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.