I took for granted that I grew up in a place that saw itself as a refuge and that had abundance. Now, I’m seeking to create that everywhere I go, embracing that change is also growth.
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.
Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally.
I’d like to think that the voices we heard last Friday going into Saturday night in our room at the Millenium Hotel across from the World Trade Center complex were people who were there on September 11, 2001, telling us to have the best weekend we could possibly have.
Now I know that when I talk about this woo/ancestors stuff, y’all might run and click that unsubscribe button with the quickness, but hear me out.
Staying in the Financial District already means we are at the site where enslaved Africans were brought in and sold onto the Lenape lands that became known as New York City and its five boroughs.
However, the minute I got back in our car at Union Station on Monday, and a long-awaited check was in the mail, I knew I had to make a significant move.
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Transportation and textiles are what made my hometown more than a colonial village designated as the seat of its colonial power. It bounces back from tragedy and it does its best to be a shelter for all those that wash up on its shores. This is despite not having a natural shoreline and being in the center of a state that doesn’t always appreciate how unique it is.
I was drawn to its much bigger cousin because of its multitude of transportation, textiles, and human beings from a very young age. However, when I watched the Manhattan skyline shatter in the course of 90 minutes, I decided that I needed to live somewhere where the skyline just doesn’t. Now, DC was already a second choice living place for me, and it wasn’t without scars that same day, but it just felt safer to be somewhere that never really visibly changed.
Then I visibly changed. Then I started to move. Then I realized that it’s nothing wrong with having a city be a 24-hour ecosystem. There’s no sin in being awake in the middle of the night. There’s no sin in a lot of the things I care about the most.
What I needed so much, and what I’ve been moving about for years to find, is a city of refuge.
A city with unlimited opportunities and spaces for me to grow. A city with raw materials that I could draw from, that would regenerate itself and create wealth for all in its boundaries, while acknowledging that its boundaries can and should grow.
What I know now is that cities don’t have to grow at the expense of others. They can change and that change is a net positive. They can also change negatively, but they can be resolved.
This is what I got from being in New York, especially in the parts of New York I spent last weekend in, last weekend.
Sometimes when you’re in a place that doesn’t change, it can stifle you. However, everywhere needs to change and now, I have a little bit more motivation to get that change started.
Next week, I’ll talk about pushing back against those that say I’m too (insert sexist or misogynoric statement here) to do the things I want to do in my city of refuge.
The Principle Corner
Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point. This week, I wanted to highlight my working urbanist definition.
So I’m changing the order of the principles this week with my reflection, because I wanted to highlight the working definition I use in my more academic examination of what I mean by urbanism, against what the Charter of the New Urbanism defines as urbanism before I talk about how my perceived femininity makes city dwelling less of a refuge and more of a fortress.
So, my definition:
A person and/or a movement that promotes the conglomeration of ideas, services, and objects in centralized locations, governed democratically, given freely and fairly, and connected by public transit and other people-powered transportation networks such as sidewalks and multi-use bicycle and pedestrian paths. Not mutually exclusive to rural expressions, but the natural output of natural and rural environments that have high levels of human interaction.
So as I’ve typed this (and yes, even after I presented this in person just a couple of weeks ago) I realized the definition is missing housing. This is not an on-purpose omission. However, the more I think about it, I feel like housing is a human right and is assumed to be part of this definition. But, one of the other things I’ve learned is that I have to be specific in all my definitions. So, expect a revised version of this definition the next time you see it.
One that firmly defines what it means for me to feel like I’m at home in a city.
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.
As sad as I am to hear that an eighth student has died on NC State’s campus this year, the third of suicide, I’m happy to see the Indy Week, an alt-weekly I never missed picking up on Friday afternoons on campus, publish a reflection on how we as Black folks need space to “fail” and to get the help we need even if we are not children of promise.
And I’m happy to have made my home in a state that demands we teach gender variety and “say gay” at school!
On the Shelf, On the Playlist
Of course, I made sure I streamed Janelle Monae’s first official single in five years. Will we be getting an album set in our present-day dystopia? And Apple dropped this Mariah Carey single right next to it on my personal new releases dashboard.
Shelfwise, via Scribd, I’ve been reading poet and Vibe Check podcast co-host Saeed Jones’s 2019 memoir. As someone in the same age bracket that also lost a parent in their mid-twenties (and is coming up on the tenth anniversary of losing that parent), all I can say is that I am working to make sure my memoir manifesto has enough happiness in it so that people know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but only if the people in our lives show up for us as consistently as we do for ourselves.
Before You Go
This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire.
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Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.
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Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter, although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.
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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 all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.
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if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering
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And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com.
Until next time,
Kristen