I am writing this from the kitchen table of my teenhood home. Yes, I’m right back again on what was a planned trip home to celebrate one of my cousins who is following in my footsteps and graduating from the Department of Communication at N.C. State University.
I’m not going to lie. I miss it here. I’m finally realizing that you really can’t run away from both your own problems and people who have problems. Every place has something that it needs to overcome. We are often just better equipped to handle some systems better than others.
And that’s what a weekend like this forces me to think about. What am I doing, what have I done and how can I make what I’m doing better.
In the meantime, I’ve had not just one, but two conversations with people where we touch on how things have changed in unexpected ways, as well as how to manage expectations and our lists of perfect things.
I talked quality changes, as well as equity issues with autonomous vehicles on my latest The Black Urbanist Radio Show episode with Dr. Richard Ezike, a fellow Wolfpacker, who like myself has lived in many places and has found a good home in the D.C. area to be nerdy and explore both technical and quality-of-life issues related to urban planning, namely transportation and our new equitable future. That’s everywhere you can find podcasts, but you know that I’m pretty partial to listening on Radio Public.
Meanwhile, I dropped by and talked Parks and Recreation with the wonderful women of Waffles Friends Work. We talked about Season 4, Episode 12, Campaign Ad (for those who’ve seen it, it’s the episode of Lesile’s big list). As someone who tries and fails to operate with big lists, many that resemble this list as they go after how to make cities better, this was a good one I thought for me to swing through and talk about.
Oh and I wrote one of what will be more pieces on D.C. Metro station entrances.
My Life as a Professional Urbanist
Last Saturday I stepped in to facilitate a role-play exercise for the Every Voice Counts Transportation Academy at Impact Hub Baltimore, where I’m a resident co-worker.
The academy is based off a guide published by the US DOT under its most recent prior administration that encourages people to learn how to advocate for themselves and teaches people, especially folks new to transportation advocacy, how to advocate for oneself.
I also got a chance to visit the US DOT and chat with a few employees about why I ride my bike in honor of Bike Month. That’s me right outside the door in the picture leading the newsletter. The picture leading this section is of the academy.
I’ll be in Savannah next week for CNU 26. I hope you’ll stay through Saturday and come to the morning plenary, a discussion where I’ll be talking about my generation and it’s relationship to urbanism with a Baby Boomer and a Gen Xer.
And I’ll be moderating the panel we did in Nashville again, in Baltimore, at the Association for Community Design’s annual conference in June.
I’m working on a couple of other events, but in the meantime If you are interested in booking me for speeches, panel discussions, workshop facilitation or your podcast/media outlet for the summer, fall and next winter, this is a perfect time!
Personal Urbanism, Shoutouts and Recommendations
This week’s praise starts at the Shop Made in D.C. Six months ago, the D.C. government trusted craft and maker space expert Stacy Price and a few others to curate this awesome space of local food and local craft.
I’d met Stacy back at the CityWorksXPO in Roanoke where I gave a presentation back in the fall of 2016. I’d been meaning to catch up and was so thankful to walk right into the shop and spend an afternoon eating all the wonderful D.C. based food as well as check out some of my favorite and become acquainted with some of the new-to-me makers of D.C.
I also want to give a shoutout this week to my formerly of D.C. entrepreneurship friends Stephanie and Jeremy and their new New York City venture, Eche Verde. It opened last week with a paper flowers course and I hope to visit soon and maybe teach a course there myself.
I also tried out Blue Denim, a restaurant owned by a favorite chef here in Greensboro. It was good. Even the crab leg garnish.
Finally, my cousin Marcus Mintz, the graduate I mentioned above, has a budding video/photography business and he’s got his sights set on Atlanta later this summer. If you need video or photography, especially in North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia (and I’m sure anywhere else if you pay to bring him there), let him know.
One Last Thing
This Atlanta backyard dino is reminding me that zen and peace is something that should never go extinct. Plus, it’s so cute!
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