Rubén Casas
Rubén joined The Urbanist's board in 2022. He is a scholar and teacher of rhetoric and writing at the University of Washington Tacoma. He is also the faculty lead of the Urban Environmental Justice Initiative at Urban@UW. In his work and advocacy, Rubén examines how cities and the institutions that comprise them imagine, plan, and build in ways that promote and/or discourage community and a sense of place.
I moved to Tacoma the last weekend of July. Even as I got keys to my apartment the day after I arrived, my stuff wasn’t scheduled to arrive until later in the week. I spent my first weekend in the city in a hotel. These in-between-places days forced me...