Welcome to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation, the newsletter of me, Kristen Jeffers. A Black, queer, feminist, disabled, urbanist elder millennial (born 1985) from Greensboro, North Carolina USA, who lives in Southwest Washington, DC.

This newsletter is my personal letter opening you up to how I crusade for a better living environment and my love for fiber craft. This week, I’m proud to present the return of my podcasting career, Defying Gentrification. And yes, I had some time to do some crafting this week, but we’ll get to that at the end of this email.

The first time I ever created an audio project, was with my parent’s sliver cassette tape recorder and a blank cassette tape.

Theirs looked enough like the Talkboy recorder from Home Alone that even though I didn’t have one of my own, I relished being able to use theirs when they weren’t using it to tape me at elementary school concerts and their sermons at church.

I was a huge fan of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Lynne Thigpen’s Chief character. I took all that to create a character I called the Snooper.

I basically sang a couple of songs and solved a couple of mysteries with my stuffed animals in a nasally voice. As a child (and sometimes when I feel down), I hated my nose, but it came in handy with my Snooper character, since I needed to sniff out crime.

Yes, this was also the era of Urkel and that’s also what it sounded like.

Fast forward and I’ve managed to casually find my way to WKNC-FM 88.1 through the legacy of an uncle who was one of the first Black DJs on the station and an ex who loved smooth jazz just as much as me. The fact that I’m in the WKNC history books is just icing on the cake, especially as I watch my Wolfpack basketball teams take on the Final Four for the first time ever together and the first time in at least 25-41 years.

Photo of me by Andy Musselman for the Technician

The full Technician article from October of 2007.

And of course, many of you remember and loved The Black Urbanist Radio Show and Third Wave Urbanism. Me too, but technology and conflicts were a barrier.

But now I bring you Defying Gentrification. Technology has caught up with me, and I realized you still deserved and wanted to hear my voice despite a couple of glitches in these first two episodes:

Episode 1 — WTF is Gentrification?

Listen on Apple Podcasts

On this inaugural episode of the Defying Gentrification podcast, take you to school in our homeroom to learn exactly what is gentrification, and why should it be defied and eradicated.

But first, on our street corner, the hot topic is how not to leave Baltimoreans of color behind in the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy, as well as honor their competence in leadership during disaster situations.

Read the street corner hot topic article from Capital B.

Read the Curbed article referenced in our homeroom section.

Episode 2 — Who Gets to Defy Gentrification

Listen on Apple Podcasts

In this episode, Kristen takes us to school and breaks down who gets to defy gentrification. Spoiler alert, It is those who have been colonized, which generally are indigenous populations of color.

Also, on the Street Corner, the hot topic is both the Kansas City and Washington DC stadium/arena deals and how they are different.

Read the Kansas City Defender article on the stadium vote.

Read the KCUR article and see the poster.

Also, this is a great time to remind you that you can support the podcast financially in the following ways:

Purchase from my Bookshop.org store.

Join the Defying Gentrification Fellowship powered by Podia

Read my articles on crafting and working together across borders on Resident Urbanist. These are free opportunities as our publication is ad-supported.

Do you want to be a guest on Defying Gentrification? Fill out this form and it will get you scheduled on my recording calendar. I’ll then send the details you need to get set up to record.

Be a guest on Defying Gentrification

Advertisers, likewise, you can sign up and submit your basic ad (starting at $75/week)

Advertise on Defying Gentrification

Finally, the Defying Gentrification Fellowship doors open this Monday and paid subscribers on this platform and Patreon will get those materials here. You can also join on its main platform at Podia, where podcast archives will also live. I’ll also be including a special Monday note for folks, along with this Friday podcast launch note.

Join the Fellowship

And one more thing. In honor of that cute photo of me above and the Men’s and Women’s Final Four, here’s a playlist of my favorite songs of my undergraduate years (2004-2007), which I’m continuing to update throughout the weekend.

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/kristens-undergraduate-legacy-2004-2007/pl.u-oN4YI0ElqEA

Until Monday,

Kristen

The state of my union is good, but it could be great.

Welcome to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation, the newsletter of me, Kristen Jeffers. A Black, queer, feminist, disabled, urbanist elder millennial (born 1985) from Greensboro, North Carolina USA, who lives in Southwest Washington, DC. 

This newsletter is my personal letter opening you up to how I crusade for a better living environment and my love for fiber craft. This week, I am using the US President’s annual State of the Union speech to reflect on my own state AND invite you to join my new initiatives, which are now open for registration. And yes, I had some time to do some crafting this week, but we’ll get to that in the middle this email. 

So what is the state of my union, my life, my body in these times? 

This week, it’s grief. And yes, all of the stages are a circle, a sphere even.

My dad would have been 64 today.  For 11 years, he hasn’t been here to celebrate me or himself. He was proud of being born in the year of the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-in. We had a regular booth at the Stamey’s on High Point Road (now Gate City Boulevard)  next to the Greensboro  Coliseum, where we would discuss local and state politics the way many are discussing last night’s State of the Union and all the responses. 

If he were here today, I would be at home this week, sitting in that booth, or maybe outside on our porch with takeout because like many Southern fast-food establishments, you’re eating in places that wouldn’t have let you sit in them because of your Blackness many years ago and others that wish you would take your trans, queer, and dare I say feminism outside today.

And don’t get me started on air purification. You definitely smelled the pig smoker and the cigarette smoke from the smoking section in that Stamey’s then and the windows open would just kill any attempts to mitigate our southern humidity and blankets of yellow pollen indoors.

But wherever we would be sitting, I would be bringing up the fact that Biden had a few sick burns (give this man all of his potato chips!). But, Palestine and all the unnamed countries that are under genocide, many because of our military and economic interests, were not adequately mentioned or honored. 

COVID is not over. My stomach and eye twitch, for which I have to take an antacid and an allergy pill at night to keep at bay, would like to have a word with the president. I know Biden would be angry if I told him he was an overgrown bag of malarkey because he was coughing and stuttering through his speech. But, I feel like he would call me a bag of malarkey because I still mask and I am asking that everyone remember all forms of mitigation, especially air purification and testing if they aren’t going to cover their faces.

Oh,  and I don’t remember hearing a thing about student loan forgiveness and a true Medicaid for All.

But then, I would turn my phone to Dad, show him this Instagram post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C4PQQteOv5c/?img_index=1)

and this response video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrZpiylf4nA .

It’s been long enough ago that I can’t say what he would say, but his spirit and ancestry that runs through me radicalized at losing him the way we did, tells me that I need to do everything I can.

And, I would tell him that picture of the Waffle House in Home Depot is real, somewhere ;).

All jokes aside, it’s my great pleasure to open up the registration for the Defying Gentrification Fellowship

The fellowship will entail:

• One week of lunchtime ( 11 am – 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time) lecture sessions and Q&A on the three key ways to defy gentrification from April 1-5 2024. These will be recorded and available to you in our Podia portal.
• Exercises to help you craft your plan to defy gentrification
• Reading materials to help you understand what gentrification really is and why we must defy, then eradicate it for all humans to thrive on the Earth.
• One post-lecture 90-minute strategy session
• Ongoing alumni group virtual and possibly in-person meetups, to aid in your quest for success in defying gentrification and see if you’re ready to move into our ambassadorship program, where you will have even more time with me to eradicate gentrification. I didn’t want to put that on you just yet, because I know you do a lot of this work already, but you don’t always have space to process.

This fellowship is for:

• People of the African diaspora, namely those who have been a victim of gentrification-related displacement, harassment, and cultural erasure who need a place to process and heal.
• People of the global majority (non-white folks) who have been roped into gentrification schemes, but want to do right by their communities.  However, this first cohort will focus specifically on the experiences of those in the African Diaspora in the (so-called) Americas and other English-speaking countries and you may want to wait for a future cohort where we focus more on your experiences and have mentors and leaders with that lived experience. However, I’d love to have you too, to help us shape a lot of the decolonial topics and praxis we will be shaping together,  but you may not feel like you learned anything. You will get one-on-one time with me and a network of like-minded peers, so do consider joining us.

Investment in yourself and our journey: Each course is $695 for the inaugural section with an optional 12-month payment plan of $59. If you pay in full before April 1, you will receive a bonus one-on-one planning session with Kristen, in addition to your post-launch week strategy session.

We will have a formal scholarship plan in future cohorts and we will open them up to more people, but for now, I’m aiming for 10 people who can make this kind of investment with me, so I can see what it would take to make this kind of training, not only sustainable but a very competitive and affirming alternative to some of our professional certifications and training courses, as well as college curriculums. Register here:

Defying Gentrification Fellowship Intensive

(You can also add  yourself to our waitlist if slots are already full at the link above)

Feel free to comment or reply back if you have any questions. Next week, I’ll be back in your inbox with details about our Eradicating Gentrification  Ambassadorship. Yes, I’ve shifted focus on that one a little bit, because I believe in us and what we are capable of doing.

Now, before you go, some pictures of my craftiness this week.

Until next time,

Kristen

Welcome to  Defying Gentrification,  Crafting  Liberation. This is the revamped and revised version of the newsletter formerly known as The Black Urbanist Weekly. Here, we now are committed to Defying Gentrification. We also believe in doing so with joy, so that’s where the crafting, the literal crafting comes from. Over the next few weeks, we will be launching our new mission and fellowship and ambassador programs and you’ll be hearing from me and others a lot to talk about what that means. But first, an invitation for you to come on the journey with us.

All I’ve ever wanted was to live in a city. I blame Sesame Street because they always made it look cool. I  also blame insect bites, humidity, and the smells of kerosene heaters that I experienced in my youth visiting my grandparents at their rural North Carolina homes.

It was a running family joke on my mom’s side, that I would stand by the screen door at my grandparents, as soon as they said they were ready to go, waiting for my parents to stop gabbing at their siblings, because I had to get back to Greensboro.

Fast forward to around 2013, I managed to not only get back to Greensboro, but here I was living it up downtown and in 2015, my local activism had me tagged as a “next Greensboro Four”

But deep inside, my spirit felt unsettled. I would drive around in my Honda Accord wishing that I could just use a bikeshare system like everyone else. I had even started my “adult” blog in the first place to demand that we get more trains in Greensboro into our beautiful, recently restored downtown depot. And of course, visits to Atlanta and DC, half-day drives on I-85/I-95 showed me that once I got there, I could park the car and ride to all of the things I would want: parks, malls, amusement parks even.

In the spring of 2015, after none of my day jobs in Greensboro really stuck, I got the opportunity to move to Kansas City,  Missouri, and become the  Communication and Membership Manager for BikeWalkKC. It was so much fun learning about a new city and managing marketing for a growing bike network and bikeshare system.

However, a new cloud appeared. Depression.

No matter that I had all these options for transportation and a great job, something was up. It took me dumping everything in Kansas City, moving to DC, and then realizing I was still going through the same things to realize that no matter what, I was still, depressed.

And as much as I love talking about urbanism with all the minds that come to the table about it, gentrification was still affecting my life. If I wanted to heal, thanks to the economic forces around me,  I would have to let go of some things I learned about urbanism.

Oh and then we had a pandemic too.  And during that time,  I got to practice some healing modalities and sit with what we’ve been taught about urban planning and what I as a Black queer feminist know about how gentrification makes some of those things very, very different and even difficult.

So, here I am in 2024. I have a loving partner who loves joy-riding and promoting transit just as much as I do. So much so, that it’s her actual day job.  And we live in one of the best neighborhoods in DC, despite attempts for folks like us to be erased from it. I’ve reclaimed my lifelong hobby of sewing and crocheting because I have that kind of time and space. I can drive AND take public transportation.

And I want you to not just come on this ride with me but understand why it’s imperative as planners and other professionals to understand that whatever we do, we need to be planning with people first. And for people like me who want city living, but have barriers to overcome, I want you to know there’s a space for you to do so, that loves and affirms and wants you in the public square, right where you belong.

So, I invite you to watch the recap of my launch webinar, Six Ways to Defy Gentrification.

And if you didn’t have time to watch, I’m so excited to tell you that it’s so simple to defy gentrification.

You can defy gentrification with faith in yourself, cultivation of joyful activities, and having everything you need nearby.

You can help others defy gentrification by caring about them, then building the infrastructure and providing the access they need.

If you believe me and want to make sure more people understand how simple that is, would love to have you become a Defying Gentrification Fellow or Ambassador.

Click here to express interest in our new Fellowship and Ambassador programs.

We’ll also be doing a Q&A on March 21 about the Fellowship and Ambassador programs, that will go into more detail. I’ll also be sharing more in-depth about these six ways of defiance and how these programs can help you, no matter whether you consider yourself gentrified or gentrifier or a little bit of both.

I’m also still releasing the Defying Gentrification workbook, but pilot fellows and ambassadors will have the first look at the workbook and ability to shape the work that will be released to the masses later this spring.

Finally, on the crafting liberation front, I invite you to join me on the Saturday Morning  Shenanigans craft interview show with Laverne of BzyPeach on YouTube as I talk about my crafting work and plans for later this year.

Until next time,

Kristen

Hey, y’all. I have to confess something. I’ve been cheating on urbanism with my crocheting and fashion design. This will surprise no one who gets to see the bottom of my face these days, but this may surprise you.

Longtime followers of me will know that I grew up in one of the original textile capitals of the world, Greensboro, North Carolina. Therefore, clothing made my town a city.

So my forays into fashion design, namely crochet and sewing, with a dedicated space for such in our home, do have an urbanist tie for me, because my urbanism has always been holistic and not just trains, apartments, and whatever else is in walking distance.

It also involves the people who are there and the economic factors that make each city what it is.

And yes, ableism, racism, queer and trans antagonism are just as much economic and labor issues as classism, as they all stem from imperialism, which is the root of capitalism.

But that’s not the whole story for me.

To be honest, I wake up every day and read and review all the urbanism, good or bad, in the DC region, inclusive of Baltimore and Richmond. I am paid to do such, but that is dependent on me doing so from 7:45-10 am Eastern, which is also my prime creative writing time. It does provide my primary source of business income, but the number of hours I can bill has dropped.

Another factor that’s key is that often this work exposes me to urbanist politics, policy, and behavior that is discouraging to me on a lot of levels, based on who I am, and what I know about how cities work.

However, it has allowed me to launch this experiment of living in the heart of a multi-gentrified neighborhood, and to record how I’m defying that gentrification.

So, I needed a creative escape and that’s what crocheting and fashion design have given me. My mom has always sewn and it’s been a source of joy throughout her career as an educator and her coping with chronic illness. Plus, one of my sibling-cousins is big into the sewing communities online and I too have found kinship amongst other craftivists and crafters who make to overcome the world’s obstacles, especially fellow Black, disabled and/or queer folks.

I’m working on a special project to combine my passion for holistic urbanism and crafting without always having to go out to a farm or a far suburb for later in 2024.

And despite how Nazi and fascist the world and these platforms are becoming, I as Black queer human have a right to exist in the world and on the internet. Palestine, Congo, Tigray, Sudan, Haiti and all the other countries under active genocide, and to take it all the way back, my ancestors and those already here on this land and who are still colonized to this day, have a right to not be slaughtered off the face of the earth for someone’s chance at living the high life. Or a life. So the bullhorn is going to be loud.

But, I am on my COVID sickbed and writing this in notes on my phone lying flat in the time that I give myself because I am committed to radical rest and my medication working right.

I will continue to mitigate and mask post recovery but we are at the point where we need HEPA, Far UV, and universal testing along with the shots and liberal use of antivirals and ample paid time to rest, recover, and cover our bills, along with fashionable respirators that are breathable.

In 2024, as I feel better, I want to be more present for those of you who rock with me no matter what and who love this kind of holistic urbanism, that defies gentrification and crafts liberation. Hence our new newsletter name (for the Substackers) — and tagline here Defying Gentrification and Crafting Liberation.

In each newsletter I’ll share ways I see myself and others defying gentrification and I’ll share what I’m doing in my craftivism craft room. And, I will link out to what’s happening on my YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts. And X, until the doors fall all the way off.

Logging off now to rest and I’ll see you soon.

Hey y’all, Kristen here and this is my monthly newsletter. I used to write longer ones, but if you’ve read any of the past few issues, you’ll know that this year has been a transitional year in my ability to write. However, I always have a story to tell and in December, I always make wishes. I made several global and personal ones this year. Make sure you’re subscribed so you never miss a note from my Black queer feminist urbanist perspective, I have a big announcement about tomorrow’s originally scheduled book launch webinar, which is now postponed until January 4.

So, what are my global wishes this year? The ones I’m spreading out to the world?

1. End empires and transition into land stewardship and equitable, just commerce with reparations. And yes, prison abolition.
2. Fund housing, healthcare, public schools, libraries, and public transportation. 
3. Honor the best and hold space for the grief of everyone.
4. Quality ventilation and flexibility to continue to eradicate and reduce risks related to pandemics.

And when I turn inward, what do I really want for me?

1. Funding to make this newsletter a comprehensive publication focused on defying gentrification through Black Queer Feminist Accessible urbanism
2. Funding and successful execution for my downtown DC yarn festival in the fall of 2024.
3. Funding to strengthen the research and underpin the K. Jeffers Index and Center for Black Queer Accessible Feminist Urbanism 
4. Shaking off my tax, student loan, and consumer debt
5. Continued stable health and love from my partner, friends, and natal family.

And finally, my biggest wish of all is for patience as I continue to work on my upcoming workbook. I’ve decided to postpone tomorrow’s book launch webinar until January 4. As much as I would have loved to launch my book on my 38th birthday and get all of your pre-orders, instead, tomorrow I’ll be waking up, doing a little bit of client work, and finishing my birthday sweater while wearing the other sweater I finished, which will be the perfect wearable blanket on a chilly December day like tomorrow here in DC.

Plus, for my astrology heads out there, you might have heard that Mercury is in Retrograde, and if you’re really deep into it, my moon is in Capricorn (in both tropical and sidereal)  and of course, my sun is in Sagittarius (Scorpio)

Not that I’m superstitious, but I have felt myself slowing down and I’ve noticed a lot of glitching in my electronics and work lately, as well as my body glitching. Yes, I might be a little outside, but I’m achy already and trying to avoid one of these still circulating cases of COVID. Plus, my insurance changed and it did so before I could get a booster shot. And you see my Instagram stories. I’m doing my best to share folks on the ground in all of our war-torn areas and insist my own country step away from war as an industry and instead invest in peaceful pursuits and the wellbeing of its people.

Anyway, much like I had extended time during the Thanksgiving holiday to write, I will during the Christmas and Kwanzaa one as well, while I rest through the remainder of the Chanukah one.

Finally, If you still want to give me a birthday (or holiday) present, feel free to Venmo me at Kristen-Jeffers-3 or you can become a paid Substack subscriber! Annual subscriptions are only $60 now, and it’s a great way to keep me going.

Now, to gather my presents that have come in! 

Until next time, 

Kristen

Welcome to my monthly newsletter for November of 2023. If this is your first time here, I’m Kristen Jeffers, a Greensboro, NC-born, Southwest Washington, DC resident who is proudly Black, queer, feminist, chronically ill and an urbanist. For over 13 years I’ve brought my expertise in media, urban planning, nonprofit management, and being a decent human in urban areas to the internet, as well as in real life to universities, professional organizations, social service organizations, and community groups for over a decade and a half. 

If you’ve been here before, you know that I usually chock these emails full of information. However, this week, I have a very big announcement and less information, but I’ll be back on my birthday, December 14, with more details and a proper pre-order link for my next book (register for our launch webinar) as well as my annual urbanism wish list. I’ll still be including a few things I want to make sure you pay attention to, but after a check to make sure you’re subscribed, a story and reflection on how I defy gentrification.

Storytime

When I wake up in the morning and look outside of my window at a multi-million dollar condo building, with a slither of the waterfront we face reflecting upon both of our buildings, I feel what it feels like to defy gentrification.

When I walk down on the sidewalk in the middle of the morning, fresh off of editing a batch of Breakfast Links, and head to District Doughnuts to get some actual breakfast, in my I Am a Black Urbanist sweatshirt, I feel what it feels like to defy gentrification.

Oh and let me not forget this moment of defiance. When I went to the Wharf CVS and bought the only Black Mrs. Claus and put her in our window, since we’re one, supposedly scarring some of the neighbors with our bodies (ok, maybe not us, but we did get an email telling us to close our windows even though that building has window walls around every unit), and two, we can’t hang signs. She is holding some greenery that lights up, but when people look in, they see her, with the judgiest of looks, asking them to reconsider what’s possible, not just for urbanism, but for life.

But in all of this bougieness, the reality sets in. I’m one of the estimated 82,000 housing insecure people named in this recent Urban Institute study, on housing insecurity in the District.

Let me say right now that Les is doing great. She is not struggling. She is thriving. However, if I stop getting paid, then she is struggling, because we are a unit. This is my first year making over $40,000 pre-tax. Yes, ever. And yes, I checked my Social Security records.

Because of those facts, many of y’all think that the way I should be defying gentrification is to do one of the following:

— Get a minority supplier certification, so I can be a sub (and only a sub) contractor on a project plan that may never come to fruition, leaving more people without transit and homeless, TODAY, when the rent is due and the sheriff is sitting outside of the door and the job requires you to clock in with your fingers at 8:00 am sharp, even though your bus was a ghost after all.

— Forget about said people because the Lord has blessed me to be in this home, and to be in rooms with high people, so I should close the door behind me. Note, if I had done this, you wouldn’t even know the names of some of your favorite urbanists! 

— Speaking of those urbanists, we should all stop wasting time on calling out and dismantling food insecurity, homelessness, public health crises, colonialism, and warmongering, because urbanism is just transportation, luxury apartments,  and fancy stores, hotels, and restaurants in mixed-use configurations.

Yeah, none of this in the least is defying gentrification. And by the way, gentrification shouldn’t exist. 

And finally, after 13 years of writing through my defiance, I’m ready to share my playbook, specifically for Black women, nonbinary, and LGBTQ folks, with something for everyone who wants to ensure that nobody on this Earth is left behind and constantly fighting against the eradication of their homes and communities.

It also has wisdom for those of you who we need to help us defy and eradicate gentrification because this is a team effort.

So, this isn’t exactly the full-sized memoir-manifesto, that’s still coming. However, I’m ready to talk and train folks through these thoughts and issues. This will help me to build a more comprehensive memoir manifesto, with real examples besides myself, of how we defy and eradicate gentrification so that everyone gets a chance to live where they want to live, how they want to live, but we honor the one Earth we have.

Also, you will notice that this email is open to everyone and it’s also on LinkedIn and Medium as well. I realize that those platforms are key places where I can provide a virutal “front porch” experience to people, while I work on inviting them into the house that is what will become the K. Jeffers Center for Black Queer Feminist Accessible Urbanism. 

In the meantime, add our pre-order launch webinar on December 14th at 2 pm Eastern to your calendar. Don’t worry if you aren’t live for this one, it will be recorded and there will be more webinars on the “front porch” so you can see if my new training and mentorship offerings are the right fit for you. 

If you already know you want to partner with me to bring this material to your school, job, house of faith, organization, or family, go ahead and reply to this message or email me kristen@theblackurbanist.com, so we can set up bulk orders. Bookstores, likewise, this workbook will have an ISBN and that information will be released on December 14.

Before You Go

— Check out what my playlist looks like for real and what Apple thinks my playlist looks like this year. And Spotify got my musical city right.

— I am in full support of ending imperialism and warmongering worldwide. Follow the stories of my Instagram accountwhere I regularly amplify people across the globe with the same pursuit. Also, I want to specifically amplify APA New York DivComm’s statement on Palestine, Black Feminist Future’s panel on Black feminist solidarities across the countries in the most crisis at the moment, and YK Hong’s Instagram and work on ending all empires and tech justice.

— Another dope Black DC entrepreneur defying gentrification in her own way, with coffee!

— I’ve restocked my merch shop. I’m especially excited about my new stickers and of course my hoodies!

—Finally, you should get my business mentor Arlan Hamilton’s book, also in pre-order and releasing on January 2.

Until next time,

Kristen

Welcome back to The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen (she/they), a DC-based born-and-raised North Carolinian, who’s proudly Black, Queer, Feminist, Dynamically Disabled, and Urbanist. 

This is a freemium newsletter, where subscriptions open up comments and archives, delve deeper into policy descriptions, and get more information about my favorite pieces of pop culture. However, scholarships exist! Reply back to this email and I’ll send you information about how to get one if you’re eligible! This edition, because it’s special, will be open to everyone, but the next dispatch will begin our freemium model. 

We start off with a reflection from me Kristen, then go into our policy prescription, my pop culture faves, and then job and opportunity announcements.

Kristen’s Reflection of the Week — Seven Years a Washingtonian(ish) 

This was what my morning looked like exactly seven years ago. To many, it just looks like I am moving from one place to another. But this is a bigger move. Seven years ago today, I chose to move to a place not because of a person or job, but because it was a place I wanted to be and create community. How has that gone for me in the past seven years?

So, when I arrived in DC on the afternoon of September 19, 2016, it was an overcast day. The cloud of the 2016 election was looming too, but I think I was very optimistic. I was one of the first people to start crying the night of November 8, 2016, at the watch party at the neighborhood bar and all I could do on the walk home was gripe about how I needed to move out of the country and fast. Never mind I just did a major cross-country move…

I spent all of November 9 in my perfectly apportioned basement apartment. That day was cloudy and rainy too, but it didn’t matter because all I had was a tiny window. I stayed in my bed, besides going into my tiny kitchen to cook myself meals and using my bathroom. I rationalized as a not quite out Black queer person it would only be a matter of time before we were bombed and I would be trapped under the rubble or I would be saved because I was living under the ground or that the feds in this new conservative regime would be knocking on the door to take me to jail.

So, none of that actually happened. In fact, just days later, I gathered with other equity and justice-minded transportation advocates in Atlanta and while we were facing challenges, we resolved to be the solution for everyone, not just ourselves and those who have the most power.

And over the next seven years I traveled and spoke on stages all over the country.

I’ve written this newsletter made lots of friends and strengthened a few friendships. Others fell away.

I’ve lived in all kinds of neighborhoods throughout DC, PG County Maryland, and Baltimore. And yes, y’all know that I fell in love with a fellow Black queer feminist urbanist.

Today, we are called to do the right thing when it comes to stewarding our Earth and creating a world that honors all of our abilities and deems all of us worthy of life. Who’s ready to come on that journey with me?

So under our new freemium format, everything after this short outline of what’s next in the newsletter is behind a paywall. But today, I wanted you to get a preview of what you’ll get, so, here’s what’s coming next in the newsletter, then after the outline the full text of what’s next.

— Policy Prescription—What this section, formally known as the Principle Corner will look like in the coming weeks.

—By The Way — Still including links, namely that yes, the housing boom in DC is real and valid, plus, why I totally would have welcomed a relocation bonus, but why I haven’t taken one.

— On the Shelf, On the Playlist — The adorable queer urbanism of One Last Stop,  plus how I see Veronica O. Davis’s Inclusive Transportation as continuing the charges we made at that 2016 Untokening conference.

—  Before You Go — This will look like a final reminder of what we have for sale in future emails for paid subscribers, but for free subscribers, it will be as follows:

Consider this job advertisement from the University of California San Diego…Thanks again for supporting our work and thinking of us as a place to find your next set of colleagues!

UC San Diego: Assistant Professor in Urban Studies and Planning

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03697

POSITION DESCRIPTION

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning, anticipated to begin July 1, 2024.

USP is a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning. The selected candidate will be expected to contribute to our mission by building and maintaining a record of high-quality scholarship in transportation planning and/or spatial analytics; developing curriculum to meet department needs; mentoring and teaching graduate and undergraduate students, including teaching courses in quantitative methods; and engaging in university and public service to help build an equitable and diverse environment.

For applicants interested in spousal/partner employment, please visit the UC San Diego Partner Opportunities Program website: https://aps.ucsd.edu/recruitment/pop/index.html

Department: 

https://usp.ucsd.edu

POSITION OVERVIEW

Salary range: A reasonable salary range estimate for this position is $109,600-$132,200.​ The posted UC Academic salary scales set the minimum pay as determined by rank and/or step at appointment. See the following table(s) for the salary scale(s) for this position: https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2023-24/oct-2023-acad-salary-scales/t1.pdf. The base salary range, from the salary table(s), for this position is $74,600-$97,200. “Off-scale salaries” and other components of pay, i.e., a salary that is higher than the published system-wide salary at the designated rank and step, are offered when necessary to meet competitive conditions, qualifications, and experience. ​​Additional UCSD salary information can be found here: https://aps.ucsd.edu/compensation/apo-salary.html

APPLICATION WINDOW

Open date: September 14, 2023

Next review date: Saturday, Oct 14, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Sunday, Mar 31, 2024 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic qualifications (required at time of application)

A Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning or a closely related field, or one who is in the all-but-dissertation stage of earning the PhD.

Additional qualifications (required at time of start)

Must hold a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning or related field by start date of appointment as Assistant Professor.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

And yes, that’s a brand new hoodie and there’s more new The Black Urbanist merch to come! You can find the store at www.kristpattern.com/blackurbanist. 

This Week’s Policy Prescription 

Yes, it makes a difference where you live. There is an urban hierarchy. I wanted to think otherwise and that’s another reason I’m re-writing and re-issuing my original book. It’s also the reason that this process has taken nearly a decade to do because I needed to live out my hypothesis. There’s only so much good that comes from hot urbanist takes and I’m ready to start writing prescriptions for what we best can do.

This week, I encourage you to examine where you live and why. Are you there by choice? Do others have similar choices? In the future, this section, which will be behind the paywall, will delve even deeper into my policy logic models, previewing several concepts that will be showing up in future master classes and my new book.

By the Way

• So, if you saw my IG post before you saw this newsletter or if you read the photo captions, you’ll know that yet again, I’ve moved to a new home. Something about all my leases ending or renewing around this time of year. I have to thank the will to build more housing and to create an inclusionary zoning policy that works here in DC. A recent study that digs deeper into that. 
• And, so many of these relocation bonuses are so attractive, but they are often asking people, especially people from groups often discriminated against, to go into areas that may or may not accept them as new arrivals, either through these new laws criminalizing trans and queer identities or continuing to terrorize Black people of all kinds. I  would love to see more of these programs consider racial and gender justice, along with disability justice, in how they administer these programs and encourage the community to welcome newcomers. 

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

• So I very rarely have time to sit and read full books. That was part of the reason I went on this sudden sabbatical, because I missed the point of burnout. While I was resting and resetting and packing up our old apartment, Casey McQuison’s One Last Stop caught my eye. I’ll eventually read their more popular first book Red, White and Royal Blue, but the hard copy of this book that’s coming out with a bonus chapter, about a couple that’s semi-stuck on a Q train in New York City is just delightfully queer, racially diverse and yes, urbanist, feminist and size-inclusive. The first edition is It’s now in my Bookshop store and I encourage you to also read more books!
• And yes, Inclusive Transportation! It’s short, it’s too the point and it goes back to what I talked about at the top of the email with the Untokening and how many of us have taken action to change our story since we all convened in 2016 that first time.
• I’ve listened to so much good music over my break. Highlights have been Jon Batise’s new record, Rhiannon Giddens’ new record, and new to us but released in 2021’s Sam Sparro record. Oh and Jessie Ware came out with her new one before I went on hiatus, but it’s also a great bop!

Before You Go

Finally, the person I hired over the summer encouraged me to keep the funds for paying them and focus on fundraising. Plus, I realized just how much I needed to change neighborhoods and redirect that savings there. However, I want to thank everyone who applied for my job posting back in June. Your information is on file and trust me, when I get the funding to hire, many of you are first on the list. You wrote such thoughtful and robust cover letters and you have excellent resumes. Hopefully, you’re not still available, but if you are, I do still want to be helpful, but I want to pay fairly.

And that’s where everyone else comes in. Going paid on this newsletter for $9.99 USD monthly will help me do just that, open up doors for other talented individuals who want to work with me and the kinds of policies and research and work I’m doing to make it stronger and widespread. That’s one of my mandates, besides doing my part to save the world. Also, going paid helps me keep a decent work/life balance, one that’s not at the mercy of my client base and their funding and fiscal years. Finally, if you sign up for an annual subscription, you’ll get free access to the full masterclass, a signed copy of my book, and a merch prize pack, customized to the slogan that’s most appropriate to you of our merch over at the Kristpattern store.

You can also continue to take out classified ads, not just for jobs, but the job ads are great and will remain free.

Finally, thanks to all of you for your patience as I sorted out all of this. I thought today would be the perfect day to return because today represents to me everything that this work is all about — sharing why I as a Black queer disabled feminist continue to choose dense urban spaces and how we can tackle the problems keeping others from doing so with just and equitable solutions.

We will be resuming a regular Friday schedule again on 9/29/2023 with our partial paywall in place!

Until next time,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

If you’re new here, we usually have six sections: Story of the Week; The Principle Corner; By the Way; On the Shelf, On the Playlist, and Before You Go. You can read all archives right here, on my homepage of our normal format. We also normally drop on Fridays.  

However, you might have noticed we skipped a week and a couple of days. I injured my back on Juneteenth and took this as a reminder that I need to get back on my personal Nap Ministry, especially if I want to model better systems for us.

So, I found an assistant. Thanks to everyone who applied! Several of you will be hearing from me about future opportunities as I raise money and ramp up my business activities. I’ll also share who that person is in a future email. 

Second, so I can work on these special projects and create the new systems I want to create with this assistant AND REST MY BACK, we will be biweekly through July and August. We’ll be working together to pack these emails + an audio/video component,  with lots of great stories from me and useful information. They’ll also help me get my book ready, so you’ll finally get that in your hands.

You can support our efforts by making a pledge on Patreon or upgrading to paid on Substack.

So, after today, I won’t see you again in my inbox until around July 28th, as we continue our summer schedule.  And now, my story of the week, my principle of the week, and my favorite pop culture things of the week.

Story of the Week:  I Went Home Again

Let me repeat this, I went home again. 

But Kristen, weren’t you just in North Carolina?

Yes, and we do tend to clump together in a group when we see each other in the wild. The day before I got on the road, I almost tapped a Black man on his shoulder who was decked out in UNC-Chapell Hill gear on the Metro to see how well he was adjusting to DC. 

However, I was running late to a meeting and I didn’t want to throw him off or assume that just because he had on his hat and lanyard, he would also want to talk trash about our opposite Tobacco Road sports teams, but also how being in DC is both a blessing and a curse, in a specific way Black millennials from NC discuss these things.

Alas, I stepped back, but in just a matter of hours, I would once again cross the threshold into the Old North State, with the goal of briefly coming out of my bunker to reconnect with family.

This was Les’s first time meeting my mom and several of my Dad’s siblings, nieces, nephews, and some folks from their church community. After my sibling-cousin’s baby shower, I had no real concrete plans, besides maybe returning to our textile-history-themed hotel that popped up since the pandemic started or taking her to our Barnes and Noble, so she could understand why it’s far less superior than Borders was.

But, my muscle memory took us from Guilford College Road to Friendly Avenue, down Friendly to the base of the now Lincoln Financial building, past the northern edge of UNCG’s campus and past the shopping center, then looping Elm Street thinking I was going to do a Battleground Avenue odyssey, but instead, I saw the open light in Gate City Yarns. 

The last time I was there about a decade ago, I could barely make a crochet chain. However, they fed my soon-to-return tabletop loom habit and I wanted to see if they had changed since I’ve now become quite the yarn snob. Especially since they were open late on a Saturday!  I needed to quickly find a parking space, so I could see if going to my local yarn shop again would actually be positive.

It exceeded expectations. Same with chilling inside Scuppernong Books, eating at Crafted, walking down Elm to find that most of our street mural from 2013 that was supposed to have been erased years ago was still there (it is!), seeing the new configuration of LeBauer Park and Tanger Center and stopping by my mom’s to grab a few things the next day in route back to DC.

My heart is overflowing and I can’t wait to go home again.

Plus, I learned in researching this post, that it was an editor who attached the idea of Thomas Wolfe never going home again, to his work posthumously. The real story of Thomas Wolfe is something I’ll save for another day, but I’ll end my story with a very happy ending, that in many cases, home is ready. Give it time, but in its own way, it’s ready.

The Principle Corner

In this section, we step away from the literary expression that opens this newsletter and into the “practical”.

So  with the flowery reflection out of the way, this wouldn’t be a post or newsletter about Greensboro, if I didn’t give y’all a little tough love on  what do you need to do to make sure you stay golden for me, Les, and anyone else both visiting and living there:

— Pilot a sliding scale inclusionary zoning program city-wide, especially as you increase missing-middle housing the way you’re doing on Friendly Avenue in front of Friendly Center. 

Additionally, housing should be offered based on our ACTUAL median income, not a desired median income for the pumping up of tax revenue. Plus, Greensboro is affordable now, but it won’t be for folks still making North Carolina’s pitiful minimum wage and in many ways, it isn’t affordable for those making North Carolina’s pitiful minimum wage. 

Years ago I encouraged every jurisdiction to tax major multimillion and billion-dollar corporate entities and not to incentivize them. Yet, I opened my email this morning and saw that Guilford County’s again incentivized another corporation. However, the Boomerang incentive program for folks like me is also promising. No, I’m not ready to do the complete leap, but I would love to tap into small business and individual resources to help pump up my hometown in a sustainable and loving way.

— Use the success of the downtown circulator The Hopper to pilot fare-free, frequent service all across the city. 

Everyone deserves free, frequent bus service, not just those who have the money and time to spend at the downtown businesses. I’m also excited to hear that the Piedmont train has added headways to and from Raleigh and Charlotte. No, there’s not a lot of car traffic, but there could be even less and Greensboro could be one of the first cities of its size to reduce the need for cars to get to necessary services.

— Move social service and key survival institutions back downtown. 

This would be a huge catalyst for getting us to car-lite because a good chunk of existing bus usage is to these major services that provide a safety net for those with lower incomes and less opportunities. 

When I was a kid in the 1990s, I would go with my parents to the Melvin Municipal Building for a number of things, like paying the water bill or other city taxes. In addition, the health department was downtown along with a number of regional charities AND the Greensboro Record Center, where Scuppernong Books is now (they could sell more records!). 

The vacated News-and-Record Building (another public service that should return downtown), could become a mid-rise complex of sliding-scale housing and 24-hour service centers for bill-paying, healthcare, and other major needs. The office complexes and hospital centers in other parts of town could still be there for specialists, but the emergency services apparatus should be connected to the central point of the public transit system. We should also not shame folks who need to use public transit to access these services. If we can go downtown for local businesses and public arts, we can go downtown for public services.

Or another option is to do as we’ve started to do in the DC region and build out multiple nodes of central resources at different price points in each quadrant of the city. We were kind of doing that along our corridors, but corridors aren’t as walkable as blocks. 

I have faith that these things are doable and folks want to do those things. Outside of me encouraging everyone to continue to take COVID and their health in general seriously, let’s all keep working together to make Greensboro even better.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them. 

I have to be honest, I’m disappointed that I didn’t make it to the 100 list on Planetizen. I know, as one of my LinkedIn commenters said “It’s silly to rank people”. I know, that only 920  people voted and some votes were eliminated because of being duplicates (something that wasn’t clear in the voting process was not allowed), and Jane Jacobs has a chokehold on those 920 voters, despite all the raised awareness that she’s not the business. I also realize in the final tally there are no Black Americans in the top 25. And yes, I made it into the top 200 in the first place, only one of a handful of nonbinary folks (or am I counted under the 15 women of color, not quite sure here). 

But in this capitalistic system, namely our urbanist capitalistic system,  you’re only as good as your last tweet thread or these rankings. Hence one reason I’m anti-capitalist; because this isn’t fair.  In the previous section, I linked to one of my five-year-old posts that’s still true. And maybe it’s too truthful because it questions capitalistic logic. 

Plus, I could make a list of 200 Black Urbanists and not even scratch the surface of how many Black folks hold down their various communities all over the world. And yes, to the Instagram commenter who said that we need to make our own lists, I see you and you’re absolutely right. Plus, to everyone who holds it down on the daily, who isn’t white-adjacent and capitalistic enough to get on these lists, I see you too. 

***

If I seem a little salty about myself, I’m really salty about these reports that people have been offering academic jobs, then rescinding the offers when it seems like the person is going to be too “threatening”. The most egregious example of this I saw recently was Texas A&M University having a whole signing day for Black tenured journalism professor at U-T Austin  Kathleen O. McElroy, then watering down her offer, including the one she signed in public on that day, because of pressure from trustees and the recent banning of DEI programs at Texas universities. It echoed what happened in Chapel Hill with Nikole Hannah-Jones. This is another reason North Carolina and its cities have to be proactive in being progressive, despite the temptation of the conservative tide and using personal faith beliefs to govern people who have no desire or need to follow similar beliefs.

***

I’m empowered to share these reflections with this tenor because I realize I’m not alone in seeing these things and being willing to speak up about them.

I’ve dug into Inclusive Transportation by Veronica O. Davis. Veronica was one of those Black folks who was here in this space when I got here and tamika l. butler was also the same way when it came to the bike space. tamika, along with Les and Dan Reed and Jerome Horne were some of the first Black queer folks I met in this space and made it safe for me to tell you everything about me, not just that I was Black and urbanist.

I’ll admit I don’t see Veronica and tamika as much as I used to (the TRB Black Professionals mixer event in January was the first time we’d all seen each other in person in years!). I’ll also admit that I wish that we all weren’t fighting for the same projects and the same dignity and respect. 

But, it was this quote in particular in tamika’s foreword of the book  that struck me and made me realize I’m not the only one seeing that 2020 was a dream deferred and a promised delayed when it came to Black liberation and inclusive urbanism, not just transportation: 

National planning organizations and conferences have returned to organizing events that cater to their predominately White, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, and privileged leadership and membership. Organizations that continue to tout equity, diversity, and inclusion are still hiring and voting in all-White leadership structures that fail to represent the diverse tapestry that is the backbone of the United States.

This book joins the chous of the many Black professionals who have been asking their peers to engage in new ways of thinking, listening, and governing. Most important, it does so by offering concrete advice that planners and allied professionals can take to assess their own privilege, interrogate power, and actively shift those dynamics in their work. For many of us, 2020 was just another year of injustice. We know that the anti-racist future we believe in has not arrived. This lack of progress is due, in part, to the lack of action taken by those in positions of power. Too often, those in power with an ability to bring about change cite an inability to know where to begin. I hope those leaders, as well as scholars, students, and anyone interested in justice, read [Veronica’s]  manifesto for repairing divided communities.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

My weekly recommendations of books, music, podcasts, and other pop culture

So, what else am I consuming that’s not urbanism-related?

I made it to Broccoli City this weekend. I will return, but I was not a fan of the extremely long walk, even with the shuttle, to the actual venue.

***

The new Jon Batiste record is going to be dope! I’m still in awe of We Are and especially Tell the Truth. 

***

I also adored Survival of the Thickest on Netflix. It’s not reinventing this genre’s wheel, but in centering Blackness, queerness, and fatness, as Brooke Obie stated in her review of the show, Michelle Buteau has advanced this genre and she did it in just four hours of episodes! 

The actors have said not to cancel subscriptions and streaming yet as they rightfully strike, so please go out and stream all the BlPOC and queer stuff you can, because, to me, this is the pinnacle of the battle, paying and putting on marginalized creatives fairly, and not scanning them and making robots out of them.

***

And I’m trying to finish another sweaterdress if my yarn doesn’t break first! You can always support my yarn and fiber work over at www.kristpattern.com

Before You Go

Here’s how you can keep me and this platform running, along with support some other mutual aid efforts:

I’m determined to not let what I shared above keep me from continuing to tell the truth. Our communities deserve the truth and I’m happy to be a messenger.

However, for me to continue to be a messenger and have the proper support to do so, your Substack subscriptions and your Patreon pledges are vital. With the help of my assistant, we will be launching new merchandise and research reports, along with an annotated version of my book — A Black Urbanist Journey to an Accessible Queer Feminist Future. Patreon will be your best bet to pledge if you are after merch and Substack for the annotated book and first look at research reports.

Support me here on Patreon.

And Substack (if you’re already there, just mash the upgrade to paid button up top!)

***

Mutual aid will continue to be part of any version of this platform I dream up.

For those of you who can and I know it’s tough out here for a lot of us, let’s keep lifting up our colleague who could still use our support with her partner’s chronic health challenges and of course Les’s endometriosis support and resource platform endoQueer as it embarks on its first major fundraiser to provide more support for LGBTQIA+ folks to navigate the health care system

Project N95 is an amazing source of masks for everything that’s in the air that we have no business breathing and other testing and air purification equipment, at reasonable prices, that also go into helping distribute those supplies in communities that need them. Also, check into your community’s mask distribution services if you have them. I’m also adding a link for the Entertainment Community Fund and for those in WGA and SAG-AFRA  to have relief while they take necessary action to get the funding they deserve for being one of the few industries that can’t be erased (at least for now). 

And yes, my yarn-related fundraisers are still going strong, as they too see the value in community uplift and mutual aid.   We are directly supporting LolaBean Yarn Co. and  Dye Hard Yarns, two amazing yarn stores run by Black women that are fundraising to expand their physical equipment and footprint, and  Knit the Rainbow, a group that works to ensure that knitwear is donated to LGBTQIA+ youth, and raises awareness of queer/trans folks in the yarn and fiber space, is still ongoing.

This is how we as planners and makers can practice solidarity and uplift community groups. If not these campaigns, please find some that are closest to you.  I also assume that you do have the financial means to do so as planners, but I know things can be tough for us. But solidarity is free and that starts with speaking up and sharing when you can.

***

Until next time,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E. Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

If you’re new here, we normally have six sections: Story of the Week; The Principle Corner; By the Way; On the Shelf, On the Playlist, and Before You Go. You can read all archives right here, on my homepage in our normal format. We also normally drop on Fridays.

However, you might have noticed we skipped a week. It was not my intention, but when I released my last post, something shifted in my brain. A DISC ALSO SHIFTED IN MY BACK. On Juneteenth of all days. So, I started thinking hard through the pain and I came up with some ideas.

First, I’m going to use some room in my budget for July and August to hire an editorial and research assistant. If that could be you, please send over a resume and cover letter (you can reply to this email with them). I will be holding resumes for future opportunities or in case a first choice doesn’t work out. The rate is $250 weekly, paid biweekly and you’ll be a 1099 contractor. If things work out financially as a result of bringing you on, there’s a potential that this could become a more long-term contract or permanent job. More details in the Before You Go Section

Second, so I can work on these special projects and create the new systems I want to create with this assistant AND REST MY BACK, we will be going biweekly through July and August. We’ll be working together to pack these emails + an audio/video component, with lots of great stories from me and useful information. They’ll also help me get my book ready, so you’ll finally get that in your hands.

So, after today, I won’t see you again in my inbox until July 14th, as we resume our normal Friday schedule. And now, my story of the week, my principle of the week, and my favorite pop culture things of the week.

Story of the Week: Mapping to the Media

It’s a Friday evening in the fall of 2004.

We’re on the East Campus of NC State University and at 4:30 pm, we are let loose from our big lecture on the foundations of communication.

Our professor is probably about to head to his office and prepare for another Saturday afternoon or evening being the football voice of the Wolfpack at Carter-Finley Stadium.

It’s my last class of the day and the week. I’m about to make a quick trip to my dorm room in Welch Hall, drop off my books, and depending on my mood, I would be headed to one of the following:

— Clark Hall, for my meal plan dinner, and catch up on the day’s Technician, our student newspaper, which while online, was ubiquitous in print, five days a week and free.

— The campus cinema in Witherspoon Hall for a free or low-cost movie, via Talley Student Center for its on-campus (and on meal plan) Taco Bell.

— What’s now known as The Village, to use my newly minted Blockbuster card of my own

— Mission Valley Cinema, via the Wolfline, passing by the WRAL headquarters, to see the newest movies (or an even longer stretch to the Carmike Cinema, which was near our old Kmart).

— — The Record Exchange on Hillsborough Street, with their dollar DVDS, and what was then the Independent Weekly tucked under my arm, with listings of everything else I could do, as long as I had a CAT bus pass, access to a cab or a friend’s car or even Amtrak, although, at this point in my life, I wasn’t taking bus and train trips outside of the Triangle region outside of a group or family.

The throughline in all of this was despite me thinking that media was just a cute hobby (yes, I even said that about my DJ set at the college radio that’s now part of the official WKNC history books), media was always there, nudging me on, helping me to tell the first story of my being and the story I’ve been telling you on these pages.

And of course, those paper maps that my dad brought home from his night job delivering our hometown newspaper to all the truck stops so it would be fresh in the morning.

Plus my coursework in a social science-based communication and organizational behavior degree program, on the cusp of the social media revolution, on a campus with 1TB speeds of Web 1.0 internet and The Facebook as a fun gathering place and our own The Wolf Web with the real campus tea.

And now, I’m sitting here, after 15 years of doing professional digital communication work, which started in two offices in the engineering department, that had paid hours (like $15/hr type paid hours), and pretty awesome mentors who still keep up with me today (I know at least two of you are regular readers).

Being able to offer mentorship and partnership in this vision is a joy. It won’t all be perfect, but believe me, we will leverage the power of the press to continue this joy and liberation movement.

The Principle Corner

In this section, we step away from the literary expression that opens this newsletter and into the “practical”.

So, yes, to come back to where it all started and represented me and my kind of urbanist (and life) media at this year’s Congress for New Urbanism, held for the first time in my home state, in our largest and most connected example of ideal, people-scaled urbanism, in Charlotte.

For those of you who know North Carolina and Charlotte, you might be scratching your head a bit, because you might think that maybe Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Asheville, or Wilmington might have been better. However, so many folks were there from all of our towns and cities statewide, plus, lots of well-known urbanists from around the world that now believe me when I say that North Carolina does have a special sauce when it comes to urbanism.

So, take a moment and listen to our panel. Coming soon, thanks to my new hires, I’ll not only be able to send these emails a little sooner, but I’ll be able to proof them better and enhance tools like Otter.ai and Grammarly that also come in handy to help with typos.

But sit and marinate on what was said, especially those of you who share my intersections and need to use your voice to lift us through these times of great change, but needed change.

By the Way

Here’s where I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

I’m pleased to see that Howard University, has taken queer life on campus seriously, especially as a historically Black university. Even though I was grazing the doors of the closet, my time at UNCG was night and day and its legacy and continued support of the queer community is a light in a space where many of us still have to conform to conservative religiosity to make it through. (yet another reason why I was in the libraries and reading papers and watching movies during my years at State, because even though I was churchy back then, the church wasn’t cutting it in a lot of ways). And of course, living with Les in this county, at this historic moment is great, but we have a lot more to do to make Prince George’s County safe for LGBTQIA+ folks (and sadly, I heard the Post editors had to cut my remarks that said as much)

I love that this is a Black lady, with her smartphone, taking an interest in old buildings and their ads and photographing all the ones she finds in Baltimore, while also doing a pretty mundane admin job for the state of Maryland, that she just retired from.

And finally, speaking of Black women breaking barriers and succeeding in spite of them, check out the oasis and the elderly excellence of Ms. Major Griffin-Gracy! Don’t be afraid to move as a queer person, even if you get just a little measure of relief from the direct pain you’re going through. Be resilient and revolutionary, as Desmera Gatewood has encouraged us to do in her INDY Week article, especially in light of all the news that we’ve bearing this week.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

My weekly recommendations of books, music, podcasts, and other pop culture

So my Age of Pleasure CD case and T-shirt came on Juneteenth. It’s just something about the pleasure of opening a CD case, reading the liner notes, and wearing the t-shirt of a favorite artist. But then again, Janelle and I are practically the same age (they’re 14 days older), and it might just be something about being millennials marking middle-age liberation, with childhood joy!

In addition, I came out of the bunker to support our new friend Britany Daniels and her book The Journey of A Black Queer Nurse. We also had a wonderful patio dinner nearby the venue at Brookland Pint with her and Saria her wife and we are looking forward to visiting y’all when we swing out to Chicago.

And good for Big Freeda to not only be opening a hotel, but blessing us with a full-length bop for the first time in about ten years.

Before You Go

In this special edition, I’m breaking down how you can contribute financially as we move forward into this next phase of expanding our team and adding our new editorial assistant. But first, some mutual aid announcements:

So, as I said before, I’m adding to my care team, starting with an Editorial and Research Assistant. If you want to apply, please do so ASAP, as I need immediate help with these tasks and if I read your resume and everything matches up, we will get started quickly! you can reply here with your resume and a cover note in your email. Also, I’m collecting resumes for future hires, so please reach out if you want to talk about vision and direction:

Hi all. It’s time for me to grow my work in Black urbanism, so I can get to my accessible queer feminist future.

I am looking for a part-time editorial and research assistant to aid in the following:

— Proofreading my newsletters, social media posts, grant applications, and other external client work.

— Uploading my newsletter to all the social channels on our designated drop day, usually Friday.

— Assisting with helping me pull articles and stories for my upcoming book and the weekly newsletter.

— Setting up and posting a weekly video podcast and correcting the transcribed audio and captions.

I will train on all functions, but experience with WordPress, Mailchimp, Patreon, Medium, Substack, Otter.ai, StreamYard, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Illustrator, and InDesign is helpful.

The rate is $250 weekly (5 hours per week at $50/hr). This is a contract position for now and this position is funded for July and August of 2023, with possible renewal and change of rate and status depending on funding.

You can send a resume and a cover letter to kristen@theblackurbanist.com, with the subject line Editorial Assistant.

These hires will help me bring more information to you, while still serving in all the roles I’ve taken on in the past few weeks, while also maintaining my health.

Plus, if you want to help me maintain these hires past September, let’s talk about advertising or becoming a paid Substack or Patreon subscriber! I’ll also be releasing an updated capabilities deck, in case you want to peruse that to book me for one of my service offerings.

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Mutual aid will continue to be part of any version of this platform I dream up.

For those of you who can and I know it’s tough out here for a lot of us, let’s keep lifting up our colleague who could still use our support with her partner’s chronic health challenges and of course Les’s endometriosis support and resource platform.

Project N95 is an amazing source of masks for everything that’s in the air that we have no business breathing and other testing and air purification equipment, at reasonable prices, that also go into helping distribute those supplies in communities that need them. Also, check into your community’s free mask distribution services if you have them. I’m continuing to include a link for the Entertainment Community Fund and for those in WGA to have relief while they take necessary action to get the funding they deserve for being one of the few industries that can’t be erased (at least for now).

And yes, my yarn-related fundraisers are still going strong, as they too see the value in community uplift and mutual aid. We are directly supporting LolaBean Yarn Co. and Dye Hard Yarns, two amazing yarn stores run by Black women that are fundraising to expand their physical equipment and footprint, and Knit the Rainbow, a group led by Black queer crafty folks that work to ensure that knitwear is donated to LGBTQIA+ youth, and raises awareness of queer/trans folks in the yarn and fiber space, is still ongoing.

This is how we as planners and makers can practice solidarity and uplift community groups. If not these campaigns, please find some that are closest to you. I also assume that you do have the financial means to do so as planners, but I know things can be tough for us. But solidarity is free and that starts with speaking up and sharing when you can.

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And now,

Until next time,

Kristen