My 2016 goals:

• Read 40 books
• Read 20 non-fiction books
• Read 20 books by women and/or people of color

Results:

• Read 45 books
• Read 20 non-fiction books
• 27 books by women and people of color
• 22 books by women
• 13 books by people of color

It was down to the wire, I was reading that last nonfiction book on 12/31.  During the summer I found I was behind on nonfiction books and I read 10 in a row – that was harder than expected.

Here are some thoughts on my readings:

Other recos from this years reads:

• Major Taylor Bio by Conrad Kerber – Major Taylor was a groundbreaking athlete and barely gets any press. Amazing what he accomplished in a super oppressive and segregated time (and how much he endured.)
• Bringing Home the Birkin by Michael Tonello – this is a funny memoir about building an eBay business and the culture of luxury retail.
• Lucifers Banker by Bradley Birkinfeld – ok it is a douchey banker, but this is an interesting expose on Swiss private banking and a reminder (in case you needed it) that big banks only care about the $$$.
• American Pain by John Temple – pain clinics in Florida and the enterprising felons who run them but don’t quite while they are ahead
• House of Versace by Deborah Ball – wow, fascinating family
• Cumulus by Eliot Peper – techno thriller that takes place in Oakland
• Disrupted by Dan Lyons – well it is basically life in Silicon Valley

And for mystery fans:

• Jade de Jong series by Jassy Mackenzie – loved these, a South African P.I. and occasional contract killer solves mysteries
• Detective Elouise Norton series by Rachel Howzell Hall – It is like Law & Order SVU South Central LA edition starring nuanced black women.

2017 goals

• read 20 nonfiction books
• read mostly fiction by people of color

Do you have some recommendations for me?  I am tagging them here on Amazon.

Now here is my edition, reflecting on 10 years living in the town!

1. Oakland has just about every kind of food you can imagine somewhere….and most neighborhoods have most varieties of foods available
2. You can meet someone from almost any part of the world here in Oakland, if you put in a little effort
3. Just when you think the city is laid out on a grid, you’ll notice there are some very bizarre inconsistencies
4. 14th Avenue and 14th Street are nowhere near each other
5.  The person who decided the placement of the freeway exits and on-ramps was probably smoking something that requires a medical card
6. Getting to downtown SF from most of Oakland is actually faster than it is from most of SF: via transit or driving
7. Oakland has amazing Art Deco architecture all over town
8. The more mixed the housing types are in a neighborhood, the more mixed the residents.
9. There is a lake in the middle of the city, and it is everyone’s unofficial backyard
10. There is a redwood forest in the middle of the city, only about a 15 minute drive from downtown
11. People love Oakland for the weather, diversity, DIY spirit, and hometown pride (and don’t want to leave)

What is on your list?

So this brings me to two consummate representatives of the American Dream, and American Ingenuity.  Kim Kardashian and V. Stiviano.

We’ll start with Stiviano, since she is in the middle of her 15 minutes right now. This controversy hit right in the middle of the best NBA playoff season in years. The controversy talks about the big elephant in the American room: racism, when we are supposedly post-racial. We also have a story of the tragic mulatto. And the mistress.  But unlike Monica Lewinsky, Stiviano has already started writing the book, and is writing her own story. She won’t have to wait 15 years, and since she is controlling the messaging, her reputation hasn’t been completely tarnished in the media. She is certainly PR savvy.

And Stiviano represents the new celebrity in the America. A place where reality stars build empires, become media personalities and run for political office. A few years from now, I am sure Stiviano won’t be looking for billionaires to fund her lifestyle, because she’ll have her own dollars. She’ll probably a bestselling author and lifestyle guru with her own show on cable television. Taking the shortcut to fame fortune and riches, despite the inauspicious beginning. She’s just taking a page from her friend Karrine Steffans book >  from video “vixen” to media personality.

Now on to Kim Kardashian, the queen of reality TV. Kim Kardashian went from sex tape to the cover of Vogue in just 11 years. With successful fragrances, television shows, retail stores and clothing lines along the way.

Kardashian’s job is to be herself.  The mere act of getting dressed in the morning is “newsworthy” if your last name is Kardashian.

Not that long ago, a start like hers, with a sex tape, would have been a death knell. Ask Vanessa Williams, who was lost her Miss America crown due to some Penthouse photos. Now sex tapes and tell-all books about your hookups can launch a “career.”

We (americans) love rooting for the underdog. It is almost like we want people like this to succeed, despite our Puritan roots. Isn’t the old adage, do what you love and worry about the money later?

These ladies represent the American Dream: fame, fortune, success. All just for loving themselves.

My first stop was the energizer station on Telegraph, to check out the protected bike lanes:

And I grabbed my swag. The bike to work tote is very cute, and was packed with useful stuff: bike light, tube patch kit, snacks and loads of coupons.

I was out of hands, so I didn’t get to enjoy a cup of Bicycle Coffee.  They were still having a good day, with a feature in the SF Business Times.  They deliver delicious coffee via active transportation: bike, transit or walking.

Then it was off to BART.  As usual, the train was crowded in Oakland, through downtown SF.  And I learned an important lesson, no bikes in the first car. Ooops.  It was an uneventful ride to Millbrae, BART cleared out after Powell. I never noticed how loud the ride is after Civc Center, and past Glen Park.  Ouch, it killed my ears with the screeching.

Lesson #2: Millbrae BART is a pain if you want to use the elevator.  Or get out to the street.  Up and down, up and down.  Eventually I made my way to California Ave, and started on the ride to work.

While traveling at bike speed through Burlingame I discovered the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia.  Not exactly what I was expecting to see on my ride.

The ride to San Mateo was uneventful and mostly flat.  And then on the way home, it was drizzling a little (it looks like the meteorologists were a little off about rain for the North Bay only).  By the time I got back to Oakland, it was more drizzly. And I still had a few more things to do.  I decided to use the Bikelink locker, and head over to GrandLake without my bike.

We went over to Alchemy, for a tasting from a new Charleston company: Bittermilk.  They’ve recently launched new mixers. Good stuff!

Check out my bike on it’s maiden BART voyage.

All in all, it capped a successful Bike to Work Day.  Did you particpate in #btwd2014?

All in all it was pretty fun, I tried out some new recipes, got creative with tofu and learned a couple of important lessons:

1. read labels, there are lots of hidden animal products in the foods we eat (ahem gelatin)
2. late night options are pretty slim if you are veggie
3. massaged kale can be used in many ways

And here are a couple of recipe ideas for those of looking for some new vegetarian ideas that I was inspired by last week:

• Kale and mango salad
• Kale and apple salad
• black bean corn salad
• lentils with mint and olives
• quinoa paella
• quinoa fried-rice
• muesli

Happy Eating!

I commented on the post, and I’ll excerpt a bit here:

I realized a couple of things (about the lack of diversity in urbanism):
1. People like me didn’t even know there was an urbanist party
2. We don’t even know if we are invited to the party
3. Things are intersectional for us
4. The urbanist movement is terrible at framing things in a way that will resonate with multiple audiences
5. Many people can’t see beyond their own perspective

It is like everything else, most people only know people like them. We might care about the same things, but we aren’t having these conversations together because we aren’t traveling in the same circles.

The short answer – why is urbanism so white:

Urbanism comes packaged with gentrification and displacement which invokes complicated feelings.

The long answer is a bit more nuanced.

Disclaimer: I’m not an urban planner, I did not study urban studies, my point of view is influenced from my own black middle class world view. If I moved to certain neighborhoods, I would be a gentrifier. This is all opinion and conjecture.

Before drilling into the reasons I think urbanism isn’t diverse, it is good to note why many black people are trying to get out of the city. We (as black people) are only about 40 years into having “full” choice in housing and neighborhoods; forced segregation only ended in the 60s. Segregation lingered well into the 70s.

Today this choice is still hamstrung by systemic racism, the wealth gap and predatory lending.  But many of the worst polices, like redlining finally ended in the 70s. This choice in housing was limited to people with the right sort of privilege and experience to choose (and afford) to live in any neighborhood.

After generations of being forced to live in rural areas or in the “inner city,” black people could finally pick any neighborhood. Experiencing the suburban American dream without too many consequences. After watching the turmoil in many American cities in the 60s: divestment in our urban areas, “redevelopment” and “urban renewal” projects, is it really a surprise, that people with choice decided to look for white picket fences? Good schools and large lots awaited.

As a result, we also lost some of the connectedness and community that came from consolidated black neighborhoods, where all income levels utilized community service and support in the same place. There is a separate set of issues that came with the transition to integrated communities, but that’s off topic for this post. For those with “choice,” it was possible to mitigate some of those challenges, and come up with a strategy to build community and identity.

Your mindset is really different, when you choose your environment versus being forced into a particular environment. No matter how great that location is on paper. Choice in itself is a form of privilege. When communities were displaced due to gentrification or urban renewal, they lost their homes, their sense of community, connection and history.  Root Shock is a great book on this topic, and how it can lead to PTSD-like symptoms.

I think the academic, mainstream perspective on urbanism is one based on privilege. You can choose to give up your car, choose to live in an urban neighborhood (but the other neighborhood types are open to you as well). This attracts people with the freedom and privilege to choose. Most of those people are white, middle-class and educated.

Now back to my five key points on why I think urbanism is particularly white. Urbanism is a fairly new field of study, not well represented in pop culture, so it is largely unknown.

1. People like me didn’t even know there was an urbanist party

I did not know that “urban planning” was an option of study until I was late in my college years. I had a few friends who minored in “urban stuff” (planning, studies or similar), andI thought it sounded pretty interesting. I was well on my way studying something else, and didn’t really think much about it.  It didn’t exactly seem like something you could get a job in. For many people with my background or similar, one of the key goals of college is to study something that will help you get a job.

I remember as a child wanting to be an interior decorator.  When I told my grandma, she thought it was hilarious. She said, there is no way anyone will pay you to decorate their home.

So I didn’t realize that this was a job or concern.

2. We don’t even know if we are invited to the party

Now that I know there is “urbanism” and it is a “movement,” it still feels like a pretty exclusive club.  It is mostly inhabited by people who are architects, engineers, city workers, and other people directly employed in the practice. We are well aware of the lack of diversity in both STEM and architecture.  Only very recently, has urban planning started to approach things more holistically, from a health, transportation and social equity lens. This offers a good opportunity to both add more voices and more perspectives to the movement.

But most urbanism conversations are still confined to City Hall, the classroom, or with real estate developers. [Great book on why it is really hard to build urban projects these days.]

3. Things are intersectional for us, sometimes.

Intersectional is the key academic buzzword in “social justice” circles. I think it is a good tool to frame urbanism as well. To grossly generalize, for white urbanists, the center city neighborhoods are a new frontier. Most “urbanists” are younger, and don’t have the history or experience of watching their popular downtowns crumble and decay. They have always been seen as a dead zone waiting for renewal/reuse. Younger people are also more likely to not be intentionally segregationist.

The approach today is still a lot like Columbus discovering America. “There is stuff here, but not stuff I care about, so I’ll just claim this territory for myself and change it.” And sure enough the development follows.

After ignoring downtown for decades, when well-to-do white people move in, and the city starts picking up the trash, cleaning up the “blight” and worrying about school quality. Meanwhile existing residents toughed it out through neglect and decay. Other more educated people have covered gentrification, and I don’t want to rehash anyone else’s research.

We here in the US make a conscious connection between “black,” “urban,” and “poor.” These 3 things are all euphemisms and synonyms (and I am not including all 2000 other more negative code words). Anyone black who doesn’t meet that description is one of those “exceptions,” and we find ways to not lump them into the bucket of “regular” black people. Things can be twofold: someone like me should not take transit, or live in the “inner city” because I have enough privilege to do something else (drive a nice car or get a big house). On the flip side, according to the stereotypes, my only choice is to take the bus (and never commuter rail) and live in the hood. On some level, choosing urbanism is both not recognizing that I have choices, and feeding into the stereotypes of black people.

But I grew up in the ‘burbs.

My transit experiences growing up were (mostly) pleasant or in the form of a vacation. When I was 11, I took a field trip on the newly opened San Jose light rail. It was shiny, new and air conditioned. In middle school, I took the Amtrak to DC for a field trip. It was a blast, surrounded by friends and classmates and enjoying the scenery. In high school I went to Montreal and marveled at the subway stops with huge underground malls.

The few times I took the transit, outside of a field trip, during childhood was when I visited my aunt. It was just part of the experience, my aunt was “eccentric” and always did interesting things.  So taking the bus was another one of those interesting things.  Another time we took the Greyhound cross country (and that is an experience for another blog post).  But overall, I spent my childhood being carted around in the backseat or fighting over shotgun with my sister.  We were a 2 (and later 3) car family.

As an adult, after experiencing car-free life in college, and low desire to drive, I haven’t really been so keen on a similar 2-car suburban existence for myself. But in the back of my mind, thinking about our society, and our attitudes, I know that some people will see me as a gentrifier and other people with have problems with me identifying as such (since the idea of a black middle or upper class makes their head explode).

4. The urbanist movement is terrible at framing things in a way that will resonate with multiple audiences

Right now the urbanist movement is becoming synonymous with the hipsters. So based on the typical framing, all “urbanists” want craft beer, parklets, 3rd wave coffee and bike lanes. It is a vaguely white, upper class, liberal, college-educated-ish point of view.  These people can choose to live in up and coming neighborhoods, but have the option to fall back onto generational wealth, high paying jobs and other things that give you more choice.

This leaves out a ton of people: people who believe mobility choices lead to individual economic freedom, people concerned with climate change, people who want oil independence, libertarians who want to build stronger local economies, people looking for development without displacement and dozens of other issues.

Our definition of urbanism is one that pitches a lifestyle for liberal middle to upper middle class people.  People who travel to Europe, and want to recreate the “idyllic” walkable environment at home with baguettes, cheese shops, cobblestone streets and old world charm.

We rarely look to Asia, Africa or Latin America for urban inspiration. Where a scrappier, DIY mentality has taken hold, with urbanism for the masses. In Latin and South America city governments make improvements in infrastructure and safety for poor people, so they will stay home and create opportunity instead of going abroad. Cities in Africa have an unofficial and well-organized system of vans and jitney buses to provide transportation without public funding. In Asia density is a policy, and in places like Hong Kong, the government profits by leasing land to developers. In Korea freeways or torn down to improve air quality and build parks and public spaces. Our urbanism is romanticized old-world or Danish modern.

Urbanism cannot diversify, without building a wider base of different perspectives, and looking at issues from more angles. Urbanism has the potential to help us solve micro and macro economic issues, environmental issues, civic participation and engagement issues, affordable housing issues, social justice issues and public health issues.

5. Many people can’t see beyond their own perspective

Over the past 20-30 years, society has undergone a monumental shift.  One of the biggest ones is related to a loss of “mass culture.” There were plenty of problems with “mass culture,” since it was synonymous with “white culture” and wasn’t very inclusive to other groups. Now we are in the midst of a sort of “Long Tail” culture. No matter how niche your interests are, you can retreat into a world where only your stuff matters.  On the internet, via meet up groups or other social groups. You can exist in a walled garden full of like-minded folks.

We have lost the idea of the collective good, and rarely interact with the “public” or people not like us. In the old days when everyone went downtown, to the town square or the post office, there was an opportunity to interact with people of all stations in life. Now it is super easy to live in a world where the only people you interact on a regular with are like you: similar education, class and ethnicity. Income inequality has lead to separate everything from schools to jobs to neighborhoods to transportation.

This lack of collective spirit is reflected in Washington’s motto of ideology over logic, mass (and niche) media and pop culture. And this extends well into our planning decisions. The politicians and leaders deciding on transit do not ride or use transit.  Suburban-based governments are making decisions for city streets.

So why is urbanism so white? The real question is do we want urbanism for the masses or just the elites (or near-elites).

Where is our American brand of urbanism, built on true democratic process (not pay to play) and inclusivity?

She spent considerable time on the increasing gap between the upper and middle classes, which has become a big issue in Silicon Valley because even teachers and police officers in the area find it difficult to find affordable housing.

“Inequality of the kind we are experiencing is bad for individuals, bad for society, bad for democracy,” she said. “If you look around the world, this is becoming a bigger issue everywhere.” Mrs. Clinton suggested possible fixes like changes in taxation, compensation and efforts by both government and business to subsidize housing.

“It’s particularly important for the trust that holds democracy together,” she said of the yawning income gulf, adding that the effect of failing to address it for many Americans mean “you dampen their ambition, you limit consumption, and you undermine trust in our society.”

Clinton spent a good amount of time talking about income inequality, which is particularly acute here in the Bay Area.  Housing is so expensive, even people with six-figure household incomes can’t find a place.  It is both a supply and a policy issue.  Techcrunch did an excellent, but out of character long piece covering the housing crisis.

The crisis we’re seeing is the result of decades of choices, and while the tech industry is a sexy, attention-grabbing target, it cannot shoulder blame for this alone.

Unless a new direction emerges, this will keep getting worse until the next economic crash, and then it will re-surface again eight years later. Or it will keep spilling over into Oakland, which is a whole other Pandora’s box of gentrification issues.

The high housing costs aren’t healthy for the city, nor are they healthy for the industry. Both thrive on a constant flow of ideas and people.

After the Occupy movement, and dozens of conversations about income inequality, I am just wondering when we will have the political will to solve the problem. At the moment, our politicians are too focused on being mortal enemies instead of the good of the country.  And we are all too busy worrying about the next paycheck, and paying for life, we don’t have time to focus on the big picture.

No light at the end of the tunnel yet.

The intersection, near my apartment is really annoying.  Particularly if you are using the crosswalk.  It takes for ever to cross the street because most cars speed by.  In the AM, you can wait for 10-15 cars to go by, before anyone stops.  Even though there is a light on the next block, and a good amount of congestion during commute hours.

So as I pulled out of my garage, I saw someone at the curb, and the light was red, I stopped for the pedestrian to cross.  I believe the official driving code says, all cars should stop if someone is in the crosswalk. The pedestrian was about 3/4s of the way through the crosswalk, and I continued to wait.  And the next thing I know, 2 cars nearly hit me speeding through the intersection and the crosswalk. They passed me really closely (think inches, not several feet), presumably to avoid hitting the person still in the crosswalk, but still bypassing me.  And of course, the light was red, so they had to stop 4 seconds later.

The pedestrian made it across pretty safely, but then I thought about all of the times that happens.  Cars speed over to the neighboring lane when a car is stopped, because they don’t want to stop or slow down.  This is pretty dangerous for everyone on the road, driving, walking or biking.  I know we have all done it, but I have tried to be a lot more cognizant about the whole thing, since it isn’t very safe.

So a few questions come up for me:

• When did we all get to be too busy to stop or slow down?
• Why are so many crosswalks (and streets) designed, so if you are driving you can’t see people waiting until it is too late?

KCBS posted a great interview talking about street design and pedestrian safety on the roads.  Lots to think about!