A Black Urbanist Journey to an Accessible Queer Feminist Future

On the park bench presents interactive conversations with thought leaders in your organism and allied industries. Providing an opportunity for the audience to engage in real time. The webinar series is a platform for C new members to engage, debate, and collaborate on pressing issues of the day. Please, we're pleased that you're here to join us for today's webinar. A black urbanist journey to an accessible queer feminist future. With Kristen Jeffers and Desiree Powell. And if you have thoughts, you can share them on hashtag on the Park Bench at WWW. Dot tiny url.com slash OTPB feedback. And be sure to join us for upcoming on the Park Bench webinars. You can join us next Tuesday, October, the seventeenth for author's forum, fragile neighborhoods with author Seth Kaplan who wrote fragile neighborhoods preparing a American society one zip code at a time with Rob Studeville as the moderator. And on Tuesday, November 20 eighth, you can join. As for Authors Forum, Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation with Danielle Aragoni, who will discuss her new book on how communities with aging populations can prepare for climate change. And I will be moderating that presentation. And you can register online for both of these webinars at CNU. Org slash resources slash on the park bench. And do not forget about seeing you membership on the park bench is made possible thanks to membership support and October is membership month at CNU. Thank you. To our CNU members for joining us on today's webinar. If you're not yet a senior member, membership offers the opportunity to join an interdisciplinary network of new urbanist practitioners across sectors, professions, and geography. You can learn more about membership benefits at members. CNU. Org. And please be sure to save the date. For a 30 s annual congress. See you in you. 32 will be in Cincinnati, Ohio. On May fifteenth through eighteenth, 2,024. This is the premier national event bringing together policymakers, planners, urban designers, developers, advocates, and more to engage with the trends. And challenges related to building community. You can learn [email protected] slash seeing you 32. And now for today's webinar. Kristen Jeffers was one of the first people to bring the concept of black urbanism to the internet and social media in 2,010 by purchasing and launching the black urbanist which is now in its thirteenth year. And can to be a resource for black urbanism at the intersection of feminism, disability, and queer trans life. She is the author of the forthcoming, A Black Urbanist Journey to an Accessible Queer Feminist Future, a memoir and manifesto for a black queer feminist. For black queer feminist accessible urbanism. She also has a regular, she also has a master class and writes a regular newsletter on sub stack called the Black Urbanist Weekly. Finally, under the banner of Chris Pattern, she shares her own journey into a sustainable fashion. And invites others to do the same. A sought after public speaker and workshop leader. She resides in the district of Columbia with her partner and fellow black clear feminist urbanist Les Henderson and was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. And Desiree D Powell is the programs coordinator at CNU. She is an urban designer in her own plan urban planning design firm DR BPTS. Do right by the streets. Which focuses on place keeping as a tool to implement temporary to permanent space activation projects in communities of color. That's a centers her work from her lived experience as a black woman along with impacts of music, street wear, and sport. She's a lover of sports and being active. Coffee and writing whenever she can. And I'm Lorne Mayor, Communications Manager at CNU. As a reminder, please use the QA function to ask questions as they occur to you. Let's go ahead and start today's webinar, Kristen over to you. Okay. It's been so we've been doing this for so long, not forget on me. The more, well, good morning to Sam and good afternoon to others. Once again, Kristen Jeffers really happy to be here today. Of course, happy to do this with you. This is really, really awesome. So. I guess I'll throw a few slides up here, the kind of talk room kind of what I've been thinking about. So. Those of you who have been following what I've been doing for all these years. Some of this is going to sound familiar, but if you really been following me. Through the last. Let me think out of that. Let's see. I guess you just get up and hear this. And let me just refresh the supply page and it will get started with my thoughts. Oh, what I've been calling a black person and a successful urbanism. I mean, it has been a journey. It is a journey like no like every other. Journey into, creating community. And yeah. Here we go. It's still. Alright, so yeah, this is how you can contact me. Those many of you that follow me on various social media networks, there's at. I'm on LinkedIn with my given name, you can email me and go by that on the website. And sub stack is the best place to find what's now the black over this model. So, and yes, here I am again. I have I love working with my home state but I also love being a district resident and part of that is because This is truly allowed. With all these intersecting identities to choose these other places. I also don't mind bringing everything to the table because it does matter. And my life, it's not. Over these last 13 years I've been through various iterations of my planning practice, my communication work, working with our communities. As well as living within my family networks and with my partner and there's been so much that I've cleaned from. Just living as a person in the world. And so I like to say professionally that this is how I started, but yes, absolutely. The DC Metro map and a lot of maps. My dad, he wanted his only child, only daughter to make sure that he, I always knew where to go. I always knew how to get some. And so he would bring home these maps and then. I developed a love for those paper maps. That were still being issued in the early nineties. And so over time, I realize, okay, this could be a professional thing, but. Let's the odds. For me, I want my child at the Sesame Street generation. I would say I'm probably of the like second wave of Sesame Street. The eighties and nineties is that core, that I remembered and for the longest time I didn't understand what kind of community I lived in and that Greensboro, North Carolina is one key example. Mid sized southern city because it didn't look exactly like the Brooklyn that was on the in Petrae or Bronx or whichever New York world that was being portrayed on Sesame Street. And of course, I found this image on Google. I really love this because I actually do go to this Safeway in DC. I would have been thrilled to be in there that day. It's not actually my closest safety, but this is pretty much. Where I go to the store now and between Sesame Street and also, and of course their whole mission of Sesame Street targeting black and Latina cultures in New York City and of course globally around the world really working to. Meet children and their families where they were as far as like where their communities were and what they needed. And so that's what I try to do in this urbanism and planning practice. But of course. As I mentioned, just mentioned very different world outside of my way. This is a grocery store that was built just 30 years ago But bye. 20 years into his life cycle was already closed has been various like furniture wholesale, but. This is a supermarket. We've had supermarket chains move completely leave town and I really wanted to show you all this jet and I'm gonna kind of talk over this. That these are and this is pretty much our city limit. It's been the city limits. There are a few extra like annexations. We those of you who are familiar with Greensboro, we just opened a kind of finished opening. But you're seeing how. Grocery stores expanded. From downtown Greensboro. And over the years. We created kind of suburbanizing virus. So by the time I was born in 1,985 This is the Greensboro I knew. Malls. . Downtown. It was still not happening. Yes, we were also still had a lot of furniture and text top reduction. That's what pays the bills. We were also still had a lot of furniture and text top reduction. That's what pays the bills. That's what built our buildings. And yes, as you're seeing the spread out, you're also seeing a degree of white flight. And you're also, if I were to up if. If, David were to update this map, what you hand through a few years ago. And if you do this, if you were to look at this on Google Max and look for those. . You would see even less stores kinda on the eastern side and also you might notice that our city limits relative to where our downtown is and. I might be able to. Yeah, I think I can actually draw on this. So roughly this is kind of There are favorite quarter is Battleground Avenue. This is basically kind of the dividing line the historic racial dividing line of greensboro So you can kind of see. And so. Okay, I focus on a lot of the things that are. Relevant to hopefully this line. Oh dear, let me. Erase that line as we go forward because like basically The next thing I want to talk about is that where housing was in Greenville and just how And those of you who read this week's newsletter, I've mentioned, how These Smith homes, this Greensville housing project was built for white families. Then it became a black family, then we bought a home on a few, blocks down, which is on. My next slide, so I'll just go ahead and advance to. And yeah, this is the street. This is just right down the street. This is the street that I rode my bike on. This is the street. Like we will walk around the corner. We also had a, And by the time I was growing up on this street. That grocery store was a nightclub. And so these were I was starting to notice a lot of spatial things. I was also starting to notice like how much housing was, how much my parents And so, and of course now, that The house of my mother isn't currently near one of our enclosed shopping malls. Not the preferred enclosed shopping mall. Getting all the housing This is how you're getting into small scale development. But there are so there are a lot of equity issues and doing this kind of work. Working with communities for housing is something that I, 100% believe should be in tandem. Because it is very annoying to get these texts to think about a place where we're trying to establish. Things that people say they want us to establish like generational wealth and the American dream and stability and all those things. Yeah, even in places that honest deaths. We're getting these kinds of, and so then there's my own story, you know, and within the past year or so my partner and I because This is our, as of like this week today, we've been together for 5 years. And so we're at the point where we're thinking, well, what do we want to do long time? We both love DC. We both love our work and transportation and outreach and community development. Well, what are we, what are we going to do? Because now that we're ready. Now that we have the finances, we're running into a different market. But. There is a silver lining. We, those of you who've been keeping up, know that we recently were able to take advantage of the District of Columbia's inclusionary zoning program. And come to the district wharf as part of one of their buildings where they are doing. Sliding scale. For rent and everything. So we live in a very diverse building. Economically, racially, we were not the only clear couple in the building. We're definitely not the only black couple in the building. And of course, if you haven't been to the district work, you should come and see us, those of us who live in DC, we know. And even when I came in, from being down and rings for over the weekend, I came in on Sunday night with the holiday weekend. Areas like the district war across the DC region and of course the country are those kinds of areas that are holding on to value that are vibrant that have because they have all the resources they're not having the same problems that are downtown. So, and of course, I still, as much as I've had it, As much as I've been able to move around the country, all the places I'm with are the places I've worked, you know, many of you are watching this or maybe watching this on repeat who have followed me various places. Some of you are not even up the date over like where I'm at because I. Pop up and I'm here. I'm there. I'm speaking there. I'm on your virtual screen. And I'm often and especially within the last these last years since we've been dealing with the onset of COVID-19 and other major pandemics as well as just seeing that economic and also the racial justice things is brought up. It's really made me think a lot about how advantage I am to be able to do the work that I do. And I really wanted to start putting that into a framework. Especially as I saw how lesson world was different as I look at my mom's world as I look at other people that I love in my family as I even try to explain what I do. To my family, which is still a slight mystery. So I wanted to have. As we go into this next phase, kinda like many of our colleagues like. Jonathan Pachale Bell, of course, D herself and so many others and of course we all just had the, session with Silver about talking about. Community harms and also how we do this work in tandem so that we know what people need and want and we can come to a consensus on how that works. And so the course, why does this matter? Within the last few weeks, especially since I've moved into this apartment. Things have really come together, cause for the longest time it was like, okay. Is this urbanism really work for me anymore? I know who I am. I know what I've branded myself as over these past 13 years. But You know what? And of course, those, you know, my yard company, I'm like, maybe I should just go and get that go and down with it. But. Let's see here, I think. Okay, this is Okay, this is a different version. Let me, I'm gonna switch over and share with you. Give me one moment. I'm gonna switch over and share with you. That's the long version of this theory, but I really wanted a 0 in today. On. Some other key elements. And of course, go ahead and kind of get your questions together around a lot of this because we are definitely. There's definitely a lot more to like explore with all of this. So let me. I'm going to pull up. My short version here for you all. Leon. And One thing I will say while we're doing this today just. It is, it is key to be flexible, with. All this work that we're doing. And I think one of the things ways I've been able to be flexible over the years is one of one of the key ways I had started doing this work was on the campaign trip. Alright, so. Let us get to. Yeah, now this is the question I wanna ask today. So. I've been able to make this choice. Somehow, some way not just make the choice but the resources have been able to come to me. Literally within the last year. Literally within the last few months, literally working together, being in a being in a partnership because yet. I wanted us to think about how that's looking for some of our single adults. Thinking for, people who have multiple generational families. So I'm gonna kinda bring in some examples of that on why. We still have struggles. With choosing the serving places, both myself and others that I know that have a lot of the same identity markets. So key thing is affordability. I pulled so many like economic stats to prepare for this today, but I really just wanted to kind of center in. So if you are working 7, $17 an hour is now our new minimum wage floor. You do the math on that, 40 h week, you work, you know, 5 days a week or so. We're still talking netting $2,300 a month. I'm happy to share, you know, that we're running at 2,000, you know, average rent in BC, know that that's much higher. At this point, you're not getting in a neighborhood like this. Under $2,000 and that's even in other metro areas. If I were to kind of be making this decision at home in Greensboro. I would be looking at 1,500 and of course we have an even lower minimum wage. Hi, digging into what the numbers look like. Doing the map on how many. People that US Census has. Identifies as flat. We're also getting more detailed numbers on folks who are disabled. Who are of the LGBT community who are. You know, thing, IN identified and when you do those numbers and you think about days that we celebrate like equal pay day, Black. Equal payday, Latin, they, people paid it. We're in Latin A, History Month. Yes, there was. People's Day just thinking about all those times we pause and we honor all of our different groups. And then we think about what. Their economic struggles. And even if you are making there's also internal things there's you know proving yourself. . There's Wendy the structure is it is that money coming from overtime are you on commission? We've been in this in a situation where commission dollars have it have scared away people. As a small business owner who operates on a profit and loss statement. And of course, you see me, you're like, yeah, of course, Kristen, we love you. We would love to have you as a neighbor, but. Many management companies will look at what I've actually brought into the door, even I'm very resourceful. It's still not enough and a lot of us are facing that, especially in this pre post. I won't say post COVID because for me it's not gonna be post COVID but close on set of COVID rental, the environment of commercial and residential. And of course, many of you are like, well, yeah, that's just how prices out. But I'll get to that. In just a moment. And then caretaker. So. This is one example. One that if we have special things. And we would not still be here, especially with the way. This onset of COVID has affected us in our household without that access to. We live in a in the district of Columbia, the access to emergency rooms. The maternal mortality rate. All of those things are very real and very much effective of how we are seen. You know, we're still when we go to the doctor, we're still 2 black women at the doctor. And in her case, she's a gender not performing person at the doctor. There are a lot of things that go on and right now. Being able to have a personal vehicle and of course if transit was stronger we use that we use that as much as we can but emergency room at 3 am and metro is not there. What are we gonna do? Even and sometimes even, can be a little spotty at that hour as well, especially in and of course if you're outside of DC that's that hour as well, especially in and of course if you're outside of DC that's kind of a give it. And then even in this wonderful building. This building does not have 3 bedroom mutes. It only has studios, ones and 2 beds. And so. I'm excited to see the advent of places, thinking about grand families. But that's not so much a policy thing, but there are multi-generational families. I know a lot of attention was paid to that during the time when we were really harping on social distancing, but. This is this is reality. These are the families and this is what they look like. What are we planning to do if we can do the student units with the 4 and 5 bedrooms? Why not think about that for our families? We will have to address that, especially as the market starts to look very differently. And if we get down into you have someone like me in your neighborhood and you love them and they're great and then one day you see the new hall and you're like, well, where are you going? Well, Our mothers need care and there's no room and we looked and there were only a handful of 3 bedrooms available. But they keep building all the production town houses further and further away. We've done our best to get stay near Metro, but we had to make this choice. And then of course agriculture in general. I love my young community. I love farm fresh food. I'm effectively, I'm the first generation in my family to truly live. In a city like myself and my cousins were the first ones to live more in suburban and even dense urban environments. We know the power of being able to have. The food and the and the clothing and all these raw goods available to us. We all love our farmers. But where where do they come from? Many of those people do need acreage of land to be able to do what they are doing. Now, of course, this is a seeming webinar and of course many of you have read agrarian urbanism so I don't have I know I'm preaching to that choir but for many others who may be watching this video, keep in mind how are we balancing agriculture needs, not just in urban agriculture schemes, but people who do need connection and need access to things and access to the market. Like the classic market to table. Farm the table, cycle. So there are some people who are. And who are in need of. Having it because they use it they use it to make our communities run and likewise during the onset of COVID-19 when we were scrambling for hand sanitizer. Respirators, tests. You know getting to the hospital like how we many of us learn oh Well, we don't make this nearby anymore. And then even the warehouse is a long way away. And for me this isn't like bashing anyone in any other country. I think everybody should have the opportunity to make the things that they need and then we trade and we share just like. I love going to yarn festivals and even though it's all yarn, some of the dice are the same. Just that joy of. Embracing the art artistry of people. And so As, those of you as planners, place makers, I wanna, kinda get us and we're gonna kinda go into our question period here. Just let's think long and hard about what it means to provide equitable and just economic opportunities. Yes, for some of us that's going to mean and a temporary hit. And even now in my position, there are times when I, as much as I can, I'm donating to the Gofundme means just for many folks in our in our LGBTQ community and the black community. Those little fund means and all those fundraisers are the difference between just being in a place or even thinking about like opportunities. Imagine what would happen if we didn't have to have folks. Always having to crowdfront and fundraise. Imagine what it would be like if we had a market that was. Yeah, luxury items and maybe you make your money on the luxury items just like the person upstairs for me pays I think about $7,000 to live here but others pay different and we we balanced that out. How can we, how can we get these balance sheets penciling out and how can we those of us who have had the means and the access to means and resources. Be more willing to share and make it work for everybody. And then of course infrastructure. We're a long past needing 24 h metro systems. I'm excited that we're gonna get a night bus, but definitely the train overnight. I'm track overnight. Access to food. The cities that they're looking into creating city run grocery stores and farmers markets just so that can be provided. All of us who are dealing with our folks who are under house, on house, and the benefit of being able to live some like. I've been there, like I've been there where I've been like. Eating like beanies and weenies. That's what we always said. Beanies and weenies are something else or, you know, I have friends who help me crowds serve. I've had to purge things like just But knowing that we have the infrastructure is there knowing the housing is needed where it's needed. Yes, building more housing is needed and it doesn't it can be everywhere and there are all types of options. We can do that. We have to do that. Because even though I'm having this conversation with you today. So many others are having this conversation with us. And what they're looking at is I need I need transportation. I need a house. I need health care. I need to feed my children. My children need a school that loves and cares about them. And that gets into this last bullet and my last call. For you all and what I think is key. We need that trust level. When buildings like. Coming in and saying we're going to build a building in the community, especially in the communities wanted a new building, but then all of a sudden it seems like it's only gonna happen because of the new economic opportunity. Of course, that's going to hurt. You know, people feeling like they can't take public transportation because they're afraid of street harassment like There it is it takes it There is a saying, I would say it a lot in the black community especially takes ability to raise a child and it takes a village to be people. Like I'm gonna add to that. It takes a village and I look at my urbanism work. I look at this black perfume and it's accessible urbanism as a village effort, you know. People who use mobility devices, people who have different like. Brain process. You know, everything's skinned tones, gender presentations. We all were all humans. And we deserve to be here and. Of course, we're thinking about like global conflicts for what if we gave each other tools to give each other the benefit, about care about each other, love each other. I mean really at the end of the day and a lot of my work is so anecdotal because I want us as we're crunching these numbers as we are looking at this data. To not be afraid to, be compassionate. So. I'm just gonna throw my information back here. I'm gonna drop share and alright. It is your turn to ask. All the questions. Thank you so much. Before I Let lose, selfishly. First I wanna say again, thank you very grateful that we finally gonna have this conversation. Very timely, very. Very long overdue. And as, as myself, as a follower for quite some time, it has been an inspiration to be in this space and exist in the space. Only as a by person, but, as a black person, so. For me to you, but I tell you this all the time, thank you. I really appreciate it. Before I open up the Q&A you answered most of the question that we went over so I'm only gonna add ask my questions. Okay. And it's the one that as my career is changing and progressing, I ask myself often and that I try to put in the forefront of the work that I'm doing. What does the black urbanism actually look like to you when we talk about choice and accessibility? Through whatever means that may be. What does black urban urbanism really look like? Well, I always like to say that we're not a monolith. But we in a world where the earth is telling us, hey, don't keep drilling in me too much. Hey, you're gonna keep getting me storms. You know, you do what you want to do, but there are limits if you want to actually stay on me and thrive on. So yeah, when I take it back to what it means to be black and in urbanism is really just making sure. That We honor like ourselves, like. You know, there's been all this energy about, especially there's this aspiration that we don't live in apartments that we don't live in town. I mean, we were forced into those housing projects and then they were underfunded and it that's that kind of put a sour taste. You know, the heavy days of drug use and then of course now we're going through a time where so many people. Don't have other options besides violence and it's scaring people away from sometimes coming to downtown areas. I mean, we got all these calls from people who are like, are you sure you want to move back in space? You know, even further out into NG, you know, there's, there's, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a lesbian couple there, we'll introduce you and you can be friends, but. The thing is like For the climate. And I look at to me it's that rule and urban, it's that trans. It's. Some of that intermediate stuff got weird. You know, when I go back to the community I grew up in and grew up around. I look at how even though we had property and we had farms and land. And we had all different kind of houses. We still came together. We had the church community and of course, you know, faith is a can be a touchy subject but we had somewhere to gather. Of course, a lot of the people wanted and we had different, we had different faith houses, but we had for them and then we had markets and they they were on a circuit and they came together and they found ways to come together. I feel like so much of our urbanism practice is like coming together no matter what. No matter the form, making the form work for us, but It is nice when you don't have to cross 4 lines of traffic. It is nice when the train works. It is nice when the food is like there and it works and the store is there and the kids can go to school, they can go to the playground, they can explore for themselves. What is through the fields or whether they're walking at home and then there's folks that are around and they look down and they and they're in this they have a spirit of wanting to help people. So that to me is what that looks like. It doesn't necessarily look like a certain image. But it's respecting what's there and it's also respecting the humanity. It's called, it's even also calling out like. Internal family complex is calling out like. Even some forms will really to me all of those black capitalism. I believe in black commerce. I believe in us having. Trading goods and services, but. When you are like excited that you got all these people in your and you're the one paying them 0. And then you're this person and you're the picture of black, black urbanism when people are getting so excited about how many properties they you can rent and everything, but. It's people living in tents and that's not where they want to be. It's people struggling. Then to me it's really taking those resources. And putting them together and meeting people where they are. Like it's okay. You have cousins that want to go down. In my case, like I would, they don't all, most of my cousins, I have some cousins that live here. So I'll use the ones that live here in DC. So I would meet them at Ranch Avenue Metro Station. We would go up together if they wanted to use Matt Charlie, explain to them, you know, use your phone now you tapping. Oh yeah, and that's right. You have you been to the warp. Now you see it. Oh yeah, and that's right. You, you've been to the warp. Now you see it. Oh, wait. Yeah, you've been to the war. Now you see it. Oh, wait. Yeah, you can take both Alexandria. Isn't that so much fun? Isn't that exciting? Like, yeah, that's on the mall. Yeah, we got a sneaker store here now. Yeah, we got Shake Shack. Yeah, this, this whole foods is clean and ain't going nowhere. So really just bringing that joy back into the things that we thought weren't ours. Taking up space and being there and to me that's what that is. I know what it is for me personally is like. Living in dense spaces living in a diverse neighborhood, walking to the store, going to the concerts. It's a little bit different for everybody else, but the key is with climate change, we've got to think about. That question for everybody. For sure. That's, you know, it's a phenomenal, something that we talk about a lot, so I'm really happy that other people got to hear. Okay. The breadth of what that looks like because as you mentioned it does but people are not on monolith so it looks different. Really for every black person from like not even from region or region just from like the person sitting next to you at the light or in. Yes. . So thank you. I don't know. I didn't formally announce it, but the question of Q&A is open, so please try to put all your questions in the Q&A chat. We have a couple, so I will. I will just start off with the first one. From Mike Farley, he says, I recently worked with an department developer who had 200 plus units none of which were over 2 bedrooms. I was told that there wasn't a market for 3. For 3 bedroom apartments. How do I convince future developers that there is a market? For your example. Gosh, I think we gotta think. We're so focused on market. But we're doing service work. When we're talking about housing people, but we've been looking at that market frame for so long. Yes, there is an opportunity to make money building homes. But it isn't necessarily gonna match up at what people need. There will always be a need. And I think some developers know that and they're planning around that and we have a large cadre of developers who are trying their best to work with. Funding, federal funding, state funding, as well as even some major corporations that understand housing people is gonna build their workforce and allow them to come to the workforce. But others really it's It's another investment opportunity and honestly I think We need to be mindful when we are looking at embedding developers. Do they under, are they there to help? Are they developing because they're building a community? Or is this another investment scheme for them? And then of course even tell them, hey, Real estate isn't necessarily the best investment. There are other ways to invest. If you're just here for the money. Maybe considered a stock market. Maybe to look into commercial, but then don't look into commercial too much because we want services. We don't want you sitting with vacant real estate like. That whole scheme that some of these drug stores have started where they're just paying the rent for the to be vacant. That's not cool either. Like that's not helpful. Find another place to put your money in. And then if you don't, if you're no longer interested in building homes and creating a home structure. Then. Then maybe get out of the business. But then those of you who are interested in building homes, yes, it is that is possible. This is where we start going to. To our governments. Emphasizing that this is something that we need that there is a critical mass and we get creative and we find those resources and we ourselves when we are resourced. We get ready and we say okay well how can I be a resource even if I don't have the money how can I walk people through the housing services but I will say right now it is very helpful. It has been very helpful to have. The kinds of resources we have and be seen. But it's not necessarily a market and I think we gotta be. Prepared for what it means to not provide housing as a market but housing as a human right as a need. For sure. I hope that started to answer your question. But, the next question, was, what are some examples of truly equitable development in your perspective? Do any cities or neighborhoods in the states serve as good examples? I mean, I'm a little biased right now. Now, granted, we just moved here a month ago, but literally to be in a building that ranges from 30 to 120 beyond AMI. And we still, nobody is hurting each other. Everything looks great. And one of the things I do like about being at District Warf is one, you know, this was something that it was. It was a waterfall. And yes, we do have our environmental piece, but that was considered. We may not be here forever, but at least right now we were utilizing this land. When we go to shop there are multiple options if anything it's just people get here and realize, okay. This is it. I'm not necessarily into being in business and being in a community. I want to go somewhere else. But I like what was done. I like the care that was taken. Some of the restaurants that have advertised our $10 meals are no longer on on the world's website but there was a lot of care taken in this particular neighborhood. And of course, there's been a lot of tours. There's been a lot of CNN tours. Of course, the people that are involved in seeing you in ULI that talk through the reasoning behind this. But of course, and then there's also a lot more affordable, like, 100% affordable buildings. But one of the things that is missing is we don't see enough of folks affordable. For folks who are still understanding what that terminology means and you're coming to this webinar and you're like, oh, I don't understand the We are here in DC. We're right at 100,000 $100,000 as. Hello, a little bit, maybe a little bit more. So if you do the math, 30% is literally $30,000. And so there are folks who are in that still even with the minimum wage for growing, but they're still built to even lower minimum wages, contractors. Commission-based people. And still, where are they going to live? Plus, once you start adding household members, children. Okay. Maybe other family members that you need to care for. Those AMIs change. And so I am seeing the the seeds. So what works? But I want us to continue to do more and I want more places to be comfortable with. Giving, giving a person maybe an opportunity to pay like. The top dollar. And I want that person that lives upstairs to know that just because some of us aren't hanging as much as them. We're still good neighbors. And if you're running a company where you decided to pay us less than what it takes to live in here. Maybe reconsider that. Like, because I just. For me, it's like I keep harping on that we have to change the parent. Yes, especially now that we've lived through a major societal shift. So many of us would not be sitting here today have we not made changes at the onset of COVID. 19. So we're still in that phase where we're still figuring out what those changes need to be. We're only 3 years in. We're still learning things about what the illness does. We're also learning things about what that means for families and for ourselves and how we're functioning. So. I'm gonna say that where I live right now is a good example. But I'm gonna continue to put that little nugget in. That we have to continue to do the hard work. Of creating new examples. And some of that may require some sacrifice, but it will pay back. And it is vibrant. When I when I walk down here, when I walk downstairs and I see all these people here using this neighborhood. It's worth it. When I saw at it, upwards until 100'clock last night on Sunday night because we had the day off and on Saturday night it's worked. So clearly people want these neighborhoods. The thing is, are we ready to meet them wherever they are so we can meet them or what? Very cool. Hope that answered your question. In the most thorough way possible but also like I think everybody's gonna be biased to like what makes a good dense urban environment, and especially as you have the opportunity to live in one. We got a couple like 5 questions in the chat, so I wanna make sure that I can get to all of them. So we got like 15 min left. So if we go over a little bit. I wanna be mindful of your time and everybody else is just putting that out there. The next question. What are some solutions that you would be addressing in your upcoming book, a black urbanist journey to an accessible query. Well, really just I'm gonna get I'm gonna this is gonna be like I've been anecdotal today. I've been throwing a few stats in there. But I'm gonna be bringing some of those stats you see around like maternal mortality, like how many disabled folks are there, like how many the states where queer folks are facing laws and rules and everything from the DAVs decision. I'm bringing that into this urban planning context. There are folks who are not going to be able to live in your state anymore. Even after you've done the incentives like paying them to live there or you might have to create a fortress around them, which of course is not going to necessarily create a community because it's going to be walled off. So I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to go into more detail over like my journey. Okay. Yes, I benefited from parents who had access to like a credit union who worked for a school system. Who grew up on farms and that nobody was looking at us twice for being black folks with farms. And getting through things like air property and all those things and then. Yeah, there's there's gonna be even more stories. There's gonna be even more data. And it's really gonna get back to. Okay. If you're sitting in front of your black colleague who you might have thought wasn't paying attention, you might have thought that they just sitting in accounts payable and they're excited to get their paycheck but What kind of city are they imagining in their heads? Like. Some of us I know are kind of been especially around this I would say the casino debate that's one thing that's like key because I know so many people like having that as a part of their city is a thing. How do we balance that with? The potentialities of like negative externalities. But then again, we have beer gardens, not everybody can handle being at the beer garden. I really want to parse through some of those things and I really want to take some of our urbanism gospel. And really run it through, okay, well what if I was looking and what if like my mom and my cousins and other people that are very different from me were living this and what would they? Very cool. Very excited about the book coming out. The next question is, is an interesting one. So, I know it's still be hard to be brief, but just so we can get to the other ones, but, any thoughts on seeing you as a platform to discuss like urban issues? I mean, for me, and this is my thirteenth year of being involved, and generally, up there having ups and downs. Those of you know that seen me there and not see me come back. But we allow debate in a way that some of the other places don't. We allow wild ideas in a way that some of the other places don't like of course you need your building to stand. So AI standards are important. All the engineering standards are important. Even with APA and planning, there are certain things that are important, especially when you're dealing with a zoning code and acting a zoning code that you're being given. Even but. Here at CNU and it's you just get to show up. You put an idea on the table. And then you have a lot of passionate people that will walk you through your idea. And then I've been able to watch over time. Things that we had on napkins, things that we dreamed about, things that we hope for. Coming true. And so really it's just staying, definitely want to state the course. Now I will say this to anybody coming that is black and also shares. You do have to be willing to stand your ground. I know especially if you're going on behalf of your job may not want to present a certain but find your people. They do exist. You're seeing some of them right now. Find them, find us in a safe space and like be find that safe space so you can have a safe space so you can have those conversations because it's dreaming is vital and everybody in. This is dreaming is vital and everybody in feminist studies has been talking about dreaming is vital and everybody in feminist studies has been talking about dreaming and rest is resistance we need a year too So that seeing you has the nuggets and the in. Framework and the opportunity to do that. If anything, we just need to continue to value that as a collective. 1,000% that's not just being vice because I'm having to be a black person that works at CNU but It is, it is a good. A good platform and a good place, really start to talk about those conversations. Broadly and even in some like niche. Directions of how to see and you fit into this mode of black urbanism. And Challenge is facing by communities and towns. Next question is, this is going back to what you stated about, the market and what that looks like and what the market may be. So given that, how do you convince government agencies like CRAs, public officials, etc, to focus less on the market when they're so anxious about economic development. They seem so hesitant to push back against developers. And I would say this is in like in. Expose to previous question about like building 3 bedroom apartments or Basically, residents defining the market like housing is a is not a tool of. Profit rather. Something that people That's why. I think, I think we have to not be afraid. Now, yeah, there's very real things that happen, especially in smaller communities. When you're the one person championing these changes. And it becomes a safety issue for you and your family to state it. First and foremost, we need to be able to have that conversation without threatening. Livelihood. Secondly, we need to start. Like building up that political education and that capacity. And learning what it really takes. Like. I think about how people used to like barn raise where they would come and build places for you. Of course we do that a little bit on the small scale at building IKEA furniture. So okay. I think we should take that opportunity. Especially our libraries are open. Our libraries are often there to support us with finding information out of course some other libraries now are trying to ban books but there are others that are not and many of them are available online. Really like girding yourself with enough knowledge so that when you get ready to go to city council, especially city councils that are very Tom, and like. I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear your tone. Why can't you not? Why can't you wear a suit? Why'd you show up in your t-shirt? Why did you bring all these people? Why did you bring a banner? But bringing and continuing bringing the facts. The numbers, the benefits. And also maybe it might be time for you to be the one. But once again, it gets back to my first thought of. Make sure that you have the support system. Get people that know you and will know you whether or not you're like commission or whatever, whomever. Find those people that are good to grant writing like find your and of course I come from church. I'm like find your ministry, find your specialty in this. So that if it's you're supporting someone going to city council. Or if you're doing all the number crunching or you're getting people to come and testify, you're building that base or if you had to kind of go underground or if you had to find other communities. Continuing to build that community as well as building that. I hate to say war chess, but we are dealing with some situations where violence is happening. In the cases of asking for these things. But at the end of the day, making sure that you do your self care practice. So if it is gonna be you running for city council or zoning commissioner or. Getting more education so that you can become this person or in my case for those of you who know my story and watch my story, it was me writing my blog. It was me every once in a while going to city council. It was me saying, okay, I'm going to go to another city. I love my hometown, but I'm gonna go to another city and I'm gonna be in community with these people. And I'm gonna check in every once in a while. I'm gonna check in with my family. I'm gonna come and visit. I'm gonna make myself mobile. I'm not going to be afraid of the people who say well you gotta be a martyr for your community because at the end of the day there that is a commonality that we're all. That's kind of my advice is really I'm the person that's like helping you get your personal mindset ready. And finding your friends and getting more education. And then when you come into those rooms. We're having to convince people. You try to convince me, or that doesn't work, and you create our apparatus to become the people. Hands down. And if that doesn't work. Then you do it somewhere else so at least you haven't that work isn't in bank because it's somebody on this earth that needs what you had to offer. We are still critical mass and unique. We're not on the same place. Oh, definitely. So we got like 5 min left. I will say the questions that are in the QA right now will probably be the last one. Okay. So I'll do my best with Kristen to. Get through them as best way. Quickly and as concisely as possible. Next question is how do you respond to folks who see urbanism as inherently white and hostile to black neighborhoods? Yeah. Well, Show up first of all examine yourself and make sure that you're not still holding onto some internalized things. Like. Is that whole same argument where people tried to claim education was white and certain music was white. Especially like a good place to start when you read music history, American music history. Even as specialist controversy with Rolling Stone magazine. You see that there's evidence. W. B. Dubois going all the way back and reading about him and others who are doing sociology of urban places and reading about the people who were in positions where they were developing land and in commissions of during reconstruction. Reading about those ancestors and elders helps you root yourself in that some of these things didn't just show up. After the civil rights so that you know for yourself, okay. I have ancestors and maybe as you're doing your genealogy you might find family. Now that might be a little bit more. Of an emotional journey. But historical figures, we've been here, we've been there. And then it comes to having those conversations and like I was mentioned before. You know, maybe take your friends out for a kickback. Find a nice little like bar district and then point out hey we're still here like I love I have I'm happy to share with people this is how we got where we were this we're happy to help you connect with the agencies. This is a good agency. This isn't the greatest agency. It's really taking the things that we want to do. Like I love doing this. And I know what I see in the mirror every day. And I also continue to ask myself, am I showing up? For people. Am I showing up for myself? Am I working on my anti-black? And so that way that kind of like burns everything else then when it comes to oh am I. Is, is urbanism inheriting white. If anything, it's like a lot of everything else in America. We were brought here to make it and then we were demonized and making it. And of course we were place folks who had civilizations and it was supposed to pretend that that didn't happen. But knowing all that history and rooting in that all that history, that positive history. Then you can go forward and create those new paradigms and these new ideas. I mean, organisms just one word. You know, there's other words for the thing that is really creating the community. Well, I don't know. Thank you. Thank you for the question also. Nice question. Yeah. If you have to pick just one improvement to Washington's transit to make it more accessible to quibble like individuals, what would you approve? I really want us to figure out how we can subsidize the entire system without making this a thing about fair gates and fares and everything else. I want us even it and I want us to figure out that okay if the government's not gonna be our main transit customer. Who else is it going to be? Who else could put it? Like when the teams play for extra, stuff when Beyonce paid for extra service, how can we leverage like if we are going to be in a semicapolistic environment, how can we leverage these people with a few extra coins to offset the need for people to have the need to that need access to the system. We're not demon those that need access to the system. But may not have the money today. And we're not demonizing our youth who may not remember to bring their cars today. And we're getting that capital budget together. And we're getting at 24 h service. So really It's really thinking about how we find new subsidies, how we find new revenue streams. And that's why I say I'm not anti-capitalism. I'm actually anti-capitalist, but I'm not anti-commerce. There We create resources. We use resources. But I think we do need to remember that public transit is a public good. And be okay with what that means to provide as a public good and our state jurisdictions like right now really it's just state jurisdictions getting back to their funding that they were at. Pre pandemic that could be a huge a huge change for us so Let's look at that and then let's tap into our major corporates that aren't the fads and then federal government wants us to come back. 5 days a week, get them to do more with making sure the system works and it's expanded and we get all the lines we want, not just one in this latest expansion. Oh cool. I think that could be a block to some other transit system. Yes, all transit systems globally, globally. Thank you. Without being outside prison. So last 2 questions. Thank you all for hanging on. This person mentioned or asked, I'm fresh out of university or I'm afresh out of university urbanist and I'm just starting my professional journey. I often design having a big fear of the impacts of a project. As I don't have experience, fear to fail or fear to fall into making a project that aims to help into something that has a negative impact. How do you overcome this fear or get the confidence to know which direction to walk? Any green flag tips? Well, I tell folks that are just coming out. So. As someone who was like, I want to do this community work. And I was I was in a position where I could take a little pay cut or I could wait and then there were times when I knew I had to go work for somebody. I didn't necessarily want to. Be. I did and of course I didn't listen to my others when I told me you just keep learning. But I'm listening right now. And I'm going to tell you. To let to learn like when you're sitting like you're you're sit in the room and this is one time to be kinda sitting in the room and acting like that you just taking notes that you're listening to them because you're not that person. You are employed and when you're at your employer, especially in a first job. You're kind of there to learn. But while you're learning, you're learning about other people, you're getting to know other people, start going to the professional groups, reach out to us. Because we know a lot of people, we know we've been through a lot of things and then really decide what you want to do for your life. It and how you want to do it. And like get patient enough to type do get locked in to do that pathway. But do not neglect your hobbies. Do not neglect yourself care. And when you're going in that job and you're seeing that. Start that plan and write down and also write down what they doing wrong. Because oftentimes there is somebody that wants to hear that from you, cause that was me. I was writing down what people were doing wrong. I was putting it in a platform and then here I am today where I'm sharing this and I'm and I'm saying we need to do this. And also don't be afraid to kind of go into a different round. But still be that fan. Don't let anybody tell you something wrong with being a rail fan, especially if that's keeping you from working, continuing to have to work for a firm or a place that's doing the wrong thing. If you're over here working in a whole different industry, getting your money together. Next thing you know, you get an opportunity to purchase a property in the next thing you know, New York Times is coming and interviewing you because you created this like urban place. And then your old company is over here and their building is not working. Now the horrible thing is that people are going through. And that's why I say stay there only as long as you need to. And move on and start working in other communities, getting to know other communities, doing what you can to work with other communities. And not being, not being so set on, okay, if I don't work in this particular job and I'm not, because sometimes it does take for. Go in somewhere else. To be able and doing something else and doing urbanism on the side as it were. For your own ability to sleep at night and also to continue to have your dignity as like a person. Yeah. Don't click, don't put your dignity on the side. But while you're in there, take notes, learn. Move on as soon as you can. I'd like to add to that as a. A millennial that is always over ambitious and job roles. It's hard to just let a job be a job, but as long as you know you're doing your part. Yes. Morally ethically Like she said, try not to let it go home with you. Trust me. Last question and, then I will close it out. The war neighborhood wasn't always what it is now. Okay. It was a multi-billion dollar investment and many think it's been gentrified and is essentially eliminate what was once a black neighborhood. How do you convince others that this is a positive approach toward a black urbanist future? I mean, I think we need to still have that open dialogue. I think we don't need to be scared that they're still members of our neighborhood in public housing and we need to remove that. Part of the reason that people are scared of what's happening on this waterfront. Is that we are sitting here waiting on one for one replacement. In our nearby public housing. Unfortunately, our public housing agency is in the new seemingly every week because something's not being done properly. So we have to hold these organizations accountable. Everyone from like our community development corporations. To these agencies. We have to continue to hold them accountable and we also have to think about our own speech and our own family members. Like I'm that person at the dinner table saying, hey, it was nothing wrong with those project housing projects. What was wrong with them was they weren't being taken care of. What was wrong with it was people weren't making enough money to live somewhere else. What was wrong was like you looking around and like squinching yourself up because you see people in the neighborhood that you think you don't like. So I'll like to speak for is it starts at home and of course we live and wanted a wealthiest black regions in the United States, if not the world. The wealth is still here in this region. We have to ask ourselves if If we're worried about the war gentrification, are we worried about what's happening when people only see us? Clamoring for sprawling neighborhoods in French Georges County in Charles County. Like, are people seeing the wrong idea there? Are we ourselves? Are we really there for those communities and what we do have an opportunity to communicate with those folks and do the outreach. Are we are we making that outreach? And yeah, like I said before, we gotta be okay with under 30% AMI opportunities. We do need to be ready to provide a basic level of public service. And I am happy that we do have a new fish watch, but we can still use another one or 2. We could still use a grocery store that stays open later. Once again, that's maybe we need to partner with a different grocery provider. That's that is not nationally and internationally afraid of certain customer base. Maybe it's that we create as we're tabbing this. As we're having this conversation on black businesses, businesses of color, like all the incentives, incentivizing and really supporting businesses to get bigger like. Why don't we have more grocery stores in in communities of color? Like now maybe this is more of a black American thing that's like obviously H. Mart and those kinds of stories exist. When we do we're doing with back bookstores, when we were buying black spending black, like. Doing that support. And giving folks what they need and also yeah it's commerce it's trade it's community like mutual community sharing. Is not taking advantage, it's not exploitation. But I think because we have that history of exploitation happening, harms, aggressive removal, and even right now, agencies who are not providing basic needs and keep kicking the can down and who are scared of some of these developers, whereas some developers are learning how to do it differently and they're seeing the benefits and they're realizing that they can have some of what they want and still be a humane provider of a service. Alright, let's let's let's go answer. I would add. Just like you said from the beginning, it's a paradigm shift. It's changing what people perceive like you said, projects to be, I think everybody knows we closer to being homeless and being a billionaire in some perspective or another. Yes, yes. It's definitely. It's in the either beholder, you know what I'm saying? Some of your best friends can't come to projects came from public housing. And it wasn't because they were bad people. It was designed for them not to necessarily succeed. So I definitely that that's. That's real for sure. So that would, okay. I mean, it is a long, it's a long question and we're still seeing like we're in year 7 I believe of the revamp this is literally this week is like the birthday of the revamp. This is literally this week is like the birthday of the revamp and then of course phase I'm in phase 2 just open and so we still have vacancies here. We also still live in like a climate area, but. When you, it's different, there's other areas of this of the district that are like Stanford, like there's other areas of this of the district that are like Stanford. Like there are a couple of apartment buildings I looked at. I'm like, I can't sleep at night. I can't sleep at night living in here. And I definitely don't want to pay this. And so yeah, I, I want district government if you're hearing me and this is my opinion. Do not hold my partner accountable to this, but my personal thing as a resident of this region continuing to support us, continuing to provide the business support, continuing to provide that subsidy like. That critical mass that's here, that culture, you know, people are looking at our coach, our local culture. If you want that to be able to stay, you want that to be to draw, if you want people to visit not just the National Mall, but also local DC and have a community partnership. You cannot be afraid. To give opportunities and give spaces. I want to shout out the sandlock, which is actually just across the river from us that has been built as a community space. I'm forever seeing google bands and they did like, I think they had like a sneaker person and like, We just had art all night, every like practically every neighborhood in the district had like arts thing. We did dine all night this year when we were supporting the restaurants. But I am most worried about, supermarket companies. Pharmacies, health corporations, and even some landlords and housing providers that are not with the program and their misbehavior is going to make it look it's gonna be such a drag on everybody else. Right. If we're living in a world where Beyonce's concert could be a 4 million dollar driver. Just from concert tickets now, some will say the concert tickets were a lot, but even if she just had. All those if she had done residences at all the stadiums and all the other places. For like $2030. They're still art driving funding. And so let's look at our corporate mix. Let's look at what kind of corporations and of course cities that have the access to business licenses. And the imminent domain. I know they're putting pressure on you. But there's an opportunity to reach out and build in other people and other ways to sustain the work that we want to do. I don't. So I know we ran a little bit over time but Thank you all so much for joining for your questions for your input, for engaging. Thank you again so much, Kristen, for your for your time putting this together. Being. Hmm. A colleague and now I say a friend and a mentor as I've you know grown in my profession and even been at this organization so thank you all so much. See, on the next on the park bench.