Describe Next American City in seven words or less.

Jeffrey Hill | Tue, Feb 26, 2008 | Tags: jeffrey hill, hayley richardson, accessibility, sentimental city, interaction, walnut street, dynamic, veterans stadium, sausage cart, seven words or less

Does the Next American City include the sausage cart down the street? I hope so. I also hope it includes the girls who walk down Walnut St. off the speed line. I’d take the girls over the buildings any day. A lot of us would, because we’re human beings. We’re dirty. We smell bad. We forget to shower and we live in a city, stinking together.

At the Next American City, there has been discussion of tag lines, an identity for our cause and a place to fit in. I think of NAC as the Veterans Stadium of urban issues. Yeah, Citizens Bank Park looks pretty and clean ... but there’s something inhuman about it; something cold. People remember the smell of Veterans Stadium lovingly. They chuckle when they hear stories of rats in the visitors’ locker room. In order to gain the trust of the general public, you have to take the elevator down the ground floor and talk to them eye to eye. You have to be accessible, real and most importantly, human. We have the potential to be ambassadors to the uninformed - using compassion and understanding to explain these very important issues in a language that moves us.

City magazines have a tendency to be as lifeless as the infrastructure they talk about. Without colorful and illustrative language, the columns of language are wasted - they might as well just give a list of stats to make some college kid’s works cited page easier to organize.

In fact, one of the reasons I am here is because of this post by Hayley Richardson. Buried in-between the serious issues and fact-heavy manifestos was this search for a sentimental city. It asks, “Where among the buildings and bright lights can I find Christmas?” Is this less important than a politician’s blueprint for homeland security or sustainable Connecticut? I think it’s more important. In order to live, work, and function in a city, we must understand our wants and needs as a large and diverse group of people. I have to understand the world beyond the office. I’m still learning about my surroudings in a new city and about the people I ride the bus with and the guy in the sausage cart.

What I ask of you, our readers, is to identify Next American City in seven words or less. You can comment on this posts and share your ideas. If you’re a loyal and dedicated fan of our organization, step up to the plate. It’s important that we have this interaction. If we don’t, we could easily fall back onto an interaction between ourselves and our own ideas. We could choose our own based on the feelings of less than 10 people - and knowing how tired we are at the end of a production cycle, we may end up with something glorius like “We are the way it should be,” and there are some people who would prefer it that way. Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on those of us who fight for an essential dynamic and accessible forum to the public.

Fire away! Make us proud!

Jeffrey Hill is the web editor for Next American City and a contributing writer for Philadelphia Weekly.