Where's Your Head At?

Basement Jaxx repeatedly ask, "Where's Your Head At?" in their song of the same title.

This post is what I have been thinking about what I have been wanting to do with my planning degree after I graduate.

Initially, I had started school thinking that I wanted to revitalize downtowns, such as Detroit. Then I realized that such a prospect could become rather depressing. A classmate of mine is from Hartford, CT and is absolutely head-over-heels crazy in love with that city. He can't wait to move back and apply his knowledge and help return it to its former glory. I'm not sure I share his enthusiasm, but I know that it won't be long before I'm reading about him in the Journal of American Planning.

After my enthusiasm for revitalization/ economic redevelopment waned I thought that I could tackle gentrification. It is a two-headed monster. On one hand, it provides a much needed economic boost to a so-called "blighted" area. But on the other hand, it should be asked, at whose expense?! I love to shop as much as the next girl, but I don't want my desire for a good bargain at Nordstrom Rack to literally displace a low-income resident, who finds themself living literally at the "wrong" place at the wrong time.

Therefore, I thought, I've done a lot of research on gentrification, why not stop bad business and be more accountable? I'm still for transparency in business, but I also have accepted that sometimes lobbyists and politicians, the latter whom make the final decisions, are so intertwined that I can only practice incrementalism, and push a lot of paperwork through the necessary channels.

At the same time I have not given up. I subscribe to the sentiment expressed in the poem, "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)-

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole.

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

As the immortal Bard reminded us, "If it be now, it is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." Hamlet 5.2

Bring it.

Lately my attention has turned to suburbia, its inevitably, and how can I make it better? I would like to believe that in newer suburban developments/metropolitan regions, cities are more open to pursuing new, more sustainable ideas. This may be pie-in-the-sky wishing, but it is my wish. My plans may change in the future. But for the present that is where my head is at.