Tag Archives: What is urban planning?

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This is my house. And in it, I get to defy gentrification my way, all day, every day.

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In my last email/post, I had all but given up on this idea of defying gentrification. Then it hit me, my very existence in a world hostile to everything I am is defiance. I am enough. And when I thought about that I was like hey, there’s still something I could do with this. So I got out my actual journal (I promise, it’s not this) and this is what I came up with.

Kristen’s Definition of Defying Gentrification:

(Action Verb): A healing practice to build oneself up to a life of affirming interdependence, despite encountering affordability challenges and other issues of false scarcitiy in urbanized areas, and at the mercy of governmental authorities.

In plainer English: overcoming the many levels of housing and transit-related isms, especially those that would make life in a body like mine (Black, agender, nonbinary, pansexual, chronically ill, and underpaid/disrespected at work) harder.

I’m extremely frustrated that I even have to explain this at all. But then I realized that frustration comes from years of rejection trauma and sensitivity, and yes, my clinical depression, anxiety and its resulting complex PTSD and religious trauma

I also didn’t want to tell you this straight up without putting a price tag on it, because I have the trauma of having to show up in a certain way just to get paid and be loved. And the deferred dreams due to not being able to afford to advance.

I often ask, where is the limit to what you all require me to do for free before I can get paid?

(You can always join me on Patreon, Substack, or Medium)

I know that government contracting and other activities require grant applications to be received and invoices to get paid. However, I feel like we can do so much better than IOUs and billable hours in what we do. I’ll apply for them and file them anyway, but the process needs improvement.

Especially since funding community initiatives and basic government services is rooted in what we think certain people and communities are worth.

Even with my educational background and access, I have fallen through so many cracks. But I’m ready to get up in 2025. But, I have to get up in a way that I can remain supported and firm.

I created the six pillars of defying gentrification to help me make sense of it all and have a framework to pinpoint myself back to when I feel discouraged.

What are those six pillars? They should be familiar to you if you’ve been following along with me for the past year. But over the past year, I’ve wanted to experiment with how they worked, before handing you that workbook I’ve been promising.

Far too many people are making promises and claiming they know all the answers. They don’t and while I have some answers, I want to make sure that they could be a good experiment for you and not cause harm.

Anyway, Stick around, after this brief interlude to squeeze in some liberation crafting, I’ll be back to tell you how I see the six pillars a year out from me creating them.

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This Crafting Liberation Art Reflection is brought to you by Bookshop.org. Purchase the books I refer to in my podcasts and emails from a company not committed to our demise. Plus I get affiliate income and can continue to pay my rent! Or, if you want to never see an ad again in my work, make sure you’re a paid member of Patreon, Medium or Substack! You’ll still get my emails but without the ads!

So the reason this email is called Defying Gentrification Crafting Liberation is because for me, it’s not just about being a healer or nurturer of folks who have been hurt by gentrification and related harms related to the environment, I have to make art as well. For long-time readers, you’re getting a sense of my new art practice in this section and for new readers, this is where I wax philosophical about my art. This week, it’s the new imagery I’ve conceived for the Defying Gentrification part of this project.

In black and gold, the words Defying Gentrification. Kristen’s head is in profile and pieces of the Greensboro, NC skyline, US Capitol and Baltimore Inner Harbor skyline are in a horizontal line. Kristen Jeffers Media is in the top right corner.
The full site banner with the three most impactful skylines. I could have easily done six, but these three have shaped my professional practice the most.

When I did the original logo, I wanted to pick colors that spoke to Black power and Black healing. Gold, which is the goddess Oshun’s color, does that for me (and Beyonce!). I chose a generic image for starters, because, no lie, this generative AI thing has scared me. However, I wanted it to be more personal over time. So I figured I’d start by taking a picture of the side of my head in the bathroom.

Kristen’s right side of her head, tilted up with a light hitting her nose
A selfie of my head in profile

Then I dropped the image in Canva and ran a Duotope filter, then sharpened, contrasted, and clarified it to every inch. And then I did the magic background cleaner. Realizing my head without the background was a hard straight line, I angled it against the page, then I realized it’s got me looking forcefully at buildings. Not all of these buildings represent gentrification, but all of them were built by white men.

And while I like some of these buildings, I don’t like that I have to swallow parts of myself to be able to be the person to do the kind of work I need to live in them…

…Or so I’ve thought … I hope that by crafting liberation through my art, I can, in turn, defy gentrification. Now, back to those new principles I’ve offered to defy gentrification, but first a preview of the new imagery for my art platform, Kristpattern. I’ll break down its origins and influences in this section in my next email.

Kristen in a green filter faces the camera smiling. In the background is a tessellated crochet diamond pattern. Kristpattern is in a pointed oval-shaped star and in a rectangular oval, the words “Kristen+Pattern= Kristpattern. The way I craft my liberation as I defy gentrification. Fiber, Surface Patterns, Collages, and more.
I can’t wait to break this one down and show you the final version!

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As I mentioned before, over the past year, I’ve been writing up a workbook around the six pillars I’ve developed for Defying Gentrification and testing it out to see if there are some things I can do to help myself defy gentrification, and if some of those things could apply to others going through similar challenges.

Immediately, I realized that I needed to go deeper than just defying gentrification, I needed to do what I could to end gentrification.

But, as an individual, especially a Black and queer and disabled and feminine-appearing and broke one, I found over this past year there are hard limits as to what I can do about gentrification for myself. However, collectively and in keeping in mind our skills and power, there are things we can do.

Below, is an illustration of the framework, and a brief introduction to each principle that I’ve been testing.

Yellow graph paper background with Kristen’s head and the sillouetted skylines. The words Defying Gentriification Framework are stacked on top of the following sentence that decends like stairsteps down the vertical graphic paper “I can have faith, I can engage in cultivation and self care, but I need community care, infrastructure, access and conviencence to defy gentrification.” Then the website www.defyinggentrifcation.com is at the bottom.
This is a more “branded” version of what it looks like in my journal.

If you’ve been here over the last year, a lot of this will sound familiar to you, but some of it is more refined and solidified after I stepped back and looked over what seems to be working and resonating. For the next seven emails, I’ll be sharing what I feel confident in about each principle, along with episodes of my podcast and other YouTube videos and resources and people who can be helpful with said tactic.

Then as time goes on, I will revisit each principle, adding new podcasts, videos, and resources, along with highlighting more of my artwork and other useful things.

So now, without further ado, my new framework around defying and ending gentrification in one paragraph.

First, to defy gentrification as an individual, especially if you share any of my identity markers, you need faith in yourself, and the cultivation of positive obsessions and/or hobbies. You also need to practice self-care. Doing those three things will at least make you feel less shitty about the hand life has dealt, even if you’re doing your hobbies as you live in a tent or car or a too-small apartment (shout out to my livingkitchen and my bedoffice). Then we need others, namely major institutions such as funders, houses of faith, developers, and others who seek or to be or see themselves as community leaders, to care as a community about us, and provide us adequate infrastructure and access to make our lives as convenient as possible.

Yep, it’s really that simple, but we will break it down even more.

Last email, I was beating myself up for not defying gentrification in a year. However, I am embracing this concept as a lifelong journey, one that will come with wins and losses, big steps up and steps back, but all average in a fruitful life. Now, if you community leaders step up, more of my losses can be wins, but I can only work with my own resources and power and I accept that now. And instead of feeling shame with having to revise, I can feel peace at knowing you, my readers, will be right here with me as I return to the drawing board.

And if not, that’s ok, thanks for your time on our journey, I value the lesson that you’ve given me.

Until next time,

Kristen

Cities, Family and Place, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, Retail, What is urban planning?

Mixed-Use Ain’t Always Pretty

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Over the last couple of weeks I was made aware of the attempts by a community in Raleigh to determine once again, what they think looks right in a community. As far as I know, the accessory dwelling battle continues to happen in Raleigh and it’s cranked up again in DC. This latest situation is a bit different.

A woman wanted to take advantage of state funding for those who are willing to take care of developmentally disabled people. She built a staircase onto the exterior of her home in order to comply with state-mandated safety regulations for people who operate state-funded homes for disabled people.

Yet, her neighborhood association has slapped her with fines and demanded she tear down the staircase. All the usual arguments are there: property values, appearances, etc. Yet, to me, it speaks again to how housing and building codes, as well as incentives for a certain style of neighborhood, are pushing communities backward.

Communities are more than their buildings. If people can’t learn, make a living, raise a family, worship, or entertain themselves in a neighborhood, then there’s a problem. Even if one of the above is missing, one should still be able to have a link, that they don’t have to drive themselves or fill up with expensive fuel, to get there.

Furthermore, if we want to bring back the element of freedom to the American Dream, why are homeowners so worried about structural elements or even the appearance of more traffic or people than a house normally holds? Why do areas such as this one in Brooklyn get taken out by developers even though they are wildly successful? This is even more problematic in New York, as there are more connections to areas that have a different mix of retail. If urban planning at it’s core was began to deal with sanitation issues, then why has it evolved into or maintained elements that declare situations such as an abundance of working class occupations, housing, and businesses a nuisance? Let’s not even get started with the racial inequities built into what’s known as urban planning.

Yet, at the end of the day, we have to remember that mixed-use, which I’m going to define here simply as a community with multiple activities and types of activities, isn’t always pretty. The successful shopping district may not look like Michigan Avenue in Chicago. A home-based business may require an oddly placed staircase instead of an extra cell phone line. A granny pod in your backyard may be your only solution to age in place and next to your children and grandchildren.

Time is up for us to privilege looks over function. Especially if we expect everyone to buy into the “back to the city” placemaking movement and stop harassing those who don’t fit the mold of what neighborhoods should look like.

Image by Flickr user Shards of Blue.

Alexandria, Cities, Family and Place, Greensboro, Issues and Ideas, Politics of Place, What is urban planning?

What If The City Doesn’t Want You Anymore?

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A study of urban political systems is a study in the history of cities spitting out or sectioning off their least desirables, namely lower class and people of color of any class. First, it was the gentry of the streetcar era that found they could move further away from their servant class. Then it was housing covenants that kept out non-whites from post-war suburbs. The 1960s brought urban rewewal and slum clearance. Today, we have people who are underwater in shoddy built suburban houses because the city was such a bad place, we needed to get everyone out. Meanwhile, shiny new condos and apartments are filling cities. Sadly, or should I say ironically, some of these places are failing to sell units. A great primer on this history is the textbook City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America by Dennis R. Judd and Todd Swanstrom.

One major example of failed “urban renewal,” which I was not familiar with until recently, is the World Trade Center complex. The area was a vibrant neighborhood until the Port Authority decided to start being a real estate developer instead of a promoter and operator of decent ports and commuter subways. City Journal has more details on how the taxpayers of New York are dealing with a potential white elephant, which now has not just one, but two tragic events attached to it.

Another example of modern urban renewal is the “entertainment district” that many downtowns have become, including my own. As a woman, I can do all of my shopping downtown, and there are a couple of affordable boutiques. Yet, men are out of luck. Outside of thrift stores, there are no suit shops for men. The restaurants have a new allure, yet, we don’t have shiny new stores downtown at all. I love the local consignment shops and the old theater that plays classic movies. Yet, what about the chain stores that fill our shopping malls and power centers that attract the mass majority of the population?

Once upon a time, downtown was the shopping mall. Department stores were locally owned and did not pay workers inhumane wages. Another concept that’s now foreign downtown is the supermarket. The farmers market we had was great, but it only operates in the summer. What am I supposed to do about fresh food during the winter months if I want to be true to my walkable, urbanist principles? What if I had no car because I was broke, but I was trying to live in a place where everything was close by? Downtown looks cute architecturally, but it far underperforms for the style of real estate it contains.

Those are the surface problems with cities pushing folks out. The real problems come when the suburbs they come into are suburbs in the truest since of the word. They were only subdivisions to begin with and there are no centralized services, shops, or even schools. People complain about parents not coming to schools in low-income areas. The suburbs make it worse by forcing these people to go even further to their schools, possibly via a non-existent bus. What does one make of the dead Kmarts and dead Borders that were so hot when the demographics of the neighborhood were different? Granted, Borders was part of an overstreched business model, but the one in the “inner-ring” suburb I grew up in, up the street from the dying mall, died first.

So hence why I fault those that want to willingly be part of a failing system that traps people. Many suburbs are truly towns and offer people services in walking distance, as well as concern for all it’s citizenry. Yet, too many suburbs are housing subdivisions with nothing to offer. With cities that practice covert forms of urban renewal and suburbs that don’t want to recognize their role as small cities or big towns, we are left with not only suburbs of self-hate, but hateful, hostile cites as well.

One last note before I close out this post. Posts like this and my previous post expose how different governments consider one place a town, a city, or a suburb. I see Greensboro as one big suburb with two to four walkable urban areas, some with all the necessary services such as Lindley Park and others without such as Downtown proper. In other states, a suburb may be an actual city such Alexandria, VA, but thanks to the media, overshadowed by it’s neighbor across the Potomac River.

Either way, there is no excuse for governments of any type to contribute to the demise or the migration of their citizenry. Putting a subdivision next to a landfill, selling out downtowns to one developer, and continuing to pursue loop roads that are known contributors to sprawl are not good. Governments, as well as residents, need to come to terms with being good citizens. Stop stealing, whether it’s your neighbor’s car or “prime land” that’s already a small-scale, but thriving community.

Photo of Downtown Greensboro by Flickr user dmattphotography.