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 week, I’m reflecting on a 2012 post I made about gratitude and how what I’m thankful for has changed. Also, we have a special message from the University of California at San Diego. Learn more about how you can advertise in this newsletter. Prices start at just $75 a week with a four-week commitment. 

I’m still grateful for the country road. But I’m also grateful for the city block, the commuter train, the rapid test and KN95, and people who know how to cook good food far, far away from our hometown. Most of all, I’m thankful for the people who have stepped up over the last week to hold me and Les down — our chosen family, as we continue to battle imperfect bodies. 

A decade ago, on what I didn’t realize would be my last Thanksgiving with my father, and two years before I stopped going to family Thanksgivings altogether, I wrote these words:

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States and this afternoon I will I embark on my annual journey to see both sides of my family within a span of 5 hours. While many folks have the tradition of watching the Macy’s parade, watching football and eating copious amounts of food, my most unique Thanksgiving tradition involves one long country road.

On a regular basis, the concept of one road=one family rules my life. Within ten minutes I can be at my mom’s house. Five for my dad’s. Of course you’ve picked up on the houses being separate, but it’s been so long, I’ve worked at making sure it doesn’t feel like there was separation.

Meanwhile, on Thanksgiving, it’s worked out for many years that both family celebrations are within 30 minutes of each other, connected by one (technically four, but it’s close enough) country road.

I’m very thankful for that country road. It’s the same road I learned to drive on and it’s taught me the value of the rural environment. As I drive over the rolling hills of the North Carolina Piedmont, I see small farms. I see all types of home architecture, including one house that keeps adding turrets, stained glass windows, and doors. My mom and I have bets on it being a bed-and-breakfast, but who knows? There’s even a small waterfall cresting from a dam at another point of the journey.

This road and the country surrounding it are why I love the urban transect so much. For those of you who aren’t urban planners, the urban transect is a system developed in the 1990s to portray the optimal progression of land use. It goes from New York-level urban density to un-claimed natural land. In between, there are levels for used farmland, small-town main streets, and even lesser dense suburbs. It accounts for all the desired land uses in a way that honors compact living, efficient development, and the need for some communities to have space from their neighbors. It allows for the rural areas much like the ones I’m visiting today to exist in a modern, urban-centric, placemaking scheme.

We talk about density and connectivity and the ability to bring communities together in the placemaking blogosphere on a regular basis. Thanks to this road, and the years both families gather on this road, I get to feel what it’s like to be a part of my first community, my own family.

And on that note, let me take the time to express my thanks and gratitude to everyone who has followed me on Twitter and Facebook, given me a byline in another publication, read and shared this blog, heard me speak, invited me to speak and all of the above and more. Let us all be grateful for the great places in our lives and work hard to preserve them all.

Since then, I would see my community come together to help me bury my father, but see it constrict some when I came out of the closet.

I would leave my hometown because being its heroine became too much and honestly too isolating.

I would battle to get enough money consistently as someone living as my quirky and brutally honest, yet dependable self.

And of course, what are we really thankful for on these national declarations of Thanksgiving? What are we really celebrating, specifically by celebrating on that day? Is colonialism really working out for us?

And yet, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the best show of chosen family I could ever ask for, as Les recovered from another sudden 75% lung collapse due to endometriosis.

It’s hard enough to be isolated to prevent the worst health outcomes. However, I can’t thank our chosen family enough for creating the environment of wellness we’ve needed to successfully open up our quarantine pod and keep ourselves fed, rested, and our spaces clean and conducive to health.

If all goes well, sometime later this week, we will be embarking on a trip to North Carolina to see family we haven’t seen for a long time. I’ll be bringing Les to an in-person family event for the first time and I’ll be able to attend thanks to some social distancing and ventilation requirements that were met by my family (my Dad’s side for the record), with love and compassion. 

And I’ll go back knowing that while times can be tough, there’s always someone out there to help and hold us up. It might take a few asks and a little more vulnerability. But, even in this violent, chaotic world, the Earth is calling us back to herself and to a beloved community.

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.

Reading about the Washington Post’s health reporter’s reflection on balancing queerness, COVID, and family acceptance was so real. I know so many of us are in this space at the moment, especially as it seems like containment of the virus is a fantasy and so many of us live with chronic illness anyway. I still want institutions to try and help us. Ventilation and air purification are on institutions. Vaccines, treatments, and tests are on institutions. Accessibility and knowledge sharing can be stunted by institutions. Please give us the right tools to continue to get in the right relationship with our individual and collective humanness. And understand that I will still be masked, but if you’re nice enough and take all the steps, we can have a meal together. And I will fight hard for your adequate health and community care.

Also, this collective of Black Los Angelenos purchasing their block in Leimert Park gives me hope that we can come together and be land stewards, without denying each other the gift of home, health, and community around our culture. I wish them well as they welcome their first Black woman mayor too.

Let’s take a moment if not all of Thursday and Friday instead of the frenzy it has become, and honor a time of mourning, for those who were already here on the so-called United States. We should be grateful and practice gratitude every day. And we should be nudging our families and friends to mourn in solidarity this week, much as we have for trans folks and traffic casualty victims.

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.

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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.

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My bookshelf over at Bookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon and other lists because you can never have too many books.

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Finally, learn how and what you can you book me for in 2022 and 2023. I am also available to edit and for freelance articles. I’ll be updating the capabilities deck soon for 2023 to reflect that.

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If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. 

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Until next time,

Kristen