Pod Places

On the latest pod, Chet and Jeff discuss how the real estate development process mirrors cooking without a meal in mind or playing the the world's worst game of Monopoly. The current setup of municipal building departments ensures everyone is miserable and encourages NIMBYsm.  There are solutions though and things can get better, but its important that we see the process for what it is today. 

As we always suspected, Ice-T was talking about housing. We can't build the type of housing we need, not because a lack of demand, but because the game is rigged. Hosts Chet and Jeff discuss a recent bill in the New Hampshire Statehouse that allows for a desperately needed housing option and how bad regulations keep delivering us a bad product. 

While vacancy may seem a mystery to most, there is a very real and rational reason behind an owners decision to leave a property empty. Understanding their position and the financials behind it is a city's key to addressing the problem. On this episode, Chet and Jeff discuss the reasons for vacancy and blight and how city leaders can begin to combat the issue using the tools they already have on hand. 

Do utility fees increase every year with no improvement of service? Does the city ignore your phone calls? Do you get treated like you are living in a municipal monopoly? Welcome to Comcast City! On this episode, hosts Chet Clem and Jeff Siegler discuss why operating a city like a cable monopoly might not be the best strategy and how prioritizing customer service could have far reaching benefits for local government. 

In this episode, hosts Chet and Jeff discuss why grant money rarely fixes what ails our cities and why monetary windfalls can often exacerbate civic self-confidence issues. Our cities and towns have to start thinking about short term progress and the every day maintenance and effort that ends up brining about real change. Cities need personal trainers and not lottery tickets. 

This week, hosts Chet and Jeff are joined by Phil Eich of Storyville Social.  As a social media consultant for municipalities, Phil explains how when cities don't develop a cohesive communication strategy, they end up looking like the loneliest guy at the club. 

On this episode, hosts Jeff and Chet talk about the invention of the Bullshit Machine. This nefarious piece of city equipment ensures that no matter the quality input it receives, only turds are produced. By adopting sprawl based codes and misunderstanding the roles of building departments and planning boards, cities have created a process that is incapable of  producing quality buildings and streets. 

This week on the pod, hosts Jeff and Chet discuss how cities are the like the worst guys on Tinder.  First off, they are all cheating on their partners, add in the use of outdated profile photos, descriptions that aren't true and a penchant for one night stands, cities make terrible dating partners. 

Hosts Chet Clem and Jeff Siegler kick-off a new podcast series discussing why the world needs two more white guys with a podcast. Food has become a cultural obsession, fitness freaks are everywhere, we dump billions in to a broken healthcare system, yet no one discusses the outsized impact our places have on our lives. Fortunately for you, Chet and Jeff tackle the topic of why our places are so dysfunctional and why it matters more than we realize. Going beyond a typical parking bitch session, it's a show about what the average person can do, how residents can overcome apathy and what's possible if we stop accepting excuses and demand the change we deserve. 

On this week's episode, Jeff is joined by Bernice Radle of Buffalove Development and the Mayor of Wheeling, West Virginia, Glenn Elliott. The three discuss the role love plays in creating healthy communities and why focusing more on the emotions of residents, can have such an outsized impact. As a developer, Bernice understands first hand how her buildings impact the people that inhabit them as well as other people on the block. Mayor Elliott left a successful law career in DC, because he wanted to make a real difference in his hometown. He believes that for residents to get involved in their community, they must first love their community.

On this episode of Pod Places, Jeff is joined by Aaron Domini, Principal at OHM Advisors, and Allen Penniman, Urban Planner and Designer for the City of Detroit. The three discuss issues plaguing the planning industry, including equity and inclusion, public engagement, a lack of implementation and plans that try and address everything.

On this week's episode, we discuss First + Main Film's most recent installment of the Small Town Spirit Series. Filmmaker John Paget, joins Ryan and Jeff to discuss his experience visiting Monessen, Pennsylvania and how an optimistic young mayor is helping the community overcome its struggles.

Brennan Kane joined for the Planning Festivus episode, in which we aired all of our grievances with the industry. Jeff and Ryan had a chance to discuss Brennan's thoughts on how Covid impacted city planning, how the industry needs to change and why cookie monster might be the hero we all need.

Phil Eich returns this week to discuss his new business, Storyville Social and how through storytelling, we can help residents learn to love their community again. We talked about John Paget's recent article on why we get branding all wrong and how a brand doesn't mean much if you don't meet the promises it makes. And finally, we discussed Ryan's Proud Places advent calendar and why taking small simple actions are the key to making permanent and meaningful change in a community.

This week, on a special Thanksgiving edition of Pod Places, we were joined by Chef, magazine editor and Dean of the Hospitality School for Universidad Internacional del Ecuador in Quito, Ana Carolina Maldonado. We discussed the role food plays in creating great places, why a meal is so much more than eating, and how etiquette affects us all. Ana Carolina MaldonadoChef, blogger for La Comilona blog, magazine editor for Muyuyo magazine and Dean of the Hospitality School for Universidad Internacional del Ecuador in Quito. Dedicated to education for the last 17 years she has specialized her craft through her MBA and experience in F&B management such as catering businesses and restaurants. She is now dedicated to culinary marketing and communication through food.

Are we dressing more casual because we have no place fancy to go anymore, or are we more casual these days and we build to reflect this shift in our culture? This week on the pod, we discuss the casualness of our society and whether or not it has an impact on our places. Rural communities have been devastated by the repeal of economic regulations meant to protect them. As local businesses struggle to compete with ever expanding national chains, small towns keep losing out the the Fortune 500 host cities. We talk about what rural communities can do to combat these effects and how in raising standards, it becomes possible to level the playing field. We were joined this week by Deb Brown of Save Your Town. Deb is a consultant, public speaker, traveler and rural advocate. She is based in Iowa, but works all over the United States and Canada helping rural communities restore their economic health and sense of self.

Ann Sussman is a registered architect and cognitive researcher. She joined us this week, along with guest host, Jaime Izurieta, to discuss her book, Cognitive Architecture, and how the places we build, shape our brain. Ann has done extensive research on the impact of architecture on the mind and how our modern places are having an extremely negative impact on our mental health. Ann Sussman, RA, an architect, author and researcher is passionate about understanding how buildings influence people emotionally. Her book, Cognitive Architecture, Designing for How We respond to the Built Environment (2015), co-authored with Justin B. Hollander, won the 2016 Place Research Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). A frequent speaker, she has given more than 80 lectures at regional conferences, colleges and universities, including keynoting architecture events in Houston, Cincinnati and Nashville in 2017, and presenting at Greenbuild/Berlin in 2018 and Greenbuild/Amsterdam in 2019

Matt Shorraw was elected the Mayor of Monessen, Pennsylvania in 2018, when he was just 28 years old. Monessen is the archetypical Rustbelt town in the Monongahela Valley in Western Pennsylvania. Like so many other former steel towns in the region, Monessen has suffered from huge employment and population losses and deals with generational apathy. Matt's optimism helped him get elected, but his policy knowledge and small project approach has allowed him to be successful.

Today, Ryan and Jeff were joined by community branding guru, Ben Muldrow. Ben came on to discuss his recent video "Guide to Winter Strategies" about how cities can prepare their downtowns for winter months. The conversation turned to strategies business can adopt to help cope with a decrease in foot traffic and other issues keeping local business from thriving. Ben Muldrow is a talented graphic artist who has been designing for over 25 years with experience in a wide variety of marketing applications. He provides community identity and branding services for communities across the United States. Ben has worked on a number of projects specializing in the development of city and neighborhood identities, wayfinding strategies, and promotional marketing material.

This week, hosts Ryan and Jeff were joined by First + Main Films Founder and Proud Places contributing member, John Paget. John is a co-founder of the Better Cities Film Festival, which just wrapped up its first year as a virtual event. The festival included 80 submissions on place, urbanism and cities. The three discussed the origins of the festival, some of the more memorable submissions and how the concept of place is starting to grow.

On this week's episode of Pod Places, hosts Phil and Jeff go it alone. The pod starts with a discussion of Phil's recent Proud Places contribution on the power of storytelling and how every city can develop a Humans of New York campaign. After Phil's thoughtful words, Jeff rants about vacant property for a spell before wrapping things up with a conversation on the dreaded G-word. Gentrification.

This week on the pod, guests Tara Ross and John Giusto of B4Place talk to hosts Phil and Jeff about their experience of living in The Netherlands. Tara and John grew up in Texas and California respectively, but have spent their last decade living in The Netherlands, where the thinking about the places we inhabit is extremely different. We discuss what makes the Dutch approach so different and how, over time, living in places such places, changes who you are. B4place helps create places that leverage the effect that good old-fashioned proximity has on economic, social, and environmental success. And we’re fierce defenders of countryside conservation by focusing on engineering compact, enduring places.Through our Property Experiments, we explore the opportunities and practicalities of developing unique and beautiful places.

This week, hosts Phil and Jeff welcome guest Melody Warnick to discuss her book, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are. Melody talks about her experience of moving 7 times in 11 years and how each time taught her more about the value of place and why a person has to be intentional in making their home into the place they want. Melody is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Fast Company, The Guardian, Slate, Quartz, CityLab, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, O: The Oprah Magazine, Medium, Livability, and many other publications. You can find learn more about Melody here.

This week, hosts Phil, Ryan and Jeff discussed contributor pieces that all related back to building more local wealth and pride. We start with Joe Borgstrom's post on why cities use economic development as justification to kill community character, followed by Ryan's piece on creating community "made-in" brands and wrapped up with a discussion on Jen Acosta's post about choosing out of town developers over local ones.

This week, host Phil Eich takes the reins and interviews Flint, Michigan's Director of Placemaking, Kady Yellow and Founder of The Porch Project, Megan Hayze, on how design shapes our lives and the ways we can make residents more connected with their place.Kady Yellow has been making places come alive since 2010 when she discovered the power of cross-pollinating municipal governments, community organizations, and the arts to build strong urban cores. Kady graduated with Bachelor's degrees in both Mathematical Sciences and Graphic Design from Binghamton University (BU) and went on two work full-time at the university as the Technology Specialist and volunteering as the Creative Director at a local art gallery.Megan Heyza started The Porch Project with the goal of using beautification efforts and porch repairs to promote "neighborliness" in the community through increased use of front yards. The project is also used as a way to provide avenues of research for universities. The grassroots effort has a goal of revamping social connections in urban areas.

This week, hosts Phil, Jeff and Ryan dig-in on the topic of civic self-esteem and how important it is for city leaders to consider how residents view themself and their town. The discussion turned towards the impacts of having low self-esteem, the benefits of high self-esteem and how a place could move in between the two. The crew wrapped it up with a long discussion of Phil's feelings.

This week hosts Jeff Siegler, Phil Eich and Ryan Short, discuss why running a small business is like having a child, why community engagement is critical and rarely done right, and how Tonino, Washington created their own local currency.

This week on Pod Places, Phil Eich and Jeff Siegler welcome in guest host Jaime Izurieta to discuss his recent piece titled "The 30 Things Place Taught Me." Jaime sticks around to talk about the impact of people migrating away from large cities due to covid, and then Phil and Jeff get down on the importance of fostering friendships in your place.

This week on Pod Places, hosts Phil Eich, Ryan Short and Jeff Siegler discuss why communities let national chains truck away millions of dollars every year, how murals can help begin turning around a neighborhood, and why we should treat civic apathy like we do addiction.

This week on Pod Places, Ryan Short, Phil Eich and Jeff Siegler discuss why cities have to learn how to utilize social media, how understanding Enneagrams can help you get what you want and strategies for working with committees, boards and commissions to get things done. Bonus topic this week, Phil's omelet.

In this episode, hosts Phil Eich, Ryan Short and Jeff Siegler discuss the following: -Contributor Ben Muldrow's piece on the importance of community branding and how when completed with everyone in mind, everyone can benefit; - The Burleson Block Party Trailer and why cities would be wise to consider the social lives of residents'; - Contributor John Paget's piece on how effective storytelling can act as a vaccine against apathy.

This week, hosts Phil Eich, Ryan Short and Jeff Siegler discuss the theory of "all growth is good growth" and how this failed municipal strategy has destroyed the countryside while also wrecking cities. We get into the weeds on how a city can grow and still preserve its character and foster pride. You can check out the episode HERE. All previous episodes of the Pod Places Podcast are available on Apple and Spotify. This episode also features a bonus interview with Allan Branch. Allan started his career in software development, but sold his company in pursuit of more meaningful work. He turned his eye towards his hometown of Panama City, FL and renovated an empty downtown warehouse for his family's new home. Most recently, Allan opened History Class Brewing. In one project, he renovated a blighted building, introduced a much needed business to downtown, added a social spot, and is highlighting his communities history.

This week, we spoke with Lacey Reichwald in Whitewater, WI about her efforts to bring a much needed grocery store to her community. We discuss the important connection between people and their food, the structure of the grocery co-op, and how the process is changing the community. Lacey Reichwald is the founding member and board president of Whitewater Grocery Co., a cooperatively-owned grocery store startup in Whitewater, Wisconsin. In addition to her roles within Whitewater Grocery Co., she is a marketing mentor, travel enthusiast, and owner of two small businesses in Whitewater: The SweetSpot Café and The SweetSpot Bakehouse. Building a cooperatively-owned food store involves a broad range of skills that include community building, fundraising, research, marketing, and leadership. Lacey credits her experience as a small business owner in helping develop these skills. Additionally, support from other food co-ops and from industry consultants and mentors have been invaluable to the growth of Whitewater Grocery Co.

In this episode, we are joined by Ben Muldrow to discuss what he learned about community from his experience of the weekly church potluck supper and why you shouldn't bring more mac and cheese. Ben Muldrow is a talented graphic artist who has been designing for over 25 years with experience in a wide variety of marketing applications. He provides community identity and branding services for communities across the United States. Ben has worked on a number of projects specializing in the development of city and neighborhood identities, wayfinding strategies, and promotional marketing material.

This week, we are joined by Ryan Short to discuss his recent video, Ten Signs of a Proud Place. We talk about why parking minimums are stupid, why breweries matter and how Instagram is more important to your town than you might think. Ryan Short is the CEO and co-founder of CivicBrand. Ryan is also the host of the Eyes on The Street podcast. He has been published on Forbes.com and is a contributing partner of Proud Places.

In this episode, we are joined by Storefront Mastery founder, Jaime Izurieta to discuss the importance of beauty and why cities would do better to cultivate quality appearances. Followed by, A Curated Experience founder, Diane Larusso-Sharp. Diane leads us in a discussion on the importance of events, the price of bad events, and how we can manage events in the age of Covid.Jaime J. Izurieta-Varea is a town planner, urban designer and architect, based out of Montclair, New Jersey. He is the founder and principal of the firm Storefront Mastery and helps business districts and business owners create quality storefronts. Diane Lurusso-Sharp owns and operates A Curated Experience, a full-service event and hospitality company offering a wide array of planning, coordination and guest management services to help you impress with ease and confidence.

This week on the Pod Places podcast, we discuss the reasons a mayor should not refer to his city as a butthole, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's epic trolling of the president and what exactly "defund the police" means for communities.

In our first episode of Pod Places, hosts Jack Storey, Phil Eich and Jeff Siegler give a brief introductions of themselves and the show before recapping the Three Day Bender phenomenon, the devastating Michigan floods and how bad municipal codes are killing local shops.