Category Archives: Wishes

Weekly Newsletter, Wishes

My Personal 2022 Wish-Lessons

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This year, we are wishing and learning at the same time. This week, my own personal wish-lessons. Also, we have a special message from the University of California at San Diego. Learn more about how you can advertise on this newsletter. Prices start at just $75 a week with a four-week commitment. You can also become a Patreon as an individual and support this work for as little as $5 a month.

My personal urbanist wishes come as I’ve learned key lessons about myself this year, that I want to take into 2023

So last week I talked about what I want to see the industry do. But what about me. What have I learned and how does that play into my wishes. The lesson-wishes are paired, with one pair being about my personal home and the other being about building up this platform.

So, pair one goes like this:

I want want a single-family home with land because I want to create a village with where we honor and steward land and resources. Where no one is a criminal or illegal. Where we can’t be evicted or constantly inspected for “respectability”. Where we have a symbiotic relationship with other urbanisms and collectives. I am also looking at large rowhouses in Baltimore that can be subdivided or how much it would be to pay (and I would need to fundraise) for my level of current healthcare if I moved into DC proper or Old Town Alexandria, because…

…I still want to be able to use transit and walk to more places more consistently. I love going to Planet Fitness especially the urbanist one at Pentagon City and the one across the street from us that’s majority people of color run and patronized while welcoming others who respect our right to exercise in peace. But I would love to live above it or somewhere similar, while also providing the at-home resources I mentioned above.

Meanwhile, pair two is as follows:

My thought-leadership needs to be centered but not at the expense of the collective. However, I know my skill set and I want to use my thought-leadership to build capacities and honor those who are better copy-editors, accountants, and medical professionals than me. I also need to get out of the way of those who need people skilled in those kinds of details. I will be much more selective in how I pick projects this year and I’m finally releasing my book!

And, I want to create a foundation out of the apparatus of this platform I’ve built over the years to share my intellectual wealth. So my textile art can grow and I can nurture folks at whatever stage they need, be it getting into and staying in certain schools or starting and nurturing community-led spaces. Yes, I mean making a portion of my work a proper 501c3 or in tandem with a fiscal sponsor, so I can make my textile art and find the right channels and distributors for it.

Just like my wishes for the industry, my wishes for myself are a journey, plan, and process. However, my last lesson learned this year — doing it anyway, with just enough clarity and a huge dose of faith is the only way to go.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then 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.

So much of what I wrote above was influenced by the turn that Nonprofit Quarterly has taken to not just serve those in formal 501c3 institutions, but those of us who are called to participate in active social justice movement work and centering the honest voices of the people we serve.

I wanted to post the full analysis of how our movement spaces can work better, both for individuals and for the collective, in a time of extreme oppression.

I also wanted to post this series on Black women’s barriers to homeownership, which I found after having a lot of the thoughts I’ve had above on how my desire to have a home and craft an urbanism in my own image, is to also provide that for others.

Meanwhile, this recent shooting of a young aspiring Black real estate investor, along with shootings at two of our Metro stations, highlights the need to rethink guns as an answer to anything, and how the presence of them undermines so much of our desired urbanism.

I’ve also been a huge fan of Baltimore magazine, in all my back and forth between there and PG County, Alexandria, and DC. There are so many good stories, but I wanted to lift up the feature on the BLK Ass Market and the Lumbee community in Baltimore. Both of these communities, of which I share some commonalities (A Black migrant to Baltimore from North Carolina), speak to what has drawn me to Charm City over the years (and what may draw me all the way back, more to come on that over the next few weeks).

And yes, I have to include my thread about how one of last year’s wishes (obsolete transit fares) is starting to come true.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me and this first one from the University of California at San Diego.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

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.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 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.

***

I’ll be live on LinkedIn and YouTube and Instagram talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours sometime this week. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future, but I have embedded my Bookshop.org booklists here as well since we were having so many issues with the link. Go here for all things books I’ve read and my book when it comes out!

***

Finally, as we are now in December, all 2022 opportunities for me to work with you will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. I will publish an updated capabilities deck in January 2023. In the meantime, my Calendly links are still open for those case-by-case bookings.

***

While I’ll be shifting my capital campaign to a different platform, if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me.

***

Until next time,

Kristen

Weekly Newsletter, Wishes

The Black Urbanist Weekly #14– My Urbanist Wishes for 2020 and Beyond

Welcome back to The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m currently producing this weekly digital newsletter on my site, via email and various other places, to share my thoughts, my Black, Spiritual, Southern, Working-Class, Educated, Queer, Femme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.

This week’s edition is #14 and in case you missed last week’s announcement, I’ll be spending 2020 writing and preparing to launch my next book on October 17. October 17th, 2010 was the day I flipped the switch on the social media as well as the Tumblr version of the website. I want to stick to tradition by keeping my release on that date. However, depending on my writing process and other things, it may move just a bit. Know that it’s real and it’s going to hit these streets. 

Also keeping in tradition, I am bringing back after a year’s hiatus, my wishes for 2020, as well as wishes for the coming decade. Oh and I turned 34 on Saturday the 14th, which is the ninth anniversary of my first major byline.

This newsletter is brought to you by my Patreon supporters, of which are some of you. Want an ad-free content experience, along with special letters, like next week’s Patreon-Only book preview? Go over and subscribe now. There are a lot of other cool offers.

And now, our wishes.

My Urbanist Wishes for 2020

I believe that wishes can come true. Even when it comes to big things like what’s going on in our environment. I don’t expect all these to come true next year, but I do want them to start cooking, just like all my wishes. The ones I have for 2020 and beyond are as follows.

1. Our media outlets stay strong: I appreciate everyone here who subscribes to the newsletter, and I really am grateful for everyone who was excited about the book. Especially as CityLab as we know it goes down and Curbed cuts back on coverage and so many of our alt-weeklies, local magazines, feminist/queer blogs, longtime radio DJ and daily newspapers see some kind of cut.

I think the advantage of being a small shop is that all I have to do is pay for my hosting, be strategic about when I write (which is why you only see me online with long-form stuff once a week) and have the budget to hit the pay to play of advertising and maximum exposure, along with the loyal reader base that’s going to blast out your content anyway.

However, the other advantage, is to serve the community that you write for, which gets me to wish two.

2. That people, especially BIPOC and queer people in community spaces, continue to build and strengthen their tables. That we go through our own process of what’s inclusive, especially when it comes to sorting out classism, colorism, homophobia, transphobia and who’s religion or generation’s better.

We know we got us, but do we really? I still question whether or not I want to go to certain events because I’m unsure that once I speak up, my thoughts will just be female thoughts and an inconvenient truth. That when my partner comes to things, the tenor of her voice and her choice to not conform to traditional gender roles and presentation won’t be a pearl-clutcher. That we don’t let our pursuit of what we feel like White America has denied us, to keep us from growing in our own pride and excellence.

3. We see transit systems as public services, of which we already pay through progressive taxation, and that we aim to put the burden of payment on those for which generating income is easy.

In other words, Kansas City is not crazy for attempting to change their funding formula for transit. It’s not “free”, it’s just shifting to another tax or fee category and that category is still being determined. I can tell you from having studied municipal budgets that it’s possible to do, but it does take being creative. I commend my “fourth city” (in the order of my moving in and counting both of my stints in Greensboro as one stint) for the willingness to be creative and having been creative for several years prior. Plus, they did it with the Streetcar and it continues to break records and win acclaim.

4. I want us to not even have to use the word affordable besides housing, because housing, as a human right, is not one of the kinds of real estate we use as the backbone of our economy.

In several newsletters this year, I’ve expressed how distressed I am at how several parts of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower are coming true in Los Angeles. I saw some of it with my own eyes and even what I’ve read is heartbreaking.  

Yes, so much of our urban space comes from real property ownership. However, if so many people are living in tents and buildings are sitting empty, despite having tenants that would pay some price to live there, are we really doing what we need to do? On that same note, I want to see and hear more about the places that have leveraged opportunity zone giving for affordable housing and stabilization.

5. That North Carolina’s cities would stop trying to be someone else.

I wrote (and will be writing more)  about the civic-inferiority complex in my home state. Folks in other cities and states have reached out and told me they relate as well. I’m not surprised, because I believe we are at the point where our culture is flattening.

That as much as we love local food, local food looks generic now. What will become of calabash shrimp when it just becomes shrimp. When only a handful of companies own buildings in all of our downtowns and those companies are run by people who are constantly focused on making money on those buildings, but putting pressure on the people to afford the shelter they need to make and sustain a living.

When there’s no advantage to moving south, because the prices are the same, but we still lack the transit infrastructure and the full inclusion of black, brown and queer bodies. When we push our poor people out and away from a central place to get what they need. When we forget that we are that poor and that it wasn’t long ago when we didn’t know if there would be another plant to replace the ones we lost or even a desk to sit in when there weren’t any buildings to build. When we still refuse to prop up our homegrown companies en masse.

I meant everything I said in Greensboro, Asheville, Raleigh and on The State of Things this year. I know things have to grow and change. But is this really the kind of growth and change we need?

And now that Greensboro is hosting the 2020 Next City Vanguard, I hope that everyone involved will bring positive, useful, and inclusive ideas AND that all kinds of local voices will be able to speak on all the work we’ve done over the years and both groups will be HEARD.

And so those are my wishes, not just for this year, but for the decade. I would love to hear what your urbanist wishes are this year.

Other Things on my Mind

I really enjoyed what WBEZ in Chicago (their public media station) did with the history of Oprah’s show and I hope that this vote to examine the history of black gospel music in the city will win, with your help.

I’m glad to hear that so many people who’ve been pushing for equity in transportation and public health for years, had a hand in this study . As I said last week, we still need legacy institutions, especially those who were fervently inequitable, to examine whether or not they are needed or if they need to radically change how they do business.

And back to things going on on the homefront, I’m happy that this donor stepped in to pay for our lunches, but I hope she’ll use her power and position with the schools to eliminate the need for kids to need to pay for basic school lunches.

Before You Go

—Check out the job board. I’ve added a couple of job-seeker and job-poster friendly Patreon levels, and I’ll be releasing a survey in the new year specifically on how these job and career resources are helping you.

—Check out Kristpattern on Instagram and DM me if you’re interested in anything for sale over there. The holidays are here, folks. And it’s not too late to get one of the cards from the Les’s Lighthouse collection and their great for helping you or a friend turn your wishes into reality in 2020.

— If you’re excited about my next phase and how my perspective can help motivate your group of any size Book me for a lecture, workshop or both. Also Les, my wonderful life partner and sales director is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health Book her too. And listen to my wonderful podcast mentee’s The Crossroads Podcast, which also discusses environmental issues from a black woman’s perspective.

—Finally, even if you aren’t in the job or opportunity market or have jobs and opportunities to post, I’ve refreshed all my Patreon levels. $1 a month allows you to never miss a newsletter, like next week when it’s Patreon-only. $5 allows you to ask me one question a month that I will research and answer in-depth and make part of a permanent Q&A, $10 gives you first dibs when the podcast relaunches and when we start doing live events again.$20 grants you digital copies of all my future books, including the one I just teased. $50 gets you something free out of the Kristpattern store. Learn more and upgrade!

Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.

Black Experience, placemaking, Theories and Ideas, Wishes

My Placemaking Wishes for 2017

my-placemaking-wishes-for-2017

Happy New Year folks! We did it! It’s 2017. It could be bad or worse and it can be good or better. And in that spirit, I am coming to you with my 7th annual set of wishes. Depending on my mood and the mood of the industry, sometimes I do more personal wishes and sometimes I do wishes that are more general. 2017 is going to blend both. Take a look at wishes from 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. And now, for 2017, I wish:

That I wasn’t so afraid of the future and neither were so many other people

This is the linchpin to me of the most recent round of elections in the United States, as well as the last few election cycles. We’re afraid to die. We’re afraid of losing control. We’re afraid of never being in control. This is just a portion of the phenomenon that allows evil to raise up through our civic spaces, but it’s worth looking at by itself.

On a more personal level, I’ve been more afraid since the election. Mostly because I was afraid long before the election. I feel safe to say that I left both my hometown and the one I adopted from June 2015-September 2016 because I was afraid of being myself in the spaces I conducted myself in. I feared that I wasn’t square enough to be in elected and appointed politics. I felt super black, and not in a good, fists up, I matter kind of way. I felt smaller and smaller. I felt like I had to be involved in small town nitpicky things. I felt like I was running out of people. And energy. And time. So I’m in the D.C. Metro finally. I can’t say that it’s for good, only because life happens and life happens outside of me.

For our greater populace, we may not like each other. We may feel like people are invading our personal space and messing with our ego, but the world needs some of that. We need all kinds of spaces, safe, and unsafe. We need dense and open spaces. May we continue headfirst to the transect and may we look at everyone first and foremost as worthy of love and worthy of the best. Then stop building bad things, taking away good social programs that work and condemning folks to judgment places that probably don’t look like what you think they do in your head.

That we could shift more of our economy to community ownership and bartering

I like having options just like the next person. I don’t think we need to start wearing uniforms or burlap sacks in the name of unity. We can have different kinds of living situations. Yet, we can improve on our market. Last year brought the opening of the Renaissance Community Co-op in Greensboro and the return of full-service grocery to a side of town that really needed it. Plus, instead of being a profit center, it’s a community center. I do hope they can continue to be successful and that we can continue to share these models, farmers markets, craft fairs, community clinics, community schools and the like so that nice things don’t have to be tied to having lots of income and wealth. Speaking of income and wealth…

That we can become a people who aren’t jealous or greedy

This is the other piece that I feel explains politics in the United States. Those of you reading from other nations who seem to be doing a bit better in this, please share. I think we need to all look in the mirror, be at peace with who we are now and then make decisions based on things we want. I think we also as leaders, need to not hoard resources for ourselves and realize that not everyone has the privilege to navel-gaze. Build things, sell things, but not at the expense of others and not because you need to do it better or bigger. And I want to get to the point where I stop making comparisons to others and how popular they appear and how wealthy they appear. I want to do things because they are good and they are good for me.

That I can buy a house by the end of the year

I live in a metro area where this may continue to be a wish into 2018. However, I know that I’m probably wrong. I’ll keep y’all posted on this one. Revisit my thoughts on buying my dream house in a world of mass gentrification.

That I can cut my consumer debt in half by next year

Same as the prior wish. I feel good about this too. I wrote about the fact that I struggle with not being good money, while I’m yet good with making connections and writing things people like back in the fall.

As usual, tweet, Facebook or just comment about your wishes for this year. And yes, I do believe that many of us will see 2018. And if we don’t, this time on earth has mattered and we will call up your spirit in many ways over the coming years. Likewise, this will live on somewhere even if I’m gone.

I’m Kristen.  I started blogging here to make sense of the built environment around me. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can find out more about me at my main website, www.kristenejeffers.com. Also, if you want to follow my playlist for 2017, here it is!

Commons, Heart, Market, Mobility, placemaking, transit, Wishes

My Placemaking Wishes for 2016

My Placemaking Wishes for 2016

It’s that time again, where I rub my lamp and hope that several things in the world of placemaking come true. I’ve made a set of wishes in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 and I’m honored to share another set of dreams for 2016.

And without further ado, this year’s four wishes.

Truly Safe Streets

It’s my list, I can keep wishing the same things. Especially if those things have yet to come to pass. We need to reconcile the need to reduce traffic incidents, with the greater need for law enforcement to treat citizens like citizens and not enemies of war. Some people are sharing the road with fellow passengers. Others yet are working with their police departments and reducing violent crimes among themselves. Let us continue to wish that our most common public space is the safest. My friend Naomi Doerner makes a great case for combining #visionzero and #campaignzero.

Steady Rents and Mortgages

Every city that has at least a major employer; homes that resemble craftsman bungalows, art deco apartments or colonial row houses;has a college or two or three; and has reasonable diversity in population is seeing some form of gentrification, proportional to  the average median household income. Every city has people who can’t make ends meet and in some places, it’s worse than others, because salaries are holding steady for a lot of industries, especially at the minimum wage and entry levels. But, if the housing market could as a whole lower their costs by maybe 10% on services, rents and the like (as well as themselves start to rely less on bank loans and a bit more on cash), maybe we could fix this. This will be a continuing wish, because I know what I just proposed isn’t practical. What however is practical, is empowering people to create craft and trade guilds and turn neighborhood association funds into a means to fund labor and supplies for these maintenance and building crews. My friend John Anderson has a great argument for continuing to mentor and cultivate tradesmen, especially in underserved communities who need lots of housework done, but may not have what it takes to hire outside workers.

Understanding of How Housing Policy and some Transportation Policy Has Created A Number of Social Ills.

Again, this combines elements of the two wishes above. People need to know the history of their neighborhoods, their states and their country. If you don’t like not having public transit, find out where the stops are and why your system exists. Same with your neighborhood and why you may have seen a restrictive covenant in the deed, even though technically those are illegal. At the very least understand why your Realtor still may have suggested a certain group of neighborhoods and why certain neighborhoods command high values (It’s not just because of proximity to Trader Joe’s). I want to use this space and other forums to help people understand why so many of our urban and suburban racial battles have roots back even further than the greater civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe you weren’t aware of the origins of Oregon, but this post touches on that and how in least one state, capturing the American Dream was completely banned well into the 20th Century. (I’m also aware of the irony of this link in the light of the other link from wish 1.) 

A Commitment By Powerful Interests to Creating Comprehensive Public Transit in More than a Few Cities.

And finally, separating out this wish into its own space, because transportation is easier to change than where houses sit and where people live. Maybe your parents want a huge suburban house and they are willing to pay all the costs to have that house. Namely paying for their own transit service, their sidewalks and bike lanes on their stroads. Even better if we can convince the powers-to-be to increase service frequencies and add weekend and evening services back to commuter routes. I wouldn’t drive into Kansas at all, if I knew I could use the JO commuter service to go to the Target in Mission or Downtown Overland Park at times I have the extra time to do so. I’ve seen the benefits of added MARC service in being able to go more places between DC and Baltimore. This doesn’t excuse new suburbs from popping up and contributing to sprawl. This makes it necessary for municipalities that want to be connected to a greater metro area to be part of said area. I don’t have any specific links for this one, other than read any post that you see from your hometown newspapers, national mainstream magazines and maybe even write an op/ed of your own or a long Facebook post that’s sharable, to tell the world we need better transit.

So here we are, new year, new wishes. Be sure to keep with me via email and on social media to see my progress with the wishes, as well as my commentary on how the world is doing with them. 

Bicycling, book, Heart, placemaking, Rail, urbanism, Wishes

My Placemaking Wishes for 2015

2 Comments

Happy New Year folks! I’m posting this with about 12 hours to go on the East Coast, but I believe we’ll make it just in time. And as always at year’s end, I am here with a few things that I hope all of us placemakers and citizens can see in 2015:

Truly Open Streets

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Remember this picture of me? I was playing on a B-cycle demonstration bike on the street that I helped paint, to have an open streets event there. Yet, from then to now, not just in Greensboro, but in many other cities, the streets haven’t been so open. In fact, many have been hostile. My wish is that we can start looking at people on our streets, not as threats, not as people to shake money out of, not as places to speculate our real estate futures and to shoot to kill, but as places where we can celebrate our achievements and what it means to be human. I might be wishing this every year, but I’m going to get us started there. If we block the streets in 2015, I pray that it’s to have a party, be at peace and be better neighbors.

High-Speed Rail

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I’ve been on more trains and planes than I can count on my fingers this year. I’m reading Tom Zoellner’s Train. I’ve met  and mingled with so many of my transit nerd herd folks this year. Hold the though of mingling with people to my next wish. I want to put out there that it would be nice for at least the routes outlined in green above to get started this year. Thanks to the US High Speed Rail Association for putting the map above together. (Check out the interactive version). Congrats to the Texas Central Railway and California High Speed Rail Authority for breaking ground in 2014. Kudos to All Aboard Florida for setting a 2015 start date. Yes, high-speed rail is a sticky issue. However, it’s an issue that we need to resolve. Streetcars are nice. But a 90 minute trip between major cities like DC and New York would be even better.

Seeing More of You and Making Better Places Together

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As I mentioned above, I flew and rode trains more than I’ve ever done in my life this year and it was great! I gave my first solo keynote,which is pictured above and you can watch here.  I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at Transportation Camp  DC and festivities surrounding the Transportation Review Board Annual Meeting in a few weeks. North Carolina folks, namely those in and around Greensboro are invited to join me at Scuppernong Books at 7 p.m. on January 17th for a book event. I will read from A Black Urbanist and will sign any copies you have. A very limited number will be for sale. Go ahead and grab a print copy here. There will be a DC book event on January 11 at 7 p.m. during the TRB festivities. I’ll post more information in the next few days on both events. CNU, CCDA and New Partners for Smart Growth are also on the tentative agenda as well. And if you want to help me make this wish come true contact me here.

Again, Happy New Year! See you in 2015!

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Book Club, Cities, DC, Durham, Greensboro, Links, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York City, Wishes

Placebook: Wishes for 2014

Window at Scuppernong Books, January 5, 2014.
Window at Scuppernong Books, January 5, 2014.Photo Credit: Kristen Jeffers

Good Monday morning everyone! I hope you had the weekend you needed to have. I hope that weekend includes not being frozen. I spent my weekend mostly at home, but I got out and introduced a friend to Scuppernong Books. Scuppernong has inspired one of my wishes for 2014 for great places, which are here.

Once you are through with my wishes and are all thawed out, check out a few more things that are worth reading:

Even though he didn’t make every Metro station,  I commend the effort of the Metro Nomad, Stephen Ander. His original plan is here and you can click on Metro Nomad to find out how he actually did.

San Francisco and Minneapolis-St. Paul are booming and their surrounding communities are adjusting.

Cleveland meanwhile has adopted a more economically and ethnically diverse way of attracting new people to the area.

This infographic explains the American bike share movement in the past 4-5 years.

Michael Sorkin in Architectural Record writes a letter to Mayor DeBlasio,  calling for planning to become more grassroots and equitable in New York with a nod to other cities to do the same.

A lot of these top-10 suburbs are really just small towns adjacent to big cities. Two of them are right outside of Charlotte.

Meanwhile, right here in Greensboro, we could be at the forefront of shaping the next phase of federal health policy.

Could this building be the start of a warehouse district on South Elm? Meanwhile, the warehouse districts of Durham sit in the shadow of the poverty that is still there and  getting worse.

Former Governor Jim Hunt in Sunday’s News and Observer asks state leaders to raise teaching salaries to national levels and outlines ways that could happen in four years.

And finally, need to start a yard garden? There are Legos for that.

 

Food, Greensboro, Homelessness, Housing, Retail, Wishes

MORE: My 2014 Wishes for Good Places

1 Comment

Last year, my wish/new years resolution was to maintain.

Overall, I think we succeeded in that. Downtown continues to grow. Even as beloved spaces elsewhere close, new ones spring right back up in their place, like a sushi bar right across the street from the bar I mentioned above. I’ve maintained employment. I’ve reconnected with family as family has passed on.

Therefore, as we look ahead into 2014, the word that stands out for me this year is simply:

MORE

How does more relate to good places? Here’s how:

More tiny houses

I was delighted to hear this story of how the Occupy Madison group managed to build a tiny house for a homeless couple. Far too many offshoots of Occupy have been blamed for being delinquent, whiny, and entitled. However, this group of folks actually did something about the problems facing our cities. They hope to build a whole village of these homes for people.

I also like tiny houses because they recognize that sometimes people can’t afford a certain amount of square footage, but that doesn’t make them incapable of owning their own home. We laugh at trailer parks, but honestly, at least those people have a roof over their heads. We used to laugh at apartments too, but I’m sitting in a luxury one.

More opportunities for youth to learn good citizenship

I’ve bled a lot of ink and blurred a lot of pixels about the cost of not engaging all of our youth and our citizens. The issue is near and dear to my heart, because I became engaged in placemaking and civic governance as a young child. My parents made sure I went to the library and they encouraged me to learn. So many people don’t have parents that do that, but there’s plenty of people in our community who can serve in that role for our youth. I want to find a way to do more of this myself, in a more productive and proactive way. I also think that if we don’t engage our youth, we will never be able to realize our placemaking dreams.

More parks

Thanks to where I work, I’m able to see a lot of new, cool things that are being built. I also have had a chance to see what’s planned for our new LeBauer Park, along with what’s been dreamed up thus far for the Union Square Park. I hope that these new parks, despite being public-private partnerships, hold true to the spirit of the public piece of the  partnership that is propelling them forward.

More books and reading and writing

I never imagined that by the end of 2013, I’d be walking to my very own local indie bookstore which stocks brand new books, smart magazines and used classics. I never imagined I’d be front page news and make news and have the bylines that I’ve had. In that spirit, I hope that Scuppernong revitalizes its block, not just with libations, but budding librarians. You’re seeing more posts from me here and who knows, I might whip up another book.

More microeconomies

As I talked about above with the support of tiny houses, some of our Occupiers have evolved into a group spearheading a new grocery co-op on the traditionally black east side of Greensboro. Meanwhile, opposition is growing for a Trader Joes (again) on a particular plot near the more wealthy communities of Greensboro. However, if it weren’t for Trader Joes offering some of the foods that make me stick my pinkies out while holding food, at a price that doesn’t make me feel like I’m breaking my pinkies, I wouldn’t be as proactive about healthy food. You already know the mind games I play when thinking about groceries. The more niches a market has, the better the market actually serves people and actually holds true to the notion of being free.

More transportation

I’m now part of a group called the Transit Alliance of the Piedmont, a group formed because of the need for real, not just realistic, regional transit. I hope to channel some of my dreams for transportation (more bus shelters, shorter headways, a serious rail plan, business support) into action in the coming year. We will have a website and some information up soon on how those of you in the Triad area can help. I’m also on the Bike Share Task Force led by Action Greensboro, another group working to bring new transit options to Greensboro.

2013 was one of the hardest years, from losing my father, to feeling alienated, to a major case of writers block. My hope is that my 2014 will be full of abundance, and that abundance starts with doing what I can to cultivate good places.

Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Wishes

My Four Wishes for the Urban Fabric, 2012 Edition

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Stars!!!

Last year, I wrote a list of wishes for 2011. Looking back, a number of those wishes have come true. The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, a beloved start-up incubator, is set to get remodeled and become bigger and better.We have the promise of HondaJet expanding in Greensboro. I witnessed the Greensboro City Council get better from the front lines.  Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are set to arrive. More apartments are getting built downtown. My car is paid off.

With some of my wishes fulfilled, now I look ahead to my 2012 wishes for the urban fabric. These wishes are a bit more personal, as I see myself as having a greater responsibility for advocating for an urban future.

Walking and Biking More (Even When It’s Cold and Rainy)

I got better about walking last year. When I am downtown, I make it a point to only park once. I attempted to purchase a bike, but it was just the wrong time and the wrong price to do so. This year, I’m just going to walk. I may live in a suburban area, but it will not stop me from walking the quiet streets. I’ll park farther from the door of my office. I’ll use airport shuttles and public transport when I visit places that have great systems. And I’ll keep calling for places that don’t to get their act together.

Becoming More Integrated Into the Better Places Movement (Formerly known as New Urbanism, Smart Growth, Third Spaces, Sustainable Communities and Community Development)

I was happy to see that the New Urban Network has become the Better!Cities and Towns site. If you are reading this on the site, you’ll notice I changed my tagline. If not, the tagline is now “A young black woman’s attempt to create real community.”  I also am working to broaden my own voice. Last year it was great to ride the novelty of being the Black Urbanist, however, this year I am working to add even more meat and raise awareness of more community issues. Accessibility and shared community need to be something all income levels enjoy. While people love having larger homes, they also like having options to walk to corner stores with fresh fruit and safe places to gather that aren’t geared to commercialism or privatized to the point of no entry. That’s my crusade for this year and I will be taking it to a number of venues, to be announced,  as we continue into 2012. Also, enough with all the different labels. Community is community and we all know what it looks like when done right.

Reducing My Dependence on Chain Retail

This one is hard. I am a mall rat. Also, if I fail to support my local mall, we will lose some of the good remaining retail near my home. However, I realize more and more that the possessions I have do not matter as much as the people I have and that I share said possessions with. I think that I can make the most of being in a suburban area, by reducing my car trips to shopping areas and taking up more DIY projects. Also, when I can, I want to carpool. My belly will love it when I stop going to Bojangles as much and I’ll begin to use the things I already have more and save for travel.

Becoming More Competitive In a Glocal Market

Yes, I used the word Glocal. I am hoping to become location-independent in the next few years. This way, I could pick areas that are walkable/bikeable, but reasonably priced. Many bastions of walkability area are  too affluent and pricey for the space provided. However, a nice small town with a lot of downtown stock (Sanford, NC and many New England towns come to mind), would be perfect. I could even set up a more permanent shop such as a coffee shop or fruit stand if I wanted, because I have an income stream that allows me to contribute to an area that needs it.  I am still open to being somewhere large and already vibrant, but without commuting expenses. I would like to start a family. Unfortunately, there is a great fight for urbanist and family friendly areas that are affordable. I want to set roots so that I can help ease that transition for myself and others.

My 2012 wishes are so big,  some will not come true in 2012. My goal is that I plant the seeds for all four of these activities and then watch them grow in the coming years. I was inspired by meeting so many different people in 2011 who have different approaches to placemaking. I feel like we all have a responsibility to let people know how we can all live better and to find incremental ways to repair the sprawl in our own lives. And that, is a major wish granted.

Photo credit above Flickr user: karusimionato under a CC BY-NC 2.0 licence

Issues and Ideas, Wishes

My 2011 Wishes for the Urban Fabric

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Another side wish, more festivals that get people on the streets. (Fun Fourth Festival 2009 Downtown Greensboro, from my personal collection)

As those of you accessing from the direct link can see, I’m all moved in. Still working out some kinks, but I am very happy to be at WordPress(and Blue Host). Also, if you see anything offensive in the Google ad links, let me know and I will see that those are taken down. Now to the meat of the post.

This Grist A-Z has me thinking about what 2011 will mean for communities too. I’m not the greatest at fortune-telling, but I do have a few ideas. Here’s what I hope to see:

–Continued change under new DC Mayor Vincent Gray– Having studied the early failures and witnessed modern marvels and dissatisfaction with Black mayors, I hope that Gray can be spoken of in the same breath that many speak of Cory Booker. Smart growth principles are not just the domain of whites, nor are cultural businesses and informal community networks that of minority communities. I hope his One City initiative works and sparks collaboration.

-Speaking of Cory Booker– I hope he can continue the growth and innovation in Newark. In addition, he’s a great role-model for a city leader, utilizing Twitter, the Huffington Post and other mediums to talk to his city, as well as the nation, about how not just cities can improve, but the people inside them too.

–Another major company to locate in our new Triad-area aeropolis- Here in Greensboro, it’s painfully obvious sometimes that we live in the shadows of Charlotte and Raleigh. When manufacturing died, so did we as being a major force for employment. However, we are only 90 minutes away from each city, sometimes less  depending on traffic. Local economic development officials are wise to continue the focus on the airport and other aircraft related operations.However, I hope we can encourage more air-related research and development operations to locate here as well. Their energy, innovation, taxes and donation dollars benefit not just their companies, but their neighborhoods and the city as a whole.

–Not waiting until the money is there to start a project– Despite the threat of no funding, cities cannot stop with the efforts to build high-speed rail. I saw with my own eyes how beneficial the Florida high-speed line would be to surrounding communities and I hope that the focus doesn’t stop. I hope the community and private industry can rally around the idea of high speed rail in Ohio and Wisconsin, to show their respective governors how much needed these systems are and what they missed by rejecting them. I want more places to be like Braddock, PA. This town was all but written off, but the mayor and the remaining town members have come together to live sustainability and rebuild their town in such a manner. the Middle Tennessee Transit Alliance is rallying the troops in Nashville about a better transit future.With very little money. I want us to .

–More cultural urbanism– I want to make it clear right now, that I do not see myself as THE Black urbanist. As in the only and the best and the most important one. I want this site and it’s companion Twitter to inspire more theses, Twitter accounts, conversations and real-life solutions. I want to see other cultures represented in building styles, businesses and on bikes. The urban fabric would not be where it is without the culture that infuses its transit-oriented bones. If you are interested to contributing to this site in some way, let me know, I’ll be glad to have you!

What are your wishes for urbanism, urban life and related topics for 2011?