Here’s many of the people on the teams that lifted me up and did the inspirational and important work that kept me going this year.

hey man is class canceled

sounds a lot like something a tomato-based bbq guy would say Douglas

( of 300ish buildings in Hayti - urban renewal in the 1950/60s destroyed all but one for a highway. today it is the Hayti Heritage Center. HHC celebrates its 50th anniversary this year - i’m on the planning committee for the celebration. learn more and consider donating here: youtu.be/AJRHt6yQ-Dk )

tl;dr - making good decisions about tomorrow requires good data, and it requires good imaginations.

the world that children today will inherit is one shaped by our decisions. we owe it to them to dream and imagine as wildly as they are now about what’s possible. if something seems impossible, maybe it’s because a system in place today makes it so. what if it doesn’t need to be that way?

our perceptions of what’s possible for a world of tomorrow are shaped in large part by the idea that our systems are rigid and immovable, but often forget that the world we live in today was shaped by decisions made by people in the past - decisions like those that reshaped Hayti.

satellite images and mathematical models tell us only some of what we know about the future. what systems today seem invincible to us that may need rethinking (or indeed overturning) that data can’t or doesn’t capture? these are questions better left to imagination.

eg - the Hayti District of Durham - pictured here pre-urban renewal, present day, and in future in the imagination of a resident. Priorities and perceptions of what the future ought to look like are informed in part by data like the first two images, but they tell only part of a larger story.