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It's strange. This position (or so far it seems) is tailored exactly for me. I'm always waxing on about geography and places, and all the wonders you can get from even the places that look the most undesirable on the surface. There was the one time I stopped for Subway on my drive to Washington state in the small town of Lexington, Nebraska.
As I rolled into the town, I realized there was a huge Tyson chicken processing plant from the highway to the town itself. The buildings were grey, featureless, and the town looked to be single family homes, run down with tall grass and weeds. And as I drove in, I noticed the lifeblood of the town (the railroad) was now reserved for freight, and not people. The tracks, and the accompanying fences to keep people out, divided the town into industry and residential. There were no sidewalks, no business fronts, no revitalization.
Yet the town's population consisted of majority latin@s, and their billboards, advertisements, and menus were all in Spanish and English. The people, while not lavishly prosperous in material goods, had created a strong community, full of events, workshops, and seminars, to help the future generation. And with that came a place.
I would argue that nowhere is placeless. There is always something that defines a "place", whether it be from the people that live there, or the people who visit, even the most desolate desert holds value for people, with it's rolling sand dunes and painted cliffs. So that is going to be the hardest (and most rewarding) thing about this upcoming internship. I now have to take all of these places, be it small or large, and research them, and narrow down which ones have the best "placeness" to them.
The kicker is that this program is not necessarily a competition. It is a program designed to showcase the best, and inspire and guide the rest. There are only winners in this program, and it will serves as a way forward to make more accessible and enjoyable communities for all across the country.
Needless to say, I'm quite excited to be in DC, and to start my new role. My time in the garage has been short, yes, but it has been so enjoyable. The parking garage under the statehouse may be dark, dimly lit, and smell of the 60's, but it is full of some of the friendliest and most interesting people I've ever met. While I may be hitching the cart up for the nations capitol, I will never forget the work I did under the state of Ohio's capitol.
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| LeVeque Tower |
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| The Parking Garage Operations Board (mostly defunct) |
