Urbanism and how not listening to female voices hurts it.

I strongly believe in building upwards and living upwards.   And now I will admit I find myself in a position of being a hypocrite.   

Because the problem is as a female, despite paying the same overpriced condo dues, I feel like I get almost no voice in anything compared to the males.    And it is even more because not only am I female, but I am also a parent and that comes with an even bigger level of discrimination in a condo (well at least in the condo I live in).   

I tried for months to talk about important issues impacting health and safety at the condo.   Finally, I was just pretty much shut down by a former military male board member we will call H, who basically told me "he wasn't going to debate me" which is just a fancy way of saying I'm not going to listen to your voice or let it be heard.  Which is a fancy way of saying female voices don't matter.    

During that same meeting I emailed a board member who we will call E.   I noticed H having the same kind of "I'm not going to listen to you because you are a female" conversation with E about something totally different".   I wondered if it is in my head so I reached out to E, who was like welcome to my world.   

And there have been some pretty bad things that have happened here.   Let me give you an example (originally posted this on my Facebook page).  

A year and half ago on the day of my dad's zoom funeral which I was unable to attend in person the building insisted on doing noisy non-emergency repairs in my unit. The management refused to even coordinate the timing of it with me or move the work one day. And yes this was also in the middle of the height of the pandemic. The assistant condo manager was completely rude about it too. No one from the building has ever apologized.

Honestly, I know a lot of females who lived in condos and then left to buy houses.  In the majority of these cases, I feel like the lack of space was no more of an issue than that as females they didn't feel like their voices were getting heard and were sick of being bossed around by certain males.   

I did want to ad a caveat in here, which I only realized I should while editing this.   The key term is certain males.   I don't even think the majority of males act like this.   Many males are even excellent voices for women, listen to women as equals and have listened to me during a difficult period in my life.    And the same males who demean females, also usually demean these men-the real men who aren't hiding their insecurities behind sexism.    

So anyways, as much as I would like to stay in a space efficient condo, I will soon be looking for a house.    

I still plan to be urbanist because I am lucky that I can afford to do so.    And I plan to make the most of it by finding a home at least walkable to the metro, possibly purchasing an e-bike, and by taking advantage of the yard to grow food much more efficiently than I can in a sunroom.    

But the larger picture is that unless the transit system expands and improves dramatically in the DC area it isn't feasible to have urbanism and to have all females and families being discriminated against in houses and still have good urbanism.   Because even as it stands currently, there are going to be those who can't afford to do so and a limited number of houses by good transit and to be honest in areas where females and families feel safe living is limited and there will be many priced out who would otherwise choose an urbanist life style.   

 There are European cities where many families live in houses and excellent transit makes it feasible for families to be in houses and live an environmentally friendly lifestyle.   It certainly could be here but there are so many obstacles to doing so.   And to be honest some of these obstacles are challenging because when you bring them to some on the more liberal side that do want urbanism, there will still be fights and complaints about unions (aka metro workers union)-which in my opinion is pretty high up on reasons that the transit system has not improved.   Or you will end up in a fight about not in my neighborhood.   And I could go on and on.  But perhaps these are topics for future posts.  

Missed Second COVID Shots and Car-Centricism

 I've noticed some articles recently on missed second shots.   People say, they don't understand how or why someone would not show up for their second shot.   Yet, I find it perfectly understandable.   

Let's start with my story.   I was able to get my first shot right near bus transit.   But then when it came to my second shot, completely out of the blue, the location was moved to a different center.   I didn't feel comfortable taking transit there, I didn't feel comfortable walking there and I didn't feel comfortable biking there.    I ended up getting my second shot-but I ended up getting it a week late while I waited for a better location.   But there were definitely moments when I wondered if I would end up getting my second shot-at least anytime remotely close to my first shot.   

But that is the story of me, someone who doesn't drive (and who avoids Uber like the plague it is).   Even for people who do drive, I bet for many driving was a factor.   

Think about it-we have made our roads into war zones.   Our roads have become an arms race of larger and larger vehicles.   Not to mention vehicles that are more aggressive looking.  Even if people aren't saying it, you have to wonder how many people quietly or even subconsciously are missing their second shots due to not wanting to face this war zone.    Do we really think that if all they had to do was walk or bike ten minutes in a car-free space people would even hesitate to show up?     

I know of many people who drove very far distances to get their first shot-some for hours.    But there are two factors in that.   Firstly, what people are willing to do for the larger protection of the first shot, they might not be willing to do for the second.   Secondly, many people forget about the dangers of a road trip until they actually embark on one.   So they might think nothing of it until they do it once...and then they may hesitate to do it again.  I will also mention I think the second one is more common.   

Worse than this is the outright discriminatory practices that have occurred in places like California where people have been denied COVID shots for not arriving in a car.  This occurred even when shots were located near a transit station.    

But why are we setting up a system that favors people driving to rural areas anyways?   If people in rural areas don't want shots then we should be moving the shots to urban areas.   

And shots in urban areas should be by transit and they should if at all possible be by the best transit possible.  And for goodness sake we should be allowing people to use the transit to get there.   

                              

A few of my books above!  Buying my books is a great way to support this blog!