The Black Urbanist

I write about place.

I love great places.

I am Black.

I am Urban.

I am Queer

I am a Feminist.

I am an Urbanist.

My (late) Black North Carolinian dad was a key influence in my being interested in the city. We used to bike around our working-class neighborhood, walk to the neighborhood ballpark and go downtown to all the festivals. He also took me to more school buildings than I would care to share. My Black North Carolinian mom taught in some of those school buildings and encouraged me to write my first books, make my first crafts, dance on beat and have a moral center. Between the two of them and my years in Greensboro, Raleigh, Durham, Kansas City, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, I grew up and into a love of architecture, streets, trees, buses, trains, and lots of other things in the environment. Now I bring this to you in a format that is straightforward about who I am, a Black urbanist, a young queer cis woman of African-American, specifically North Carolina, descent who likes all things built environment, especially when it comes to cities.

What this platform/my work is NOT:

A complete slam of suburban and rural living. I’m all for better design, communities, and planning, no matter if you are highly dense (urban) or you are unincorporated (rural).
Consciously classist, sexist, queer/transphobic, xenophobic, ableist.
The only expert analysis from a Black queer cis Southern woman on these issues.
Your one Black (or Queer, Feminist) friend, colleague, preferred design team consultant, or constantly unpaid educator on issues of racism in urbanism and design.

What this platform and my work IS:

A place that centers Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thought, practice and ethics.
My livelihood– support me by checking out my resource list, becoming a Patreon to support the information I share on my social media accounts, as well access my educational audio and video content.
A learning experience.
A chance to change the world.

My Formal Bio

Kristen E. Jeffers (she/her) is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Black Urbanist multimedia platform, as well as an author, textile artist and designer, urban planner and activist. She holds a Master of Public Affairs focused on community and economic development from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Bachelor of Arts in communication with a concentration in public relations from North Carolina State University. She has presented at the annual gatherings of the Congress for New Urbanism, YIMBYTown, Walk Bike Places, CityWorksXpo, APA Virginia, NACTO, and to communities around the US and Canada, using her personal story to illustrate what land use and planning really means and really does, plus encourage practitioners, both young and old in best practices. She is a Streetsblog Network member and has also contributed articles to CityLab, Greater Greater Washington, [Greensboro] News & Record, Yes! Weekly, Grist, Next City, Better! Towns and Cities, Triad City Beat, Urban Escapee, and Urbanful and appeared on several NPR affiliate stations (KCUR, WAMU, and WUNC) as a commentator and expert.

Members of the press on deadline can call me at (336) 317-3054 and leave a detailed message for me to follow up. All others can email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com and I will then send along a Calendly link to set up a time to discuss speaking gigs, partnership opportunities, and platform sponsorships.

Or, you can get to know me a little better by:

Listening to my podcast, Defying Gentrification

Black folks can be agents and victims of gentrification, nothing more and nothing less. Oh, and I'm going to be doing my art in peace. – Defying Gentrification

Hey y'all! This is an update on the future of this platform. My health has dictated that instead of leading with defying gentrification, I need to lead with crafting liberation. Or in other words, I need to center my art projects and imbue them with the values about community and collectivity that I've always honored. I'm tired of being sick and broke trying to make folks listen. So this podcast will be shifting focus, but keeping the same name for now. Oh and to make it clear from what the episode title is and why, here's my final word on Black folks and gentrification:Black folks, especially in the diaspora, but sometimes even in heavily colonized areas of our home continent, can facilitate gentrification over their own people. And of course it can happen to us. But until the day we globally admit that Black folks that aren’t named Oprah, Beyonce, Tyler Perry, and other documented Black billionaires and millionaires can’t be gentrifiers, we are done as a movement and as a people. Those people I named aren’t above being followed, sanctioned, denied financing opportunities, and the like for what they are intending to do with their work, because of global white supremacy over the financing markets and sometimes just the pettiest of racisms and other isms we do need to process as a people.Also, I will have 15th anniversary celebration this falll, a showcase of what the future of Kristen Jeffers Media will hold. Get full access to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation at theblackurbanist.substack.com/subscribe

Subscribing to my newsletter on Substack or LinkedIN (These come out mostly) Advertise in the newsletter.
Reading through my free resources or watching this video to aid in Understanding Black Queer Feminist Urbanism
Following me on Twitter, Instagram,
Watching some of my prior speeches and workshops.
And finally, reading some of the posts from this site’s blog-only days that really set the tone for who I am now, who I’ve been and what I hope to do.