After several years of writing, two months of editing and final writing and several bouts of fear and confidence, my first blog-related, adult book, A Black Urbanist, is now available for your purchase.
It is available in the following formats:
Print— you want me to sign it and hold it in your hand. That privilege will cost more, so keep that in mind. The current link will take you to Blurb to order a non-signed copy. If you would like to order a signed copy, click here.
iBooks–The best of the digital editions, outside of the PDF, will be perfect for my fellow Apple heads, who may be reading on iPads and iPhones.
Kindle— for my folks who are stuck on their Kindles and like the mimicry of the book experience. However, I spent hours trying to get it just so and it still looks a bit wonky. Also, depending on the country, I get less royalties. However, for my international folks, this might be your best bet.
Gumroad—this is a nice protected PDF, with some color, and in a nice 8×10 paper size. You could print this if you wanted. I also get all the proceeds from these sales. Clicking on the photo of the book on my sidebar will always take you here first. Also, Gumroad has an app for iPhone and Android, that allows you to read it there. Search for it, it’s free.
The book is $10 on all digital formats and is $12.83 plus shipping in print and $25 pre-signed. All print prices include shipping and handling.
Also, if you are a fellow blogger, member of the traditional press, podcaster, TV person or anybody who is willing to either review or let me come on your blog/podcast/program to talk about the book, please fill out the form below email me here and I’ll be back to you with a review copy in PDF format.
Thanks to all my family and friends and happy reading!
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been posting teasers about why I’m writing a book now. However, since we are one( that’s right, one) week from the book release, I wanted to really talk about why now.
There’s a part at the end of the book where I mention that I don’t have all the answers, that I don’t profess solutions, I just want to get a conversation started. In addition, I like telling somewhat serious stories, stories that are real, but have entertainment value. I’m also very concerns about several of the issues I’ve presented in the book.
Finally, so many of you have wanted to have something you could hold of mine! Some of you collect books just like me and would love to have something with my signature on it. Please express your gratitude this week (and every week) for that.
I’d like to thank everyone who’s offered to read and left feedback and shared my posts throughout this month, As I come to the end of my posting experiment, I must say that i’m not looking forward to rolling back and I’ll probably keep up my daily posts. Look for a survey about that soon.
Now, so I can have an awesome book launch day, here are some reasons why you should buy the book and share with as many people as you can.
It’s from a millennial perspective: Many people, especially in the real estate, economic development and placemaking sector, want to know what millennials actually want. Why do we want to rent instead of buy? Do we really like bars that much? Do we totally hate the mall? Will we buy all of our stuff on Amazon? Will we stop voting? I answer all these questions in my frame of a black woman millennial. Not the only perspective, but one and sometimes one perspective is all you need to get a sense of what people are doing and what you need to ask.
It brings a lot of my thoughts together: Even though it’s billed as book of essays, a lot of my essays fall under general themes, so you get a better sense and a longer sense of how I feel about things. Also, there are things in the book, that are not on the blog, so you get a few bonus thoughts from me.
It’s in plain English: People know about the mall, Amazon, voting, IKEA heart pillows and trains. You won’t find too many mentions of adaptive reuse and I don’t think I use terms like fenestration at all. If you are in any place along the placemaking spectrum and your family has trouble understanding you, give them this book. I’m only one person, but at least they’ll get a dose of what you do daily, without all the heavy language.
You want to help me keep writing: If you buy this book on December 1, and if you buy the version here (it’s a simple PDF), then all the proceeds go back to me. If you wait until later get the Kindle/Nook/iBooks or print versions, less money goes to me, but if it’s in print, I can sign it, with a special note for you. Also, if you want to have me come to your local bookstore, or other place where you bring authors to talk, let me know by emailing me here. I can work with your budget and I might even be able to bring books with me.
Hopefully one of those reasons is enough for you to join the folks who’ve already pre-ordered and decided to make my book part of their bookshelf. Once again, here’s the link to the PDF e-book I’ll be back next week with information on pre-orders for print and Kindle/Nook versions. Happy reading!
We’ve all said it, that there’s nothing to do for black folks, certain black folks of a younger and more prosperous persuasion, in our North Carolina cities. Lately, those fears were stroked by this article, by Jarvis Holliday, in this past week’s cover story of Creative Loafing Charlotte.
Dame’s is pretty cool. Is it and “cool places like it” something we black young pros consider “something to do”? Photo by the author.
The article is a long read, but a worthy one. I’ll pull out this section that grabs its essence:
The phrase “young professionals” gets used frequently in the marketing of programs and events in Charlotte’s African-American community. It’s not simply a metric in the way it’s used in corporate lingo, to denote a person, generally between the ages of 21 and 40, who is college-educated and has a salaried position. When blacks use the term, that’s a part of it, but its intention is to further distinguish those young men and women who have “made it.” And that de facto badge of honor also implies that this group behaves a certain way.
Typically, a black professional wants it to be known that he or she defies whatever negative stereotypes other groups may have of African Americans. So within the social scene, you’ll find that they dress well, prefer upscale venues and have a taste for the finer things.
But the black professional social scene in Charlotte is often a source of angst for many within it, who lament the dearth of good or welcoming places to go to, or that the so-called hot spots never last. Newcomers quickly tire of not being able to identify where black professionals socialize after work or party after dark on a consistent basis.
Events that do get traction, for example, are Cufflinks & Cocktails, put on by the Charlotte alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and Charlotte’s Favorite Happy Hour, organized by prominent local couple Herb and Felicia Gray. Each takes place at posh venues and is well-attended by black professionals, drawing anywhere from 200 to 400 people, but what those events also have in common is that they only take place once a month (usually at rotating venues). In similar fashion, the Signature Saturdays event takes place twice a month at Vapiano, a trendy Italian restaurant and bar, where local party promoter Eddie Towner puts on an entertaining night featuring a live jazz band followed by a hip-hop DJ.
And what those events also have in common is that each essentially represents “black night” at the venues where they’re held. For that particular evening, night or the occasional day party, the African-American promoter has rented the facility and nearly all of the patrons who come out are black. But if one were to return to that same venue the following night or on the equivalent night a week later, they’d likely find few blacks in attendance. It’s a combination of the result of lack of ownership of these venues by African-Americans, and the segregation that’s common in Charlotte regardless of who owns the place.
When I googled Black Social Scene in North Carolina, before I could type the state name, Google’s autofill directed me to the black social scene in Washington, DC. Once I typed in North Carolina, I found this 2009 article from Ebony that highlights things to do in Charlotte, naming it as having:
…one of the most flourishing stylish and chic Black social scenes. Sure, you still have clubs where ladies have to worry whether about being bombarded by a million sweaty, overzealous guys, however, more and more sophisticated, grown and sexy individuals looking for a step up from that vibe, have found it in Charlotte.
Bonus: there’s an article about the Raleigh vs. Charlotte scene written by a white woman writer in 2007 who was then 39, married and with two children. She wrote the blog at the time with a 39-year-old single black woman. I assume that as of the end of that blog in 2009, none of that information has changed.
And one more cherry on top, by 2009, according to the Washington Post, the Washington social scene was completely integrated.
So what does one make of all of this? Do we have a real answer to the question if there are enough things for black young professionals to do? I’m going to attempt my own, recognizing that one, we are not all monolithic and two, I tend to enjoy a lot of things that aren’t necessarily tagged as black cultural activities, as well as plenty of things that are.
First, I believe that we as urban downtowns do a disservice when we don’t have restaurants, bars, and bookstores that regularly have a mix of different genres of music, as well as places where people can go and see each other’s faces and hear each other talking. Granted, all three major NC downtowns are getting better and a few of the smaller ones have nice bookstores. Yet, what makes DC, Chicago and New York different is that it’s not rare or unexpected. A place like Busboys and Poets can be named after Langston Hughes, sell books, sell passable catfish plates, host talks by known revolutionaries, be owned by an Iraqi-American and patronized by Americans of all shapes and sizes. It can even become a chain and a sign of gentrification. Could Dame’s Chicken and Waffles or Mertz’s do that one day? Who knows?
Second, we have to realize that thanks to the Great Migration, there’s still a not lot of black professional growth happening back down South, outside of Atlanta. If you walk places or use public transit, enjoy random, free jazz every night on every corner, make a higher salary and have a sense that you are 100% part of the civic and leadership picture, it’s harder to want to come South to a Southern city that doesn’t have those things. Now I love my home state. I believe that it can be just as vibrant and is as vibrant as some of the bigger places in certain quarters, but there are things, some that are out of our control as young black professionals, that keep us finding that vibrancy in North Carolina.
And finally, sometimes, we have to look for things ourselves. If I hadn’t checked my Gmail for this newsletter, I would not have seen this post that stated Raleigh as worthy of note as a place that appreciates black literature. Of course, the usual suspects are at the top, but somebody is checking for Raleigh when it comes to black literature. Literature is one of the great cultural arts and the Creative Loafing Charlotte article notes that there are several great places of cultural arts in Charlotte. I can vouch for the Triad and Triangle and say I’ve attended a lot of nice, black-oriented cultural events, both with and without a lot of black professionals, white professionals, and heck, a lot of people period. Also, sometimes, going skiing or to the Hoppers Game or being the only black person (at least in that hour) in Target isn’t a bad thing.
Looking forward to your thoughts on this one and look out tomorrow for me to drop some population stats on you, from the Census and their official records of who counts as an educated black young person.
2017 Editors Note: When I wrote this post two years ago, I was participating in #NaBloPoMo, the time of the year when bloggers come together to pump out daily content and connect. You can learn more about that project and how participated, here and here. Also, since this post gets a lot of traffic, I wanted to create something to go along with it, that would help you sort through your angst. If you sign up for my weekly newsletter, you’ll be one the first to receive it and the companion blog post when they come out on February 21st, 2017. You’ll also get job listings, interesting articles, links to future posts and more.
Of late I’ve been reading a lot of articles on how people don’t vote or don’t engage with their neighbors. There’s also been a sprinkling of how gentrification really happens and how it breaks down the neighborhood fabric. A few of those articles are right here (leaving the links inline so you can copy the source links if you need to):
One key piece in those articles is the sense of abandonment. In the case of the black folks mentioned, there were several elected leaders and home and business owners who took financial incentives in lieu of staying behind and strengthening their communities. Now unfortunately, the people who have the control and the money have made massive amounts of income and they are creating a gentrification situation of which it’s impossible for the average person to buy themselves into or stay behind. After all, these corporations are people now and they have rights too. There’s always been white flight abandonment and regular housing racism on top of all these stories. And then there’s the general abandonment of the idea of neighborliness. If kids are loud, don’t go talk to them, abandon them and call the cops. If the price is right, abandon the neighborhood and go out to supposedly greener pastures. And then there’s the general ignorance, of the need to take maybe an hour or two and vote. Or get someone who wants to vote, but just can’t get there, an absentee ballot or a ride to the polls.
At the recent Strong Towns National Gathering, I facilitated a late Saturday afternoon session on what it means to be a Strong Citizen. I started the crowd up pretty easy, with asking them what they would do with $100 of funds in their neighborhoods. However, I wanted the crowd to get deeper and think about what it would take to shake up their community as it is, much as Ferguson has been shaken, much as harsh gentrification and segregation have shaken communities in the past.
While I was able to get the crowd thinking, we benefited from an older Native American elder who stepped out and said the needed things about race and also whose land was it anyway. Yet, what I’m most proud of is this group was able to circle up, stay civil, right down some great answers to my questions (some of which will show up here or on the Strong Towns blog) and really think about how they can do better.
It’s going to take us waking up and deciding how to treat our neighbors, how to see our cities and neighborhoods in a better light, and also when necessary, getting dirty and getting out the tools to plow the garden, knock on the doors and nail the wood for the bus shelter. Because we cannot continue to let ourselves go.
Yes, this means bookcation is over. Pre-order now and get the brand new e-book, A Black Urbanist–Essays Vol. 1, when it releases on December 1 for only $10. I won’t charge your cards until December 1, so go ahead and set aside some holiday money for an awesome book, with some of your favorite essays and a few new ones.
I’ve been thinking about how I would respond to the recent events in Ferguson, MO. And then I realized, I’ve always been thinking about how I would respond to certain events. That this page responds to a lot of the ills that lead to what happened there and what has happened in different forms in other communities throughout the United States.
From a very young age (and that young age occurring throughout the 1990’s), I’ve known that things were always different in certain parts of town. That sometimes people did bad things and those bad things would sometimes lead to being shot. Or, sadly, the bad thing would mean being shot. As I grew older, standing on a field outside of my middle school after another copy-cat Columbine bomb threat, I realized that anybody could get shot, even in the nice places. The night my purse was stolen at my luxury apartment complex. At gunpoint. Many a night where I was surrounded by bad things, but those bad things never happened. Not to me at least.
Some bad things can be prevented though. We can work on trusting each other so we don’t automatically assume someone’s up to no good or could be a crime suspect. We could work on our economy, so that people can make a legitimate living, and not be tempted in a life of crime or bored by “having nothing to do.” We could make it so housing isn’t so expensive. We can fix it so our roads aren’t so un-inviting and allow for more than just speeding cars. So we don’t automatically assume all walkers are criminals. If someone is threatening us, we can use self-defense, but only to stop the perpetration, not take a life.
And finally, we can pray. That’s all I’ve been able to do, because I need my words to go somewhere where they can truly be heard and where massive, society-bending change can be made.
On a less serious note:
–I am switching gears somewhat and working on building up my “how I do it” website, Kristen’s Workshop. For those of you who don’t know, my background and primary work is in media, communication and marketing. Yes, there will still be a book of the material here on this site. There will still be my daily North Carolina news roundup. With the new site, through some of my words and tips, you too can affect change in your community or at least just throw a good community event. Some of those tools will have a price tag, but there will be flexibility for those of you who need help, but cannot pay.
–I was on Chuck Marohn’s Strong Towns podcast this past month. Check it out here.
–I’ll be in DC for the Labor Day weekend and I’ll be at the Strong Towns National Gathering September 12-13 in Minneapolis. Expect pictures, commentary and if you get to hang out with me, lots of fun. Instagram is the place to see all that.
So we’ve spent all week talking about the nature of retail. Yet, today’s videos represent how much retail is a cycle, where America has led the way in sprawl, yet is now realizing why it’s not such a good idea. The first video is a montage of America’s dead malls, with voiceover that directly addresses how they are now being exported overseas and overbuilt just like in the US. That video and voiceover, by Scottish writer Ewan Morrison, is part of a greater collection, Tales from the Mall, which was released in 2012 (paperback coming this September) and highlights all that goes into running a shopping mall through fiction, nonfiction, journalistic reports, photo collages, and in the e-book version, links to videos, such as the one seen here. The second video is an advertisement for one of these new international malls, that seems to just be a dubbed over advertisement for an American mall.
And with that, we close our chapter on retail for now. I’ll see you on Tuesday as we get ready for Buffalo and CNU 22.
Placemaking is not just creating experiences, but pushing for necessary services and goods to be purchased as close as possible to home. What kind of places then, do we all want to shop at, at least those of us who are concerned with the effects of sprawl, fair labor, humanely raised food and fibers and a sense of classic customer service. Scratch want, what kind of places do we need to shop at, to fulfill our values and soothe our senses? After all, so much of consumption in the modern era is geared towards soothing our feelings and wants, more so than what we actually need. If we were really truly concerned about consumption, we’d all be homesteading. Yet, that’s not to say that those of us who choose to live a little more urban than rural are not responsible, nor valid in our thoughts of more responsible retail. How do we balance the sense of place, the sense of responsibility and the sense of consumption?
Street Markets/Farmers Markets/Commerce Vehicles
Taking things back to the classic form of the marketplace, where people open up their cars, put out tables, hold out signs and pitch tents to pitch their wares, often in the open air. The start-up costs for the sellers are low, plus, they enjoy the flexibility of driving around from neighborhood to neighborhood and town to town, finding the places where people purchase from them the most. In addition, a community often forms around these markets. There’s the scarcity of knowing that you can only find that particular table or truck at that particular place for a limited amount of time, much like all those TV advertisements with the 1-800 number. Yet, you also get to know the people behind the product, the ones with the family recipes and the desire to help others and themselves build a better community one booth at a time. Also, this is where some of the restrictive regulations on signage and placement help. If a product or service is good enough, they break though the restrictions and become a need, not a nuisance.
Older Streetcar Suburb or Village-Style District
A new study by the National Trust for Historic Preservation divided up DC, San Francisco and Seattle by block and analyzed spending and traffic patterns. It found that in older, village-style districts stores stay open later, more venues, such as performance spaces or bars are open later, people utilizing tend to be younger and more energetic and the cost for doing business is lower for entrepreneurs. Many may resent commercial encroachment in some of these neighborhoods, but if businesses are forced to keep a small footprint, then they are more likely to interact with those people already in the community, because they as companies have to reach out for additional resources.
Showrooms
I see this as a way that the big box stores can get back in the urbanist social graces. Yes, have a big distribution center, but only out by existing interstate spurs that actually connect states and not loops. Let the cities, towns and villages be spaces where people get to know samples of your products or touch the items like fruit and dairy that have a high expiration date. Here they can try on the clothes of your brands, and then know their exact measurements, to then pull out smartphones and put in a regular recurring shipment of slacks or shift dresses. They can also get to know new products and come talk to a person to ask questions and raise concerns about product quality or usage.
Home Delivery
The other way that box stores and major scale commerce can get back into a more personal style of selling. Piggybacking on the showcase above, if a person knows what size they are, and how much of a non-perishable food item they need, then why not go ahead and ship it to their home. Take the costs of displaying items on a large level and put that back into direct-to-home shipping. Encourage people to purchase on a monthly or quarterly basis in large quantities, so that not only they can budget for your store’s goods, but you can also know exactly what to expect in income and expenses, reducing the anxiety of knowing where and when a market or a customer base will show up. Also, if you offer installation or any other type of services, you help the customer by taking some of the work of using your product away from them.
Budgeting
This is the final piece of responsible, experience-based retail. When a person budgets, they take into account when certain vendors are around, when delivery is scheduled to come with other goods and they know approximately how much they need to spend. Likewise for businesses, it helps the cash flow accounts of businesses who know exactly when money is coming in the door. For those who are in the village/mobile model of retail, it helps keep overhead expenses down as you determine where to settle and where to travel.
Further Applications and Final Thoughts
The main caveat to all these methods is spontaneity. What if you want to try something new? How do you discover new things? What if production and processing costs go up? This is where communication and trust are vital. Make it easy, if you are in the showroom/delivery model, for people to cancel, as well as see when products change prices or if products are running low. Or, if you have new customers for products, help them see the process of getting these products to them and explain why it may take longer for others to show up.
For those in the village/mobility model, people can make the choices for themselves not to show up. If a neighborhood or district doesn’t support you as a business anymore, you can always pack up and move somewhere else, until you find yourself stable enough to establish roots and maybe even expand into the showroom/delivery model.
To conclude, this represents a radical reorganization of how we purchase. Yet, this reorganization has already began in many markets and is the only thing keeping others afloat, especially in a world where Amazon could be the only showroom, leaving all others to forge smaller footprints if they want something more personal or customized. It also calls upon retailers themselves to form different alliances and collectives.
How would you add a sense of place back into activities of commerce?
Now that I’ve gotten my letter to my own little clunker out of the way (and promised to take her to the car wash at least soon). I want to get into what I believe are the issues that urbanists and honestly everyone has with cars.
Expensive to Maintain
I just dropped nearly half a grand on a timing belt. I’m thankful that the thing didn’t break, otherwise it would have been far more. Honda’s are great, because outside of this one part, our maintenance doesn’t really get out of hand. Feed them oil roughly every 3,000 miles, of course give them gas to drink on the regular and they don’t really have problems. And I’m a post 100,000-miler too, I hear that I may reach 300,000 total miles before Betsy decides to pass on and that’s exciting.
Yet, for so many people, this isn’t the story. Some know going in that they are going to have high repair bills if they buy something older or European. Some people love spending money to build up cars. We love them too, because if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t see working models of amazing classic cars, such as old school Mustangs, smooth Packards. and anything that had wings. Yet, there’s the poor soul who takes the shiny car home and no sooner than the new car smell has worn off, the smell of lemon waifs from the smoke coming from out of the hood and that’s not fresh at all. This all assumes that a person can afford any car at all, since the cost of entry isn’t cheap and when it is, you may be looking at a string of lemons, all with thousands of dollars of maintenance attached.
Accidents
Cars are killers. Depending on the demographic group you choose, car accidents kill more people than cancer and AIDS. Plus, the idea that you literally are inches from taking someone’s life if you blink or don’t pay attention for one moment, is figuratively killer. Even more the horror of being hit by someone not paying attention. Less fatal, but no less annoying is the flat tire waiting for you first thing in the morning in the parking lot. Or the bird poop in the middle of the windshield. Or the various dings and dents you didn’t do. Or maybe you did in my case. Sigh. Back to parking in the back of the Target parking lot. Instant walkability! Exercise!
Gas
Can introduce you to my friend GasBuddy? I’m sure he’s a lot of folk’s friends too. I’m old enough to remember when gas was last $0.79 for Unleaded 87, but young enough to have not been driving when it was that cheap. Bummer. By the time I really got cranked up and rolling around, gas was regularly above 3 bucks a gallon. Of course there was that spring where we saw prices drop in the $2/gallon range. I’m at the point now where I celebrate the dimes. Ten cents cheaper. Yay! And three cents more off with my Sheetz card! Even better. And once again, when you are 20 in the city/28 on the highway, you don’t have to whine too much. Just be jealous of the Prius and even Honda Hybrid folks. And remember, once again, the folks with the 12-17 miles a gallon tanks are hurting. They need the van for the kids, but they might not be able to treat them thanks to the gas bill. Don’t be too hard on those folks though. The average person can’t help it that all the kid’s activities are spread out. The powers to be, can work on funding parks and recreation programs, in each neighborhood, that might reduce this burden on families who want their kids to be involved in something besides sitting in the house messing with the X-Box. And if this is you, as we say in the South, bless your heart. How many of us also love having a friend with a pickup truck? Guzzles gas, but gets all the IKEA boxes home or moves the kid to college. One last note here, price may not be an issue for you with maintenance or gas. However, does the smell bother you? What about smog? While there are some studies saying that hybrid models and alternative fuels don’t really help with the ozone layer and carbon problems, in some areas, they would be a dramatic difference, namely those where the sky is brown, when it should be blue.
Parking
I honestly don’t think anyone likes parking. People who have issues with driving don’t like physically squeezing their baby (or burden) into spaces that are either too tight or the wrong shape. My most recent bump-up was trying to squeeze into something that was the former. And come to think of it, my very first bump-up was parking related. Meanwhile, many folks who haven’t studied transportation planning don’t understand this, but in popular areas, parking is in high demand, therefore, there is a market value to it. In other words, when a lot of people want to park, some are willing to pay to park just to park. That kills free parking, just because parking isn’t around. This happens in big cities regularly, but even in somewhere small on First Friday, parking gets scarce. And we all know scarcity is a part of supply and demand, therefore part of the marketplace. For those of you who want an even more wonkish answer, Donald Shoup is the expert on this whole why is parking worth money thing. He wrote a paper, then a book on it. He also has found that charging for parking makes people park less, and makes them walk, bike or take transit more. Which makes since, in a perfectly dense market like Manhattan. Downtown Greensboro on a quiet Friday morning, not so much.
Dependency
Who doesn’t enjoy the thought of driving certain cars around. I’ve seen a couple recent pictures on social networks of some of the most rabid railfans I know relishing driving classic cars. And I just sung the praises of the people who keep the classics on the roads and available for a nice leisurely drive away from wedding venues with cans banging on the ground. The problem though, is when there’s no such thing as Point A to Point B without putting a key in the ignition. Especially when it’s just you and the car. No other people. No groceries. No IKEA flattened box. We need to work so that the only vehicles on the road are those making out-of-town or crosstown trips, those in taxis or taxi-like services, buses, cargo trucks and anything that counts as a human service vehicle (i.e. people who can’t walk due to health issues).
To close, there are plenty of reasons why cars grind our gears. Yet even as those gears crank too tight, there are advantages to having them. Come back next post for the reasons why cars can work in a walkable, sustainable, urbanist environment.
So last Thursday I promised audio when I’m not podcasting and podcasting when I am. So here’s what I’m calling my preview episode of my second round of podcasting. This time, we’re calling ourselves The Black Urbanist Radio Show and we have at least two and possibly more features that you are going to love to share and hear. Plus, we will be coming to iTunes and Stitcher in the coming weeks, but for now, follow me through SoundCloud just like before or click the play button below:
Also, be patient with me as I work out sound quality, audio transitions and pronouncing things right. I’m excited to crank this back up again and I hope you will enjoy and share far and wide.
Despite my life hacks from this post, we have to do something on a structural and legal level about sprawl. Unchecked sprawl is the urban renewal of today. Instead of providing the services that are needed in the core of the city, there are many cities (mine included) that have chosen to build new facilities outside of the city core. In addition, many cities have allowed subdivisions to be built and not considered the cost of providing schools, fire protection, streets and other elements that make a city a city, even on the basic suburban level. This is not to say that we should not allow people to go off the grid and be responsible for these services themselves. However, many people buy or rent homes with the expectation that basic services will be taken care of efficiently and competently by the municipality or jurisdiction of which they reside.
Thankfully, I’m not alone in my thoughts. I regularly connect with government leaders, and not just the ones in the planning department, who want to bring more vibrancy back to central cities, but also want to make sure equity is addressed. I believe that the pendulum has shifted towards the idea of density and connectivity, at least among government leaders, developers, planners and others who have a hand in crafting and creating our built environment. Federal funding sources now support reconnecting neighborhoods and many states and local governments have supplemented those funds, either with funds of their own or changes in zoning and building codes to allow different and more efficient types of development. In Cary, a subdivision may not get built, because town leaders recognize the cost of providing services to that subdivision may be too much, even for a town that receives a lot of property tax revenue and is known and loved for its low-density development.
Here’s where my greatest fear comes in. When the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised of a prior generation were left behind in our central cities, it was a terrible injustice. Crime and disinvestment followed poverty in a cycle we now too often subconsciously think of as inevitable. But they were left behind in neighborhoods that still functioned. People there could still get around without a car. They could still get groceries. They could walk to school, even if it was a bad school. At least initially, there were still jobs.
When we abandon our exurbs and distant suburbs – something I see as inevitable — if we leave behind the poorest and most disadvantaged, we won’t be leaving them in functioning neighborhoods. We’ll be leaving them in total isolation. Places without grocery stores that can be walked to. Places without transportation. If the 1960’s inner city was inhumane, this will be far, far worse.
We have to get our leaders who are not on board with modern municipal governance in the loop. This is no longer a fringe conversation held by architects at fancy conference halls. Just last week, the New York Times reported that the middle class in the United States is no longer the richest in what are considered “Western” countries. A lot of our prior wealth was predicated by investment into building, which was primarily suburban, and job growth,with adequate salaries available for all skill levels. Now, we have job growth, but if it’s in the service sector the pay does not cover minimum expenses or the jobs are so specialized, they command high salaries, but require expensive training. We have new homes built, but because it’s new construction, the prices are higher. Urban location and connectivity also command a major premium, that is out of reach for those who need it the most, the ones who can’t afford the cars to get to services.
If we don’t work to make the reversal of the suburban experiment sustainable for all, we will have worse slums and less of an economic boost. The seeds for this change have been planted and are already showing up as weeds. Will we pluck out those weeds and prune that garden?
