I wanted to drop a quick note here on the blog about city and tragedy. Really, it’s about community and tragedy, but it’s a city that was most recently hit, so that’s where I’ll start from. First of all, tragedy is an every day, every moment thing. Sometimes we get something so horrific, something that […]
During my time on campus, placemaking became more than a fantasy. It was ingrained. Let’s be honest here; if we think about how much we walked, shared things, and did all of our major business within a small set of buildings and blocks, we should all have at least some good nostalgia. In fact, I’ll […]
Many times, it is very difficult for me to feel like I make a real difference in lives by writing. Are words are what people need the most? Don’t they need action? Well, action is what they got out of me these past two weekends. On the weekend of April 20-21, 2013, a project that […]
We’ve all said it, that there’s nothing to do for black folks, certain black folks of a younger and more prosperous persuasion, in our North Carolina cities. Lately, those fears were stroked by this article, by Jarvis Holliday, in this past week’s cover story of Creative Loafing Charlotte. Dame’s is pretty cool. Is it and “cool […]
All it took in many cities for development in the old days was one man who bought up bunches of land and started building houses on it, which he turned around and put up for sale. One man. Probably white and already wealthy. Several plots of farmland. Land which used to be fields and served […]
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 […]
We talk a lot in the industry about the sense of place. But what about the sense of home? We sat in Nedra’s home in Atlanta, Atlanta proper, on the East side, and we talked about growing up southern, getting out and why we’ve come back to our homes. Also, we touch on her inspiration […]
Welcome to the blog post edition of my weekly newsletter! Right now, if you read both the email version and the blog version of this letter, you’ll notice that things are slightly different. Namely this opening section and a few other things, like typos, misspellings, wrong information (like the fact that June 1 is midpoint […]
You can do this thing called life and you can do it in whatever city you need to as a young black professional. Why and how? I am. You may remember I asked this question of myself and of my home state back in 2014. What does one need to do to find belonging and […]
Kristen Jeffers writing at Union Station in Kansas City, MO, Spring 2016 Have you ever wondered how a person becomes involved in the world of placemaking and development as a career? Is it just people buying up properties to manage and flip? Is it just people being city planners, working in their city’s zoning or […]
Templestowe Farmers Market via Wikimedia Commons Placemaking is not just creating experiences, but pushing for necessary services and goods to be purchased as close as possible to home. What kind of places then, do we all want to shop at, at least those of us who are concerned with the effects of sprawl, fair labor, […]
Working diligently at CNU 19 back in 2011, my first major industry conference I spoke at. Photo by Sharon McMillan. Hey everyone and welcome to November 2014! November 1 means that we are 30 days from the launch of my book, A Black Urbanist, and we are six weeks from my birthday! In honor of […]
Trigger warning for discussion of depression and how folks cope with it, namely me. Those of you who have followed my work over the years know that I’m no stranger to the struggles of anxiety and depression. Or maybe you didn’t know and wondered why I would disappear offline for weeks. Why I’m not at […]
Tail of the Dragon near Deals Gap, NC./ Wikipedia For the holiday, I went to my grandmother’s house in rural Alamance County for dinner and family time. I’ve written about making the drive before, but this time I want to focus on the areas of curved roads that I encounter on the route. I’ve driven […]
