As part of my prep for the Democratic National Convention, I have a meeting scheduled with an Alabama Democratic National Committee member. To prep for that meeting, I read his book, Finding My Rainbow.
In it, Josh Coleman describes growing up in Cullman, AL. And how no one ever told him it was okay to be gay. He got the opposite message, in fact.
His life changed when his cousin, Stacey, visited from the “big city” of Birmingham and told Josh about going to her first Pride parade. She was the first person he felt safe coming out to.
I’ve never lived in a place like Cullman. But I’ve lived in larger and smaller cities, starting with Huntsville, and then Birmingham.
I’m also queer.
As I read Josh’s book, Why the Right Lies About Cities by my internet friend Aaron Ross Powell happened to be up in another tab. So I read it next.
Aaron describes how the right needs cities to be horrible places because the truth undercuts their cause. The right says it’s horrible to be gay (or trans, or a single woman, etc.). Cities tell the truth. It’s fine to be gay. In cities, it’s okay to be all kinds of things.
Reading the same message, one a missive and the other in story form, really brought home for me how wrong the right is when it comes to both cities and queers.
Cities and queers are great, actually. Neither city life nor gay sex is for everybody. But everybody who wants them should be free to partake.
More than that, it reminded me that this country actually needs cities (and the queers who populate them) to survive.
People who live in cities don’t simply do a better job tolerating difference and diversity. The tremendous variation in background, belief, and modes of living are a huge part of why cities create so much more wealth than rural areas. Groupthink, conformity, and homogeneity prevent the kind of innovation and creativity required for technological progress and productivity.
This country doesn’t need more Cullmans. It needs cities – and their diversity – for economic growth and global competitiveness.
A mid-size city like Huntsville has three possible paths forward.
Huntsville can follow Birmingham’s lead and be a one-horse town with slightly negative long-term population and job growth.
It can follow the lead of Nashville and Atlanta by attracting lots of jobs and workers but failing to build enough homes for them, creating cripping sprawl, traffic, housing prices, homelessness, and a dwindling middle-class.
Or, it can follow the lead of cities such as Austin, Minneapolis, and Arlington. These are cities whose leaders looked at cities like Denver, Seattle, and San Francisco and decided to stop replicating their mistakes.
Huntsville will never be Cullman, at least not likely in my lifetime. And I thank God for that. Everyone who cares about the future of this country should be grateful for that. But what happens next is yet to be seen. I hope our leaders choose wisely.