Get to Know Jonathan

January 29, 2024 | Interview by Emilia Charno

Jonathan is an urban planner, designer, and writer whose work spans the fields of economic development, housing, and narrative change. In addition to consulting through his practice All Commons, he’s worked in affordable housing development and policy within government and community-based organizations. His book—on the struggle among residents of two social housing co-ops as they decide whether to privatize and profit from the public goods they own—is due out in early 2025 from Beacon Press. Learn more at jonathantarleton.com.

What is your academic and professional background?

I work as an urban planner and a writer. Both my undergrad and graduate studies were focused on place: the former, all about studying social movements and politics in Latin America, and the latter about planning in general and housing and economic development in the US more specifically. To put that to work, I've launched programs at a housing authority and developed affordable homes with a community development corporation. My writing dovetails that in some ways—e.g., in a book I have coming out in Spring 2025 about social housing and ownership in the US and past work on Urban Omnibus and Nonstop Metropolis, respectively a magazine and an atlas about New York City—but I also publish non-planning personal essays as well.

What are the values that drive your work?

Over the past five or so years, I've been engaged with a group of peers to articulate our personal theories of practice. This is one of the key questions that underlies those theories. A few of the central values I bring to my practice include a focus on relationships of connection and love as the foundation on which change can occur, a commitment to hope as a vital ingredient to social change, and the centering of justice as an unwavering frame through which to understand issues and assess outcomes.

Across my work, I try to seek out opportunities for transformative change that reckon with enduring inequities of race and class and strengthen social infrastructure and community capacity. Having a clear statement of how I want to get there is very helpful in remaining accountable and reflective.

In your collaboration with Kyanite Partners, can you describe where you saw the greatest impact?

I've had the pleasure of working with Kyanite on two projects thus far: the first, supporting America Achieves on technical assistance to regions competing in the federal Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) and the second assisting a national community development financial institution (CDFI) in identifying opportunities for worker co-ops in the context of massive federal infrastructure investments coming out of the BIL and IRA. Both of these endeavors were about preparing clients to do big things down the line, so it's of course not always possible to discern just where that pivotal impact will ultimately occur. I will say that what I saw were flickerings all over of where I expect that will happen. With the coalitions in the BBBRC, it was edifying to see how the technical assistance we provided not only helped those regions make their proposals better, but prepared their projects to have a greater chance of reaching their potential and, almost in real time in some cases, helped them make concrete their intentions and commitments to equity. With the national CDFI, it was powerful to break down something as large and complex as the biggest federal funding packages in recent memory into discrete, pursuable possibilities in those industries co-ops are best positioned to succeed, and in doing so to map out real avenues toward a new economy.

What are the places that have deeply shaped you?

Oh, many. I grew up outside of Athens, Georgia, which was central to my early understanding of segregation, whiteness, and good music. In undergrad I spent a semester in Havana, Cuba, which was formative in how I think about economic systems and their benefits and pitfalls for different communities. New York City became my home, and I've never studied another place in such depth. It was the place I really honed how to understand places, the way they're created, and the power struggles behind those processes. Boston was the place where I moved beyond studying and understanding such dynamics to intervening in them. And for the past two years, Nairobi has been my home. It frequently makes me question what a city should be and for whom.

What is something not many people know about you?

I collect pens. Not many people know this because my collection currently consists of exactly one pen (a modest ballpoint that was designed to be able to write in space), and because I've only just known, really just decided that I'm going to commit to this idea I've had for a few months.

Is there anything that you’re reading or watching that’s inspiring you? 

There's always something. I recently watched the documentary Dick Johnson Is Dead, and I can't remember something as imaginative and moving for how to reframe and grapple with the inevitable. I've found so many of the essays published in n+1 Magazine over the last few months to be essential reading. One book I read toward the end of last year that I continue to come back to is The Inheritors by Eve Fairbanks, on South Africa's racial reckoning post-apartheid. It does an incredible job drawing out often uncomfortable and sometimes surprising implications of societal shame and forgiveness from very grounded, intimate stories.