Guest Post | The Black Urbanist Guest Post – The Black Urbanist

When Allison Guess reached out to me about guest posting, I noticed she was from Pittsburgh and I asked her to tell me about what’s really going on in East Liberty, an area lauded for its new development lifeblood. However, as I expected and even more, she has taken us back to the roots of gentrification (colonialization) and illustrated how the current changes are right in line with previous patterns. Her post raises questions and intensifies my hope that one day, we as Americans can come to terms with land ownership, cultivation, and value in an ethical and honorable manner.

A few years ago, I began doing some preliminary research on land based historical trauma. I was specifically interested in land theft and the effects gentrification on Black communities. In a 21^st century effort to expand my bibliography, I did a basic Google search of “land theft.” Although not specific enough, my search request did birth a critical evaluation of the stories of land theft that our country has told.

As grade school children, we as United States citizens learn about how the Pilgrims came to the “New World” on the Mayflower and later had a blissful Thanksgiving meal with the Natives. Educators are not honest when describing this situation of overt land theft, the rapping of communities and extreme injustice those Native American communities experienced and continue to face. History books ignore the past and presently lingering notion of Manifest Destiny that lead to the colonization of the African continent (before and after the Pilgrims came to the “New World”) and the seizure of off-continental U.S. territories. Only as adults and when entering college do a few of us hear or care to learn of this bitter truth.

Ironically, past and present conversations about land theft, more often than none seem to tell a drastically biased tale. In the post-slavery Jim Crow Era, one can clearly evaluate the thoughts and fears of urbanization that took place during in Industrial Revolution. Many whites during the time made their concern of the African American Great Migration, also described as the “Negro invasion” known in large public spheres. In that era it was Blacks that were being accused of taking all the jobs and displacing white Americans, sound familiar? On the other hand, major history sources fail to mention that Blacks participating in this massive move, were responding to the terrorism of the south by fleeing for their lives in hopes of salvaging their communities and living out the promised American Dream.

To speak to today’s biased tale of land theft, we can simply encounter present day conversations about immigration and “Mexicans” “stealing” land, resources and jobs from “Americans.” Paradoxically, most of the inhabited lands that some U.S. citizens see as the biggest “threat” of immigrant occupancy (southern and southwestern states such as Texas, Arizona, California, Alabama etc.) are the lands that were not only once occupied by Native Americans but more resounding the country of Mexico, alike. It is interesting to me that advocates of border control and harsh immigration policies, continue to seek ways to police and keep out the descendants of the original inhabitants of these lands.

My point in creating this past and present parallel is to highlight the deeply imbedded fears, bias, and racism in the white psyche. Understanding (not judging) these feelings while having an open and honest “immigration” conversation can help many of us to understand the “memories” that Black Americans have of land theft and land based historical trauma. They can help community organizers, community planners, and investors understand that all people, regardless of skin color, develop relationships, memories, and some level of fondness to their communities regardless of how blighted these spaces may be or have become. We should be reminded that a simple change in community design that ultimately leads to the attraction of a different demographic group other than the already present residents is in and of itself a model of invasion as well as a type of land theft.

East Liberty redevelopments. Courtesy Allison Guess.

An example of not taking the above into consideration and the possible damaging ramifications of community development includes that of East Liberty. East Liberty was once a predominately African American occupied neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a child, I grew up just minutes away from East Liberty. Like many urban Black neighborhoods in the U.S., there was certainly violence, drugs and crime; I will not negate that. However, there was also a strong community that sought to overcome the effects of systematic poverty and disenfranchisement and thus give back to the community.

East Liberty seemed to change overnight. I went away to college and then returned to a new neighborhood. There were fancy restaurants, Target, $400,000+ homes being built and parking meters lined major streets. Soon these streets would become a nightlife and fine dinning Mecca. Commercial for sale signs were everywhere and one could see the future plans of those particular spaces in their windows and on their lots. A majority Black middle school ended this past school year early so it could be demolished and turned into costly lofts.

One of the more sincere objectives of investors is to create incentive for those dwelling in certain areas coined slums to stay. Adversely, in East Liberty (and some other gentrified neighborhoods in United States) the incentive that was created was one that encouraged former residents to leave. Although beneficial to get the “blight” out of neighborhoods, it is very clear that the “original” residents of East Liberty had no or a very small voice in the changes. The documentary East of Liberty highlights this struggle between original residents, new residents, and developers.

Now I know many on the defense will say that supportive, mixed-income housing was built. One could argue that this was established with the community impute. However, I believe this housing is a monument of negativity: a symbol of the undermining of a people due to an enduring history of racism, disenfranchisement, and historical trauma. While support is needed for the abused and addicted, the best support comes from true policy change, the critique and modification of systems, and the desire to see competitive groups excel and take pride in recreating their own community. This support does not include takeover, theft, capture, poverty, forced socialization, or community defeat.

Thus in in moving forward, I have some normative suggestions to community planners and investors. We should seek to make sure all residents are included when making decisions about neighborhood change and development. We ought to be critical of who is or who is not at the conversation table. This means we do not just include the more vocal or affluent voices in the community that are still deemed different in some ways to us, but we should also seek representation of those community members who barely have a whisper. It is not anybody’s responsibility to make decisions or decide the fates of others. When creating incentive to stay, we should make sure it is just that. The primary intention in development should always be to have people stay and the secondary focus should be to attract others into the community and thus naturally foster a more diverse community over time. In doing all of this, the memories and experiences of land theft, invasion, and immigration should inform our discussion as all racial and regional groups have experienced their own story of settling and seizure from an “outsider” group.

Allison Guess is a resident of Pittsburgh, PA. Allison graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with two Bachelors degrees in Political Science and Hispanic Languages and Literature (Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese). Currently, Allison is a consultant and the Academic Liaison for the Black/Land Project. Allison is interested in land based historical trauma, gentrification, redlining, gerrymandering, policy histories, displacement, ethnography and storytelling, just to name a few. Allison hopes to pursue a PhD in African American/Africana Studies in order to further research Black peoples’ relationships to land and place.

I recently had one of those old-fashioned, in-person-type conversations with Kristen.  We discussed the [Greensboro] performing arts center plans, and how she believes supporters should bill the project as the Greensboro Civic Auditorium rather than Performing Arts Center.  She’s right about this. Performing Arts Center means very little to most people and at worst gives off a snobbish tone.  It gives off an old-fashioned aura, of a place of bad middle school field trips.  Civic Auditorium, on the other hand, gives off the air of the Forum, the great public gathering place.  One of our neighbors to the north, Roanoke, VA, pulled this off with the Roanoke Civic Center.  With this in mind, we should examine the downtown events that will benefit from having a great downtown civic auditorium.

First, we have very well attended, arts-and-culture-focused festivals. Over 90,000 people come downtown for Fun Fourth, our Independence Day festival. The Fun Fourth events fill downtown with people and activity.  Adding to that with talks, music, and movies in our Civic Auditorium, and with concurrent events in pre-existing downtown spaces will help us keep up the momentum of an already successful event. Next, our United Arts Council is the second year of its new 17 Days festival. In its first year, the festival drew big name acts like the Avett Brothers and filled the city with visitors.  Additionally, our First Fridays and the[December] Festival of Lights keep getting bigger and bigger.  We can use another great downtown venue to grow these events.

This model of growth, building on arts, tourism, and fun, worked for our neighbor Charleston. Charleston, which has lots of visitors and event spaces, is conducting a $142 million renovation of the Gaillard Auditorium, one of the main spaces of its world-famous Spoleto Festival.  Charleston wants to keep up with modern sound systems and theater technology. Many other events can use the space, and new ones can always spring up.  Charleston has created many new festivals and gatherings in the last 40 years: Spoleto, Charleston Food and Wine Festival, the Lowcountry Oyster Festival, the Family Circle Tennis Tournament, and others.  These keep the city full of tourists and businesspeople who come, spend money, and leave. Greensboro should draw some lessons from our neighbor to the south.

A few months back, Kristen wrote a piece about the civic inferiority complex.  That no matter what, we need another status symbol company – an Apple Store, a Nordstrom’s, a Trader Joe’s, or a Whole Foods – to make us a “real town.”

The performing arts center debate shows the same sort of complex, as though we are not classy enough for an arts venue.  We hear “Greensboro is not an arts town, it’s a family town” (as though you cannot be both) or “we are more of a sports town” or “we’re not the kind of people who would use that.”   Those who believe this about our town misjudge our citizens – Greensboro has filled venues for arts events over and over again.

Instead of waiting on others (like Nordstrom’s or Apple) to come build these things, we should demonstrate our status through our own achievements as a city.  Strive forward with an aspirational building, with the knowledge that Greensboro can grow into its new clothes.  New South Wales did not wait for a company to build the Sydney Opera House, the province did it itself.  I am sure some people at the time said that Sydney was not ready for such a venue, that Sydney was not an Opera Kind of Town.  UNESCO named the building a World Heritage Site in 2007.  That, my friends, shows the power of vision and ambition.  Charleston was once not the Charleston that we know today.  Civic leaders, including Mayor Joseph P. Riley, in his 40th year of service as mayor, pushed for development and arts to create today’s Charleston.

In addition to building the new, we should take care of the old.  In Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Angel Taveras campaigned in 2010 on a fix-up-the city platform.  True to his word, this year he put a $40 million bond issue on the ballot for Providence road repair.  Given the terrible shape of Providence’s streets, the fact that Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and the huge popularity of Mayor Taveras, the voters gave the Mayor’s bond 90% of the vote.  Greensboro should look at this as a model.  Having a great city means not only building new venues and amenities, but caring for the ones we have as well.

Previous councils chopping maintenance budgets and the failure of some bond referenda in the past (including ones to fix up War Memorial Auditorium) have left the Gate City with a backlog of deferred maintenance.  The Cultural Arts Center, the Grimsley High School pool, many of our community centers, War Memorial Stadium, and even the Melvin [Municipal] Office Building could use some work.  Perhaps a major maintenance bond could get through the city council or a bond referendum.

Mayor Taveras showed every neighborhood in Providence how the bond would improve their streets, campaigning throughout the town with a map of every single street in Providence with streets selected for maintenance highlighted, should the bond pass.  This worked, and 90% of voters pulled the lever for Taveras’ initiative. Greensboro could use a Taveras-style push for repairs, as an economic development initiative and because we should care and maintain our shared property.

However, this should not be an either-or choice, as in either the PAC or maintain everything else.  We need to bring the whole city into the 21st century.  Perhaps while we are at it we can get Duke Energy to bury some more power lines, rather than hacking at our trees.

We need a ten-year plan that includes building the PAC and providing upkeep to all municipal buildings in need.  This could come from one bond, or a series of them.  It could all come from the budget in other ways, though I doubt that would happen.  All the amenities, public spaces, and people make Greensboro what it is, the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.  We should not let the spaces we have languish, nor should we ever stop improving or innovating.

Images above all belong to me, clockwise from top: DC Metro in Alexandria, VA, July 2012; Performing Arts Center Charrette in Greensboro,NC, October 2012;Brunch at Yolk in Chicago, November 2012; Airpoet Sign at Busboys and Poets, Arlington,VA, December 2012 and Carolina Theater, Greensboro, NC, July, 2012.

In honor of Election Day in the United States, I wanted to post this reflection of the political climate of Greensboro, where I live and work and inspired to be a placeist most of all. It’s written by my friend Graham Sheridan, a 23 year old Greensboro native and a graduate of Grimsley High School and Washington and Lee University. He is currently a Master’s student at Brown University in Providence, RI, in public administration. We met last year on the campaign trail for city council. My candidate lost, his won. We both love Greensboro with all of our hearts, so campaigning and making sure good people got on city council, was personal. Also, as Millennials, we have a very different view of some of the old struggles of our hometown. Without further ado, I’m giving you Graham’s letter, which outlines this different view:

An Open Letter on the State of Greensboro

This is the sort of piece editors usually write on the eve of an election – a sort of “the choice before us is clear” piece. But the choice is not clear, or, more aptly; I am not sure what the choices are. Instead, I intend to look at how Greensboro is doing today, examine what trends push our town, and see not who, but what ideas, can put our city on the best course for the next ten years.

When I was campaigning for Councilwoman Hoffmann, people would balk a little at how much money and effort went into her election. I would always answer that Greensboro, especially Mrs. Hoffmann’s district, has graduated from being a Big Town to being a Small City. We ran a Small City campaign in order to win. In Charleston, SC for example, city council and county commission candidates spend big money on staffs and field offices. In 2009, Mayor Johnson learned the hard way that Greensboro has grown to be a small city. She is a politician of the Big Town era, and a lot of the people who voted against her were newcomers and neighborhoods that were annexed into the city, people who did not grow up in Big Town era Greensboro. Nonetheless, almost everyone on City Council today is a holdover of the Big Town era or still clings to the Big Town power structure for support. The old structure proves hard to shake off.

The Big Town model was based on four quadrants – professional class white people, working class white people, professional class black people, and working class black people. These quadrants dominated economic and social life in Greensboro for many years. The professionals had white-collar jobs at the mill or at Jefferson Pilot, or were lawyers, doctors, shop owners and the like. Working class people worked on the floor in the mill or in the rail yard or some such. These divisions were easily seen and completely understood. On occasion there were a couple of exceptions made, for example, some Jewish people were worked into the system. Now, things are a much more mixed up in Greensboro. We live in a multi-ethnic, multilingual city. Jobs are spread around more companies. Unlike previous eras, we lack a monolithic all-controlling employer who can dictate and bankroll what happens in town. For example, when people in Greensboro wanted to start a golf tournament, the Bryan family just wrote a check. Notice how many places and institutions in Greensboro are named for the same few people, people who dominated their quadrants. These quadrants no longer describe our population, and Greensboro’s economy no longer centers on one or two huge employers.

I wonder if even what we have left of the Big Town power structure would still be in place if so many of Greensboro’s new citizens were not immigrants without voting ability. When I go to the Super G International grocery I wonder how different city council would look if even 15% of those residents voted in municipal elections.
Most of the Super G’s customers, however, are left out of the Big Town power structure, because they do not fit any of the quadrants.

A few factions dictate the opinions and votes of the people within the Big Town power structure. The Country Club and the African-American Church get notoriety as the two most noted and visible. These still dominate the conversation in Greensboro, and tend to get their people elected. However, these organizations are starting to show cracks. Especially in the 2009 election, when the Tea Party, organized locally as Conservatives for Guilford County (C4GC), was able to get several of its people in office. Or in 2011, when some of the African-American groups tried to unseat Councilman Jim Kee, who still won handily.

De Tocqueville worried in the mid-1800s that democracy would fall to the tyranny of the majority, that the rights of smaller groups of citizens would not be protected. In Greensboro we do see this in votes like Amendment One[our ballot initiative to amend the constitution to define marriage in North Carolina]. But what we really live in is a tyranny of the participators. Some people have outsized influence because they participate and pay attention and lobby. Others, who may have real concerns, because they fail to participate, never get heard. Some companies and groups that that employ a lot of people do not participate very much in local politics. This does not fit the definition of tyranny per se, because anyone can enter and start participating at any moment, but the political circles take effort and time to break into.

This self-selection creates some of the conundrums of connecting with voters for Mrs. Hoffmann, especially our experiment with public office hours, when we post a place and time on her Facebook for the public to come speak to her and voice their concerns. Most of the people who have something to tell city council can just pick up the phone and call Ms. Hoffmann whenever they want. She knows what they think, because they show up and tell her. So they have no need to come to the public office hours. Other people, who do not pay attention, would not know to look for Councilwoman Hoffmann’s office hours, and probably do not know their councilperson’s name. Thus, we have a huge self-selection problem. So very few people show up to have coffee with Councilwoman Hoffmann. The people who self-select to care about politics, and by extension to run for office, are not necessarily the best people to do the jobs, or lobby city council. But what should those public officials really be doing? What actions could they take to bring serious positive progress to Greensboro? Or is Greensboro okay?

To me, most of our civic issues come back to the same core: the dissolution of Greensboro’s Big Town Institutions, and debate surrounding what Small City institutions our citizens and businesspeople should create to take their place. The Big Town institutions and Big Town civil society were demolished by a one-two punch: the closure of the Big Town economic drivers, and integration.

In Richard Russo’s Empire Falls everyone in the small town of Empire Falls, Maine waits in vain for the old textile mill to open back up. It was the center of the town, and with its passing went the beating heart of livelihood in the little town. You can see that desperation in the News & Record sometimes. People imagine that some company (Dell, Citi, HondaJet) is going to come to town and employ 4,000 people. This, of course, is not going to happen. But people are upset, because the old institutions – the mills: and Jefferson Pilot – no longer exist at the scale they once did. Lorillard still makes cigarettes in Greensboro, but a few engineers run an automated factory, not thousands of people hand-rolling cigarettes.

The Performing Arts Center debate, too, has Big Town/Small City groups at odds. Some of the more progressive voices in town, and many of the Small City young people, see this as a straightforward choice between progress and stagnation. A lot of the Big Town politicians see it as West Greensboro spending money on their pet projects rather than on East Greensboro. Those Big Town politicians, however, ignore what really happened to East Greensboro.

The second blow of the one-two punch knocking out the Big Town institutions, integration, has changed much of Greensboro’s landscape. You can tell this especially in our debates about grocery stores in East Greensboro. The ones that used to be there packed up and left because some of the old, beautiful, neighborhoods around A&T that used to be Black Gentry neighborhoods have been abandoned. What were once mixed-income areas are no longer. Wealthy black families moved west or to black gentry suburbs along Alamance Church Road. Jonathan Franzen recently wrote in the New Yorker about “the obliteration of all social distinctions by money.” Many members of the Big Town power structure have a hard time accepting this. We celebrate every citizen’s ability to choose where she wants to live and go to school without fear of discrimination. Still, now that these changes have come, we must examine how to protect and reinvigorate neighborhoods left behind by social change. The old quadrants (professional white people, professional black people, working white people, and working black people) no longer apply geographically as they once did. Those raw economics, rather than public projects such as the Aquatic Center, are to blame for many of the problems in East Greensboro.

Integration has also taken a toll on two of the major institutions of East Greensboro – NC A&T State University and Bennett College. Just as wealthy African-Americans have been integrated into white neighborhoods, high-achieving black students have been integrated into white schools. We have our first black president and he went not to Morehouse and Howard Law but to Columbia and Harvard Law. The collapse of the black gentry neighborhoods and the openness of UNCG have made Bennett an ever-less appealing place to go to school. A&T has the advantage of being a state school, but I worry about its place in culture and its status among employers. NC State has the advantage in recruiting and placing the best black engineers now. We may be seeing the last generation of black leaders who were educated at HBCUs. In the face of this distress, A&T is expanding. It does still admirably serve well its function of training African-Americans in the sciences. Maybe the leadership hopes that being North Carolina’s backup engineering school will prove a worthwhile niche. Equality and choice are exactly what Jessie Jackson fought for, but it takes a toll on his alma mater NC A&T SU.

Technology, globalization, and integration have blown open the old Big Town economy and Big Town power structure. Many of the institutions that brought Greensboro through the 20th century are no more. Our town needs new ideas, entrepreneurs, and energy to be a part of the 21st century economy. Additionally, the new citizens of all types contribute to Greensboro’s energy and excitement.

We have great opportunities that come from the cracks in the Big Town power structure. Activists can get more done, because they can cross quadrants and build alliances based on common interests. They do not have to worry about angering the man who employs 15% of the town. The mill town and company town Small business owners have more of a say, and, for example, when M’Coul’s Public House worries about how noise ordinances will affect the St. Patrick’s Day party, powerful people listen.

However, the trade-off of the erosion of the Big Town structure is that civic life is ever more important. In the Performing Arts Center debate, we hear people scream, over and over, “find private funding!” These people hearken back to the Big Town days, imagining that a Joseph M. Bryan will come along and throw in $10 million and a Performing Arts Center will happen. Those days are over. Greensboro’s society grows more meritocratic and more based on activism, mutual respect, and a cosmopolitan mix of people of all sorts. Instead of living under a rich benefactor, we must come together and make public decisions of what to do with communal money. The democratic process takes longer, just ask the members of the council-appointed Performing Arts Center Task Force (full disclosure: the author’s mother is on the task force) but the process is necessary for decisions concerning large amounts of public money.

The Performing Arts Center debate, really, just illustrates the new normal in decision-making for Greensboro. Good old-fashioned community organizing will be the rule from now on to affect change in the town. It worked for the opponents of the White Street Landfill being re-opened. The Big Town people on City Council, who thought they could pit one quadrant against the others failed to see the new Small City mentality. Groups, especially the Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro, were adept at crossing quadrants, and getting people who lived far from White Street interested and activist on their neighborhood’s behalf.

To sum up, we no longer live in the Greensboro of the 60s. We see that everywhere; from how many people line up to live in CityView to political organization of night club owners. The Big Town structure endures, but in a weakened state. The power has spread to more people. The question now comes: what do the people want to do with the power? What kind of town do they want to live in? We must ask them.

Today I am sharing my space with Katie McCaskey of Urban Escapee. She and I are examining different shades of the words “rural urbanism”. Below she examines the racial element and on her blog I explore the place-related element. Enjoy!

Our rural urbanism captured my attention when I moved from New York City to Staunton, Virginia (pop. 22,000) and started an independent business.

Paradoxically, it was “rural” Staunton’s urbanism which attracted me back to it. The “Main Street” downtown is intentionally dedicated to independent businesses, and, the walkable infrastructure, free city trolley, and Amtrak access are all appealing lifestyle amenities. In fact, the infrastructure itself influenced the decision to start a neighborhood grocery; there had been such a thing at the turn of the last century and coming from New York my husband and I were spoiled by the walkable convenience of neighborhood shops. That resulted in George Bowers Grocery, which expanded last year to include a cafe/beer garden.

I’m very excited about what these pockets of “rural urbanism” can offer for our futures. In fact, I got so excited I wrote the “Micropolitan Manifesto” about the opportunities and possibilities present, especially when you factor in building your own business. But, one thing worries me:

Is it just for white people?

Of course, I don’t think so, But, I’m white, and, admittedly it didn’t cross my mind until a black friend from New York pointed out that the title of my blog and upcoming book (“Urban Escapee”) sounded like, well, “white flight”. The unspoken assumption: “By ‘urban’, don’t you mean ‘black’? And, aren’t small towns, especially small towns in the South, filled mostly with white people?” Who would build a business there?

Uh, no.

I was talking about “escaping” the constraints of big city living and, later, escaping from the notions of what is/isn’t possible in our country’s smallest urban pockets. Yet, it continued. Another reader ranted about the use of the word “pilgrim” in a quote used to describe adventurous entrepreneurship in our micropolitans.

So what’s the real problem?

I see two big issues that contribute to social misconceptions about our smallest urban centers, aka, micropolitans:

1) Diversity. Diversity has always been a part of “small town America”, but, its an identity only recently openly and honestly explored… one example is the identity series of Appalachia at TheHillville.com. Mass media culture has meant mass storytelling about our diverse geography and a bland retelling of who lives where. Only now is a wider range of experience and perspective being shared and discussed.

Moreover, at the same time our country as a whole is becoming more diversified—and this is a trend is present in micropolitans, too. See the book: “Small, Gritty, Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World” by Catherine Tumber, concerning immigrant patterns moving to smaller cities, not larger ones.

2) Opportunity. There is legitimate concern about the future of work in our smallest urban centers. Will limited jobs just go to the wealthiest and most educated? Will the telecommuting elite push out the work opportunities for those without these advantages? Or will it create jobs unattainable for current residents?

Real issue: rural gentrification?

Perhaps the fear that urbanism in its smallest (micropolitan) form is really a fear about displacement; a fear about loss. I’m in no position to speak about the loss many minority populations experienced during the “urban renewal” policies of the sixties. Yet, I’ve witnessed white populations fearfully anticipate shifts that might displace them…shifts that have to do with the changing nature of work as much as cities themselves. For example, there is much anxiety that the “come here’s” will boot out the “been here’s” when it comes to downtowns. That fear isn’t cut along racial lines as much as between socio-economic classes.

As we move into the “urban century” as Neal Peirce calls it, we need to remember two things about our micropolitans: they are increasingly diverse and their social and physical landscapes will inevitably change as does the geography of work on simultaneously global and local levels.

Katie McCaskey writes about indie entrepreneurship in micropolitan cities. Her book, “Urban Escapee: How to Ditch the Commute, Build a Business, and Revitalize Main Street” will be out later this year. Be notified about the book and micropolitan topics by subscribing here, and join the discussion on Facebook.