Press Play: Back To The Rivers Of Believe: Way To Eternity/Hallelujah/The Rivers Of Believe
Wednesday April 18th 2018
Real Life Heroes
It’s not often you get to meet your heroes. Its even less seldom that you become friends with your heroes. I’ve gone through many iterations of who I am over the years. Each new experience bringing to light a new view of the planet and how one small person can make a huge impact. All through my life I’ve had a surreal feeling of living in a dream. The habits that make us walk through our daily routine on autopilot without questioning why we are the people we become sing a seductive lullaby. This is punctuated by catalysts that shake me into periods of being awake, aware, and purposeful.
It’s hard to predict falling asleep because you’re not aware of it while it happens. I feel this is a modern dilemma which plagues many of the deep thinkers of our time. The comfortable embrace of forgetting introspection, and continuing to stimulate our senses rather than our mind, or that intangible spark which ignites our spirit into active engagement. In the spring of 2015 in many ways I was asleep. I’d done years of work for many Ralph Nader organizations and volunteered in my local community. I’d been a public speaker for the families of minorities shot by Austin Police Department officers under questionable circumstances. Speaking at City Hall, the Human Rights Commission and the State Capital about the ethical use of tasers, and the divide between east side grottos and law enforcement, I did my best to become involved and make a difference adding honesty and truth to the public dialogue. I’d studied environmentalism and to a small degree, sustainability. But, nothing could prepare me for how much taking Dr. Robert Young’s Green Cities course at UT Austin would change, and evolve my perspective.
I had the type of arrogance which comes from too often being a big fish in a small pond. I was used to being the most outspoken person in the room, and the one most engaged in realistic practicalities for, well, not just complaining about the woes of the world but finding a real solution. When selecting this course, it was not done with much forethought, I just knew I needed a Signature course for my degree requirements. I really liked the name “Green Cities,” it appealed to my love of nature. My curiosity was peaked, so I thought, “Why not? Let’s explore!”
First Day Of Class
I remember the first day of class, January 20th I think, 2015. Dr. Young’s classroom was held in kind of a basement floor of a pharmacy building on campus. The feng shui was less than ideal. I walked in, with my REI backpack full of notebooks, and slid into a seat midway between the front row and the back row. Dr. Young began speaking about the basics most classes covered. Then he got into the course curriculum. I was struck by how relevant, dynamic and interesting everything he was saying was. Dr. Young seemed to know what he was talking about on more than a purely academic level. I was intrigued.
After class was over, I approached Dr. Young and introduced myself. I gave a short synopsis of some of the volunteer work I’d done and how fascinated I was with his class. He was short with me and reserved, not really knowing who I was and if I was just another student who was going to drop out in the first 3 weeks of class. Curiosity, and a genuine interest for where this class was going made me eager to attend the next. Over the course of the next couple of months, my appreciation for Dr. Young and what he was teaching grew immensely. We eventually moved to the Sutton building and got a much better classroom.
I met some of the other students in his class and there was quite a range of people who were taking his course. I made a couple of really good friends who changed my life for the better many months and years later. This is the course description from the syllabus:
This course examines the history and future of the ecological city and the technological and social forces that continue to shape it. Metropolitan transformation is explored in conjunction with alternative transportation, renewable energy, green infrastructure, recycling and resource management, and sustainable economics as means toward advancing cities to become the basis of an ecologically sound and socially just society.
The first part of the course introduces students to the long, but often overlooked, history of environmental city development in the western planning tradition. Specific emphasis is placed on the classic period as well as 19th century garden city planning and encompasses early efforts to establish solar design, mass transit, and green infrastructure as the basis of urban systems that still inform contemporary green city strategies.
The second part of the course reviews present-day efforts to apply these approaches in the face of modern metropolitan challenges to creating ecologically responsible cities. Specific case studies are studied within the theoretical context and political struggles that frame them.
Required Reading:
Civilizing American Cities – Olmsted (Sutton-ed.), Da Capo Press Garden Cities of To-Morrow – Howard, MIT Press The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences – Foster and Magdoff, MR Press The Ecology of the Automobile – Freund and Martin, Black Rose Books
The Big Picture
Each successive class, more of the big picture became clear to me. Much of the work I’d done in the previous years laid the groundwork, on top of which Dr. Young built a magnificent shining city of sustainability, agriculture, economics, and urban planning. The group discussions were animated and full of insight. I learned that Robert created a company called American Soil and was instrumental in helping America set up recycling systems and much of his passion came from practicing what he preaches. I expressed this feeling of admiration and being able to connect the dots in an email I sent him the 2nd month of class:
Thursday, February 12, 2015 11:30 PM
To: Young, Robert F Subject: Re: Toronto’s Ecology Park Today
Hey Dr Young, I was just thinking about your class, it was such a random choice, after being forced
to take a freshman class due to my academic plan aging out, I had the option of choosing other UGS courses that better fit my schedule, and allowed me to have Tuesday and Thursday off to work. I decided, ultimately and on a whim to take your class instead because it seemed so interesting and worth sacrificing the ability to work during this semester for the only two days i would have off.
I am glad I did, today I really had one of the biggest realizations of my sustainable-activist-public speaker-volunteer career, and although it was a point already reinforced earlier in the course, it finally dawned on me, this is what I have needed for so long; an appeal to the decision makers in business and politics to associate capitalistic value to the sustainable approach…in a less wordy way…
I have been working for a long time on changing the world for the better, through many MOs,
and the road block consistently was, how do I make those in industry who are for lack of a better
term, morally depraved when it comes to a global view and doing things for the good of the world
rather than self interested motivations—ok I was too optimistic on this being less wordy–
But that was again a wall I beat my head against time and time again, in different sectors of business, the self interested projections of futures shaped by big business, came down to a social more they simply did not share, and a foolishly so in my opinion.
It dawned on just now, listening to the Floyd track attached and thinking of your class:
Green spaces ensure a quality of life that attract and keep companies like Mercedes in New Jerz
which therefore ensure jobs for workers, and circulate worker’s capital in local economies creating
windfalls for local and national chains of business that all benefit ultimately from protecting the environment in a psychosocialogical and monetary manner rather than the simplistic but true epithet of “why kill that which keeps us alive,” the natural habitat, and resource sustainability. The latter seems simple but still is not grasped by Forbes top ten lists, who have politicians in their pocket.
This is the gap I have been needing to connect; how to appeal on a economic level for preservation
of ecosystems which we are connected to and need anyways to survive, but that low level thinking
and motivations of greed have often blinded those with the power to change the world for the better
from changing it. But to connect economy to ecology like this does a lot for my ability to use
the talents I’ve already developed in this field to further reach different diasporas I perhaps would
not have otherwise, so thanks. Someday I will learn how to write in cliff notes lol
Trevor
One Person Actually Can Make A Difference
It felt amazing, the joy inside of me growing, that changing the world for the better wasn’t just some anachronistic adage from the 70s but something that can really happen. We’d have the lecture with Dr. Young, and then on another day of the week, we’d meet with his assistant, a graduate student of City Planning named Katharine. There were many animated discussions in those meetings and they offered a chance to get to know my classmates better. One of the classmates I had was a young Russian girl, who sat in the front row during Dr. Young’s lectures. She had an interesting way of speaking, as she was very intent on exploring where her ideas and understanding met Dr. Young’s knowledge. I felt there was something different about her, that she came by her world experience in a way which wasn’t as traditional as most students. One day after class, I introduced myself to her when we were standing outside of class together. For the sake of her privacy, we’ll call her D. I started sitting in the front row next to her and another student named Nathan who I became good friends with.
Dr. Young had a thing about punctuality, no matter what your excuse was, he really didn’t like it when you got to class late. This is because he was literally dropping gold mines of how to effectively sustain the planet and felt that if you didn’t share his passion or respect it at least, it was an insult. In a way it was comical, how worked up he was about people arriving late. Also, if you were looking at your cell phone during his lecture, this was a big no no as well. When you consider how valuable what he was sharing is, it’s easier to understand how intense Robert got about the class he was teaching.
Hip Hop Scholar
We had what was called, Journal Reflections due each week. The format was up to us, whether we wrote something down that was poetic, or artistic, Dr. Young wanted us to put what we learned in our own words, or creative format as a way of synthesizing the material. It was a smart move because when you teach something you learn it even better, and essentially he was getting us to teach him what he was teaching us. After one class, one day, before the first Journal Reflections were due, I approached Dr. Young and explained that I am a hip hop artist, a rapper. I’ve made mixtapes that I’ve gone to Rock the Bells with and handed copies to Souls of Mischief, Big Krit, and Cypress Hill. Some of the local shows I’ve done had headliners including Devin the Dude and Prince Paul of De La Soul. Could I perhaps create a hip hop song for my reflection, instead of a journal? Surprisingly, Dr. Young whole heartedly agreed.
By this time, we were more well acquainted. I frequently spoke out in class asking for clarification or adding knowledge to a topic he was covering. We met often in his office hours to discuss the course and the issues of society. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had made a huge commitment to write, record, and release a new hip hop song every single week. Due to my course load, it became a challenge to do, but I always delivered. I’ll always remember those Wednesday nights, half way delirious, half way asleep, rapping into my microphone after spending 2 hours creating the instrumental, another hour or 2 writing the rap that implemented topics of the class that week. To be honest, it was not some of my best work. The Rep My City mixtape released in 2018 is a better representation of this, but, still, creating those raps was all part of the experience of attending the Green Cities class. How many professors would let you create a rap in place of an assignment?? I was super grateful he was so open minded and appreciative of my efforts. It made me think outside the box trying to write raps about the Auto Industrial Complex or Wall Street Economics.
Unforgettable Moments
I’ll never forget our heartfelt discussions in his office in Sutton Hall. He had plants on his balcony that I think technically weren’t allowed there and the sunshine silhouetted their leaves. We talked about the inevitability of fossil fuels transitioning out into renewable energy and how there was a fight to the finish from the oil kings to keep things the same even if it was killing the planet. We talked about hip hop, and I helped educate Robert on the topic as he didn’t listen to much but a few old school groups like Public Enemy. He and I talked about my journey from being a homeless teenager, living in an alleyway, to getting into Austin Community College and eventually accepted into UT with a recommendation letter from the President of ACC at the time, Steven Kinslow. Often we spoke of Dr. Young’s feelings being hurt by the students that he felt didn’t take his class seriously. It was such an incomprehensible idea to him that students would rather look at their Facebook status on Android or iPhone smart phones than pay attention to Fredrick Law Olmsted and how Green City open space planning emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution.
Personally I was riveted in my seat for his lectures. I took as many notes as I could and even recorded many of his lectures on my iPhone. I attempted to convince him to forgive these students for not having the wherewithal to realize how important I knew what he was teaching is. I’d say things like:
“Consider this Dr. Young, these kids haven’t perhaps had the catalysts you and I have had to help them recognize the significance of well, taking care of the thing that keeps us alive, the Earth. Instead of resenting them for not really giving a damn, have compassion, like you would for a wounded animal, that perhaps they aren’t strong enough right now to digest everything you have to say. Give them time. It may be next year they think back and something you said dawns on them and suddenly they have that “ah ha” moment.”
He’d say something along the lines of, “I haven’t thought of it that way, that makes sense.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was like an older version of myself with the same unshakable faith in humanity but the same critiques of apathy. Me if I was born a few decades earlier. We were kindred spirits and I felt that instinctively. There are so many people who are just talking heads, reciting points they heard on a syndicated talk show or radio show without really sincerely investing their heart. I found someone who, at least for the few moments we shared, could see the same world I did. And give hope that we can work together to make it better through the power of City Planning and Garden Cities.
Green Cities
Before Green Cities, I never knew how influential City Planners were, and how much power they held over how culture, race, economic livelihood, schools, transportation and local businesses developed. City Planning was a Graduate course and I was still an undergrad. It made me rethink my entire Geography degree and wish I knew about City Planning before I started going to UT. Learning about edible furniture, solar architecture, urban ecology, Cuba’s mastery of urban gardening, green infrastructure, rooftop gardens reducing AC bills and of course, Green Cities.
A Green City is a a sustainable city that by its very design can feed itself without a lot of reliance on the surrounding countryside for imports. Having a kind of perpetual farmer’s market of agriculture surrounding the city to provide both fresh vegetables and fruit as well as a source of economy is one of the cruxes of a Green City. Using solar or wind or hydrology the city can power itself with renewable sources of energy. The core concept is create the smallest possible ecological footprint, as well as producing the least amount of pollution possible. Balancing pedestrian walkways with automobile routes and efficiently use land. Composting, urban gardening, recycling, or converting waste-to-energy.
Our class’s syllabus describes a Green City as also supporting world peace with less involvement with resource conflict:
A green city is a city that manages resources cyclically for renewal and regeneration, thus improving the prospects of peace. Note, this does not mean it is completely self-sufficient or autarkic, i.e. it is self-sufficient to the degree that it never engages in any trade or produce tradable surpluses. It does mean that it has set up systems for the responsible management of its own resources such that they are enhanced or made continually available rather than consumed and destroyed.
The Feeling Beneath It All
The energy that vibrated in that class was something beautiful to witness and it changed my life forever. Finally, I understood feasibly, how we can create a better planet, a practical utopia. The tempting cynicism of the current times was pushed at bay, and I could finally hope again. I wasn’t some idealistic but a catalyst for change. When the semester ended, I made it as clear I wanted to stay in touch with Robert and find some way to help him create the reality of Garden Cities. D and I became much closer friends than I think either of us had expected. She is super intelligent, majoring in engineering but also interested in the esoteric. We introduced each other to new reading material and concepts. Some of the things we talked about in deep conversations at coffee shops changed my life, and helped to evolve how I saw the world. We both shared Dr. Young’s sincere feeling that we too can improve the planet and that it’s worth caring about, in our own unique ways.
Green Cities Epilogue
Dr. Young and I met several times after the Green Cities course concluded. While he gave me an A, I did not do so well in Geographic Information Systems, and Spanish. I became academically dismissed and could not continue my education at UT until the fall of 2018. We touched base every few months at the Crown and Anchor, having a beer and some black bean tacos while discussing how we could work together. He also kept me updated on his adventures, meeting with the Waller Creek Conservatory for something that I think was going to be kind of like a winding greenbelt through the city (Waller Creek stretches pretty far distances across Austin). It was always a treat to see Robert, we’d catch up about our lives, and world issues. He told me about his peripatetic since of wandering, and not being sure if Austin was a city that he wanted to live in. But when his wife Katherine, got tenure at UT, that solidified Austin as his home base. Dr. Young didn’t know what to make of this, and we commiserated about gentrification and hipsters. Being a Native Austinite, I championed my city to him and let him know that he would grow to love this city too.
We would communicate through emails fairly frequently. He used to have a phone but he got so frustrated with it, not being too hip on modern technology, that after leaving it at an airport accidentally, he just swore off having another cell phone. Getting in touch with Robert was a task as I’d have to wait until he checked his email or hope that he’d be around his office at UT to answer. In August last year I watched a Ted Talk one time where the founder of Lyft was telling Tony Robbins about how Robert Young inspired him to create Lyft and emailed Dr. Young excitedly:
Turns out Dr. Young was meeting with John Zimmer the next day, how funny is that? Dr. Young was always in a juggling act, balancing his career, with taking care of his 3 kids, helping his wife, trying to make tenure at UT and the frequent traveling he did working on various projects. I thought at one point, because he hadn’t responded in a long time, if I may have said something offensive to him. I emailed him, apologizing and asking him what was going on. He wrote the kindest reply:
The Last Supper
On Sunday March 26th 2017 I saw Robert for the last time.We had dinner together at my townhome. Our plan was to create a global network of students who had taken his Green Cities class, as many of them had risen in business and were now influential. I had suggested the idea to him a year or two back, over a beer at Crown and Anchor. We were talking about the potential of all these students who really cared about the world, pooling their resources together to create Garden Cities, and implement these concepts into every day life. Rob had to go to the University of Oregon where he used to teach and find a way to get class rosters for who attended. I had created a Facebook Page for this community, but not much more happened as he was too busy with other projects to ever follow up. Last March we had a wonderful conversation and had a great time catching up. Little did I know that it would be the last time I saw Dr Robert Young before he unexpectedly passed away from a hemorrhagic stroke on January 6, 2018.
I didn’t find out until a few months later, through my friend, D. the Green Cities classmate, who texted me saying, this is not our Dr Young right? She’d gotten an email (and I had too, I just hadn’t checked my UT email yet) inviting us to a tree planting ceremony in Robert’s memory. I had a hard night that night. I was overcome with grief and it’s challenging to even write about it now. One of my real life heroes, who has done so many incredible things for the world, has now left the world. The last time we spoke was in an email was 2 weeks before he died. I was telling him how I made one of my son’s dreams come true. I asked my son in 2016 where he’d like to go if it was anywhere in the world, he said Hawaii, so in December 2017 I took him there. I emailed Rob about it in December:
Coping With It
I didn’t know what to do, my heart was hurting and I asked why we would lose such an amazing person. I didn’t have any answers. Robert Young was more than a professor to me, he was my hero, role model, and friend. As a way to cope with this welling of emotions and the feeling of powerlessness, I created a Facebook post as my own sort of eulogy, to reach out and tell someone about how much this man meant to me. I wrote:
I cannot describe what this man meant to me to ever fully give him justice, Robert Young, more than just the professor of the Green Cities UT course i enrolled in, was a mentor, an inspiration, a dreamer who made those dreams come true.
A man who not only motivated John Zimmer to create Lyft who took the same Green Cities course i was in, but also created the foundation to the recycling program America uses. Robert Young passed away January this year I just found out today.
I loved him like family, I wouldn’t be the man i am today without his positive influence.
Dr. Young changed so many lives for the better with his burning passion to help this world become a better place through city planning, economics and the sustainable architecture of Garden Cities.
His sincere desire to enrich the lives he touched with the knowledge, energy and realistic blueprints gave the gift of faith and hope in his beautiful vision of the future. My heart goes out to his surviving wife and children.
Dr. Young and I met several times in the years after I graduated his course and made many plans to change the world together through Green Cities and the community of talented professionals who took his course.
I stay committed to his vision, and will dedicate my life to helping to make this a reality. The world has lost one of the greatest people to ever walk this planet but i will never forget his words, his wisdom, and the fire that burned so true inside his soul.
The last time I saw Robert we had dinner together at my townhome and strategized future plans to bring people together, and create a Green Cities intelligentsia to change the world, by augmenting various strengths of each individual has towards creating an organization comprised of those who shared the passion for bettering the planet through sustainable city planning, architecture, permaculture, IT, social networking, economics, transportation, solar power, urban ecosystems and global interdependence
This photo was taken that night, may peace be with you old friend.
We took that photo together in front of my home library where all the books of his Green Cities course are kept.
Tree Planting Ceremony
D. and I, we went to the tree planting ceremony in Rob’s honor together, she picked me up and we car pooled to UT. We were late to the ceremony and D. joked, “Dr. Young would be so mad at us for being late!” We laughed quietly in heartfelt nostalgia. I chatted briefly with Robert’s wife Katharine and let her know how much Rob inspired me. How I’m going to dedicate a significant portion of my life to helping make his dreams of Green Cities a reality. I mentioned that now that I have refined my musical talents more, I’m going to do a remix of all the Green Cities raps I created for Rob’s class. This is a promise I’m going to keep.
Afterwards, we were invited to a subsequent ceremony mainly of UT staff in honor of Robert Young. As I made small talk with various people including the Dean of the Architecture school I think, I found it hard to feel present. Seeing pictures of younger Rob with his children, in various cities, at younger ages made me feel like tearing up again. I didn’t feel up to social pleasantries but did the best I could with my Green
Cities classmate at my side.
Robert’s Future
Drinking a beer and walking slowly around the room, circling back to the table my friend D. was standing at, I was filled with sadness but also hope.Hope that I am a good enough person to help manifest Robert’s vision of sustainability. I emailed him when I recently finished writing my first book, on personal development, because his approval meant just as much to me as blood relatives.I don’t have a pithy platitude to make the loss of Rob any more bearable but over time a perspective develops. Instead of sadness, I’m gradually starting to feel more and more gratitude that I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Robert Young. You only get to meet a person like that once in your lifetime. The lessons of interdependent relationships between agriculture, transportation and city planning and the forever shining hope in his heart I share with my son. I’m grateful to have been there at the right time, to have felt his sincere caring for the planet and the people who live on it. And I’m grateful for the chance to pay it forward, however I can.
