This is the map that started it all. Download this year’s version of the NC State Transporation Map.
Can we stop calling every map/plan we don’t like or think is impractical, crayonista? Can we acknowledge that the only difference between a transportation plan’s reality and fantasy is political will?
Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that would be Rail~Volution! Now, back to the main part of the email.
My urbanism started with a map on the floor. You know this if you’ve been around for a while, but today, as I like to do, I’m going to come in with this story at a slightly different angle, one that builds on last week’s sadness at existing housing policy, to bring hope in the form of more flexible and visible transportation policy.
But, let’s get back to my first map for a minute. The said map was a road atlas from the state of North Carolina, complimented by a set of maps of the Mid-Atlantic and the entire United States, from RandMcNally and other places.
These lived in a shoebox under my parents’ bed. The shoebox was for a Caterpillar-branded set of work boots, one of many my dad would wear in his construction and maintenance-adjacent jobs over the years. It was repurposed with these maps my dad brought home from one of his many second jobs, delivering what would become the News and Record to several truck stops near our then still quite international airport.
I’ve also drawn on some of those maps, with all kinds of writing implements, not just crayons.
The moment I remember the most is when, I took a black ballpoint ink pen and fortified what I believed should be our route to visit family and friends in the Hampton Roads/Tidewater region during the summer of 1993. I went by what lines were already pretty prominent and what seemed to connect to the most sets of clustered orangy blocks of spaces designated cities on the map.
If I had my way, we would be taking Interstate 85 to Petersburg, where it would flow into I-95 North where we would veer off in Richmond onto Interstate 64 to Hampton. That’s it.
And yes, what time we would have potentially saved speeding up and across at 65+ miles per hour would have probably been eaten by rush hours and wrecks and the need to stop at every rest stop, especially the welcome center at the NC/VA border.
So, despite my stylings of ink pen, my parents overruled me (they were driving anyway) and we took I-85 to US Highway 58, and then we used 664 to get where we needed to go, helped by a brand new tunnel to aid in river crossing.
But, my parents didn’t laugh at my “inkista” — they supported it. I wouldn’t be typing or scribbling or stitching today if they didn’t and I wouldn’t have a livelihood.
This is why I want to deaden the word crayonista.
In doing today’s research for the newsletter, I found this thread from 2015 on the RailUK Forums, that covers how the word came to be. Yes, for those of you wondering, it is a play on being a Sandinista, but applied to those, specifically in the London online urbanist community, who create fantasy maps and insist on certain transit alignments, supposedly without “ justification”.
I put “justification” in quotes here because that “justification” usually means that one has done a cost-benefit analysis of the transit projects in question. Never an environmental study, those seem to never be needed when these projects are “justified”.
Yet, it’s ok to be culturally appropriative and decide, as a group of bloggers, what is and isn’t appropriate to build.
This project you’re reading started with transportation and the media because that’s what was pumped into my home every night and what was easily accessible under the crooks and crevices of beds, bookcases, and closets.
And someone drew those maps and wrote those scripts. With a pencil, ink, typewriter, and paper. This is how we all start. And it’s not how it all has to end. Let’s not think of one being better than the other, because of their lack of political and material power.
So many diagrams and plans are shelved for no reason besides one person in power didn’t like them on aesthetics (because all non-Helvetica fonts are ugly, right) or want to be creative enough to think through how to be inclusive of people who are advancing humanity in their work.
This newsletter and all the other places you’ll see me popping up on and offline in the urbanist sphere are places I go to continue to simply play. And play until I’ve made something of joy and of betterment to the globe.
Considering what we are facing as a human species right now, there are far worse things than telling someone to stop drawing maps with colored pencils and crayons, especially if it brings them individual joy.
By the Way
If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section.
I’ve been doing a deep dive on water conservation lately and I’m excited to hear about wastewater recycling and cleaning efforts on both the West and East Coasts.
I also am happy to hear about this collaboration between Native folks and the state of California to bring salmon back to areas upstream from Mt. Shasta that were closed off during the construction of the Shasta Dam and this effort in DCto get a street rededicated to honor a drag queen that shares a last name with a slaveholder.
I’m sparingly drinking these days, but this chamomile beer and others produced by traditional folkways of the African diaspora near me in the DMV are very intriguing.
Finally, I love this reflection of what Black women need in New York City. It reflects so much of what I write here.
Before You Go
This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially. And this week, we have a sponsor, Rail~Volution!
Rail~Volution 2022
The always lively Rail~Volution conference is coming to Miami, Florida, this fall, from October 30 to November 2. The goal of the conference is to look at the whole community built around transit and connected mobility options, from planning & implementing different modes to station area design to housing. Come to the conference to find out how peers are getting projects done with an eye to the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity, and overall quality of life.
Registration is now open. And until the end of July scholarship applications also are open. The conference organizers want to create a welcoming atmosphere, where people from diverse backgrounds and positions are able to learn, network, and belong. Recognizing that attending a conference involves a financial commitment that cannot always be supported by an individual or their organization, Rail~Volution provides a limited number of scholarships to reduce or eliminate these financial barriers. The link to the main scholarship application is here:
bit.ly/RailVolutionScholarship.
There is a different link for local scholarships — for those who live in Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward, or Palm Beach Counties:
bit.ly/RailVolutionScholarshipLocal
Find out more about the conference here:
There is a virtual option for those unable to attend in-person. It will be a program of 3–5 sessions from the in-person conference, on Tuesday, November 1, only.
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If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two bookshelf over at Bookshop.org and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.
I’ll also include links from last week’s Smart Growth America Equity Forum and a few other places next week.
Until next time,