Solving the joy equation is worth it. It kills the civic inferiority complex and creates lasting sustainability and equity in our practice and in our being.
How’s that joy equation going from last week? Solving for our joy X is not easy, but worth it. I said I’d share my lessons from this year this week, and honestly, this is the largest one, the most lasting one, because this starts with the root of who I am. And it goes to the roots of who you are and the places and people you care about are too.
It’s worth it when we see neighborhoods actually working for everyone and not just a few.
It’s worth it when community stakeholders are solving for so many other Xs and Ys that have been plaguing them for years because finally, the funds and the ears and the will of governments and business entities and others who claim to be “helping out” and “giving back” operate with a mind and will for equity and justice.
It’s worth it when you finally have enough rest to create the projects you want to create and see them to fruition through all their natural ups and downs.
It’s worth it when you know who you really are and no amount of discrimination or lack of opportunities in your field can change your drive to be yourself.
It’s worth it when your firm has a surplus of funds and you have extra time you didn’t spend hiring and firing and litigating and settling because you’re actually an equitable and sustainable firm people want to build with and work on.
For many years, I spoke of a concept — killing the civic inferiority complex. I’ll be breaking this down more in my upcoming book, but the short of is that cities and municipalities (both their formal governmental entities and the quasi-governmental and stakeholder/beachhead types that see themselves as THE CITY) need to stop looking outward if they already have an economic ecosystem and a governance practice rooted in concern and care for all of its people. They absolutely don’t need to become some other town in the name of “more taxes” or “more people” and they need to stop centering whiteness in their problem-solving and service provision.
I will note here that this is an expanded definition. When I first wrote out the concept of killing the civic inferiority complex, I was thinking of Greensboro and how we were constantly chasing a new big shiny economic object, and suppressing the voices of marginalized folks, while riding on our civil rights legacies of being one of the key places in the Black civil rights movement of the mid-20th century and the 2LGBTQIA+ rights movement in the US South(east).
Yet, now, in 2021, there’s at least one big shiny new economic object, one big shiny new art object, and several more are being re-discovered as we edge into this next phase of the pandemic where we can be more mobile. This is also coupled with more visibility and amplification of Black, 2LGBTQIA+ ,disabled, and/or poor voices. This doesn’t mean the equation is solved, but I see the work.
Similar patterns are playing out nationwide, but we still have a ways to go and we can still get stuck in an unsolvable loop if we don’t add the right factors.
Those of you who are physics and chemistry folks know that the equation is more than just a paper exercise. Its accuracy and precision are necessary, lest we explode or crash.
And next week, when I share my wishes for 2022, let’s get our imaginations ready to make new formulas of joy and destabilize old ones of pain and anguish.
Before You Go
— Pat Flynn is a former architectural designer turned architectural media maker turned entrepreneurial coach and resource maker who has brought me much joy and motivation even when I was still writing proposals from the job that would later fire me. I don’t follow him as much as I used to, but every once in a while, he’ll pop up with a motivation that’s still very specific to his A/E/C industry past and this one is no exception, on how to transfer skills from being an employee to an entrepreneur with the kind of training many of us have.
— I don’t hate parking minimums, I just hate them when they aren’t done in tandem with increasing access to transit and neighborhood-level resources.
— I also don’t think doing nice things to my home and community, like the Little Free Libraries, is gentrification by default. See my note above about creating institutions and continues of care in communities that don’t center, nor can be destabilized by whiteness. I also hold public libraries and governments/communities that provide oversight and funding accountable for not providing adequate services for communities of color and poor communities. Plus, here’s an article on mutual aid and how communities can be backbones for each other, across class levels.
— Tuesday, December 14, 2021 is my birthday and the best present for me would be an investment from you. Invest via Patreon on a monthly in the Open Studio+Newsletter Fan Club, Urbanist Study Hall, Fiber Art Class or the Endowment! You can also make one-time gifts via Venmo or Cash.App. Additionally, the Kristpattern shop will reopen this week, powered by Shopify. Join its email list to be the first to find out when it opens and get information on next class dates, both online and in-person.
Until next time,