This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights founder and editor-in chief Kristen Jeffers’s Black Queer Feminist Urbanist commentary on one key issue every week. This week we are examining where the roads lead. Help Kristen continue to speak the truth and empower those to create the urbanism we deserve by making a monthly pledge on Patreon.
When I was a kid in Greensboro, there were two major interstate highways, I-40 and I-85. There was also several other US routes, that often presented themselves as urban boulevards or freeways.
We lived (and my mom continues to live very much adjacent to) US 220. Sometimes we would take a US highway affectionally referred to as “Old 70” back home from visiting family and friends in nearby Burlington, which is in the county just east of ours.
Then there was US Highway 29, which on the northeast side of Greensboro, was this odd highway that had residential streets as exit ramps and sometimes homes right next to the right-of-way. When it would merge with I-85 and I-40, it had these nasty on and off ramps that were the cause of many an accident. There were also many reports of people trying to cross it where there was no grade separation and not only risk injury or death, but be injured or die.
Those of you in the Atlanta and DC regions (as well as Charlotte and Charlottesville), have your own relationships with US 29, which I would learn over time as I moved to and visited these areas.
I also got acquainted with US 40 and US 71 when I moved to Kansas City. In addition to learning that Kansas Citians call them [Number] Highway instead of Route [Number] or as I do throughout the newsletter, just by their number without a the be for itI, also noticed that like 29, sometimes they would merge into major interstates, but other times they would act as quasi-interstates. I also noticed that most of the folks that lived near 71, like 29 on the northeast side of Greensboro were Black and/or working class.
I always suspected racism in the roadways and had found some evidence in my early studies and research online and in grad school a decade ago about these roads, but until seeing what US 40 looks like in Baltimore and how underutilized it is in its current state, coupled with what it destroyed, plus how much of an emotional scar it is on the Black residents of Baltimore, I knew I had the right evidence to know that this wasn’t just some accident.
I got to talk about these roads for NowThis Politics this week, in light of the recent passing of the federal infrastructure bill and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttiegieg openly stating at his official podium that there’s evidence of racial discrimination in road and bridge building in the past.
I learned a lot myself watching them edit my conversation with footage from Baltimore, and that inner knowing and sadness I’ve had at these roads being widened and neighborhoods being bulldozed now has a public airing.
My six-year-old tree hugging self that was sad and angry at them adding two extra lanes and taking out the tree cover on US 220 where it runs adjacent to our residential street as a then 35 mile an hour boulevard, now has returned tree cover in its median, which I get to witness on trips to my mom’s house driving back downtown.
Some of those awful ramps on 29 have been decommissioned, as they are not up to freeway standards.
However, as this bill’s funding gets distributed and we continue our commitment to not do this kind of harm again as planners and placemakers and activists, know we have a long way to go to ensure that we don’t make similar mistakes in what we do this time.
So, a few more things in this weekly newsletter before you go…
— Due to several technical difficulties, I will be aiming to record and release my Craft Week conversations this week. Hopefully, just like this reposted reel, they will spin into nice proverbial balls of yarn. Meanwhile, join the Kristpattern newsletter, which will relaunch on Small Business Saturday. I’m also going to be on the next episode of Black Women Stitch’s Stitch Please Podcast with a special message AND on December 4th, I’ll be teaching my scarf making process at Sweat Pea Fiber in Hyattsville, Maryland. You can also catch me hanging out most Wednesdays at Sweet Pea Fiber for their craft night.
— I had a lot to say about housing as a non-commodity this week on Twitter. TLDR? We can’t address the issues around single-family zoning if we don’t first go deeper and address the reasons why we believe homes should be for sale, be for sale and rent in the way that they are and look at how with the amount of global capital that’s actually in the world, some wealth redistribution, along with unpacking racism and all other prejudices, would heal our need for shelter, not just for rest and rejuvenation, but for community building and sharing of goods an services.
—Thank you for your support during the inaugural summit. I’ve learned a lot and I appreciate all of your support and donations. I am already in preliminary talks for an in-person summit next year and when I get more clarity about next steps, we will announce the location. Additionally, a smaller, but still rebooted school will launch in January and will periodically release content.
— Finally, when you support me on Patreon, it allows me to add the Black Queer Feminist lens to our urbanist conversation, that’s sorely needed when we find ourselves scratching our heads at doing things the same old way we’ve always done. I can say all the things you wish you could say, but your public service or even just your well-meaning, but not quite aware firms and organizations won’t let you say.
You can also point to me as a model and thought leader as we begin to address our industry and community’s equity issues head-on with a mind for healing and renewal. Even if you never stream a lecture/interview, or actually complete the class workshops, knowing I have a set income every month, that allows me to live in an area that affirms all my intersectional identities, legally and socially, will allow me to never feel like I have to stop doing this work or silence myself because I need to go into an environment or work with people that make me shrink. Once again, supporting me on Patreon will keep this going for 11 more years and beyond.
Until next time,