I’m considering not being an urbanist anymore.
I know, shocking.
Honestly, like in times past, it comes from seeing all the hurt and pain the mass development machine has inflicted over the past few years, as well as looking at the history of urbanization across the world. Oh, and taking more pride in my Southeastern United States roots.
Now I’m not talking about going back into full-on sprawl support, but we have to admit that urban and suburban development schemes are often flawed and take something—the right to shelter, the right to assemble, the right to feed and clothe oneself and sell it to the highest bidder, often to just leave that house empty and sad, the people locked up and stripped of rights, that food empty and bland, those clothes overpriced but ill-fitting and ill-made.
But maybe if I went and bought a house on some property out in the country, I could start over and do better through the following:
1. The yard could have plants that are edible and beautiful. I’d have a gazebo and a porch swing. I’d have a teaching farmer and a ceremony planner and we’d have a sliding scale on those services so everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the place.
2. The home would be a legit bed and breakfast. I’d use the app to help me build clientele and over time, a transition to being a more standard version. Plus, my staff would be geniuses and adore what they do, and I’d compensate them appropriately.
3. I would have a shuttle that would take people to the airport, hospitals and to the central business and restaurant districts.
4. I’d have my own personal vehicle which I would rent out on GetAround and do Lyft and Uber to cut down on extra trips. I’d also offer some of these rides for free for folks who couldn’t pay.
There’s more I could do, namely commissioning artists and hosting other writers and incubating activist and reformist policy movements and all the other things people do at rural centers like the one I’m envisioning.
At the end of the day, it’s not about rural and urban as much as it’s about people versus development schemes. After all, there has been great harm done to black farmers in rural areas and there’s the whole thing about the United States being a colonized area. No plot of land that I’ve ever lived on is without history or context. No matter what, we need sustainable, systematic, rural and urban community resilience and natural growth plans.
But if I can be a model in the interim, much like this colleague of mine in Baltimore then I feel like I’ve done a lot.
Speaking of existing models, I’ve talked before about why I don’t publish much or even better, why don’t I have a bigger website or more content.
It’s simple. Content, stories, all of this on the site, is labor.
And labor deserves an equal trade. Actually, an equitable trade as I could pay everyone I write the same amount of money but based on the story content, it could mean psychological trauma or worse, the loss of an anchor job.
But the story must be told and those people at that job are so horrible!
Yes, but as someone who’s been recovering from a multitude of traumas— emotional, financial, physical, spiritual for a good chunk of this project’s eight-year experience, there’s only so much I want to share and want others to share, without the kind of legal, financial and emotional support that some of the big media outlets have.
I’ve been holding so much back because I want a hedge of protection. I know as an entrepreneur, that’s not guaranteed. However, as a young single black woman whose life as an employee was often traumatic and financially unsound, entrepreneurship, where I get to profit first and foremost and then generate and pay others fair and honest wages and provide a positive work environment that supports a positive home environment, and also give back to the larger community, sounds good.
Anyway, I’m taking a huge step at that goal this week as part of the inaugural cohort of the Maynard 200 Journalism Fellowship Program, in the entrepreneurial track.
I’m spending time with leaders in the journalism space, other journalists and Google to learn how to use all these platforms to my advantage, as well as network. Oh and I’ll finally get to see some of Boulder and Denver on the ground. Follow my Instagram Stories to check out my discoveries.
If you saw my travel itinerary post, this was what I was alluding to. Anyway, I have a new podcast episode, from a D.C. stoop, I’m enamored with The Bold Type and I have a couple new panel/conference announcements. That and my summer jam that’s not Drake in this edition of the newsletter.
My Life as a Professional Urbanist
What you’re witnessing above is the return of The Black Urbanist Radio Show.
If you’ve been paying attention to major development news out of D.C., you’ve heard Ari Teresa’s name bandied around, as he’s filed a number of legal actions on behalf of residents, namely black and poor residents of D.C. who stand to not benefit when a new development comes to their communities.
Thanks to an email chain about all this chatter, I decided to ask him to be on the show, as it sounded like on the surface, we agree that development’s not always bad, but it should actually include people who’ve been there and especially who have been waiting for a city to come back to life after years of dis-investment.
He agreed and you should listen to our conversation live from his literal stoop in Historic Anacostia, where he practices law under the name Stoop Law.
And again, I’m super excited to be in Boulder for the Maynard 200 training and to be part of a new family of journalists and media mavens. Thank you to the Maynard Institute, all of our sponsors and to my cohort for being awesome!
Also, I’ll see you in Los Angeles as a panelist at the What Would Howard Do? event on the first of August and I have Boston and Pittsburgh events that I’m finalizing details for. More on social media and in the next edition.
Personal Urbanism, Shoutouts and Recommendations
I’d heard great things about The Bold Type, a show that profiles three young staffers at a Cosmopolitan-like publication. I’ve really enjoyed the diversity of storylines, people and seeing a kinder, gentler version of the high fashion magazine world. If anything, Season 1, Episode 6 inspired the opening of this newsletter, because it really resonated with why I’m doing my journalism and storytelling the way I do, if not the planning and development side as well. You can stream on Hulu and it’s coming up on the end of its second season on the Freeform channel. And also check out this article in the Lily on how the show’s addressed race from the perspective of a privileged biracial black woman.
And as promised, my summer jam has me in the pool, Jazzanova’s The Pool that is. I’ve enjoyed listening to this German-based collective partner with a lot of dope artists from around the world, including some of my favorites from the Mid-Atlantic for the last decade and when I saw their album pop up in search of Scorpion on Spotify, I knew I had to stop what I was doing and stream. It’s got summer jams, along with what I would call transition jams and give me what I want jams and it’s the perfect mix of what’s going on with me now. Oh and I’m finishing this newsletter with it in the background, so go ahead, scroll back to the top and stream it while listening.
Finally, I’ve been a regular reader of Austin Kleon’s newsletter, but not his books. That has changed. Both books are the perfect size for your hands and in the perfect format to garner a shot of wisdom each day. There’s also a journal that I’m considering buying (and on his site he just mentioned a new book in copy-edits), but for now, Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work have also contributed to getting me out of the rut I was in.
Twitter‘s always the best place to see what links I think are noteworthy and read what I think, but I’m going to keep including the best right here.
One Last Thing
If you are claiming your building is luxury, but you’re using the dancing inflatable person that the cheap car lot does, yes, I’m going to side-eye you. Plus, this building is about to replace a Potbelly and Five Guys with a Wawa on the ground floor next to Metro. Yeah…I haz questions…
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