We are back to the original program on my email. However, I’m still going to paste them here as posts, so you can get a taste of what I email to my subscribers and you can keep up with me on a weekly basis. And unlike in email, all the links are hot!  And there are pictures! Oh, and they will be weekly for the foreseeable future. Here goes!

How I’m Feeling and This Week on the Blog

My post from last Wednesday captures a lot of how I feel about what happened last Tuesday.

Another thing that helped? Spending time with other advocates of color and other marginalized peoples, as well as dedicated allies at The Untokening in Atlanta. (Here we are on a bike ride)

Also, finally meeting Katrina in person! We had a great time recording Third Wave Urbanism live at Pipeline Philly yesterday and we look forward to doing so again. We talked a lot about the election and why we decided to do both a joint podcast and why I decided to do my work. The audio will be up soon, but in the meantime, check us out on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher, or at our website .

Instagram has all my travel pictures. I got to foam (train-watch) and spot (plane-watch) like crazy over the weekend. And I need to get back to Redding Terminal Market so I can properly eat my way through it.

What I’m Working On

Getting PlantoSpeak ready: January 6th, location in the DC Metro area, TBD. Cost, $250 until the day of, $499 the day off. You’ll spend a half day with me, critiquing your proposals and presentations, as well as getting a dose of how I make mine awesome. Go to www.plantospeak.com/resources  in the meantime and look for registration forms at the beginning of December.

A few consulting projects from my network: I can be your public engagement team member. Or I can help your office revise, revamp, renew or even just kick off a new media campaign. Take a look at my portfolio page (www.kristenejeffers.com) and let me know how I can be of service.

And if you like what I’m already doing and just want to buy me a coffee once a month, contribute to my tip jar. I can slide goodies back in there for you and will start doing so in January. (Because getting presents in January is even more awesome than doing so in December).

Adding a few new prints to the Kristpattern holiday collection. If you need wrapping paper, or you want quirky fabric or gift wrap I can help! Here’s one of my new  prints, Golden Tea Flight!

What You Should Be Reading

For the best commentary on this election and the effects on cities, Next City and CityLab have been doing a great job with keeping tabs on the work of the new administration.

I, for purposes of self-care, have been avoiding a lot of the news cycle. That includes Facebook. I am still tweeting here and there and I’m sharing a few things I think are great over there.

I am also doing my best to not read too much into the doom and gloom scenarios. Yes, I do believe we will have some damage to human and civil rights. And yes, I do believe we need to take it seriously.

However, some of us more than others have had to cope with negative influences and policy much longer. Some of you have the privilege of being able to influence policy to go another way. Whatever you read or choose to do over the next few days, let us listen and also let’s take calculated and defined action. Also, be mindful of your online chatter and also your mental health.

My Travel and Event Schedule

Next week, I am home for Thanksgiving in Greensboro. I know I’ve canceled several Greensboro trips since I moved back to the East Coast, but this one will stick. Because of that, you’ll get a smaller weekly email, and then the following week I’ll be back in DC and ready for the holiday season there.

How to Reach Me

@blackurbanist on Twitter and Instagram. kristen@theblackurbanist.com (this goes to my Gmail account) and if you already have my cell number, text me or message me. Otherwise, dial  1-888-207-9391.

See you next week!

It’s time again for my weekly email. As it went out wrong again, I’m including it here on the blog, plus, if you scroll down, I’ve included a small note on my election day experience so far. Here’s the email:

I’m sure you noticed that my house, my virtual house that is, has been under construction.

(Especially when you got that other email just a little bit ago, sorry about that.) 

Actually, what I did was build a bunch of little houses that are not structurally sound alone.

And those of you who are architects or architect-adjacent like myself understand how important it is for the house you build to actually stand up by itself.

So first I figured I’d build some connecting paths to my houses.

That’s what Kristen Jeffers Media is, a way to connect all my various ventures under one singular idea, which is me and the channels in which I communicate with the world.

However, I still planned on making sure all those houses were separate things and not one big thing. I am also feeling stretched thin trying to keep the lights on in all these houses when I could just spend my energy in one big house.

That big house being The Black Urbanist, the one you come visit me at all the time anyway.

(I’ll still be Kristen Jeffers Media legally)

What does this mean for PlantoSpeak and Kristpattern? It means they will be living inside two nice big rooms in The Black Urbanist house.

Kristpattern is essentially The Black Urbanist at Home anyway. And that’s how I’ll refer to it. You can still purchase things under the banner of Kristpattern at the Spoonflower site, and on Zazzle.

You’ll also see the phrase The Black Urbanist at Home over there a bit more often and if you need a reference point, think of it as my interior design line. Because even in all my urbanism, I still like to decorate houses and carry my laptop in nice bags and cover my phone and you all know I love dresses. So that’s that room.

PlantoSpeak, which you should totally plan on coming to in January, tentatively scheduled for the 7th in Washington, DC, just before the Transportation Review Board Annual Meeting, is the first of what I hope will be many The Black Urbanist Masterclasses.

You will see that name more often, but you’ll also see PlantoSpeak. You may also see some of my Masterclasses on other platforms and you can always purchase one for your own office or organization and I’ll come to you.

So, that’s it for this week’s edition of The Black Urbanist Weekly. Again, this month as we move into the holidays and making new budgets and goals and buying gifts and such, I wanted you to be aware of ways to support me and also to keep you in the loop about the evolution of my brand and my design practice.

If you want to read curated links and my latest posts, head over to my public Facebook Group and join and make sure you’re still on my email list in December, when we shift back to more regular programming in my email.

And, for those of you who want to support me and might not need anything I’m selling, you can subscribe to The Black Urbanist Tip Jar, for $5 a month. I’ll be launching a bigger subscription service soon, with more content and projects, but for now, click here and you can turn one of your cups of coffee into something that will help me keep my foundation standing and write more of the stories and commentary you want to hear from me.

Oh, and please go and vote! Here are my thoughts on voting from earlier, which I sent out on social media with the photo leading this post. As of this writing, all polls are still open across the U.S.

It is done! I’m going to speak specifically to the privilege, yes the privilege, of voting in the District of Columbia today.

First of all, I walked a block to my poll. I listened to one of my favorite songs as I walked. I met a few folks with materials, but it was mostly our folks for our Advisory Neighborhood Commission, which is like a congress of neighborhoods, that actually holds weight and gets things done. I walked in with my identity documents, not because I needed them with my existing voter registration card, but because I needed them because I needed to register to vote on the same day that I voted. Oh and it wasn’t a provisional ballot, although there was a corner for folks who did that too. It was a normal paper ballot and if I’d wanted to, I could have used an electronic one. There were no lines at around 11 a.m. Eastern when I was there. All the poll workers were friendly.

And I want everyone to know, that this is how it should work in a democracy, a fully open, non suppressive, democracy. I’m not going to endorse anyone here, but if you know me, you know how I voted and that I’m going to get out and do the everyday work of making sure we have a government we can all be proud off.

My buttons are a nod to my home state, which needs to turn blue tonight and start to become turquoise. My other button says think globally, participate regionally, act locally, which is a nod to the Piedmont Together regional plan and all the transit, parks, and rec and other infrastructure bonds that are on ballots today. Please vote for the ones that actually make sense! And vote for people who make sense! I will endorse that measure. And the middle one is my Shower April Beans pattern which you can find at my Spoonflower store along with other cool patterns you can look at to take a break from everything else on your feed today via the link in my bio.
Happy Election Day and may the odds ever be in our favor! Also, newsletter subscribers, it’s weekly email day!#election2016

I’ll be back to writing essays soon. And if you want to be on the email list, go here. And if you want to support me, there are tons of ways to do that above. And for the record, I don’t think the world is going to end today ;).