As I reflect on my seven semesters here at Rhodes, I am a little overwhelmed. On paper it seems that I have accomplished a lot and in a lot of different environments. I planned community events. I built a house. I flew across the world and produced data essential to a court battle. I did hours of research in a lab with no window. I visited and explored dozens of blighted industrial buildings. I developed methods of short-term blight remediation. All of these things were extracurricular, or at an “academic” internships. Yet in my courses the list could be so much longer. From the role of churches, to new urbanism, to homelessness, to community politics, to poverty simulations and seemingly everywhere in between, my Rhodes experience has been packed with experiences.
Lots of people ask why I came to Rhodes and the story is fairly nuanced. However, one of the things I definitely remember to be true is that I chose Rhodes for its Urban Studies program. I could not have told you why I was fascinated by cities or what path this scholarship would take me down, but something about a liberal arts approach to analyzing cities epitomized what I wanted from my academics at Rhodes. On top of that, my VECA fellowship, my Rhodes Student Associate job in the GIS lab and my three internships gave me incomparable, tangible outlets for all the academic journals and the books. Four years ago I would have called myself a social justice advocate or a community leader who happened to work in cities, but I never would have considered myself an urbanist or a scholar. Now I consider myself an urbanist, a scholar, and a student of the field.
Lots of people also ask what I am studying at Rhodes and then look confused when I say Urban Studies. I get the feeling that it is a rather new field in undergraduate settings nationwide. People understand architecture and maybe urban design or urban planning, but cannot seem to understand Urban Studies. What I find hard to explain to them is the importance of soft skills, famous in the liberal arts. I got technical skills in GIS mapping software and in learning terminology relative urban development. Nevertheless, the ability to think critically about ideas for urban spaces is a must in a field with so many ideas on the table. It seems like anyone and everyone thinks they have the best solution for sprawl, or blight, or economic development, or attracting businesses—myself included. Ideas are good, but it is important to sift through the redundancy and the short-sightedness in a field demanding complex networks of public, private, and non-profit entities. Fundamentally, Urban Studies is an academic and ethnographic analysis of the people, the places and the institutions that make up cities.
My studies have also led me on a never straight path towards a career. One bittersweet thing about the liberal arts is that the course diversity opens the student up to the seemingly unlimited possibilities of the discipline. Over time, I came to identify with a particular passion for blight remediation and property scouting. As I reflect on my seven semesters thus far, it seems that these topics have been essential to my coursework, even if I did not know what to call it at the time. As I described to a friend several months ago, vacant buildings and broken windows and tall weeds magnetize me to their revamped potential. I find myself subconsciously looking for blight and for properties worth being developed anywhere I go. My parents and close friends are probably annoyed with it by now, to be honest, but it is hard to stifle a passion.
My biggest challenge this year is trying to figure out how to turn passion into career. So many jobs require a post-secondary degree, but I am ready for a day-job. My internships have shown me how much I like to apply and see the fruit of my academic labor in the real world. I will always be a student of the field, but I receive fulfillment in seeing a tangible product. In each experience, I have been able to discover what types of work best suits my skillset and my interests. At the Binghampton Development Corporation, I saw the direct impact of blight remediation through building a house and the empowerment of our society’s more alienated residents through job training programs. At the Upper Hutt City Council, I saw that governments have to fight tough battles with the private sector over land-use and use their best judgment for the betterment of the community. Finally at the Downtown Memphis Commission this semester, I saw that strategic property scouting makes the blight remediation process less overwhelming and that thorough data analysis can give a strong understanding of broad trends happening in the community. Altogether, I have a great respect for all sides in public-private partnerships, yet am still wondering which silo to invest my time.
As I move into senior seminar and beyond into the job market, I will continue exploring the relationship between blight remediation and property scouting and the ethical treatment of indigenous residents in downtowns or the downtown periphery. For instance, I could build on a sophomore project studying the rippling impact of the Memphis Sears Crosstown redevelopment on the neighborhood community. I could also build on a history project exploring the cultural significance of the now blighted and neglected Clayborn Temple in downtown Memphis. I could also reimagine a junior year research study of industrial brownfield blight, now taking a more nuanced approach with my methodology from the DMC internship. I have also considered exploring the adaptive reuse of non-traditional brownfield sites like churches, factories, and mechanical structures. In other words, my seemingly narrowing path has not narrowed so much after all.
This semester has been one more building block to my larger Rhodes experience. The Downtown Memphis Commission ended up being a phenomenal place to shadow and to work and to contribute, despite some of my initial skepticism about my true fit in the office. Larry and Jay were especially supportive of my work-school balance and I was able to give back some of the resources Rhodes offers in my GIS work and my academic study. I was lucky enough to attend some DMC sponsored events and some Urban Land Institute sponsored events—occasionally events sponsored by both—that really put me into conversations with leaders in the Memphis real estate community. As I look to find my “dream job” right out of college, I also look to find mentorship. The Memphis community is a lot smaller than its 600,000 census count would suggest. It seems that most everyone I met was intrigued by my journey through the field and yet subliminally asserting that I have much more to learn. As such, I may be graduating in 5 months to the day but I will be a student of the field for decades.
Reflections of an Urbanist 