koury Convention Center tower. I didn’t understand why the tower was built so far away from downtown. Even at nine, going on ten, I had some sense of neighborhoods and place and I felt like this building was not only scary, but a part of an urban future I didn’t want. Once again, these were my nine, almost ten-year old thoughts.

Fast forward to last night (Monday August 8th). I’m addressing the city council in support of a measure that would support a five year plan to create sustainable communities. Sustainable communities, as many of us know, are communities that merge traditional neighborhood values(eyes on the street, collaboration) with new and old urbanist principles of public transit access, walkability, mixed-uses of buildings, public third spaces and a variety of housing types. In short, the big downtown style building that used to scare and intrigue me is really now a vital part of the vision I have for my neigborhood.

So what do I want specifically?I know the corridor plan has some of these things included, but my ideal vision for my own neighborhood is centered around creating a true town-center atmosphere at Four Seasons Town Centre, which sits behind the Koury Convention Center.

Locals actually refer to the three-story enclosed shopping area as Four Seasons Mall or simply the mall, due to the fact that it’s the only enclosed mall left and it was just simply Four Seasons Mall when it opened in the mid-70’s. Also, there is the hotel complex, which has several restaurants, a nightclub, massive event space and numerous hotel rooms under one roof. PART also has its second Greensboro stop here ( the other stop is at the Depot downtown and near the airport at their hub). GTA goes almost straight to downtown from this point as well, which connects to remaining downtown areas.

I envision turning one of the parking lots, possibly the back one, into a deck and replacing the front parking area with some multi-family units, preferably a rowhouse community, with maybe one or two buildings of standard apartments. There would also be a sliding scale of rent values, based on submitting tax returns and payroll information to determine a fair rental value that is truly 1/3 of a person’s income. A person would commit to a minimum rent amount, but this would also keep too many units from being rented at levels that don’t reflect our true market value. In addition, I would like to see a grocery chain return to a strip out-parcel that sits on the southwest side of the property. It most recently housed Comp USA, but when I was a little kid, it was a Winn-Dixie store. (The store moved down Holden Rd, then shut down when the entire chain shut down in North Carolina a few years ago). It would also be nice to have some park space on the property too.

In addition to the retrofit of the Four Seasons area, I would like to see proper sidewalks and crosswalks all down High Point Rd. at key intersections, in-filling some underused parking lots with housing options similar to what is going on at Four Seasons Town Centre, the return of grocery to one of the three abandoned areas (an Aldi and a Bed Bath and Beyond replaced what was once a Harris Teeter and a Kroger) and a both a bus lane and a bike lane down both sides of the street extending to Jamestown. Also, I want the legitimate ethnic businesses(stores and restaurants that serve all ages, not the gambling parlors,strip clubs and other questionable establishments that have appeared), to have a hand and continue to operate on the street.

Although these initiatives will take time and money, thankfully, I live in a city that has come to recognize the economic values of redeveloping our city to be more sustainable and also more friendly to all people and not just cars, big name developers and people with disposable income who can move into New Urbanist style areas.

If you are familiar with the area, what are your suggestions for improvements? In addition, what can we do to make sure we don’t gentrify this area as we clean it up?

 

Cities, Education, Family and Place, Greensboro, tips for urbanist living, Uncategorized

Thoughts on Bringing Our Youth Back Downtown

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Between the Trayvon Martin verdict and the recent youth fights resulting in our downtown curfew for the remainder of the summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do to make sure downtown is solidly diverse, without sacrificing safety.

I’ve had to think long and hard about what my response would be. I could rail and say that this city is forever racist, that the kids will never amount to anything, that there will never be any chain stores or any other negativity that has been thrown at downtown and even our city lately. However, it is just like I told Sarah Goodyear of Atlantic Cities in this article:

Kristen Jeffers, a Greensboro native who lives downtown, founded the blog The Black Urbanist. She says that anxiety about young black people who flock to the entertainment district masks deeper issues facing the city’s development.

While there’s been a lot of investment in high-end rental housing, and the city is talking about putting in a performing arts center, Jeffers says the area still lacks basic services like pharmacies and a full-scale supermarket.

“For a neighborhood to be a true neighborhood, and not just a vertical suburb, you need those services,” she says.

What the also downtown needs, she says, are amenities that attract more people of a variety of ages, like playgrounds for families and a first-run movie theater. And young people should be supported with more structured programming, rather than marginalized. “Our city needs to bring back a full-on youth program,” says Jeffers, the type of effort that includes job training as well as recreational opportunities.

What my solution look like?

Western Part of Downtown Greensboro

What you see in the left oval is an area that consists of a YMCA to the top right of the oval, a magnet performing arts high school flanking the left side of the oval and school administration building between the two surface lots. The right oval shows how close this area is to Elm Street, the new hotspot for everyone that’s become ground zero for the fights, and also new upscale stores and development. My office is also in that oval and my apartment is just southeast of it’s boundary, along with our central bus depot and Amtrak train station.

We are talking about roughly a square (rectangular) mile here. This area is also owned and managed by either the county school system or the Y. The Y already has programs for youth, even though they are fee-based. The school system has a mandate to educate the teenagers that go through their building. Adults already know this area as a place that is family-friendly. Teens know this area has places they can go and not be pushed out.

The only caveat is that this area is adjacent to the county jail. However, this also means law enforcement is quite close by and can deal with people who fight. Otherwise, one of the surface lots along with the brick school administration building can be upfitted into a family entertainment center, with lazer tag, bowling, a skate park and playground, go-karts, and a movie theater. The administrative functions could move to another building that the school system owns just north of the school building. The center could be closed during school hours except during the summer. A deck could be built next to the Y building to accommodate the increased traffic to both the Y and this entertainment center. It could also accommodate jail parking, which has been a need since it opened last year. The playground area would be a public, free facility, or the Y could open their existing playground area to the public. A private company could operate the entertainment center, and employ students of either the high school or nearby colleges. Students could even build the center, as this high school at one time housed one of the construction trades programs in the county.

In addition to beefing up the existing Greensboro Youth Council, these initiatives would go a long way in serving the growing and in many ways already existing youth population who want a place to go downtown, along with the adults.

This also does not excuse the current curfew, nor let other areas off the hook for being accepting of students and youth. As long as youth don’t fight each other, they have every right to play sports on the lawns and sit on the benches of Center City Park like everyone else. Yet, once that park closes, they could go to the Y or the entertainment center and spend the remainder of their evening in a place that is ready and willing to accept them.

Family and Place, Guest Post, Pittsburgh, Politics of Place, Retail, Uncategorized, What is urban planning?

GUEST POST–Rethinking Community Development Efforts: Creating Incentive to Stay or Building Reason to Flee?

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When Allison Guess reached out to me about guest posting, I noticed she was from Pittsburgh and I asked her to tell me about what’s really going on in East Liberty, an area lauded for its new development lifeblood. However, as I expected and even more, she has taken us back to the roots of gentrification (colonialization) and illustrated how the current changes are right in line with previous patterns. Her post raises questions and intensifies my hope that one day, we as Americans can come to terms with land ownership, cultivation, and value in an ethical and honorable manner.

A few years ago, I began doing some preliminary research on land based historical trauma. I was specifically interested in land theft and the effects gentrification on Black communities. In a 21st century effort to expand my bibliography, I did a basic Google search of “land theft.” Although not specific enough, my search request did birth a critical evaluation of the stories of land theft that our country has told.

As grade school children, we as United States citizens learn about how the Pilgrims came to the “New World” on the Mayflower and later had a blissful Thanksgiving meal with the Natives. Educators are not honest when describing this situation of overt land theft, the rapping of communities and extreme injustice those Native American communities experienced and continue to face. History books ignore the past and presently lingering notion of Manifest Destiny that lead to the colonization of the African continent (before and after the Pilgrims came to the “New World”) and the seizure of off-continental U.S. territories. Only as adults and when entering college do a few of us hear or care to learn of this bitter truth.

Ironically, past and present conversations about land theft, more often than none seem to tell a drastically biased tale. In the post-slavery Jim Crow Era, one can clearly evaluate the thoughts and fears of urbanization that took place during in Industrial Revolution. Many whites during the time made their concern of the African American Great Migration, also described as the “Negro invasion” known in large public spheres. In that era it was Blacks that were being accused of taking all the jobs and displacing white Americans, sound familiar? On the other hand, major history sources fail to mention that Blacks participating in this massive move, were responding to the terrorism of the south by fleeing for their lives in hopes of salvaging their communities and living out the promised American Dream.

To speak to today’s biased tale of land theft, we can simply encounter present day conversations about immigration and “Mexicans” “stealing” land, resources and jobs from “Americans.” Paradoxically, most of the inhabited lands that some U.S. citizens see as the biggest “threat” of immigrant occupancy (southern and southwestern states such as Texas, Arizona, California, Alabama etc.) are the lands that were not only once occupied by Native Americans but more resounding the country of Mexico, alike. It is interesting to me that advocates of border control and harsh immigration policies, continue to seek ways to police and keep out the descendants of the original inhabitants of these lands.

My point in creating this past and present parallel is to highlight the deeply imbedded fears, bias, and racism in the white psyche. Understanding (not judging) these feelings while having an open and honest “immigration” conversation can help many of us to understand the “memories” that Black Americans have of land theft and land based historical trauma. They can help community organizers, community planners, and investors understand that all people, regardless of skin color, develop relationships, memories, and some level of fondness to their communities regardless of how blighted these spaces may be or have become. We should be reminded that a simple change in community design that ultimately leads to the attraction of a different demographic group other than the already present residents is in and of itself a model of invasion as well as a type of land theft.

Courtesy Allison Guess
East Liberty redevelopments. Courtesy Allison Guess.

An example of not taking the above into consideration and the possible damaging ramifications of community development includes that of East Liberty. East Liberty was once a predominately African American occupied neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a child, I grew up just minutes away from East Liberty. Like many urban Black neighborhoods in the U.S., there was certainly violence, drugs and crime; I will not negate that. However, there was also a strong community that sought to overcome the effects of systematic poverty and disenfranchisement and thus give back to the community.

East Liberty seemed to change overnight. I went away to college and then returned to a new neighborhood. There were fancy restaurants, Target, $400,000+ homes being built and parking meters lined major streets. Soon these streets would become a nightlife and fine dinning Mecca. Commercial for sale signs were everywhere and one could see the future plans of those particular spaces in their windows and on their lots. A majority Black middle school ended this past school year early so it could be demolished and turned into costly lofts.

One of the more sincere objectives of investors is to create incentive for those dwelling in certain areas coined slums to stay. Adversely, in East Liberty (and some other gentrified neighborhoods in United States) the incentive that was created was one that encouraged former residents to leave. Although beneficial to get the “blight” out of neighborhoods, it is very clear that the “original” residents of East Liberty had no or a very small voice in the changes. The documentary East of Liberty highlights this struggle between original residents, new residents, and developers.

Now I know many on the defense will say that supportive, mixed-income housing was built. One could argue that this was established with the community impute. However, I believe this housing is a monument of negativity: a symbol of the undermining of a people due to an enduring history of racism, disenfranchisement, and historical trauma. While support is needed for the abused and addicted, the best support comes from true policy change, the critique and modification of systems, and the desire to see competitive groups excel and take pride in recreating their own community. This support does not include takeover, theft, capture, poverty, forced socialization, or community defeat.

Thus in in moving forward, I have some normative suggestions to community planners and investors. We should seek to make sure all residents are included when making decisions about neighborhood change and development. We ought to be critical of who is or who is not at the conversation table. This means we do not just include the more vocal or affluent voices in the community that are still deemed different in some ways to us, but we should also seek representation of those community members who barely have a whisper. It is not anybody’s responsibility to make decisions or decide the fates of others. When creating incentive to stay, we should make sure it is just that. The primary intention in development should always be to have people stay and the secondary focus should be to attract others into the community and thus naturally foster a more diverse community over time. In doing all of this, the memories and experiences of land theft, invasion, and immigration should inform our discussion as all racial and regional groups have experienced their own story of settling and seizure from an “outsider” group.

Allison Guess is a resident of Pittsburgh, PA. Allison graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with two Bachelors degrees in Political Science and Hispanic Languages and Literature (Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese). Currently, Allison is a consultant and the Academic Liaison for the Black/Land Project. Allison is interested in land based historical trauma, gentrification, redlining, gerrymandering, policy histories, displacement, ethnography and storytelling, just to name a few. Allison hopes to pursue a PhD in African American/Africana Studies in order to further research Black peoples’ relationships to land and place.

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Support The Black Urbanist in the Knight News Challenge

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Readers , Family and  Friends:

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I want to expand the reach of this site. I believe there are many voices in placemaking, community development and cultural awarness that need to be heard together.   The recent neighborhood shooting in Florida and the rising gas prices make this type of commentary even more vital to everyday Americans.

I hope to use funding provided by the Knight News Challenge to bring all online voices engaged in placemaking side by side with voices who empower various cultures and demographic groups. My vision is taking all of our work and creating a Huffington Post for placemaking that considers both the technological and sociological sides of placemaking. All I need you to do is the following to support this vision:

If you are a Tumblr user- click here to reblog and favorite/heart  my post.

If you are a not a Tumblr user- click here to sign up for an account. Note- url means your username on the site.  Then follow the directions above. Tumblr is free to join. Also, once the finalists are annouced, I will let everyone know and you can cancel your account if you feel the need.

Please share this link via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, email and any other on and offline social networks.

Thank you all for being loyal readers, supportive friends and family and for helping take this project to the next level! Please comment on this site or the grant application on Tumblr with feedback, ideas and if you are interested in helping with this greater project in some way.

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Four Ways to Bring Income Back to All of Greensboro

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Downtown Greensboro

The news picked up on the latest Pew Research Center study stating how income inequality has increased tensions here in America.Nowhere has this inequality grown greater than in my hometown of Greensboro. Yes Weekly has a great spread on how our poverty zone has extended far beyond it’s original barriers and how old money neighborhoods have gotten richer. It also talks about  how the loss of textile, tobacco and furniture jobs have killed our middle class, much like in Detroit where automakers have cut back.

With a neighborhood getting rejected for grocery again (thankfully these guys aren’t leaving), it leaves me to wonder what will it take to get our community back. Here are are four things I think we need:

Continue Building Our Public School System and Universities– We are graduating more students our of our public school system than ever before, thanks to a push to diversify education opportunities and drive students to subjects that interest them and provide job opportunities. The Gateway University Research Park will also provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate level students. Yet, just making sure we look to our own universities first before we go outside to find labor is also needed. We should also be willing to train and not afraid of losing a competitive advantage.

Encourage Quirky Businesses Downtown and Wherever Else They Fit– Our downtown is growing, not from the chain stores that still will not locate there, but from people who have built successful online and co-businesses. However, if the community keeps looking down at these businesses or if people from outside still think we don’t have quirk and hipness in our business climate, they will stay away.

Flesh out the 2025 Comprehensive Plan– The YES article cites the need for East Greensboro to get proper infrastructure, which is identified as a priority area in this plan. We still have a AAA bond rating. Forget the folks who hate borrowing. Water and sewer will pay our bills if it’s for the right kinds of projects.

Start and Stay Small With Our Businesses and Organizations– I think everyone’s looking for someone big to fill our holes, whether it’s the big grocery chain, a big manufacturing plant or a big tech company. Yet, these big companies have large profit margins that require them to go where major markets are, not where they need to be. If we continue to work on bringing farmers markets, small tech firms and other enterprises that are small on purpose, but numerous, then we will have more legal options and more well paying options for people to work. I love this business venture, Fork in the Road, which uses temporary farmers markets, food trucks neighborhoods and meal planning classes to help communities eat better. Also, residents have the opportunity to operate their own food truck and take a cut of the profits. Theft and overhead costs are reduced by not trying to maintain major storefronts.

There are many more solutions, but there are in fact solutions to many of our community problems. While there will still be challenges, we have hit the bottom. We have no where else to go but up.

Image Credit: Mark Millerunder a
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) License

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It Comes Down To Words-Thoughts After Another Atlanta Trip

Sign: Get Social
This sign has no words, but I think it symbolizes community. Credit: Flickr user The Waving Cat

I had the pleasure this week of going to Atlanta for work training. I had the opportunity to fly out of my home airport (Piedmont Triad International), ride the MARTA to and from the airport and hotel and stay in the heart of Midtown at the Georgian Terrace.

Before I get into my main story, I want to say again that Atlanta is a pleasant surprise as far as the strides it has taken to be more urban. While the region as a whole is sprawling out of control, those who are fortunate to live in the city proper, especially around MARTA in and north of downtown, have more transit-friendly options. Also, grocery stores, drug stores and even department stores such as Target and IKEA are marking their spot right in the middle of town. What I really loved was seeing houses of faith, trendy bars, furniture boutiques and other trendy stores several blocks around Midtown and witness houses of faith, reuse shops, furniture boutiques and a great variety of restaurants and bars mixed into these big time chains and all in walking distance. MARTA was clean and moved on-time. I’ve written before about Atlanta’s efforts to be more cognizant of TOD. With what we saw with Raquel Nelson, we need to keep working to deal with unsafe intersections, bus stops and train stations, as well as affordability of safe, village-style spaces.

I was also reminded again of how sad things have gotten in the Piedmont Triad (not really international any more) Airport. While they have put up a nice welcome sign similar to what you find at RDU, there were several gates where the chairs were gone, jetways were shut off or non-existant and no airline signage was visible. There were few restaurants and the ticket and baggage areas are very outdated. Thankfully, funding was approved to make improvements at the airport, as well as new companies coming into town to create demand. However, a new airline just went bankrupt at the airport. Only time will tell if the aviation industry as a whole and PTI can be saved.

What I wanted to get to in this trip reflection is the concept of words. I was on the MARTA heading back to the airport on Friday and they announced that at a particular stop, the Main Street Urban Renewal District or something like that was one of the attractions. I thought it was interesting to have those two concepts married together, especially in a city like Atlanta.

I had been thinking about the kinds of labels, words and terminology we use to discuss this discipline. What are we doing? Is it economic development or community development? Urban renewal or new urbanism? Placemaking or mixed-use development? All these things have different meanings, different feelings and different levels of effectiveness in conversations.

No matter what term is used, care should be taken to portray what we do as positive as possible. We should work to broaden mutual understanding of the sense of place, not narrow it so that only the select few can understand.

Some of my favorite words/phrases to describe the movement are placemaking,the return to Main Street or the return to the village. I feel these words get to the core of what we try to do when we do things like new urbanism, TOD, or even just open up a community center. This work is sorely needed now with the economy closing opportunities for the individual, but strengthening group opportunities such as co-ops, farmers markets, libraries and other places where people can share resources and build social capital.

What about everyone else? What are words that stick out to you to describe this concept? How do we use the right words?

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Cityville- The Experiment

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I hate Facebook games with a passion. However, the blinking lights of a particular one really caught my eye as an aspiring city planner: Cityville. Made by the creators of Farmville, this game takes everything you loved about the farm, crops and all, and brings it to the city. While those of you who prefer SimCity may be disappointed by the lack of true interaction, be excited, you get to incorporate your real friends!

For my city, the goal was to incorporate smart growth principles as much as possible. I even named the place Sustainability. Another goal was to not spend any real money in the game, but earn as much with fake money as I could.

I started out with the house options they gave me and a few plots of strawberries. A few hours later I broke ground on my downtown, adjacent to my farm operation. My first business opportunity besides the farm was a bakery(?!). My second and third options were a flower kiosk and a coffee shop.

At this point, I knew things were going downhill. Although I figured out I could move my buildings, roads and decorations(trees, flowers, even a brown cow) around, to build the city would require spamming my friends. I could build a city hall and a post office, but if no one wants to work at them, then they don’t open. And if they don’t open, I can’t increase my population. Also, the natives get restless and unhappy if they don’t have open community buildings. I also have a limited number of things(collecting rent, harvesting crops) that i can do before my energy levels run out. If I don’t earn more energy on my own fast enough, then I have to buy energy, with real money.

Either way, I’m gradually adding new buildings and figuring out what crops don’t wither if I can’t get back to them on time. As I advance in levels, I get more energy whenever I come into the game. All these things are helping me see how much the game isn’t that far off from real life. You have to staff your city buildings by spending money and/or getting friends to work there. You have to plant crops to supply your businesses(or get involved in lucrative shipping or agribusiness contracts). People will not be cool going to the same places all the time. Houses don’t fit where you want them and should be connected to streets. The only disappointment seems to be lack of transit, however, everyone in my city(really a town at this point) walks wherever they need to go.

Although there are times when the game is exhilarating and times where it bores me to tears, I’ll stick with it until I can get a sprawling (but sustainable) metropolis.

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On Smart Growth: Attitudes that Need to Die for it to Really Work

Wonder what I really think about smart growth?,Enjoy this post, from August of this year, that talks about how I see smart growth evolving to work.

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter on how smart growth has made some neighborhoods flat out unaffordable. I agree, especially in that many smart growth and sustainable community measures are based on maintaining in some cases very outdated ideas. What I’m about to propose in this blog is fairly radical. I probably won’t live to see some of these attitudes die. I might lose my house as a result. However, we need to start chipping away at the following attitudes that are silently destroying communities and their ability to be sustainable.

1. Houses and the land they sit on need to be money generating machines and insanely expensive.
My mom got a great deal on our house. Such a great deal she immediately had thousands in home equity she could borrow against. However, my mom’s never been one to take out a loan she didn’t need, buy more house than we could afford and run out to buy a new car at the first crank. However, some folks weren’t so studious with their finances. Granted, some rental situations are bad (landlords not fixing things, kicking people out for no reason), but just because you have neighbors that cook curry occasionally doesn’t necessary mean you should risk your whole life savings on something that you essentially rent for 30 years or more anyway. Richard Florida’s idea of reforming renting and owning has merit. Also, I’m appalled at how inflation has driven up home prices. If we could ever accept a new paradigm of land ownership that didn’t place such a high premium on it, so many other housing issues wold be affordable.

2. Public Schools are beyond repair in some neighborhoods, therefore won’t move there or we’ll put our kids in private/charter school.
I toured  my mom’s pristine newly built public middle school yesterday afternoon (August 10th). I attended the original middle school up the road and suffered through mold allergies and sometimes broken equipment and chairs as a student. However, I was an honor graduate of the adjacent high school and magna cum laude graduate of North Carolina State University. As I passed this old building in my car on the way to the new one, I saw the new baseball field and also the new band transfer truck trailer. Both that were paid for by parent boosters. Yet, I am willing to bet that the brand new academic building will be trashed by the students within a couple years. Why, because it happened with the new addition to the older school building. It’s not always the curriculum, the teachers and the lack of technology(which the new building has plenty of). Sometimes it’s what we will value enough to pay for or take care of even though the school system won’t. Maybe we should value our schools, whether we liked going to them and/or we had children in them or not. We could say that all schools deserve some love, even if it means we have to give some of the resources ourselves. Maybe we wouldn’t have need for some of these shady new consultants that are taking the government’s money for school reform with no results. We could take that money and do what we as community members know works. I know some people will want more religion in your child’s schooling. There are ways for that to happen too while maintaining our school buildings which come standard in our neighborhoods thanks to our tax dollars. (Maybe taking the kids to church, synagogue, mosque for the extra training…) ?

3.Transit is bad. Always.
Yes, transit has it’s holes. I’ll be addressing them in a post in the near future. with the prevalence of electronic gadgets and less time to do more, being able to sit on the bus or train and read, write or listen to something is  awesome. Also, with the prevalence of social media, groups of citizens can gather to raise awareness of how much they love transit and also what needs to be improved. Greater Greater Washington does a bang-up job of doing so.

4.Too much color in a neighborhood means the neighborhood isn’t good enough.
Yes, I just pulled the card. I won’t go into too much depth here, but I will say that we need to stop being afraid of our neighbors based solely off of stereotypes of their nationalities, religions and orientations. Especially if those neighbors are willing to get your mail when you are gone,  mow your yard when you are sick, beat down the kid who tried to break into your house and give you great advice on your new tomatoes. Even if they are quiet neighbors, you never know when they’ll step up to the plate and be your best friends. Plus, what goes on behind closed doors and tall fences isn’t our business anyway, right? We’ve had too much government and developer forced segregation.

As you can guess, this is more of a rant than a full blown solutions post. However, we can’t keep ignoring some of these elephants in the room if we want true sustainable communities. What are some other attitudes we need to get over to help our communities become better?

Copyright 2007-2010 Kristen E. Jeffers