Podcasts about Jeff Speck

Today, Chuck is joined by Jeff Speck, a city planner, author, and principal of an urban design and consultancy firm. They discuss the ideas shared in Chuck's book “Escaping the Housing Trap” and how those concepts play out in the real world, including examples from Jeff's own work. Their discussion covers a wide range of topics, including incremental zoning reform, the benefits and pitfalls of inclusive zoning, and how to finance small-scale housing. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Join Jeff and Chuck in Providence next month. Get your National Gathering tickets now! See more from Jeff: The Planner's Pledge (site) “Walkable City” by Jeff Speck, updated edition “Walkable City Rules” by Jeff Speck See more from Strong Towns: “Escaping the Housing Trap” by Chuck Marohn and Daniel Herriges The Housing-Ready City: A Toolkit for Local Code Reform Chuck Marohn (Substack)

Every day, we make countless choices—but are these decisions guided by desire or design? This hour, TED speakers on what shapes the food we eat, how we power our homes, and how we communicate. Guests include food systems expert Sarah Lake, infrastructure engineer Deb Chachra, cross-cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand, urban planner Jeff Speck, and Tempe resident Ignacio Delgadillo. TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On this week's program, we bring you highlights from a public meeting and open house that took place at the Main Public Library on March 18th about the Downtown & NuLu Street Network Plan. Louisville Metro Government is leading a plan to advance quick-term action projects for streets in Downtown and NuLu, intended to promote walkability and safety for pedestrians and to serve as a blueprint for capital improvement projects over the next several years. The public was invited to come be a part of this planning effort by joining this open house and kickoff of the plan activities - featuring a presentation from Jeff Speck from Metro's planning consultant team! So listen in as renowned urban planner and author Jeff Speck shared his insights on reimagining downtown Louisville through the lens of walkability and why fostering a pedestrian-friendly environment is imperative for a flourishing city. The evening kicked off with Joel from Stantech. Jeff Speck is a city planner and author who advocates internationally for more walkable cities. As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he presided over the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute on Community Design. Prior to his federal appointment, Mr. Speck spent ten years as Director of Town Planning at DPZ & Co., the principal firm behind the New Urbanism movement. Since 2007, he has led Speck & Associates — now Speck Dempsey —an award-winning urban planning firm serving public and private clients around the world. With Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Mr. Speck is the co-author of Suburban Nation, which the Wall Street Journal calls "the urbanist's bible.” His 2012 book Walkable City was the best selling city planning title of the past decade and has been translated into eight languages. He is also the principal author of The Smart Growth Manual and Walkable City Rules. Jeff Speck has been named a fellow of both the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Congress for New Urbanism. In a recent Planetizen poll, he was voted one of the ten “most influential urbanists of all time.” Mr. Speck was the 2022 recipient of the Seaside Prize, whose former awardees include Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander. His TED talks and YouTube videos have been viewed more than six million times. Truth to Power airs every Friday at 9pm, Saturday at 11am, and Sunday at 7pm on Louisville's grassroots, community radio station, Forward Radio 106.5fm WFMP and live streams at https://forwardradio.org

Why are our roads unsafe, and who is to blame? Transportation expert Wes Marshall joins us to unravel the myths behind traffic engineering, revealing a surprising truth: the science we trust to keep us safe on the road might be more fiction than fact. With his provocative book "Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System," Wes aims to spark a critical reevaluation within the engineering community and beyond. Our discussion navigates the murky waters of road safety priorities, exposing the stark contrast between common fender benders and high-speed highway fatalities. The episode calls into question the societal and systemic factors that prioritize speed and power over human lives, emphasizing the urgent need to rethink the metrics and methodologies that guide our transportation systems.Show Notes:Further Reading: Walkable City by Jeff Speck, Inclusive Transportation by Veronica Davis, Right of Way by Angie Schmitt, Transit Metropolis by Robert Cervero, The Bicycle City by Dan Piatkowski, Human Transit by Jarrett Walker, When Driving is not an Option by Anna ZivartsTo help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Amazon Affiliates page at https://amzn.to/3YwX6aA or even better, get a copy through your local bookstore!To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/Follow us on social media for more content related to each episode:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/booked-on-planning/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BookedPlanningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/bookedonplanningInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookedonplanning/

Key Takeaways:Focus on value-add projects rather than new construction - Why I prefer value-add deals as they often provide similar returns with less risk and debt compared to ground-up development.Importance of setting SMART goals - The value of setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals to increase the likelihood of achieving them.Surround yourself with the right people - I credit much of my success to being in the right rooms and networking with the right individuals who helped guide and support my growth.Challenges with the "Wash" project - Parking constraints have been a major issue in replicating this unique commercial real estate concept in other locations.Advice for new commercial real estate brokers - Read "Walkable City" by Jeff Speck to gain a deeper understanding of urbanism and city planning.Importance of proactively raising capital - Create a list of 100 potential investors and consistently promoting investment opportunities to successfully raise capital.

With the rise of suburban sprawl and city planning that has prioritized car travel above all else, modern American cities seriously lack comfortable walking and biking infrastructure. It's a massive issue - but solutions do exist and importantly, those solutions are decidedly doable. Today we are so thrilled to be speaking with Jeff Speck, a city planner, who is widely known for his work advocating for and creating more walkable cities. His book, Walkable City, first published in 2012, has been translated into seven languages and is the best selling city planning book of the 21st century. Walkable City is also a winner of the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature.Jeff believes that a thriving city is a walkable city, where cars are instruments for freedom but aren't necessary for the day-to-day basics of living. We would also add that walkable cities are fundamentally biophilic because livability and wellness are at the core of biophilia. In this episode, we chat with Jeff about making cities more walkable, the economic benefits of walkable cities, and demanding more of our environments. Shownotes Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time 10th Anniversary Edition by Jeff SpeckThe Smart Growth Manual by Jeff SpeckWalkable City Rules by Jeff SpeckSuburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Jeff Speck The walkable city (TED Talk)4 ways to make a city more walkable (TED Talk)Street Fight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth SolomonowConfessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles L. MarohnKilled by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall Andres Duany: Principles of New Urbanism (YouTube)Biophilic Solutions is available wherever you get podcasts. Please listen, follow, and give us a five-star review. Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn and learn more on our website. #NatureHasTheAnswers

Cities have faced a host of challenges over the course of history, such as affordable housing, transportation, public safety and economic opportunities. In today's rapidly changing global economy, these challenges are becoming increasingly complex, with cities needing to adapt to technological advancements, climate risks, and fluctuating fiscal policies. The most successful cities are dynamic and adapt to changing circumstances. Consider Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a prime example. Once known for its manufacturing might, Pittsburgh had to reinvent itself after the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. The Steel City successfully mounted a turnaround by becoming an innovation hub, thanks to a strong academic presence and low cost of living that attracted technology and healthcare employers. What lessons can cities draw from urban transformations of the past?  This episode of The Outthinking Investor explores the role investors will play in solving many of the challenges that cities face. With opportunities emerging across real estate, infrastructure, technology and more, institutional investors are already providing much of the capital needed to fund urban development. Edward Glaeser, economics professor at Harvard University and co-author of “Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation”; Jeff Speck, partner at the urban planning and design firm Speck Dempsey; and Cathy Marcus, Co-CEO and Global COO of PGIM Real Estate, discuss the evolution of cities, the challenges they must overcome, and emerging opportunities for investors.  To hear more from PGIM, tune into our new podcast, Speaking of Alternatives, hosted by Eric Adler, President and CEO of PGIM Private Alternatives. Speaking of Alternatives is available on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and other podcast platforms. Explore our entire collection of podcasts at PGIM.com. 

In episode 77 of the TBD Podcast, Garrett sits down with Jeff Speck, a renowned city planner, writer, and lecturer who serves as the principal at the urban design and consultancy firm Speck Dempsey. Together, they delve into a range of intriguing topics, including how Seaside, FL revolutionized urban design, the reasons behind U.S. cities' rejection of European-style planning, and the creation of the master plan for Water Street. Tune in for an engaging episode that explores the nuances of city planning. Jeff Speck is an internationally recognized city planner known for advocating walkable cities. As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts (2003-2007), he launched the Mayors' Institute on City Design and the Governors' Institute on Community Design. Previously, he spent a decade as Director of Town Planning at DPZ & Co., a key player in the New Urbanism movement. Speck co-authored *Suburban Nation* with Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as the "urbanist's bible," and authored the best-selling *Walkable City*. His works include *The Smart Growth Manual* and *Walkable City Rules*. His TED talks and YouTube videos have surpassed five million views. 0:00:00 - Intro 0:01:13 - How Jeff Speck got his start in urban design 0:07:09 - How Seaside, FL revolutionized urban design 0:12:08 - The Mayors Institute on City Design 0:15:52 - The history of street cars 0:19:08 - Why did U.S. cities reject European styled urban planning? 0:27:52 - The importance of a contributing society 0:36:14 - FDOT and Street Safety 0:50:02 - Creating the Master Plan for the Water Street District 0:56:20 - Why the grid system is superior to other city systems 1:01:06 - Outro

There's a lot of takeaways from any conversation with Joe Minicozzi, or one of his many public presentations. Here's mine today: omnipotent forces didn't create our current systems, whether we are talking about zoning, traffic engineering or tax assessment. Or, in fact, just about anything in life.These were all created by fallible humans. We can, and should, change them. It's our duty, our responsibility. Your local tax system, and your local zoning code were not handed down to you by Moses from the mountain.Joe Minicozzi of Urban 3 is one of those rare people that just has a knack for communicating complex ideas. If you haven't seen one of his presentations, run out and do so. Here's a sample from Not Just Bikes, and one from Strong Towns. Today, we talk in audio form instead of video, but I suspect you'll enjoy it just the same. Since this is a blog, too, here's a few visual references for fun:Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin's Substack page.Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you'd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.Intro: “Why Be Friends”Outro: “Fairweather Friend”Text Transcript:Kevin K (00:01.231) Welcome back to the Messy City podcast. You know, one of the joys that I've had in being involved with the New Urbanism Movement and the Congress for New Urbanism for many, many years is you get to meet and know people who take a lot of issues that we talk about and care about and completely reframe them and make them much more interesting and accessible and understandable, I think, to a larger audience. And there's been a number of people who who've done that or I've seen that happen in the course of my career. And one of those is joining me here today, live from Asheville, North Carolina, Joe Minicozzi. Joe, how's it going, Joe Minicozzi (00:42.018) Great, thanks for having Kevin K (00:43.771) Well, it's fun. I've been wanting to do this one for a little while and it's you're a busy guy and I'm really glad you made some time. Joe, you may know he's often had his work featured in Strong Towns. He's a regular on the speaking circuit with his firm, Urban 3, and he's really developed a unique approach to kind of explaining our built environment in graphic and financial terms I think has changed a lot of people's thinking about things. And we're going to get to some of that. Joe has, one of the cool things, Joe, is you're working all over the country. So there's always something new to talk about. But before we get there, I do think it's interesting for people to understand your background because like somebody coming upon you today and one of your presentations, they might think, he's like this kind of urban guru guy. What does that mean? Or he's like a financial guru guy, but you're actually, you're an architect. Correct? Not licensed, but educated. Yes. Where did... I don't think... One thing I never knew, Joe, like, where did you grow Joe Minicozzi (01:44.476) Well, not licensed. Can say that. Educated, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so... Go Joe Minicozzi (01:56.116) upstate New York, Rust Belt, little town called Rome, New York. Kevin K (01:57.445) Ruffio. cool, that's a cool town. Joe Minicozzi (02:05.282) Why do you say that? That it's not cool. When I was Kevin K (02:07.983) Well, I mean, there's some cool built fabric there. No? Joe Minicozzi (02:11.256) No. When I was a kid, they tore down most of downtown. It was literally one of the largest urban renewal projects per capita in the entire United States. And they blew up, I don't know, like eight to 10 blocks of downtown and built a wooden fort. There's a revolutionary wooden fort in what used to be our downtown. Google Rome, New York and go into the downtown, you'll see it. Kevin K (02:39.715) OK, I must be thinking of pictures I've seen of a different upstate New York downtown then or something. Joe Minicozzi (02:43.288) Oh no, no, it's, didn't, but I didn't realize that was abnormal because you you grew up in a town of 30 ,000 people, this is it, right? That's all you know. You just, so when you go to college, you're just like, yeah, surely like you've got a fort in your downtown, right? You know, everybody's got one. Actually Savannah has one. So, but it's not in the downtown. They didn't eliminate Savannah to rebuild a wooden fort. Yeah, but this is a magnet that I have that I in my bookcase over here. This is my grandfather. Kevin K (03:03.193) Right. That would have been rather odd. Joe Minicozzi (03:13.34) used to tie a rope to this thing. And he's an Italian carpenter, first generation American. And he's tied a rope to this and that rope was tied to my waist. And I used to just walk around job sites all day with him as a kid. I was like, you know, six years old walking around a job site with this huge magnet tied to my waist. And I was picking up nails and I would just sit there with this little anvil, like making the nails go straight so he could reuse them because you know, he's depression era. And I thought I was building buildings since I'd go home and talk to my dad and I was like, I'm building buildings with Papa. And he goes, sounds like you want to be an architect. And I was like, Bing, I want to be an architect. so that's, I wanted to be an architect since I was nine years old and I went to architecture school. Kevin K (03:53.903) You know, that's funny. That's like a weird thing we share in common. It's like, I don't know how that happened with me, because I actually didn't know anybody, you know, in architecture. And I knew a few people who built things, but for whatever reason, I just like always knew I wanted to go into architecture and city planning. it's it's just where I was. So, but anyway, so go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea. Like why showed up to like freshman year? Joe Minicozzi (04:12.386) Yeah, like, they really cool pencils, right? I mean, it's like little clicker pencils, awesome, great tools. Kevin K (04:22.199) And here's the list of all the s**t you have to buy. And I was like, what is, what does even all this stuff do? Joe Minicozzi (04:25.162) Yeah, here's, out and buy a thousand dollars worth of stuff. Yeah, little, remember that, God, I hate saying this, it sounds old. I was explaining to somebody on staff, remember those little letter writing tools, that little plastic thing that you'd have to put on your parallel bar to make those three lines to do your lettering properly? That was insane. Anyway, sorry, sorry kids. That doesn't exist anymore because we actually type in computers now. Kevin K (04:39.745) my god, yeah. Kevin K (04:44.805) Totally, Yeah. Kevin K (04:53.349) Yeah, I know. Everyone wants to share. mean, actually learning how to do architectural lettering was a pretty cool thing. I mean, I always liked the benefit of Joe Minicozzi (04:59.628) Well, the frustrating thing for me is you go all the way through architecture school and the University of Miami is a five -year program and you never built a building. So how can you be a designer of a building and not understand how it's constructed? So in my fifth year, we petitioned the school to build a homeless shelter and we just went ahead and built it, designed it, built it, worked with homeless folks to figure out what are their needs? How do we help solve the problem architecturally? And think that's one of the beauties of Miami is that, you know, the whole time I was, know, Miami is known for its new urbanism, but I was always talking with Liz Plater -Zyberg about what was going on in my hometown, because here you have a town that was designed for walkability, designed for the things that new urbanists would proclaim, yet it was dead as a doornail and we were eliminating our downtown. And Liz would always say to me, she's like, well, that's economics. That's something different. and we're trying to deal with this flood of what's happening in South Florida. That's a different reality. So this whole being seen as an economist is mostly about chasing a question of what are the policies that shape our environment and how do I visualize those for folks, which is very in line with new urbanism. We just look at the money Kevin K (06:15.397) So talk a little bit about how you got to this point then professionally of working on your own and doing a lot of the economic analysis work that you do Joe Minicozzi (06:24.984) Well, mean, if first is working in architecture, and I think this is probably true for most people that are urban designers, is that you want to look at the context of things that's more exciting for you, or why would somebody say, I'm hiring you, the architect, to do an office building here? If you have an urban design mind, you're like, an office building? Why not a mixed use building or why not a residential building? Why is that developer choosing? That's really the design is when the developer makes a choice, right? And so why is the developer choosing office over residential or over retail? In having an urban design mindset, you're going to be more empowered to be looking for those things, those other forces. What are the financial streams? So after architecture, I went to grad school and then started doing like internships in real estate development, real estate finance. I worked at John Hancock Real Estate Investment Group in Boston. kind top of the food chain, where they had $4 billion worth of real estate across the country. And you're seeing how they're making decisions financially about what's going on in your town, right? Because they're going to be doing an asset in your town, a strip mall or a mall or whatever, right? Totally different design series. It was fascinating to watch, but it felt, if you saw the movie, The Big Short, it felt a lot like that. It was like, wow, these people are like on a different way of thinking. Like there's questions they're just not even asking. We were spending $100 million a year fixing the buildings that we owned. Now when you're making 15 bucks an hour, like that's a lot of money, right? And so you'd sit there, trained as an architect, you'd sit there with these asset managers and I would literally show them pictures of buildings that we owned, a building that we owned in Topeka and a building that we owned in Tacoma. And there are two office buildings that we owned. And I would ask the finance officers, I'm like, what's the difference between these two buildings? And they would start going through all of this gibberish of numbers and cash flows, cap rates, NOI, all of that stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, look at the pictures. And like, what are you talking about? I'm like, it's the same damn building. We own the same building, the same office park building in Topeka and Tacoma. And you know, they fall apart differently based on the ecosystem. And this was like mind blowing to Joe Minicozzi (08:43.104) And it's just like, wow, they don't even understand what this... It's just a cashflow model for them. It's not a building, right? As an architect, you're going to... Like the windows fall apart differently. It's going to be based on the heat load of the air conditioner, all that stuff. But it's kind of mind blowing that this is the cashflow, the invisible sine curve that's moving by low cell high, that's moving through the system. And we're not even talking about it. So it's always... Yeah, go ahead. Well, it's always made me curious and got into real estate development. And then during the recession is when I started Urban 3, trying to help cities understand that they're prey to these sign curves. Kevin K (09:20.539) Yeah. I remember you used to tell a story about working at John Hancock and I think this is just instructive for people to understand the world of like big development, big finance was I think you had a story about we had they had X million dollars that they had to place within like 48 hours or something like that. What was Joe Minicozzi (09:37.56) Yeah. It was called a capital call where the CEO of the real estate arm came in and said, need to get, I think it was like $120 million into the ground in the next quarter. So that was an issuance that he was given from Topress. think of anybody that's on this podcast, if you have a 401k plan, if you're like CalPERS is the biggest one, the California teachers. pension. They have to make money on their money, right? So they take your retirement investment and they go out and make money so that you can have growth in your dollars as an investor. So if you want to see your 401k plan grow, well, somebody's got to make that money grow. So they're going around, in case of John Hancock, that's an insurance company. So somebody buys John Hancock life insurance. They want to return when they die on their money. what they do at the top level of John Hancock, they're putting some money into bonds, money into stocks, some money into real estate. So ours was the real estate arm. And whatever decision was made at the top, money came into the real estate world and was like, okay, that needs to get into the ground as fast as possible. So they were issued this $120 million in the next quarter. So the people that are finance managers call up all of their developer friends and were like, can I buy a building somewhere? That was basically how it happened. And the more expensive the building, the better because the more we can get that $120 million down to zero, the faster with less transactions. So imagine if you were the guy on the office that found a hundred million dollar building, like that's actually good, right? Now in architecture world, when we go to school, we're learning the direct opposite, like smaller, like little investments. We're not thinking about the big fish that are out there. anyway. Kevin K (11:25.583) Yeah. Sometimes it feels like you're like a language translator, Joe. It's like you have these two different worlds that you have grown to understand really well. One is like architecture and development, and the other is finance. And do you feel like you're kind of like straddling those worlds and trying to explain one to the Joe Minicozzi (11:44.652) Yeah, it's a simple sense, the tagline of our company is a data -driven storytelling, you know, that we have to communicate this stuff. And so lot of what we do is just unnerve things. I just came back from a meeting with our county assessor and their consultant, and, you know, he's going through this report that's got how many pages? I don't know, but it's all this. And it's like, how can you show me all of this text? and start talking to me about it. And I'm just like, I'm like, dude, you got to show me a picture somewhere. It's like, this is crazy. And so what we do is if you watch any of our work, we spent a ton of time breaking a city down to reveal its essence. So I don't need to get into like whether or not your spark plugs are firing at 20 beats per second or whatever. I need to just show you your car works, right? What does the audience want? They don't need to know the details. And far too many of us technically, trained folks, even architects, get down into the details and the audience doesn't necessarily understand does the car work, yes or no. So that's basically the method of our work is try to make it simple for folks. I use lot of analogies when I talk to people because that's how we relate. that's kind of, think of it having a curious mind, you want to go in and break something down, but to be able to speak it to a regular audience. It's not that the audience is stupid, it's just people just don't care about those kinds of details, they just want to know the bigger picture. Kevin K (13:19.545) Yeah, yeah. And so before we get into a couple of those stories, I am also curious, when you started your business in the recession, how did you, like who were your first clients and how did you get going in that world? Because it's definitely a different thing for an architect or urban designer to get into. Joe Minicozzi (13:39.448) You know, the funny thing was, I remember in the recession, I think I did a local lecture here in Asheville to the AIA, to the Architects Association. You know, it's a recession. Yeah, you're not building buildings. So as an architect, you're out of work, you know? But what's crazy about the architectural education, it's really an amazing education in creative thinking, but also critical thinking, right? So we're all given, you remember studio, there's like 15 of us in a studio, we're all given one problem to solve, but you're get 15 different answers, right? So that's the creative side. But the analytic side happens in all of that, that we're trying to break it down and figure it out before we can get to a design process. So that's the critical thinking side. Those skills can be applied anywhere. And then also in architecture, what do you do at the end of the semester? You have to pin up your work and you have to defend but it has to communicate to an audience visually, right? They need to understand what's going on in the design intent by what they see on the wall and how you present it. If you just look at that as a basic educational format, that can be applied anywhere. So we just applied architectural thinking to quantitative economic data for cities, right? So we get all of your data. We figure out what's its floor plan. Like why is this road here? Why is your city grown a certain way? That's all a floor plan, right? But there are decisions that are made along the way that fuel that growth. So if I add three bedrooms to my house, was it because I had four kids? know, it's like, that's the decision point for growing the house. Well, the same is true for cities. So we see when you get white flight, you're going to see that like in Kansas City. We saw that in Kansas City, Missouri, like this massive growth, southward, northward and westward or eastward, That's the whole, and that all happened really fast from 1950 forward. I think you, it's something like you doubled your population from 250 to 500, but you've 10 times your land area, which is crazy. Kevin K (15:52.475) Yeah, yeah, it's somewhere. We had a massive geographic expansion from the like 1947 city until today. I think the original 1947 city or so was probably in the ballpark of about 40 square miles. And now it's like 315 or so. Joe Minicozzi (16:15.242) I'm just drawing off the top of my head. There's an actual presentation out there somewhere, but I think it was like three times the road per person growth. So you're taking down three times the cost. So yeah, during the recession, was basically, I was showing up at conferences trying to help folks that were trying to have conversations about walkability, urban design, equity, and trying Kevin K (16:19.865) Yeah. yeah, absolutely. Joe Minicozzi (16:44.472) trying to share that the things that actually are all things that we advocate for also produce more wealth for communities. Does that make sense? So it was just like, look, we should just talk about that. Rather than say that it's good to have walkability, that can seem like a threat to an individual that you're trying to get me out of my car. That's very judgy. So rather than get involved in that emotionally, let's just talk about the fact that a Walmart actually destroys your wealth. Don't hate the player, hate the game, but you better understand the game. So when we did the models early on, it was just comparing Walmarts to Main Street, and Main Street was winning every single time. But why don't we build more Main Streets? Because the reverse is true, that we make it easier to do the Walmart, we tax it less, we charge it less, so that of course, Walmart's going to... You're going to see more Walmart -type buildings. I don't mean to be picking on Walmart so much. It's That's like a prototype, like the boxes. Those are throwaway architecture. So if you have property tax system that's based on your value of property, then there's an incentive for me to build junk in your community, right? The crappier the building I build, the lower the taxes I pay. Has nothing to do with the costs of the property. So the typical Walmart consumes two police officers per Walmart. So it actually costs you more in police services than a Walmart pays in property taxes. So if you were the owner of a Walmart, that's a good deal for you, right? So don't hate them. I hate us for not doing the math on that. It's that's shame on us. It's not hard. You just go call the police chief and say how many police officers are at Walmart every day and they'll tell you. That's data, Kevin K (18:28.015) Yeah. So let's talk about some of the recent data then. Not far from Walmart country, you've been working in Springfield, Missouri, which obviously is southwest Missouri, not far from Bentonville, Arkansas, which is the home base for Walmart. So we were talking, yeah, and Bentonville's actually an amazing, really cool town. And so you've been down in Springfield doing a bunch of work, and we were chatting about it. Joe Minicozzi (18:44.69) We've done Bentonville too, yeah. Kevin K (18:57.6) So this kind of took you in a little different direction. You started looking at trees and stormwater and everything else. I wonder if you could kind of talk through that scenario. Joe Minicozzi (19:05.888) Yeah. Springfield is really cool. it's one, it's nice about it. It's just straight smack dab in the middle of the country. It's Midwestern. There's not a lot of dynamic change to it because you don't have the coastal pressures of being next to an ocean or something like that. You don't have the rapid change of Silicon Valley where there's crazy changes in employment. It's very stable that And so in that stability, it's sort of a nice control subject of what's going on here. It's also not, it's not at the edge of some blast zone of some other city, you know? So think of like Rancho Cucamonga, California, which is outside the blast zone of Los Angeles. So whatever happens on Los Angeles is going to spread into the suburbs, suburb cities that are around it. So anyway, putting that aside. There's also this business person there, his name is Jack Stack, who wrote this game called The Great Game of Business, awesome book about business transparency. So the quote that I like of his is, I'm reading it right here, it says, a business should be run like an aquarium where everybody can see what's going on, what's going in, what's moving around, and what's coming out. So his theory of business is that everybody inside the company should know the balance sheet, they should know the P &L. that it's not him as the business owner, that he has a gold mine of money in the basement. You know, that everybody on staff should understand they've got to pay rent, they've got to pay insurance, all this stuff has costs. Well, our attitude is the same with cities. We should make the city economics so transparent that everybody understands the land use, the economic consequences of land use decisions. Don't tell me that people just want to live out in suburbia. Of course, if you're subsidizing them, why wouldn't you want to live in suburbia? So they hired us to do that modeling. Their city has run mostly off sales tax. think it's 86 % of their revenue comes from sales tax, 14 % comes from property tax, as far as geospatial, things we can put on a map. So that's kind of like the majority of their cashflow. When I did the presentation there, Joe Minicozzi (21:27.2) One of the things that we're doing the first side, showing the revenue and we're getting feedback from the staff and you're an urban designer, I'm an urban designer. One of the things that we tend to pay attention to how a city is shaped and what it looks like when we drive around. There weren't a lot of street trees in the city. And Graham Smith from Multi Studio based in Kansas City. He's the urban designer on the project. Graham said to me, goes, Kevin K (21:49.935) Yep. Joe Minicozzi (21:54.988) Do notice there's not a lot of street trees? And I was like, yeah, that's kind of crazy. It's like, it's like somehow like trees don't happen in the city. So I made a comment about it during the staff meeting and somebody in the engineering department said to me, well, I said, why don't you have trees? And he just said to me, goes, well, it's because trees attack the streets and sidewalks and use that word attack. I like my, my designer kicked in and I immediately responded. Do you not know how to design a tree pit? And then I stopped and I was like, well, that's not fair because I'm going to put them in the defensive. so, you know, this is somebody that's coming in with a mindset of maybe he came from, life safety or something, or the risk department inside city government. So he's only looking at it as a balance sheet item of one line item. Yes. A tree could screw up a sidewalk if you don't plant the proper tree species and don't build a tree pit. I got it. But it doesn't mean you should just lay waste to all trees. So just for fun. I came back to the office, I talked with Lea Hanringer, who was on the project. was like, and Lea's interested in understanding climate effects. So let's just look at the trees and what they could do financially for the city. So the whole stormwater system is, well, currently they're at a $9 million a year deficit in their stormwater system. They should be spending 15 million a year. They're only spending 6 million a year. So let that wash over you. They're not investing enough in their system that they've built. So that's only going to cause an economic collapse at some point in the future. If I don't brush my teeth every day, that's going to be a problem. One of them is going to fall out, right? So brushing my teeth every day is a maintenance issue. Same is true with any kind of infrastructure system. But to just go out and just totally replace the whole infrastructure system, if we just went out and built their stormwater system today, it'd be $600 million, $661 million worth of investment. So we considered the tree as a pipe and just said, what do trees do? And we actually made a cartoon of two sponges on a stick because there's a sponge in the air called leaves that suck water when the water hits it, keeps it from hitting the ground. And there's a root system that absorbs water from the ground. All of that keeps it out of the stormwater system. So a tree is essentially a pipe replacement, just to be crude about it, right? The average tree in Springfield, Missouri. And again, you don't have to be exact. Joe Minicozzi (24:23.192) Let's just get in the ballpark. It's like 770 gallons of water per tree gets sucked out of the air and 1500 gallons a year gets sucked out of the ground by the root system. So we can do the math on that and we kind of did an estimate based on the trees that they currently have in their city. Scaling that up, you're talking $600 ,000 of savings in the air and $1 .6 million savings in the ground. So that's $2 .2 million a year that you're not paying. in your stormwater system because of these trees. Here's an idea. Buy more trees. That sounds like a real rocket science idea. But I know, hey Joe, trees cost money, then we're gonna have to maintain them, we're have to make sure that we've got to get out and fix a sidewalk every once in while because we did something wrong. Okay, well we can do numbers on that. So we ran the math on it. The average benefit from the tree is a pipe, if you will. is about $115 a tree. The cost is 75 bucks. 'all take out your calculators at home, subtract $75 from 115. That means it's net positive 40 bucks a tree. we just, you know, just as a rough estimate, if you just go out and plant 10 ,000 trees, you're going to be net positive $400 ,000 a year. You can essentially use the tree to manufacture money to buy for police officers. That's cool. So don't just take it and look at that one side and just like, yeah, it's complicated to fix a sidewalk. What are the downstream effects of this? Now to kind of scale this up, remember I said $600 million system. Eugene, Oregon, we just happen to have the data. So Springfield's 170 ,000 people, Eugene, Oregon's 175, so it's got 5 ,000 more people in it. The stormwater system in Eugene, which actually has more rain in Eugene than in Missouri. Their stormwater system cost 400 million dollars versus Springfield is six hundred and and and 20 million dollars so so basically another way putting this Eugene, Oregon saved a hundred and eighty million dollars in their stormwater system and It comes down to the fact that they're a lot smaller. They the city shape is more compact So by doing compact design, you can actually save a hundred and eighty million Joe Minicozzi (26:46.903) Does that make sense? It's 35 square miles for Eugene. It's 83 square miles for Springfield. Kevin K (26:52.327) And to put it in context, I would imagine Eugene is still largely a city of like single -family homes. It's just maybe exactly, it's just a different layout for the city itself and how everything is configured on the ground. Joe Minicozzi (26:59.862) Yeah, yeah, it's not European. Joe Minicozzi (27:09.592) Well, our attitude is like, look, these are your choices. I live here in Asheville. So if you want to stretch out, fine. If you're a Midwestern city and you're like, hey Joe, this is the Midwest, you don't understand, we got lots of land here, we're gonna stretch out. It's like, oh cool, yeah, do it. But just make sure that you understand the cost of that stretching out and make sure that you let your decision makers know that people want to have a one acre yard, awesome, but it's gonna cost us $180 million more in a stormwater Is that the best choice for that public investment, that $180 million? Or could you have, I don't know, sent every child on a walkabout sabbatical around the world with that investment? There's lots of choices you could do with $180 million. Let's just be honest about Kevin K (27:58.117) Yeah, no doubt. Not to mention like one of the least of which could just be like lower taxes if that's your thing, you know. Joe Minicozzi (28:06.232) Well, or you could have invested that $180 million in more trees and you would have had $50 million of new revenue in your system on an annual basis, which is more than the ARPA funding that you got. ARPA was just a one year deal. Like you could actually manufacture more money than the federal government gave you. I mean, come on now, let's just talk about Kevin K (28:18.307) Right. Kevin K (28:24.123) Yeah. And I think the interesting thing is you're not even really getting into what some people might think of as like the frou frou design benefits of trees versus not trees in this. And so makes it a more pleasant place to walk or Joe Minicozzi (28:37.174) yeah. Aesthetic quality that reduces the heat island effect, reduces your air conditioning bills because you're not dealing with the outward effect of radiation. mean, there's lots of things. CO2, I mean, we didn't get an A that. We're just like a tree as a pipe replacement. Just start there. But yeah, if you did do those numbers, if you read, I don't know if you see on the bookcase up here, Happy City. and they get in the quantitative sociological effects that are actually financial as well because Canadians measure that stuff. We don't in America because we don't pay for health systems at the government level. So when the government actually does pay for the health system, they kind of want to know what the costs are. know, Charles Montgomery used all of that math in there to explain the financial consequences. I think the book is sort of a mislabeled. I think it's more of an economic than with the name Canotes. Kevin K (29:35.739) So at the stage you are now with Springfield, have you presented all this information to them and had that out in the world? Joe Minicozzi (29:45.356) Yeah. Well, one of the biases was that they wanted to continue to annex more land. And the first question I asked, which was why? And they said, well, people live out there and there's some higher wealth houses that are out there. Therefore, we're going to get higher taxes. And the reality of it is, and this is back to the original analysis that we did, which is the value per acre analysis. One of the biases people have with math is when they see like the Walmart's worth $20 million, they get really excited about it, especially compared to a building that we rehabbed on Main Street here in Asheville that's $11 million. So Walmart's twice the value, right? But that Walmart took 34 acres of our city versus our building on 0 .5 acres. And it's just a habit that humans have where they just immediately go to the big number without understanding the efficiency. Well, the same is true with suburbia. It's like, okay, yeah, they're experiencing wealth flight out of Springfield where people are just outside the city limits out in the county in their high -end neighborhoods. But when we do our tax model, you can see that they're actually not that productive. That's the first thing. Back to how I said, Springfield gets its money. They get their money off sales taxes. So why would you want to chase residential? Makes no sense. So we're gonna go and bring them into the city limits and then we're have to provide more services for them and not get any taxes out of them because we get all of our taxes out of sales. I actually told the audience when that question came up, I said, look, right now they're living outside, driving into your city and shopping, you're collecting their sales tax dollars and they're going home. You don't have to pay for their schools, you don't have to police them, you don't have to put the fire services for them, that's their problem. Why would you wanna take them in? and have more costs in your community when you're already getting the money that you need, which is the sales taxes. And as a planner, I hate saying that because it's like, everybody should be part of the community if you're involved at an economic level, but from a brass tax of how their financial system operates, there's no incentive for them to annex that land. But again, when you have the politics of everybody just there, and this is something just true to the new, as long as you've been in new urbanism and I've been involved, it's like this kind of habit. Joe Minicozzi (32:10.06) that we are America, so we must suburbanize. It's just this, it's ingrained in us. And it's really, it's a myth more than anything else. Kevin K (32:17.014) Right. So it also kind of strikes me, one of the interesting things about your work or that you get to see is the very different ways that local governments are funded all over the country. So you've talked about this example in Missouri, and it's probably really similar to how my city is. If I broke down our property tax bill, I think about 70 % of it goes to the school district. And then it's kind of apportioned up between the county and the city and some other, like the library board and a mental health. Board etc, but the lion's share is a school district and most of our city revenue is sales tax and then income tax because we Yeah, which is rare, but we have an income tax But I'm curious like what you've seen like around the country. Are there approaches that seem better worse more sustainable less sustainable or they just like they're Joe Minicozzi (32:54.4) Yeah, which is very rare. Yeah, that's Joe Minicozzi (33:08.916) They're all different. One of the jokes that I used to make is when we did this, I want to reference my former boss, Pat Whalen, in public interest projects. Pat's amazing. He's a genius. Pat had this incredible PowerPoint called the Economic and Environmental Case for Urbanism. And so he's the director of a real estate company trying to explain the value of downtown revitalization to people. That's where the value per acre analysis comes from. It was part of his show. what was interesting is it made sense in Asheville, and I just started poking around other cities in North Carolina because I was on the Downtown Association Board, and we're trying to figure out the value of our downtown versus other downtowns. you have a day job working for a district, the real Kevin Klinkenberg, you have this day job for this boundary. Well, don't you want to know how you operate versus the downtown improvement district or the Westport improvement district? Yeah, of course you do. So I was doing that for 10 cities bigger than Asheville and 10 cities smaller than Asheville. What's our taxable, non -taxable ratio? Who's got too much non -taxable? I don't know. Like until you get the data. So I made this shared website that's a Google document. And I shared it with the downtown directors for all the 10 cities and we populated it so we could all get metrics to understand how we stack up. What was your original question? Kevin K (34:43.963) It's just about the different mechanisms for a big local Joe Minicozzi (34:46.75) yeah. So, in that, we started to see that the downtowns were crushing it versus every other part of the city. Right? So, as an urban designer, we advocate for walkability, downtowns, everybody likes them, why don't we do more? And we start to find all the zoning rules that don't allow it, all the policies that don't allow it, and all the biases. And a whole Congress for urbanism is essentially discussing these things, going, who the hell put these things in place? You know, it's just, that's what we do. And we try to undo. these kind of rules that kind of get in the way. So I was doing, I think I was talking to Peter Katz and he's like, does it work this way in Florida? And I was like, I don't know. And so he hired us to do the analysis in Sarasota and sure enough, it was the same damn thing. So here's the way I see it. Florida has totally different rules than North Carolina. North Carolina has different policies than South Carolina, which is way different from Missouri. Everybody's got different state tax policy rules. But you know, and I know, when you drive around suburban Phoenix or suburban Los Angeles or suburban Boston, you see the same crap. To the radio audience, that's an architectural terminology, but it's like you see the same junk everywhere, right? And I told Peter, said, you know, it's hilarious to me. We all have different math, but it yields the same results. So in North Carolina, it's two plus two equals In South Carolina, it's three plus one equals four. In Florida, it's one plus three equals four. In California, it's 22 times 16 divided by the square root of 47 equals four. You know, it's like, we can make it complex, but at end of the day, that's all we have to do is use our eyes and go around suburbia and say, why is this happening? And you're going to see the same exact economic results in the landscape that's baked into the policy to reward it happening. So sort of shame on us for, you know, I don't have a math degree. I'm trained as an artist like you. I draw pictures, but I'm gonna go look at those policies and read them. Sometimes it gives you an aneurysm when you read some of these policies. But I think that's the beauty of the world that you and I operate in, is we're not afraid of that stuff. We'll get involved in transportation policies. Let's go read the ITE manual. It's like, of nerd does that, but we do it. Kevin K (37:07.611) I mean, if you talk to me when I was 19 years old in architecture school and said, well, hey, you're going to learn all about the intricacies of zoning codes and traffic engineering and also like, what? What are you talking about? But if you really want to understand your world and make a difference in it, you've got to dive into those things. So yeah, exactly. And actually, it is kind of fun and interesting to learn that it was fascinating to me when I first learned. Joe Minicozzi (37:25.826) and not fear Kevin K (37:35.003) much more about traffic engineering, like how engineers actually thought and what they were looking at and how they were evaluating streets and intersections and everything else to come up with their solutions. Joe Minicozzi (37:47.544) Well, you can be a better practicing professional too if you're respecting their profession and saying, I want to learn how you operate. Now I'm going to call BS on things when I see it, but at the same time, I'm going to respect that you have knowledge that I don't and I want to learn. But the thing that makes, I think that makes you and I different is that we also know that Moses didn't deliver their rules. That these are not infallible people that have designed this stuff. Kevin K (38:12.184) Right. Joe Minicozzi (38:16.056) that these are humans that are operating with their best intention, but often they make mistakes. Kevin K (38:22.331) No doubt, no doubt. I think we don't emphasize that enough that really so much of what we struggle against is just people trying to create systems and rules and then working with it and all of that can be changed. Joe Minicozzi (38:37.112) Yeah. Well, I just, this morning I sat with my county assessor and this is trouble that we started back in 2021. And here we are three years later and we're going through a reassessment in January of this year. And he's telling me that like a lot of the things that we recommended back in 2022, they're going to do, but they're not going to do it until 2029. I just about lost my mind. I was like, you know how many human beings my wife and I could produce in four years and you can't change policy? Come on now. That's bias in the system where it's like, there's nothing to stop them. It's just they've never done things this fast before. it was kind of frustrating and I told them, said, look, you just need to see me as a taxpayer now and not a consultant. I live here. My staff suffers. Kevin K (39:12.377) Yeah. Joe Minicozzi (39:32.438) with housing, everybody I know suffers with housing in this community because we're a hot market right now. And it's not fair that because you're going to be uncomfortable changing the way that you behave, there's no law that says you can't do this. This is just about your practice. And we see this, you've seen this with your career with city planners. It's like, well, we just haven't done it that way before. It's like, well, change. Kevin K (39:55.749) Yeah, yeah, it's not hard. It's not the end of the world, you know. Joe Minicozzi (39:57.622) The world's not going to stop. And guess what? Guess what? You're going to make a mistake again. Yeah, it's going to happen. It's like we're humans. Kevin K (40:05.423) I know. There's a real struggle a lot of times to just get people to take a risk to try something and try and fail and if you fail, it's not the end of the world. So what has Joe Minicozzi (40:16.376) They won't assess Airbnb's as commercial product. I'm like, dude, we've got 4 ,000 of them in my city. I've got people from Florida, cash flowing houses up here, and they're paying them off in four years. And my staff can't do that. I can't do that. Like, what the hell? And so why are you choosing to value them as houses and not commercial product? And the state, the state charges an occupancy tax on top of them, right? So the state knows that they're hotel rooms. Kevin K (40:19.532) yeah. Joe Minicozzi (40:45.368) because they're paying an occupancy tax, much like a hotel room would. So why are you choosing to value it differently and not value it on its cap rate? And I'm serious. Like I know that I'm kind of like beating this drum about here in Asheville. Nationwide, this is a problem. And the assessors are like, well, you know, it takes a while to kind of work this out. I'm like, no, Airbnb has been around since 2015. For f**k's sake. Sorry. It's like, this is, it shouldn't take 10 years. Kevin K (40:59.547) Yeah, no Joe Minicozzi (41:14.626) to realize how it affected the marketplace. You just sound stupid at that point. we don't understand. Kevin K (41:19.289) Yeah, it was crazy. It was such a big issue, as you might imagine, in Savannah, which I think for a time, Savannah was like the number one city in the world for Airbnb. Joe Minicozzi (41:29.516) Well, at least in Georgia, you have a separation between an occupant and a non -occupant. We don't have that in North Carolina. We're all treated the same, which is insane. So in Georgia, if you own a house in Savannah, but you live in Kansas City, you're taxed at a higher rate than somebody that lives in a Savannah house. Owner -occupied is totally different than non -owner -occupied. In North Carolina, we don't even have that protection. So it's even worse for us. So it's maddening. So anyway, anybody that's on this podcast that lives in a tourist town, like this is one of the things that should be the top of your agenda to talk about. It's like, I'm not saying don't do it. You we're a tourist town. Our baseball team is called the Asheville Tourists. Got it. Been the Asheville Tourists since the 1920s. This is our economy. But don't tax them less. That's crazy. Yeah. Kevin K (42:00.068) Interesting. Kevin K (42:24.443) Understand what they are, tax them, or have some policy that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. So one of the other things that you've been able to do with your work then is kind of related to all this. You get the chance to like dive deep into the history of especially like property taxation and other things. And I know you've read a lot of stuff in this world. How has Joe Minicozzi (42:28.746) It's a commodity, right? What does that do to housing prices? Kevin K (42:51.269) kind of impacted the work that you're doing or you're thinking, or what are some notable things that you've seen and just looking back a long time ago when a lot of these rules were being formulated. Joe Minicozzi (43:01.75) Yeah, there's some. One of the things about new urbanists, it's kind of weird. I hate that term because we're sort of just urban thinkers. We're complex thinkers. Joe Minicozzi (43:19.68) It's not new. This is just, we're operating in an urban environment, we're going to be interrogating things, but we tend to lean toward, if it's broke, fix it. That's our attitude. And it shouldn't take forever. But we also swim upstream to try to figure out who put this fence in. So who put the fence out in that field? And why is that fence there? And if the fence serves a purpose, keep the fence. If the fence was there for just because some random situation, get rid of it. It's like unnecessary policy. So you'll hear within our cluster of crazy friends, a lot of us are just like, rid of parking standards. Why do you need them? Why do we have trip counts for highways? Because when you look at the base data of trip counts, it doesn't make sense. Plus, since pandemic, we've changed the way that our commute patterns operate. So we should be changing our math. And like we operate faster with a level of, with trying to stop the bleeding, if you will. We're triage people, you know, we're like the emergency room medics. But we're also going to go upstream to figure out how did this start? So just for, you know, I started to see a lot of patterns in the assessment maps of how neighborhoods were construed or different market areas that lined up with redlining. And so redlining started in 1934 and went to 1968 and was deemed unconstitutional. But if you go to Mapping Inequality website, you actually find that there's maps that predate redlining that the bankers were using that was essentially racist. That if you were an immigrant or in a black neighborhood, they deemed you high risk and they changed your ability to get cashflow. Redlining was adopted at a federal level. So it's federal policy that said this is the rule of the land now, which makes it pernicious. It was already pernicious before, but for the federal government to come in and say, we're going to be unconstitutional here is pretty bad. But to everybody's credit, everybody's hands got slapped in 1968, that changed. Well, here we are today and we're still seeing the same effects in the valuation that models very similarly to redlining. So I was just like, well, maybe there's got to be a book somewhere that this is all talked about in the Joe Minicozzi (45:41.816) I found this book from 1922. It's the ninth edition. So was actually the first edition was 1895. So think about this, a book was reprinted nine times because it was so popular. It's called The Essays and Taxation by Edwin Seligman. And I love this quote. So just for the radio audience, just turn on your mind to 1895. This is what he wrote. Practically, the general property tax is actually administered as beyond all doubt, one of the worst tax systems known to the civilized world. Because of its attempt to tax intangible as well as tangible things, it sins against the cardinal rules of uniformity, of equality, and of universality and taxation. It puts a premium on dishonesty and debauches the public's conscience. It reduces deception to a system and makes a science of navery. It presses hardest on those least able to pay and imposes double taxation on one man and grants entire immunity on the next. In short, the general property tax system is so flagrantly inequitable that its retention can only be explained through ignorance and inertia. It is the cause of such crying injustice that its alteration or its abolishment must become the battle cry of every statesman and reformer." So this is somebody who works in taxation and goes, this is a crock of junk. Let's get rid of this. And that was over a hundred years ago, right? And so now I sat in a two hour meeting. with my assessors and their consultant going through is excruciating detail, all of this crazy mathematics. I'm like, why are we doing it this way? I understand what you're doing, but let's take a big step up. Why do we finance cities this way? Why is it based on value? know, Kevin, you and I are trained as architects, right? We want to do beautiful buildings. We want to do, if I could afford it, I would build a stone house, you know, because I like stone and it lasts forever. So I create an asset that will be in the community for hundreds and hundreds of years paying taxes. Why would you penalize me for that? You should be charging me on how often I drive on that road and how many times I use a fire call. Charge me for the services you provide rather than some arbitrary, hey, you built a stone house, therefore you pay more taxes. You could be right next door to me in a tin shack and have actually more income than me. Joe Minicozzi (48:09.944) and be taxed less because you have a tin shack and I've got a stone house. I could be making $50 ,000 a year and you're making $200 How is that fair? This is where I said that the income tax is a little bit more fair, but the thing is if you're really rich, you're not making income. You've got assets, right? Those are all hidden somewhere, not being taxed. So there's no perfect systems. That's why we advocate, and you see in our models, those red -black models where you have Black is producing wealth, net positive, red is net subsidy. And we did that for Springfield. 80 % of the city is subsidized. So just show that to the citizens and just be like, this is how we're subsidizing it. Is this the best choice? But you should charge me for it. If there's, yeah, go ahead. No, Kevin K (48:52.091) So when you do this, go ahead. I was going say when you do that kind of historic research, it, I mean have to ask the Georgist question, does that, how do you think about that relative to the Henry George critique, the land value tax approach versus the standard property tax that we do in most places? Joe Minicozzi (49:11.16) I mean, I think that aligns with Henry George, the statement. It aligns with how I feel as a taxpayer and also as somebody that practices in this world. The more we get into this with the Cessars, I have all the respect in the world for what they do because we do all of our work on their data. So I'm very thankful for them as a profession. But I also see that they're trapped. in a construction of their own making, the same way that traffic engineers are. And for anybody that's on this podcast that's read Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Chuck Marrone, I mean, he nails it. That same ethos in that book is the same ethos I see with the zoning people that are all just about zoning. This is the way the zoning is, as if some omnipotent force gave them the zoning, you know? And then there's the same as I see this with the assessors, where I always ask them, I'm like, why is that the standard? Where did this come Like today when this one assessor was telling me that legally they can't assess Airbnbs as commercial. So I immediately asked her, I'm like, can you show me the law that says that? And she just went blank. And I was like, you just told me that there was a law that this, so tell me the law. And they don't, this is their bias. This is their practice. This is their fear. They're afraid to stir up the people that are out there with Airbnbs. I'm like, that's not what the law says. So you're making a choice not to do that. There's so much... Joe Minicozzi (50:43.129) discretion that people don't talk about. You see this when you talk to old school planners that are just like, the trip counts and the parking requirement, their bias kind of comes in. They won't call it a bias. Kevin K (50:56.197) Yeah, yeah. And I think we've often talked about that. And I think Jeff Speck famously wrote about that. You can manipulate a traffic study to say whatever you want it to say. And it's really just about the choices that you're making of what you want to do or what you want the outcome to be. Joe Minicozzi (51:14.12) We did a land analysis. Back to Henry George, we did a land value analysis where we just turn off all the buildings and just look at the land value per acre. This was in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The larger parcels in the commercial strip area were half the value of the out parcels across the street. I asked, I'm like, does land magically lose half its value when you cross the street? Same zoning category. And the tax assessor told me with all confidence, she goes, well, the cheaper one is bigger. The more land you have, the lower the value. And it's like, what economic rule is that true? And she goes, there's less people that can afford large tracts of land. So therefore we have to give a discount because there's less people in the marketplace. And I was like, well, that's kind of true. But does that work this way with other limited commodities like diamonds? If I get a bigger diamond, is it cheaper? Surely there's less people that can afford a bigger And everybody in the room was laughing, but she was just totally confused by that. And the weird thing is that I don't have an economics degree. I've actually never taken an economics course. So I just asked a question because I'm curious about this stuff. Kevin K (52:23.323) Yeah. So Joe, you've also been working a little bit in Annapolis, Maryland, which is obviously a really, really different context than Springfield, Missouri, one of the oldest cities in the country. wonder if you want to talk a little bit about what you've been doing there and what you're seeing. Joe Minicozzi (52:40.376) Yeah, Annapolis is cool. We did one of those red -black models for them. And one of the things that we noticed was their annexation pattern was an interesting tell. It's kind of funny. like, I've got a picture for that, but it's kind of hard to talk about a picture in this space. I'll Kevin K (53:03.387) Well, eventually, eventually this will be a YouTube thing too at some point. So we could do Joe Minicozzi (53:08.696) Yeah. from one of the things you could see in the, again, we talked about at the start of this about Kansas City, there's tells in the annexation pattern that tell you the problems that you're having today. So it's kind of like, you and I are the same age. I'm 56. There's things that I'm dealing with today in my body that didn't happen because of what I did last week. It happened because of stuff I did when I was in high school, right? The older you get, like all of a sudden it's like, my ACL gave out. Why is that? It was because I played football in high school. So it's like, just took a while for that ligament to just finally give. I can remember the concussion that I had when that happened. You know, it's like things like that. So we look at cities the same way as what did you do in your past that you're now seeing the problems today? So. One of the rules that we all know is roads only last about 50 years. so every 50 years is when you have your heart attack based on what you did when you first built those roads. Annapolis did 71 % of its land acquisition. So if you look at it today and just say, if we make a pie chart of this, when did these areas break down? Their first hundred years is 4 % of their land. for their first 100 years. From 1920 to 1800, that's 80 years, they did 5 % growth, okay? So that was 120 years. In just the year of 1951, they annexed 71 % of their land. So let that wash over you. Just imagine the pie in your mind of 4%, 5%, and then 71 % in one year. So those developments didn't all happen in 1971. would take a while from the late 50s, early 60s when you start to fill in all of those subdivisions, you're filling in a lot of lane miles in 71 % of your city. So those roads are now being replaced now in the 2020s, 2030s. And they're looking at, let's see, kind of try to do the quick math here. They're looking Joe Minicozzi (55:34.264) close to. two thirds of their roads are coming due because of that original sin of that annexation. But the habit in the 1950s, I think about that. People come back from the war, we're like, we're going to be modern. There's all these policies in place to reward this, the federal highway system, the FHA loans. And it's not that people had ill intent, they just were naive. They're just like, well, let's try something different. Let's kind of remake cities. And this is what we're dealing with. It's like we have to kind of think back to when that happened. So we show them the And you can see their jaws drop when I was showing this to them. And it's kind of like walking in and I'm the doctor, we just got a bunch of CAT scans and I show you your broken shoulder. I'm like, is the reason why you can't pick things up. You've got your shoulders broken. And everybody can see it because you can see it on the map. 71 % is a lot of area in one year. Kevin K (56:27.023) Yeah. What is some of the examples of how some of your clients have reacted to information when you're finally at the end? I would imagine it runs the gamut from complete denial to people excited to make some change. mean, what do you see on the back end of doing these analysis? Joe Minicozzi (56:49.196) You know, the mayor actually called me yesterday. I was bicycling into work and I get this telephone call from Annapolis and it's him and he's so excited. And he goes, it's it's hard. It's indescribable. We're all singing from the same sheet of music now. And so, you know, in respect for politicians, and I don't, I don't mean this in a, in a, as, negative as this is going to sound, but think about, let's, let's just kind of make it blunt. You win a popularity contest and you become mayor. That's it. That's the American system of government right there. They don't have the master's degree in urban design. They don't have the research of 30 years of public policy analysis and parking requirements. They don't have that junk shoved in their heads the way that you and I do. So they just win this popularity contest and they're trying to figure things out. their commerce is what they hear from people, the emotions, the conversations, how people react to their day -to -day living. It's sort of on us as professionals to help demystify that. So that's basically, that's the MO of our company is we're going to try to find a way to give you a lot of quantitative data, but we're going to do it in a way that's easy to understand and give you a pie chart. You know, it's like, we're not going to make that hard. You know, it's just, it is. This is what's going on. Here's that pie chart showing you 71%. is in that one year, they've had that data since 1951. It's like, it shouldn't be magic to pull this stuff out. So it really is on the professional to do that. So usually what we get is we see a game. He's right. We do see a game change from people because we've created a graphic that people can see and they can see what's going on. You can't argue against the pie chart. There it is. 71%. It's like there's data. There's a pie chart so everybody can see how big that is. Just make it simple. We don't hand you an 85 page document explaining it all in text. Why? 65 % of the audience are visual learners. Show them a picture. So once we did that and kind of walk them through and help them understand, they could see their city with new eyes. That's actually another quote that a mayor gave me in Davis, California. He goes, it's as if I've never been to this city called Davis and I could see it with new eyes Joe Minicozzi (59:16.886) So it's respecting them and honoring that their life is hard. Their role is near impossible. They've got to learn how a multi -billion dollar corporation operates the night after the election. And there's all of these habits baked into it. how do we short circuit that and make it easy for people to move? So we've seen changes. We've seen Rancho Cucamonga, California. They adopted a one to six rule for their downtown as an area to value ratio. So now they have like a two drink minimum, if you will. And there was a steel manufacturing company that came in for a tax break. And the assistant city manager told me, goes, you know, it's fun is after we did this math with you all, he goes, they came in and asked for a tax break and they're a big employer. But then I compared them on a per acre basis to other manufacturing plants in our city, these smaller ones, and they were actually way more beneficial than this big one. So I told the big one to take a hike. And it was like, that made my month. It's like, I couldn't believe he did that. But it was like, we gave them a new language to understand themselves. And as a consultant, it's like, yeah, I wasn't there for the win, but I feel proud of that. It's not sexy to talk about, but it's like, that's cool. So there's not as much satisfaction as being an architect when somebody lives in a house that you produce, but it's a different kind of satisfaction. Kevin K (01:00:52.003) Yeah, I really like the analogy of, it's almost like you're providing an MRI or a CAT scan. You're the doctor giving them critical information about the health of their community. And then really it's up to them to decide, do they want to correct that health or not? Joe Minicozzi (01:01:11.606) Well, it's value statement of our company too, that the doctor doesn't blame the patient. And so if you're going in and you're a smoker, chronic smoker your entire life, the doctor knows you're an addict. But what can the doctor provide you to help you get past your addiction? So the doctor is going to show you an MRI of your lungs and you're going to see the black spots all over the lungs. The doctor is going to be like, guess where that's coming from? Kevin K (01:01:14.083) Okay. Joe Minicozzi (01:01:40.128) and you'll say, it's my smoking. It'll be like, yeah, you want to keep doing it? It's up on you. I'm not going to be able to pull a cigarette out of your hand, but I have to do what I can to give you information to be an educated consumer. So that's kind of our MO. Kevin K (01:01:54.821) Joe, I think that's a great place to wrap. And if people are looking to find you and your company, what's the best place to go? Joe Minicozzi (01:02:06.552) Urban3 .com, three is all spelled out. You can also, there's plenty of videos online that you can Google through YouTube. My favorite one is the one that Not Just Bikes did on our work. Not Just Bikes is just a great resource for lots of information on city planning. And also Strong Towns covers a lot of our work. And also the Congress for New Urbanism. If anybody wants to come to a conference, the Congress for New Urbanism or the Strong Towns Gatherings are great. Or if you want to go deep nerd, we're like at the Government Finance Officers Association conferences every year. That's a whole lot of fun. So yeah, we'll see you around in public and thank you for doing all of Kevin K (01:02:54.405) Yeah, so really appreciate it, Joe. I'm sure we'll do some more in the future, but this is a great introduction for anybody who doesn't know your work. And also for those who do, I really appreciate the deeper dive. So hang in there. Keep doing what you're doing. And we'll talk again. All right. Joe Minicozzi (01:03:13.25) Thanks. Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

A recent UConn study found that three-quarters of Black households with cars in the U.S. spend over 15% of their monthly income on car-related expenses. For these researchers, transportation shouldn't have to mean car ownership. This hour, we spotlight "walkability" and public transportation alternatives. Hear from city planners and civil engineers who are driving the conversation forward to deprioritize drivers and "stroads." "Our mistake over the years is that we have allowed streets to become half roads and roads to become half streets," writes city planner Jeff Speck. "On one, commerce has been sacrificed to speed. On the other, speed has been sacrificed to commerce." GUESTS: Dr. Norman Garrick: Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Connecticut Jeff Speck: City Planner and Author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As I said right off the beginning of this interview, I really love it when worlds collide in my own life. It's one of the more joyful aspects of doing a podcast, and talking with people in real life.Chad “Coach” Carson is someone in the Financial Independence world that I've listened to and followed for some time. He's a very genuine guy, and his particular niche focuses on using small-scale real estate investment to build financial freedom for yourself and your family. Check out his website, YouTube channel and podcast.We ran into each other at the Strong Towns National Gathering in May, and I knew immediately we'd have a lot to discuss. This episode is the result. Among other things, we talk about his non-profit in Clemson, SC to build a trail network, his family's 17 month stay in Ecuador, and how we all can talk about small / incremental development. There's just so much good content in this episode, I don't want to give away any more.That said, here are a few more links worth sharing:For a taste of his content, check out Chad's recent episode with Paula Pant on “7 Powerful Principles for Financial Freedom.”ChooseFI House Hacking pageIncremental Development AllianceBigger PocketsFind more content on The Messy City on Kevin's Substack page.Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you'd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.Intro: “Why Be Friends”Outro: “Fairweather Friend”Episode Transcript:Kevin K (00:00.89)Welcome back to the Messy City Podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg. One of the things that I really enjoy is when worlds collide in my life. Things that I have interest in that are in very different worlds find themselves aligned with each other. And I'm really fortunate to have a guest today that's a classic example of that. My wife and I have had a kind of a long interest in what's called the financial independence movement. And, and,You know, a lot of that we can talk about what all that means for people. I hope we do, but, a lot of it is really just kind of creating resilience in your own life. and, one of the people in that world that I have, noticed for quite a long time and followed and with, with some interest is a guy named, Chad, Carson, otherwise known as coach Carson. And, he's, agreed to join me today. So I'm delighted to have you here, Chad. Thanks for coming.Chad Carson (00:56.397)Yeah, thanks for having me, Kevin. It is fun to see different interests collide on the internet. That's always a good time.Kevin K (01:03.034)Yeah, yeah. So we actually ran into each other at the Strong Towns National Gathering in Cincinnati. And it was just kind of funny. I had seen enough of Chad's videos to kind of have an idea what he looked like. I'm looking around the room and I see this guy in the back and I'm like, that looks a little bit like Coach Carson, you know? Is that really him? And so, and lo and behold, it was, so we had a chance to just chat briefly on site. But...For those chat for those who don't know you and I would imagine probably most of my audience doesn't know who you are And the work that you do. Why don't you talk a little bit about what you spend most of your time dealing with?Chad Carson (01:40.013)Yeah, I also have a lot of intersections of worlds, but for the last 21 years, my professional career has been an entrepreneur and I've been entrepreneur in the real estate investing space. So I graduated from Clemson University and I was a football player there. So that was like how I paid for school. And I was, I thought I was going to go like the route of being a medical in the medical field and applied to medical schools, but I was just so tired from playing football that I said, I'm just going to take a year or two off and just like take a break before I go into that. And then.that gave me space to kind of explore an itch I had for being an entrepreneur. And I was lucky enough to have family members. My dad was in the rental, had rental properties growing up and I never really liked them. Actually, when I was a middle schooler, he used to take me over to a property he just bought. There was a fixer upper and he's like, hey, clean up this pile of trash, Chad, and paint this wall. And I was like, this is horrible. Like, who ever want to fix up a property or turn this nasty place around? And sure enough, when I got out of college, I was like,That's actually pretty interesting. Let me, let me see how that goes. And so I got into that business of really the finding fixer upper properties. initially just finding them for other people. I was what's in the net world. I was called a bird dog where I would just go in. I didn't have any money. I didn't like a bird dog. I wasn't the one actually hunting the birds, but I would just point to them and people who had resources and money would buy them and I would make a little finders fee every time that happened. And, but that taught me the business. It made me a little bit of money.I was living at home at that time and it just got me, I decided, you know what? I don't ever want to do a real job. I'm just going to keep doing this. And it grew into a business where I found the funding for those deals. I got a business partner. The two of us found other partners to put up the money or private financing. We started flipping houses, fixing them up, reselling them just to make some money. And then we got into the rental property business from there. And that's really what I, kind of the end story of my rental, my real estate business was,planting these little seeds of buy and hold properties. I started off house hacking. I did, you know, I lived in one unit, rented the other units out. And so that's, that's been my core kind of financial career, how I made money. And, but then that has evolved into other things, which is why I met you at Strong Towns as well. So once I started, you know, got past like the business side of real estate, of, of making money and the finances, which is all interesting, also just started thinking aboutChad Carson (04:01.133)the community and like, why is this neighborhood the way it is? Why is this neighborhood a fixer upper and this was not? And started volunteering in my community at local advocacy meetings and just doing that. And so that led to a couple of things. One is I started just being frustrated with connectivity in my town. And so in 2014, I and some other people in our town started a nonprofit trying to connect the parks and the downtowns and with a trail system.Little did I know that most towns that did that had like a rail railway that they was abandoned and they could like take over. And so I had to like crash course over five to six years just learning about, you know, easements and right aways and the DOT and how difficult it is to work with the DOT. But we've, yeah, we could talk more about that one, but that's, that's been a passion project of mine, which is why I got interested in strong towns and local advocacy. And along the way, separate from that, I also started teaching other people.how to do the thing that I love doing with real estate investing. And so I started a blog and a podcast and a YouTube channel and what started off as a hobby became a real thing. And people started reading it to my surprise and people started watching my YouTube videos. So I have like a little media business with that. And I have a nonprofit that I'm a board member of and a founding member of that I'm super passionate about in my local community. And then the real estate investing actually takes a lot less of my time these days, but it's still kind of the main thing.Kevin K (05:04.442)Mm -hmm.Kevin K (05:27.098)Yeah, and so you've got a super active YouTube channel with a good following and you're putting up a video, what about once a week or so?Chad Carson (05:36.109)Yeah, the what's I have a coach Carson YouTube channel. It's also the podcast. So my podcast has evolved into the YouTube podcast as well. So that's that's my main thing there.Kevin K (05:45.53)Okay. And this may be a funny thing for you. So I think probably the first time I heard you was on the choose FI podcast a long time ago. and so, I actually moderate the choose FI house hacking, Facebook page. Yeah. I've bugged those guys into creating it and I I'm a terrible moderator. I mean, I don't do anything. I don't do anything I should do with it to try to, you know, encourage more conversation, but.Chad Carson (05:55.533)Mm -hmm.Chad Carson (06:03.597)nice.Chad Carson (06:09.305)Yeah.Kevin K (06:15.418)It's incredible how quickly that started and zoomed over 5 ,000 members and everything else.Chad Carson (06:21.005)Yeah. Yeah. I became friends with Brad Barrett, who was one of the founders of choose FI and stills their hosts of their podcasts. He's become a good friend. And yeah, that was, it's kind of like strong towns for me. It was like, I was doing these things. I'm trying to save money and try to improve my financial life and really just get more autonomy. Like you, I think you were talking about some version of that earlier. I just, I just didn't want to go work for the man. That was always my motivation. I wanted to have space to read, to think, to have interesting stuff. And I just didn't want to go.and be in somebody else's treadmill. And that's pretty much what the, to me, what the financial independence movement is about is it kind of got hung up in the retire retirement idea that you're going to retire early at 35 years old and sit on a beach with a pina colada. The opposite seems to be the truth. The truth, like a lot of my friends like Brad Barrett, Mr. Money Mustache is a big famous blog that who is in the financial independence movement. Paula Pant is another blogging podcasting friend of mine. All these people.they, you build these resources of financial independence early, you save money, you're frugal, but you do it so that you have this abundance of time and flexibility and you can then cash that option, those options in however you want. And for me and my family, my wife is a Spanish teacher. And so foreign languages have always been sort of our, our mutual passion and living particularly Latin America and Spain. And so we took our kids to live in Ecuador for 17 months in 2017.And our, they were three and five years old. We wanted them to become fluent early in their life. And that financial independence, having rental properties back at home, we could kind of put that on pause for a little bit and still have some income coming in that allowed us to do that personal passion project. And, and, and do it. So that, that is to me, that's, that's financial independence, advocacy and local communities is financial independence, being able to do something. This for me has been like almost like a full -time job being theworking on, on trail transportation, advocacy, and, but I don't, I don't want to get paid. I don't care if I get paid. I, in fact, I'm spending a lot of money, you know, donating a lot of money on it. And that's great. I love that because there's some entrepreneurial ventures that aren't, I don't think always best suited for, for profit. You know, there's, you make your profit over here and then you free up this time and this energy to solve problems in your community that they're honestly, there's just not many people who have the capacity to do that. So that's been a lot of fun.Kevin K (08:42.234)Yeah, I think we, I'm not sure how much people talk about that enough in the financial independence world that one of the great luxuries it gives you is it gives you that ability to devote time and potentially money in a philanthropic way in your own community and make a difference there. I think that's really cool. I remember reading about how you took the family abroad for over a year and that was kind of a source of inspiration for us as well. We've...Chad Carson (08:57.005)Yeah. Yeah.Kevin K (09:06.97)We've, you know, my wife and I have had this idea for, for quite some time that we would do something like that. Of course we haven't done it yet, but we've done, you know, we did, and there's still time. The kids are still young enough. They're six and eight. but, we, we did take them, in 2018, I guess it was, we took them to Europe for a month. and, we, you know, I approached it from the standpoint that I was, I was a big proponent of house hacking, but I didn't really know what anybody called it.Chad Carson (09:13.805)Still time.Kevin K (09:36.09)and so actually done it three different times in three different ways in my life, just different life stages. And, like to your point, I think one of the things that we really loved is, when we were living in Savannah, and we had, we owned a townhouse that had a carriage house in the back. and the carriage house produced a lot of rental income for us. So then when we had started having kids, my wife kind of, she wanted to quit her job.and stay home for a while. But obviously that's a financial hit to do it for people, you know, with two of us were working professional jobs while having that income from the house hack just completely made it work. And it just enabled a lifestyle for us that we really wanted to live. And so we always felt like that was kind of a great luxury effect of that.Chad Carson (10:27.085)I think it's undersold. House hacking is something, if you look at the average budget, last time I looked at it in the United States, I think 30 to 40 % of most people's budget is with housing. And if you, so you can, the hack is the literal word. Like if you could figure out how to do what you did, what I've done, and either cut your housing expense in half, or maybe like in my case, I really did well and eliminated my housing expense altogether by living in a fourplex and living in unit number two and renting the other three out.I mean, I was living positive, $100 per month as a young entrepreneur. And, you know, so my wife was able to do the same thing. She was a Spanish teacher. She wanted to stay home a little bit and I wanted to take a break too. And so it's, it's amazing when you cut those like core expenses of housing and then you add the car. And for us, it was just, you know, just being smart with the car, not doing something that's crazy, but also this is where transportation infrastructure comes in. If you can have one car instead of having two cars, I mean, what, what is that seven to 10 ,000 bucks per year or whatever the latest number is.I mean, so you started adding up like a thousand a month for housing and five to 600 bucks for a car. I mean, you're talking a couple thousand bucks a month for an average family. That's huge. Like after tax, you know, if you're talking about before tax, that'd be 3000, maybe 4 ,000 a month. So it's a really powerful tool for a lot of people and it gives you flexibility, it gives you freedom. And so that's what's interesting to me about housing, not because...Everybody needs to be a real estate developer investor, although they could, but just doing a little bit like that, like that can give you leverage. It can give you options. You can tell, tell people, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do this because you have your housing expense taken care of.Kevin K (12:07.354)Yeah, I think that for me that's where the alignment was always interesting in my own kind of long and winding career in working in the design and planning of walkable places. And there were always a lot of spin -off interests in that, different things that I thought were great for it, I think is better for you from a health standpoint. The more that you can just move your body as part of your daily routine, it's better for you. But the economic benefits.You know, we often don't talk enough about that. I always used to tell people if you can, you don't have to get rid of your cars, but like if you can just live car light, you know, and, and so if you're a family of four, instead of having three cars, if you can have two or one and live off of that, the amount of money that you free up to do other things, it's, especially when you, when that starts to accumulate over time, it's incredible. It's, it's, it's absolutely life -changing.Chad Carson (13:02.189)Yeah, that's one of the basic principles of the financial independence movement is just understanding basic compounding math. The $1 ,000 a month is not $1 ,000 per month. It's that number compounded. If you could, if you can invest that money, for example, and it grows at 7%, I'm putting myself on the spot here because I don't know the exact amount that compounds, but you know, that, that number turns into 20 ,000 or a hundred thousand bucks over a 10, 20 year period. And if you start like stacking those up, that's, that's really the difference between.having some, even if it's not financial independence, it's like some level of like autonomy where you have options with your job, where you're not living paycheck to paycheck and housing and transportation are always, from a personal finance standpoint, are always at the crux of that. And that's what I think the financial independence movement focuses on is I love also focusing on it from the advocacy standpoint and the local community standpoint. But if you just take the perspective of the individual, this is one of those things, just your housing choice, your car choice, if possible.you can really change the trajectory of your own career, your own family's ability to have some options.Kevin K (14:07.162)Yeah, I think I remember one time, it might have been just like a joke or something on Twitter, but it was somebody who said something the effect of, if it weren't for all the money we spend on cars, we'd be a nation of millionaires. Anyway, so you start having this interest in bike trails. So what was kind of the genesis of that? Was it more just trying to figure out other ways to get around, sort of a healthy living thing, or how did you become interested?Chad Carson (14:20.045)Yeah, there we go.Chad Carson (14:36.909)I've always been into fitness and exercise and athletics. So I think part of that was just, I walk around a lot. I just do that and to think, but I was also, I had young kids, two or three year old, and I was pushing her in a stroller. And that really gave me that sort of visceral understanding of the community's infrastructure. And in a negative way, I would try to, I live in a neighborhood that has a small neighborhood of single family houses, and I have to cross a state.Kevin K (14:54.906)Mm -hmm.Chad Carson (15:03.085)what I didn't know is a state road, but it's a state road. Almost every road in South Carolina is a state road, by the way. That's another story. But they, you cross this road and it's people, it's 35 miles per hour, but people go really fast. There's some blind spots. There's no sidewalks. And it's just, it's not, it's very unfriendly to pedestrians. And I felt that in a visceral way as a dad who's protective of his little girl. And I'm trying to play Frogger to go across the street to get to the park that's a quarter mile away.And I was just thinking to myself, this is ridiculous. Like this is, this is insane that a neighborhood like this is in this, a beautiful park down there with this, you know, walking along a Creek and a playground that we can't get there safely on foot. How hostile is this? And so that, that spurred me to then go to the local meetings and say, all right, I'm going to volunteer. There's a local 10 year comprehensive plan. And I sat in all of these, I, you know, contributed as I could as a real estate entrepreneur, but the, this connectivity idea.kept coming up over and over again, like Clemson University, Clemson where I live is a small college town. We have 25 ,000 college students now. We have a lot of faculty members, but it's a really tiny town. I mean, 17 ,000 was one of the last census numbers. I think it's 20 ,000 or so now. It's on a lake, it's beautiful. We have 15 ,000 acres of forest land around the community. So like you're five minutes from biking trails, walking trails, waterfalls. And it's just like this little.nature, natural paradise with the lake as well. But it's horrible connectivity from, it's just like, it's a little, I grew up in Atlanta. It's like a microcosm of Atlanta because everything's built for getting around in a car. And so I realized that I started listening to planners talking about that. And my question as an entrepreneur was like, okay, well, who's working on this? What department's working on this? Or is anybody taking any action on this? And they were like, no.No, it's we're going to put it in the comprehensive plan. I was like, is it? Okay. That's great. Was it in the last comprehensive plan? Yeah, it was in the last comprehensive plan too. And so I got, I got this kind of what many entrepreneurs do is when you see a problem, you start just figuring it like, how are we going to solve this? Let's go solve it. And it's sort of in a naive way. I said, I'm going to just ask them questions. And there was one professor at Clemson university who is an architectural professor actually, and his students had a kind of cross curriculum class where they had put together this idea.Chad Carson (17:23.021)something called the Green Crescent Trail. And the Crescent is the Crescent train line that goes between New York City and New Orleans, so the Crescent City. And so they kind of been inspired by that idea of connectivity of the railroad and that history in our town of students who went to Clipsy University used to get off the train and walk off the train down into Clipsy University. They get their barber haircut and it was a military school at that point and they'd walk on the campus. And so that kind of historical connection with the Crescent line and then green.and the spaces around us and the connection to the land was the inspiration. And they had this story, this whole idea, they had maps and it was amazing. And I saw the little video and I got so motivated by that, that I said, like, this has to happen. Like, this is really cool. And I talked to the professor, I talked to some of the students, students rotate in and out of class a lot. So they move on to their jobs and their careers in another city. But I started meeting with people and say, we gotta do this. And some other entrepreneurs, that professor.and we formed a nonprofit and one thing led to another, but we started getting some money for a master plan study. We started talking to landowners and I can go into all the details and all the mistakes and frustrations that we had, but we started making progress and that was 2014. So that was 10 years ago, whenever we started it.Kevin K (18:38.874)So I mean, yeah, I do have some questions just getting into the weeds a little bit, especially for people who have an interest in doing something similar. I guess the first question is like, you start identifying this problem. Like, who do you know how to call the very first time? Just try to get a hold of somebody at the city planning department? I mean, Clemson's a small town, so people are more accessible there. But who did you figure out who to call?Chad Carson (19:02.029)are the city planner was very friendly. And she she has moved on to another town, but I still kind of have connections with her on Facebook. And she she was the one who said, Yeah, this professor is working on it. And yes, connectivity is really important. Let's try she was one of those young, just optimistic planners and just had had a good head is very friendly. So she her name is Jennifer and she was she was great. She gave me some good feedback. I wish I'd heard your podcast. I wish I'd had strong towns. I wish I'd had like, when I read the walkable city by Jeff speck, I was just like,Kevin K (19:16.922)huh. Yeah.Kevin K (19:25.57)I'm going to go ahead and close the video.Chad Carson (19:30.977)my God, there's a world of people out here trying to do this thing too. Like this is, this is great. so I, I didn't have all those resources right away, but I just sort of fumbled around, ask questions, talk to professors being in a university is kind of nice. Cause there's others professors who are urban planners. There's professors who are architecture students or architecture focuses on the community. So I just started asking questions and talking to people, but really approaching it. I think the entrepreneurial approach is you stumble along, you set a short -term goal.You run into a wall that didn't work, turned around and go another direction. And I did a whole lot of like bumping into walls. And, and, but I think the thing we did well was like having a vision, like just having, so we, as soon as we could, we started getting a name and a pictures and maps and talking to the community. And we didn't know exactly what we were doing, but we sure were dreaming big and had a vision. And we were trying to, I think the thing I, I, and some of our other early members tapped into was just.this emotion that community members have of wanting to make their place better. And we made that our mission. We said, our mission is to connect the places we love in our community with a safe alternative transportation network. We want to make it safe for me to push my kid in a stroller to the park. I've told that story hundreds of times. And then other people started saying, yeah, I wish I could walk to the local downtown and that's a quarter of a mile away. Or we have a lot of international students in town who live in these apartments.and they're walking in the gutter, the ditch on the side of the road to try to get to the bus or to try to go to the grocery store because it's just not doable. And so I think there's been a variety of different people from the practical transportation side of things, from students, but then really the people we had to get on board were the local community members who actually don't really care anything about, many of them don't really care anything about practical, you know, commuting anywhere, going to the grocery store. They wanted to do it for recreation. And so we've sort of had to tap into like the recreational trail movement plus,the actual practical use of transportation, which I was interested in, and try to connect those two and figure out how to get funding and to put all that together.Kevin K (21:31.993)Yeah. Yeah, there's actually, so there's a guy in Dallas named Jason Roberts who created the Better Block, which is a pretty cool deal. And he has a great TED talk that's out there all the time where he talks a lot about, especially early on, just naming, naming something, whatever it is, even if it's like you and one other person, just give it a name, create a logo, create a website. It's super easy. And then all of a sudden people think it's a real thing. Now there's a lot to that. So, so.Chad Carson (21:57.069)Yeah, exactly.Kevin K (22:01.53)Then how did you go about, you said at some point you started finding some funding. What was the nature of that funding and how did you figure out how to make that happen?Chad Carson (22:11.277)Yeah, we had a local county council person who saw the vision, I guess, and it was inspired by it. And he had some recreational funds from the county that year that he could allocate. And I think it was $25 ,000. He allocated that 25 to our idea to do a feasibility study. And then the city of Clemson put in 5 ,000, the town of Central put in 1 ,000. We got Southern Wesleyan University, which is, there's a university in this little town of Central next to Clemson.They were on board and then the city, I think the Clemson University also chimed in a little bit, although we had a hard time getting Clemson University on board at first, ironically. But it's basically four entities, four local entities plus the county, all chipped in money, but mainly the county. And then we went through a process of hiring a local landscape architecture firm, I think Alta Planning ended up doing that. I guess not local, but.Kevin K (23:01.466)Mmm, yeah.Chad Carson (23:04.205)So they, they came in, that was a lot of fun just to see how their process worked. And to this day, I still look at some of their maps and some of their estimates. If they put, they put cost estimates together, they put their maps. It was a great plan, but the problem I learned was, and they told us this at the time was like, I think all the city council members and other people we were trying to pitch for this idea, they saw the numbers on that plan, which were, you know, $30 million, $40 million. And it's just, just ridiculously big number for a small town.And understandably, they're like, yeah, this is not, we can't do this. And so we had a hard time figuring out the first little thing to do. And, you know, the Strongtown style, like what's the first little $500 thing or a hundred dollar thing we could do. And I knew that concept and we knew that concept, but it really had a hard time getting traction on that, but particularly because a lot of the segments we were trying to build on were in DOT right aways where we had to get a couple of private easements.I'll also say that even the well -meaning people inside the city government, there's always a propensity to do bigger and more formal stuff to build something really, we don't build things like dirt trails in our town. We build nice stuff in our town. That was like the attitude I got a lot. And I said that was a really difficult thing to bump up against because they would, with good intentions say, well, let's go get this grant. Let's go do this thing. And the grant would take six months to apply for. We wouldn't get it. And then we'd miss a bunch of momentum. And then.They were kind of used to this though. They're like, yeah, we'll just wait until the next cycle. And three years go by and nothing's happening. And that was really, really frustrating.Kevin K (24:39.034)Yeah, yeah. Once you get, learn a little bit about the government funding cycle, especially for transportation, it's very eye opening. So at what point did you come across the Strong Towns conversation then?Chad Carson (24:52.429)Yeah, I think I started listening to the podcast and I was interested in the financial angle as an investor. I just, I found it fascinating that towns were not really budgeting for their liabilities. And I compared it as a real estate investor. This is something we actually deal with all the time because we have a house that you buy from 1950. It's a single family house and you have these things called capital expenses that we all, if you're an experienced investor, you know, those are the thing that come up and bite you.that most rookie investors underestimate the amount of repairs and maintenance they're going to have to do. But as I learned kind of the school hard knocks, these $8 ,000 heating and air bills or $10 ,000 roof or a sewer line that has to be replaced from the house to the road, those will eat up your cashflow for the next two years. And so you have to start creating sinking funds or having reserve funds to pay for those things if you ever want to have a real business, a real rental property business.And it was fascinating to hear that cities aren't doing that. Like, wow, okay, so we have these 70 year capexes that are, you know, they're not even budgeting for it. And that the, you're building these new construction properties. And so I was just fascinated by that math and by the lack of conversation about that and lack of awareness of that in many places. And so that was interesting, but also just, I was just energized by the advocacy, the local, there's other people doing this. There's other people working on it.The fact that you can use social media to try to garner support in your community. So for all those reasons, I was, I was on board and I think I read, happy city and walkable cities, but it was other things first. And they kind of brought me into the strong towns world as well.Kevin K (26:32.09)And then, have you been able to use that with any of your friends or neighbors or anything as a way to help broaden the conversation?Chad Carson (26:41.229)Yeah, I think I bought all the city council members, walkable city at one point. And, you know, probably, I'm probably that annoying local person who brings up, sends, I send city council members regularly, strong towns, articles and different things. And, so yeah, I'm, I'm using that resource a bunch and particularly YouTube videos I find in podcasts, I think are helpful books are great too, but I think having little snippets of content, something somebody can watch in 10 minutes can really change their perspective and a video.As a YouTuber, I've really become a believer that YouTube videos, they use all the senses to try to influence somebody, right? You're seeing something, you can use visuals, you can show maps, you can show music if you want to. So I've really enjoyed using that as well. And I have ambitions myself to create more content. Like I create a lot of real estate oriented content, but I have a long list of ideas I would love to create videos on and shorts on. And I've...10 different intersections that I want to go out and show how awful they are in town. And I think social media and video and what Strong Towns has done really well is just using media to leverage their voice and be able to make a change. I think that's one of the best things about the media revolution we have now. Small people with not many resources can make good enough content to do, it goes viral and makes a big difference.Kevin K (28:02.49)Yeah, I'm always amazed that I'll stumble on some sort of YouTube channel that I didn't even know existed that was related to like urban planning or whatever. And I'll check it out and they have like 600 ,000 subscribers or something. It's just like, wow, where's that? Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, some of the folks out there, like not just bikes and others who have like literally millions of subscribers and produce really beautiful, incredible content on a regular basis. So yeah, you're right. It's, it's cool. I think I'm.Chad Carson (28:14.093)Exactly. There's a big audience. Big audience. Isn't that amazing? Yeah.Chad Carson (28:28.621)Exactly.Kevin K (28:31.514)find myself increasingly behind the times on some of that stuff. Yeah.Chad Carson (28:33.997)You got a podcast that this is great. This is the medium people are listening to.Kevin K (28:40.218)I actually, the funny thing is I actually created a couple of videos probably almost 20 years ago at this point that related more specifically to like street design. And it was really fun to do, but it was so early on and I, you know, I, the technology wasn't quite as good or as inexpensive yet. So I actually hired like a marketing firm to create them for me. And it was, it was really fun. And, and I actually got, they got a ton of views and I was excited for that, but it was just having a hard time justifying.you know, paying that amount of money to keep doing those sorts of things.Chad Carson (29:09.933)Yeah. Well, if you want to experiment and do a couple of pilot projects, I've got my editors on the call and ready. I've got a graphic designer. So let's collab and we'll make a couple of cool videos and test them out on Coach Carson.Kevin K (29:20.858)I would love to do that. Yeah, I'd love to do that. Like you, I have a longer list than I'll ever be able to get to of things like that. So one thing I'm curious about, so it was, you said it was Ecuador where you and your family went for 17 months. Is that right? So how did that experience of living in a foreign country, how did that kind of shape your idea about how to get around a place? I would imagine, I mean, I'm going to make an assumption. It could be totally wrong here, but the assumption you're probably living in an older,Chad Carson (29:35.213)Correct, yes it was.Kevin K (29:50.17)city where you were walking around most of the time.Chad Carson (29:53.069)Yes, we lived in Cuenca, Ecuador. So Cuenca is a third biggest city in Ecuador. And Ecuador, by the way, is just an amazing country. To me, it's a lot like Costa Rica was probably 30 years ago, 40 years ago, in that it has, from an ecological standpoint, it's just amazing. It's got rainforest in the, it's got the Amazon basin rainforest on one side of the country. It's got highland mountains. So we lived in, Cuenca is in the highlands, it's 8 ,000 feet up.8200 feet or so is the kind of the base of this place and you have mountains around that. And then you have the coast and of course the Galapagos Islands, which have a lot of history with biology. I was a biology major, so I just loved going to the Galapagos and getting to study that. So it's just amazing place. People are really amazing. I love the food there and a lot of, you know, so many fruits and local foods, but from a walkability standpoint, we, we chose, I kind of learned how important walkability was to me when we started choosing where we wanted to live.And we, we look for parks, we look for the downtown and then we found residential areas near those places. It's the top of the list. Like there's a lot of other criteria. Of course we wanted to be safe. We wanted to have other things, but walkability has been and still is like the top of my list. And the cool thing about going to another country is you can see there's different approaches to, how they built their cities. This was a colonial city. So we had like the kind of the Spanish square in the middle and it's a public, it's amazing.Spanish squares are amazing public spaces because people use them. There's benches around, there's trees, there's the church on one side, there's the civics building on the other side. They're playing, you know, in the 1700s or 1500s, it depends when. So that was kind of the center of town. We were kind of off that kind of old colonial town, but relatively close. And the whole town was built around parks, was built around that center, but it was also...you know, I think resources are an issue. It's not like they had more resources than an American city. But most people, the thing that struck me was a lot of the people like my Spanish teacher who I met with every week, he rode a bus from the suburbs into town every single day. He walked around a lot. And people didn't do this because it was just something they wanted to do. let me let me be a walk in a walkable town. This is the entire system of transportation was built around people who couldn't afford a car.Chad Carson (32:16.493)And so it was out of reach for most people, even like he was a teacher, he taught me on the side and he taught English at an elementary school. So he was like lower middle class, but for him to get a loan to get a car or to have enough money was just completely out of reach. So there's this whole system of both public transportation officially from the city buses. There's also just people walking and on paths that are kind of necessary to get around, but there's also an informal.transportation system that if anybody's traveled in Latin America, you'll see how this works. It's like people standing on the side of the road and when they go by, you just kind of raise your finger up and somebody eventually might pick you up. And so we did that several times where we missed the bus and this like delivery truck came by and said, you need a ride in? And we talked to him in Spanish and we'd sit in the back of the delivery truck and offer them some money and go to town. So like, there's just this enormous kind of organic system of.of transportation that was fascinating to see, but walkability was just kind of implied. Like everybody knew you, all right, yeah, you have to make it walkable because it's just for survival and people have to be able to do this.Kevin K (33:24.346)How did your kids react to being in that environment?Chad Carson (33:29.165)they were three and five at the time. So I think they were a little too young to like be fully aware of what they were getting into, but it was beautiful to see them sort of integrate themselves. And they had about seven or eight words of Spanish when we started. And as a three -year -old, you don't have that many, that many words anyway. So it was okay. But then by about seven, eight months in, I had a head start. I had learned Spanish. I wasn't great at it. My wife was very fluent, but I was way ahead of them. But by seven, eight months in,We were sitting around the dinner table talking Spanish and they were correcting me saying, Papa, no se dice eso. And they would kind of wag their finger at me, Spanish Ecuadorian style and, and correct my Spanish, which was amazing. So the language they just really took to, they made friends locally. but then also, you know, they just kind of get used to, to being there that we, at first, we first started walking around the complaint and why not? I don't want to walk around. But by the end it was just, just what we did. You just, you walk everywhere. And I think that's sort of stuck with them a little bit.Kevin K (34:28.89)Yeah, I've often talked in presentations that, especially people my age and sort of our general generation, that it really was a formative thing for when a lot of us like traveled overseas. And if you got to spend any length of time living in a foreign country and just kind of experiencing what it's like, because most of the world, frankly, you are living in a place where...still the backbone of getting around is walking. We're a little unique in that regard in the United States. And I always tell people American cities used to all be that way too. We used to all be walking cities until about the 1920s or so. But it's definitely like it really gets, it really affects your thinking and your perspective on a lot of things, especially like a unique chance like you had to live somewhere for a really extended period of time.What was the adjustment like coming home?Chad Carson (35:28.045)depression. And I'm literally mean that literally it's it was my wife and I both had a really hard time. I think the kids did okay. Our older daughter had a hard time in school, just which of things natural, you know, when you go through a big 17 months living somewhere else. Our younger daughter was in kindergarten. So everybody was new to kindergarten. She did okay. But, you know, my wife and I had transportation and walk lack of walkability was really the big deal because there was a lot of great things coming back. I was alsobelieve it or not, I had a lot of Ecuadorian friends who said, are you sure you want to go back to the United States? Because it seemed like every month there was another school shooting. And that's a political topic. I'm not going to get into the details of it. But it's a reality that a lot of other countries don't have. And they were worried for us going back to the United States, which I find very humorous given that we had the same thing for people in the United States. Are you sure you want to go to Ecuador? Are you sure you want to go there? And that was the same question they were asking as we came back. So that was an adjustment. But really the...The fact that we had to drive so much was again, was just a shocker to your kind of system. And we, but we, I was determined and my wife was determined to only have, we sold one of our cars when we left and our other car we put in storage with family. And we kept this one car for about two years after we got back and I bought an e -bike. And so we, my wife and I, we sort of kind of an adjustable side, it was in between my size and my wife's size. So neither one of us like was perfect for us, but we.I use the heck out of that e -bike. And if somebody wanted to have a meeting with me, I was like, well, here's the two places I can meet in town where I knew I had a fairly safe route to get to. And I would meet them at those places. So it really like being in another environment where I walked all the time, inspired me to try to do that when I got back. And I had to use biking because walking was not possible to get all over town just from a distance standpoint. And so having a bike and having an e -bike in particular.It would make it in the hot summer, you know, South Carolina summer when it's 90 degrees and humid, I could still go, you know, two miles away and be there, not really sweat. And that was great. Like it was so inspiring. So going back to like the green Crescent trail movement, it sort of took a pause. I was still involved with it, but when I got back, I was really gung ho about that and excited about it again. And so that just experience of going somewhere else and seeing that it's possible to do this and seeing what it feels like and knowing that people will really.Chad Carson (37:49.165)get a lot out of this and are gonna, it's gonna be awesome when we can get it. Sort of motivated me to get back into that. And we, we've since made, I didn't finish that story, but we've since made a lot of progress. We have this, just this year in this past year, 2023 opened up about a mile and a half of multi -use path and the city of Clemson and then another mile or mile and a half inside Clemson University. So there's a trail that connects two city parks, Clemson Elementary School to the university.Kevin K (38:12.378)Great.Chad Carson (38:18.829)And then the university has a botanical gardens, which is one of the key kind of park locations in town. So it's connected to that. So we've connected like three or four of our strategic locations and people being able to see that it's on the ground and it's possible and asking questions like, Hey, can we get more of this? And so it's been really nice to have some validation after so many years. And then we have a lot of momentum now, all the city council members that I've talked to are.very much on board. The city of Clemson now has dedicated funding every year, $250 ,000 for the Green Crescent Trail. They have raised, they did, we should talk about from a strong town standpoint, they actually bonded some money to build another trail as well, another portion of the trail, along with a couple of the park infrastructure. So it's, I mean, they're spending money and they're investing in it, which is awesome. And we're also working with a couple of the local smaller towns, which is a different dynamic.Kevin K (39:03.642)interesting.Chad Carson (39:15.053)They're 5 ,000 person towns with lower budgets, but we've got another half a mile on the ground in one of those towns. And we're working with the third town to do just a natural surface trail to start. We're starting to learn our lesson. We're working, as we speak, we're working on, one of the city council members is working on getting easements from a couple of property owners. One's a church, one's a historic foundation. And so we're kind of, we're getting our order of operations where we get the land secured and then we.I think we're just going to try to see what's the lowest cost trail we get on the ground and build a trailhead and just get people using this and connect, you know, smaller locations we can, a quarter mile, half a mile, and just get it on the ground and then let people experience it. And they're going to say, well, we want more of this. And so then we can say, yeah, yeah, we do want more of this. What's, what's the next step? And that's the, luckily we've learned a little bit, but I'm really excited about how it's coming together. And we have a, we have a 30 plus mile kind of map.that we've kept updated. We're showing what the towns will look like when they're connected, what all the routes we're trying to connect are. And then we have like an implementation plan of here are the two or three locations in town that we really think are the low -hanging fruit where we can make progress and get easements and raise money. And so that's all that all was spurred personally for me along by living in places that were walkable that I could see the potential for it.Kevin K (40:38.202)That's amazing. And I mean, I think you're totally right that I have the same experience from a professional standpoint, but I've seen it time and time again when you have trail networks, when you have even like we have the streetcar system we have here in Kansas City. Oftentimes the most challenging thing is just getting a little bit of it going. And then once people can see it and feel it, touch it, ride it, whatever, then they tend to want more. So I think...that's definitely the right path. And so you found then that just even in those cases, just getting sort of like a gravel trail down is a better place to start than than waiting for the paved surface.Chad Carson (41:19.021)I think so. If I had to do ever again, I'm not sure we had had that surface, but if we could have had anybody give us a quarter mile, even within a park, I would have just said, let's do that. Or let's do the, let's just do a crosswalk. Let's just, let's do a tactical urbanism. And we talked about that. I just, I don't think we pressed it enough. I think we got talked out of that kind of stuff by well -meaning people, often planners or people who are like, Hey, we're supportive of this. Let's do this, but let's do it bigger. Let's not do a little.crosswalk and I think that's a mistake. I think it's the you lose momentum you you get you know that that person changes jobs somebody city council people rotate off and if you don't get some tangible quick process progress on the ground through either temporary or otherwise you're you're gonna lose momentum and it's just it's kind of amazing we didn't lose the whole get off track because we went five or six years without anything.on the ground and we had a lot of supporters and we had a lot of maps and we had a lot of meetings, but it got really frustrating not having the actual stuff on the ground. So that was something I would, if we did it over again, it would have found a way to do that.Kevin K (42:23.354)Yeah. So has this been then like a gateway drug for you to the broader strong towns movement or are you gearing up to start thinking about zoning and all that sort of stuff yet?Chad Carson (42:30.453)Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I actually went on the planning commission. I didn't mention that I was on my local planning commission after during that same time. So yeah, I got involved and I've always been involved in housing. And so I think housing is affordable housing is something that I find even I find it some ways more approachable because I understand housing so well and the finance financial world. So I've been more interested in transportation, but seeing how that connects to housing and how important they are.Kevin K (42:37.43)cool.Chad Carson (42:59.085)I'm really geared up as well to try to help shape opinion on that, talk to people about it, preach about it, whatever we have to do. Yeah. But, and also maybe I was really inspired at this latest Strong Towns gathering by some of the alternative ways to build affordable housing. For me, the ADUs and cottages, that's always been vernacular for me in the real estate investing world. And that's from a purely kind of...you know, just financial independence movement. That's it makes a ton of sense. But to see that that's maybe a potential solution on a larger scale, I think is really exciting. And then I'm excited also, it's not something I've kind of written plans for it. And I think I could get into some of the small scale development. I never called it that I didn't think about what we're doing as development, fixing up a property that needed $50 ,000 in work and turning it around or.turning, you know, subplating a lot and building an extra unit on there. It was just something we did, but it's been kind of cool to see it a whole other world of people seeing it from a little bit different perspective of this is adding housing supply to the market and seeing that real estate investors, as I call them, is like, there's a role for us, a really important role for affordable housing, for providing rentals, for building more rentals. And so yeah, I'm excited about that. And I think I'm...I'm more in, I think, the finance, financing role these days. Like I have done on the ground, I've managed all my properties myself. I've managed remodeled projects. I'm a little less interested in that at this point because I've done all that. But I like partnering with people who do that. And so we've, my business partner and I have financed some deals with other people, kind of been the mentor on the ground. Here's how, all right, we need to do this. Let's get this done. And I think some of the planning, the properties and acquiring the properties and then.working with people on the ground who we can partner to kind of execute them. That's something that I'm interested in doing more of.Kevin K (44:53.146)That's terrific. Yeah, I think one of the things that we've really tried hard to broaden is the understanding of what a developer actually is. And unfortunately, there's this idea that a developer, somebody is a guy who has a fancy suit that drives a $100 ,000 car and builds six story buildings and everything else or $50 million projects. But the reality is, just like you said, if you build a house,If you renovate a house, you're a developer. You may not think of it that way, but if you are doing anything that really contributes to the built environment, no matter at what scale you're a developer, and that's, I mean, historically, that is much more aligned with how our cities were built than the way we think about it today.Chad Carson (45:39.885)I got a question for you. This has been on my mind. What is what is the worst connotation being a real estate investor or being a real estate developer when you when you walk into when you walk into a room of local citizens? Because I don't know for me developer is like not a positive word. Like I gotta get I gotta get my head around this. I like developers. I'm fine with developers. But man, like in my town right now, developers are like the evil empire like you might as well be might as well be Darth Vader walking into a room because they've just there's been a lot ofbuilding pressure for the big buildings for the, you know, 700 unit apartment buildings for students. And so we small developers, I call it my, I wrote a book called the small and mighty investor. My heart, my heart is with the investor who has two properties, five properties, 10 properties. We might as well not even be, you know, in the room. So I feel like we have a marketing problem, an imaging problem that maybe there's a new name. Maybe it's not, I don't know, but like, I just, I'm curious what your take is on that.Kevin K (46:29.305)Yes.Kevin K (46:36.698)Well, I mean, you're totally right. And some of the black hat stuff has been well -earned. My good friend John Anderson, who is one of the founders of the Incremental Development Alliance, he used to always talk about how he was teaching people the dark arts of development. And we always made, we had a lot of fun with all that. But there's definitely been a lot of work to try to rebrand what development is and what a developer is and to try to.Chad Carson (46:52.557)Yeah, yeah, exactly.Kevin K (47:06.458)you know, almost think about it more. There is a field called community development. I, I hesitate to call people community developers because there actually is like, there's, there's like whole federal programs that are tied to that term and everything else. And their community development block grants and stuff like that. But, but in a sense, that's kind of what it is. my, my friend, Monty Anderson, who was also very big in the incremental development world. he, he likes to talk about.people as farmers. And he really likes to encourage that language, you know, that if for people who want to do small scale development and really work in a community in your place, the idea is thinking about it like a farm and, you know, first of all, to find your farm, whatever that is, that location that you care about, that you want to live in and invest in, you know, literally for like the rest of your life, because you want to have a positive transformative effect on it. And then,The analogy, like a farmer, a farmer knows every blade of grass on their farm. They know where all the really productive areas are and the not productive areas are. They know what's going to work in different sections of their fields. And ultimately, that type of developer where you're just working in a community at a smaller scale, that's kind of the analogy.Chad Carson (48:23.725)Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I think the word small is important. Keeping small versus big. And then I think one of the problems a lot of people have is that the bigger developers don't have skin in the game. They don't have skin in the game in the local community. Even a big developer, if they live there and they had to bump into people in the grocery store and have to see and talk to those people, that's a natural human pressure that we've always had when you live in a tribe or live in a community.Kevin K (48:36.666)Mm -hmm.Chad Carson (48:53.197)where you couldn't just make an action or make a decision without thinking about how that affects your neighbor and your community. And you might make a decision that makes less profit so that you're not ashamed of being there. And that's something when you're sitting at a desk in New York City, you don't have to make that decision. It's just a number on a piece of paper. And I find that annoying, I find it lame. And it's always bothered me like in the real estate investing sphere too, that the big hedge funds, the big...go big 10X. That's kind of been like the aspiration for a lot of people in the financial world. It's like, once you grow up out of the single family houses and the duplexes, then you'll move up to like the real investing. And one of my mentors was a guy named John Schaub and he's in Sarasota, Florida and he's owned single family houses for 50 years. Like that's what he thinks is the best from a selfish standpoint. And it's also from the community standpoint, his tenants benefit. He's had tenants who stay for 10, 20 years. They get to live in a nice community.So I don't know, I think I resonate a lot with that idea. But yeah, imaging and how do we frame that and how do we tell those stories is such an important part of the process.Kevin K (50:02.17)Yeah, I mean, I think we put a, we definitely put a big emphasis on the term small developer or incremental developer. And there's probably better ways to talk about that. we have a, we have a local sort of meetup group that my friend, Abby Newsham, who also has a great podcast on the strong towns network that she organizes. That's just, small developers of Kansas city. and, we have, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 people that come every week to a meeting where we kind of, it's almost like a, like a support group.in a lot of ways. But you know, as you know, as you allude to, there's such a vast gulf, like two different worlds in real estate development. There's the people who work at the hedge fund level, and they literally are doing projects anywhere in the world. And they're working with hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars at a time to build projects everywhere. And then there's the people who work in communities, and they're probably getting their loans from a community bank.Chad Carson (50:31.853)Yeah. Yeah.Kevin K (50:59.002)you know, a locally owned or a regionally owned community bank. And they are your neighbors and they are people you're going to run into. So you're right, it's a huge difference.Chad Carson (51:10.669)Night and day. My only banker has been a guy who lives locally, goes to church locally. He runs on our trail now. He's like, I love this green crescent trail and he's running on it. So it's a, that's the one of my favorite parts about the real estate investing business, but also how it spurs off into the trails and the housing advocacy and working on your local planning commission, all the relationships you build and how organic that is and how mixed up that is. Like it's a really fun part of it.Kevin K (51:34.906)Yeah. Well, it's an interesting drug that once you catch on to all this stuff, you find yourself going in a lot of different rabbit holes.Chad Carson (51:40.717)Yeah, yeah, I'm all in. Yeah, I'm in the rabbit hole for it, there's no doubt.Kevin K (51:46.266)So how else can people in my world, how can we help you or what questions do you have that I can answer or others can answer in our world? What sort of things are you would like to know about the world of city building and design?Chad Carson (52:04.845)That's a great question. I never thought about that. I think design, I'm really interested in maps and just like design is an amateur and I find it really, I've been fascinated with just studying how cities are built. So I don't know if it's like, I'll just tell you what I'm learning, what I'm studying. Like all the Strongtown books have been great, but I think the thing that is,good about all that is like taking the design world, the development world, and translating it into a language that's understandable for laymen, for people who are just a layperson who's on the ground. I think that's been the brilliant part about a lot of your work, about what I've seen Jeff Speck do and other people is, yes, I know planners and city council, but a lot of city council members are the lay people. They're not professionals. So that's kind of what I've been trying to do in my own world of real estate investing as well. I feel if I have any kind of signature,Kevin K (52:53.946)Sure.Chad Carson (53:01.357)is taking this complicated idea of math and finance and negotiation and evaluating neighborhoods and trying to simplify it and translate it into a common vernacular, something that's easy to understand, telling stories. And I think that's the trick with all of this as well, is like translating it, because ultimately, getting a lot of people on board doing this and maybe the mixing of these two worlds we're talking about today. I mean, I think, I...publisher of my books, bigger pockets, for example, they're the big real estate investing website. There's 2 million members of bigger pockets. They have the, you know, top five investing podcasts in the in the country world, whatever, I don't know, and they have another two or three podcasts, like there's a lot of people who are interested in it from that angle. And I found just because I've been talking about it on my own, that there's a lot of those people who are interested in architecture design, but they just don't see themselves in that yet.And I would love to help bridge those worlds in whatever way we can. That's part of my interest in coming on this podcast too. It's just, I think, I think there's a lot of one of the beautiful parts about this kind of local small developer movement is that it is not only like there's a selfish motivation behind it, which is fine. Like I'm good with that. That's capitalism, right? That's that's people, people have to have a engine, a personal motivation to do this. They can make money. They can turn this into a business. but then there's also, this is a really,Kevin K (54:19.034)Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.Chad Carson (54:28.653)people have an interest in their own communities and designing them. And they're curious about why it is that you can't cross this street the same way I was. And so I think like, go back to your question, I think just continuing to open up the hood to show like, here's how cities are built. Here's why this intersection is the way it is. I found that to be fascinating because it's something I took for granted before. It was just an assumption I made. And a lot of these things happen in like a back room somewhere.And so like bringing that to light and showing like, no, here's why over the last 60 years cities are built this way and here's how we can do it differently. I find that enormously interesting and optimistic and fun to be able to learn that.Kevin K (55:10.618)Yeah, and my experience has certainly been that the people who are the most persistent, and often it takes way longer than you think anything should take to get done, but those people who are persistent and really have a passion for whatever it is in their community, that they're ultimately the ones who get things done. And it frustrates all of us how long things can take, but it all starts by somebody giving a damn to begin with. It's funny.We talk about other people in our world, but like Pete from Mr. Money Mustache, he's moving to cul -de -sac, which is a pedestrian -only community in Tempe, Arizona, which was designed by my friend Dan Parolick's firm Opticoast Design out of Berkeley, California. It's a total small world.Chad Carson (55:52.525)Yeah. Okay. Small world. Yeah. I went out, I went out and visited them. Yeah. He lived there for the winter and I went and visited him in February. So we all, we all hung out and cul -de -sac and rode e -bikes and I think he missed, I think he missed his Colorado mountains a little bit too. So I think he's going to be back and forth between, you know, visiting both, but yeah, yeah, exactly. There's a, there's a ton of crossover betw

On this week's program, we bring you highlights from a great event that took place at the Main Public Library on May 21st called "Walkable Louisville: a conversation with urban planner and author Jeff Speck." The University of Louisville's Urban Design Studio Sustainable City Series presented renowned urban planner and author Jeff Speck as he shared his insights on reimagining downtown Louisville through the lens of walkability and why fostering a pedestrian-friendly environment is imperative for a flourishing city. Jeff Speck is a city planner and author who advocates internationally for more walkable cities. As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he presided over the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute on Community Design. Prior to his federal appointment, Mr. Speck spent ten years as Director of Town Planning at DPZ & Co., the principal firm behind the New Urbanism movement. Since 2007, he has led Speck & Associates — now Speck Dempsey —an award-winning urban planning firm serving public and private clients around the world. With Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Mr. Speck is the co-author of Suburban Nation, which the Wall Street Journal calls "the urbanist's bible.” His 2012 book Walkable City was the best selling city planning title of the past decade and has been translated into eight languages. He is also the principal author of The Smart Growth Manual and Walkable City Rules. Jeff Speck has been named a fellow of both the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Congress for New Urbanism. In a recent Planetizen poll, he was voted one of the ten “most influential urbanists of all time.” Mr. Speck was the 2022 recipient of the Seaside Prize, whose former awardees include Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander. His TED talks and YouTube videos have been viewed more than six million times.

In PX117 our guest is Rob Parker, President of Trilith Development, LLC. Rob oversees with a development team the continued growth of the Trilith Township and Film Studios. Trilith is located on the edge of Altana in Fayette County, Georgia. Trilith is in the advance guard of new urbanism practices. Details at https://www.trilith.com Trilith is a large masterplanned community which seeks to ‘redefine the modern American town'. Based on New Urbanism 2.0++ principles, the town has a vibrant commercial centre, multiple open space places and a diverse range of housing options. It is colocated adjacent the Trilith Film Studios. Rob describes the passions that drive the Trilith team and the concept of continuous improvement in the creation of new urban spaces. He discusses building for the long term and the high level of detail that goes into making first rate community projects. Trilith has many unique features. One of the surprising aspects is the popularity of the ‘Trilith Experience', a tour of not only the film studios but also ‘the intrically designed new urbanist community of the The Town @ Trilth'. Rob reports that many visitors are excited and drawn to the new urbanism built form and layout. An engaging interview with a professional dedicated to creating better town life experiences.  In Podcast Extra / Culture Corner Rob recommends ‘Suburban Nation - The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream' by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429932110/suburbannation  and ‘Walkable City - How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time' by Jeff Speck https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429932110/suburbannation Rob also describes the value of travel and taking in new experiences that can lead to better solutions 'at home'. Jess recommends ‘Foul Play' by Fiona McIntosh https://www.penguin.com.au/books/foul-play-9781761048012.  Pete recommends ‘I Robot' by Isaac Asimov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot. Audio produced by Jack Bavage. Podcast released 31 May 2024.

In PX117 our guest is Rob Parker, President of Trilith Development, LLC. Rob oversees with a development team the continued growth of the Trilith Township and Film Studios. Trilith is located on the edge of Altana in Fayette County, Georgia. Trilith is in the advance guard of new urbanism practices. Details at https://www.trilith.com Trilith is a large masterplanned community which seeks to ‘redefine the modern American town'. Based on New Urbanism 2.0++ principles, the town has a vibrant commercial centre, multiple open space places and a diverse range of housing options. It is colocated adjacent the Trilith Film Studios. Rob describes the passions that drive the Trilith team and the concept of continuous improvement in the creation of new urban spaces. He discusses building for the long term and the high level of detail that goes into making first rate community projects. Trilith has many unique features. One of the surprising aspects is the popularity of the ‘Trilith Experience', a tour of not only the film studios but also ‘the intrically designed new urbanist community of the The Town @ Trilth'. Rob reports that many visitors are excited and drawn to the new urbanism built form and layout. An engaging interview with a professional dedicated to creating better town life experiences.  In Podcast Extra / Culture Corner Rob recommends ‘Suburban Nation - The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream' by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429932110/suburbannation and ‘Walkable City - How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time' by Jeff Speck https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429932110/suburbannation Rob also describes the value of travel and taking in new experiences that can lead to better solutions 'at home'. Jess recommends ‘Foul Play' by Fiona McIntosh https://www.penguin.com.au/books/foul-play-9781761048012. Pete recommends ‘I Robot' by Isaac Asimov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot. Audio produced by Jack Bavage. Podcast released 31 May 2024. PlanningxChange is proud to be part of the Urban Broadcasting Collective.

Over the past few years, you've probably heard the term “walkability” thrown out. For those who have lived in big cities, this is a common factor to use when deciding where to live or work. If you can catch a quick bus or walk to the office, the grocery store, restaurants, or a movie theater, there's a fair chance you'll pay more for where you live. But, most real estate investors aren't thinking about this, and their ignorance could cost them. Jeff Speck, city planner and writer, is on the show to discuss how walkability, smart urban planning, and intentional property design can help you make much more money while improving the lives of your tenants and neighbors. Jeff has seen time and time again how smart urban planning leads to higher home appreciation and rents and a safer, happier community. The problem? Most of us are stuck in car-reliant American suburbs with little walkability and lacking public transportation. After hearing this episode, you'll easily be able to spot the properties that will grow faster in value due to smart city planning. So, before you go out and buy your next property, make sure it aligns with Jeff's four components of walkability because if it does, you could have a valuable property on your hands that most other investors won't even notice! In This Episode We Cover: Walkability explained and why this is such a crucial factor in home and rent prices The four components of walkability and how to ensure your property fits The huge portion of Americans who want walkable properties and communities Mixed-use development and why Americans want more than big yards and big houses Urban design trends to pay attention to that could change the real estate landscape How to get your city leaders to take the steps to building more walkable communities  And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Agent Find a Lender BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Agent BiggerPockets Bootcamps Join BiggerPockets for FREE On The Market Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Connect with Other Investors in the “On The Market” Forums Subscribe to The “On The Market” YouTube Channel Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Dave's Instagram BiggerPockets' Instagram Connect with Jeff Jeff's Instagram Jeff's LinkedIn Jeff's X/Twitter Jeff's Website Books Mentioned in the Show: Walkable City by Jeff Speck Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck Suburban Nation by Andrés Duany The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Clayton Page Aldern and Gregg Colburn The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup   (00:00) Intro (01:07) Why We Need “Walkability” (07:32) Americans WANT Walkable Spaces (09:49) Bringing Back Walkable Cities (15:19) Profit Potential to Look For (19:33) Will This Increase Affordability? (25:13) Urban Design Trends to Watch (33:01) What Investors Should Do Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-210 Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A major new shopping plaza set to open at the western end of Newbury Street this summer. Ted Landsmark, director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, Catherine Carlock, reporter for the Boston Globe, and Jeff Speck, partner at the city planning firm Speck Dempsey, join Radio Boston to discuss.

Boston was once declared the most congested metropolitan region in the country. So, yes, the traffic here is terrible — but what can we do about it? How can we change the structural incentives that keep people in their cars? Hint: the answer is not bigger roads. To traverse the conversational terrain of transit, congestion pricing, gas taxes, and bike lanes, we're joined by Chris Dempsey and Jeff Speck, the men behind the urban design firm Speck Dempsey. These guys really know what they're talking about, even if they've never seen the Cameron Crowe classic Singles. Here's the iconic Ben Franklin tweet. For merch, head to Explainbostontome.com. Send us a Text Message.

In this episode, you'll meet the duo behind the newest urbanism super-firm, Speck Dempsey, Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City, and Chris Dempsey, former Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Massachusetts. We talk about what prompted them to partner up and how they plan to help cities and towns create more walkable and bikeable environments. I hope you enjoy it.Thank you so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform. Also, don't forget to check out the Active Towns Channel for more video content.Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- Speck Dempsey- Jeff on LinkedIn- Chris on LinkedIn- My first episode with Jeff- Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk - DPZ- Suburban Nation- Walkable City 10th Anniversary Edition- Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)- Logo design animation - Ethan Pidgeon - Ethan on Insta- Ethan on LinkedIn- The Color of Law book- E-bike Library- Cargo Bike Share- CargoB on Twitter- My Carmel, IN video- My interview with Brandon Lust about Carmel- Brandon's Channel - Lancaster Blvd Redesign- My Mueller Community PlaylistIf you are a fan of the Active Towns Podcast, please consider supporting the effort as an Active Towns Ambassador in the following ways:1. Join our Patreon community. Contributions start at just $1 per month(Note: Patron benefits include early, ad-free access to content and a 15% discount in the Active Towns Merch Store)2. If you enjoyed this episode, you can also "leave a tip" through "Buy Me a Coffee"3. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my storeCredits:- Video and audio production by John Simmerman- Music via Epidemic SoundResources used during the production of this video:- My recording platform is Ecamm Live- Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite- Equipment: Contact me for a complete listFor more information about the Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit our links below:- Active Towns Website- Active Towns on Twitter- Periodic e-NewsletterBackground:Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I'm a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.Since 2010,  I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2024 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Salt Lake City's skyline is reaching new heights, but down below our sidewalks are disappearing. Host Ali Vallarta and executive producer Emily Means go on a tour-de-construction around the city and dig into who's responsible when the sidewalk ends. Plus, Utahns' top priorities as perceived by lawmakers, and picks of the week for cooking, dancing, and stretching. Resources and references:  Downtown Rising: Updated looks at the skyline-changing developments in Salt Lake City [Building Salt Lake]  Urban planner Jeff Speck on “Righting SLC's Walkability Wrongs in a New City” [City Cast Salt Lake] Report sidewalk problems to Salt Lake City Utah voters and leaders agree cheaper housing should be the state's No. 1 policy priority [Deseret News] Deseret News reporter Brigham Tomco's thread on policy priorities Bunny Hop moved to T.F. Brewing, Sunday, March 31 Yoga at Mountain West Cider, Wednesdays at 6 p.m.  A delicious biscuit recipe for Easter brunch and beyond Consider becoming a founding member of City Cast Salt Lake today! It's the best way to support our work and help make sure we're around for years to come. Get all the details and sign up at membership.citycast.fm. Subscribe to our daily morning newsletter. You can find us on Instagram @CityCastSLC. Looking to advertise on City Cast Salt Lake? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads. Learn more about the sponsors of this episode: CRUDE Microbiome-friendly Skincare Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We know walking is good for our bodies, our communities, and our planet. But our car-centric cities and screen-filled lives keep us sitting. Can we change? In this special bonus episode from the TED Radio Hour, we explore ideas to get us moving—including some special appearances from the Body Electric family.Guests include author Vybarr Cregan-Reid, computer historian Laine Nooney, exercise physiologist Keith Diaz, urban planner Jeff Speck, activists John Francis and Vanessa Garrison.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We know walking is good for our bodies, our communities, and our planet. But our car-centric cities and screen-filled lives keep us sitting. Can we change? This hour, ideas to get us moving. Guests include author Vybarr Cregan-Reid, computer historian Laine Nooney, exercise physiologist Keith Diaz, urban planner Jeff Speck, activists John Francis and Vanessa Garrison. TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at: plus.npr.org/tedLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A 'walkability study' can be a powerful tool to help cities and towns identify transformative strategies to welcome and protect pedestrians on their streets — and craft a plan to put those approaches into action. But  what would it take to do this critical analysis in every American community that needs it?  On this episode of The Brake, we sit down with Jeff Speck and Chris Dempsey of the new firm Speck/Demspey, which is trying to do just that. And along the way, we talk about some of the low-cost ways that any community can get a little more walkable, whether or not they bring in the pros. (Hint: it might be time to trade some traffic lights for stop signs.) 

In this episode we talk with author Richard Rein who illuminates the life and work of the extraordinary William H. White. Rein's revelations, based on his book "American Urbanist: How William White's Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life," shed light on how White's discerning eye for public spaces revolutionized urban design. Our discussion traverses the path from White's iconic "The Organization Man" to his trailblazing stance on pedestrian-friendly cities.Show Notes:To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/Marine Corps Gazette https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=marinecorpsgazetteFurther Reading: Suburban Nation by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck, Arbitrary Lines by M. Nolan Gray, Paved Paradise by Henry GraberFollow us on social media for more content related to each episode:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/booked-on-planning/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BookedPlanningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/bookedonplanningInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookedonplanning/

GPPR Junior Editor Bela Walkin (MPP ‘25) discusses urban and transportation policy with Jeff Speck, a city planner and international advocate for walkable urbanism. His 2012 book "Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time," is the best-selling city-planning title of the past decade. Jeff and Bela discuss the benefits of walkability, the political challenges associated with its implementation, and its implications for urban and transportation policy on all levels of government.

Jeff Speck, the noted urban planner and author of the book "Walkable City," and Chris Dempsey, former Massachusetts Assistant Secretary of Transportation, join Radio Boston to discuss their plan to make communities more healthy, happy and walkable.

American streets killed more than 7500 pedestrians in 2023, a 40-year high and climbing every year. Why? City planner and walkable cities advocate Jeff Speck joins us to explain that street design is largely to blame and how modest changes could be made to increase safety, as has been done in European cities with dramatic results. Jeff uses traffic studies to show how urban planning can affect driver speed, traffic congestion, safety, and walkability—all of which can improve and restore our sense of community in the places we live. With wonderful examples of the many cities where Jeff has completed projects, this episode will get you thinking about your neighborhood and what changes you would like to see, be it more trees, pleasanter streets, or simply fewer deaths. Also, we have a new website! Check us out at https://booksshowstunes.discreetguide.com/Jeff Speck's website:https://www.speckdempsey.com/Jeff's book, Walkable City (be sure to get the Tenth Anniversary edition)https://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Tenth-Anniversary-Downtown/dp/1250857988The movie that Jeff mentions, The Street Projecthttps://www.amazon.com/Street-Project-Maya-Aoki-Tuttle/dp/B0B6VW7MQ3The Strong Towns Movement:https://www.strongtowns.org/The Releaf Cedar Rapids Project:https://www.cedar-rapids.org/residents/parks_and_recreation/releaf_cedar_rapids_.phpThoughts? Comments? Potshots? Contact the show at:https://booksshowstunes.discreetguide.com/contact/Sponsored by Discreet Guide Training:https://training.discreetguide.com/Follow or like us on podomatic.com (it raises our visibility :)https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/books-shows-tunes-mad-actsSupport us on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/discreetguide

Our state's newest large-scale development, Utah City, will sit on the eastern shore of Utah Lake in Utah County. Seductive renderings brag about walkability, transit orientation, and high density — three of an urbanist's greatest pleasures. In the recurring theme of Salt Lakers leaving for the suburbs in search of density, host Ali Vallarta asks Utah City planner and “Walkable City” author Jeff Speck for his notes on Salt Lake's streets. Consider becoming a founding member of City Cast Salt Lake today! It's the best way to support our work and help make sure we're around for years to come. Get all the details and sign up at membership.citycast.fm. Subscribe to our daily morning newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram @CityCastSLC. Looking to advertise on City Cast Salt Lake? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads. Learn more about the sponsors of this episode: Harmons Grocery Mattress Warehouse of Utah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff Speck is the author of the classic book now in its 10th edition entitled Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. I want to learn from Jeff why some cities are more walkable, what design changes can radically improve city life, why bike lanes and active pedestrian traffic make cities more vibrant, and why speedy cars are so problematic. Get full access to What Happens Next in 6 Minutes with Larry Bernstein at www.whathappensnextin6minutes.com/subscribe

In this episode, I reconnect with former pro soccer player, Tesho Akindele, for a conversation about his unlikely and unexpected journey from pro sports to urbanism and developing, walkable and bike-friendly communities in Charlotte, NC. I first met Tesho at the annual Congress for the New Urbanism gathering in Charlotte and immediately knew I needed to have him on the Channel to chat about his advocacy efforts in the YIMBY and Legalize Housing movements. He also shares how the book Walkable City by Jeff Speck was instrumental in influencing his passion for urbanism. Be sure to pick up a copy of the brand new 10th Anniversary version of Walkable City with 100 pages of bonus material; see links below.Tesho describes his time in college at the Colorado School of Mines: "I didn't have a car, I had my 'Escalegs' as I liked to call them, I walked everywhere..."Thank you so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and subscribe to the Podcast on your preferred listening platform, and don't forget to check out the Active Towns Channel for more contentHelpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- Camp North End- Orlando YIMBY group- Craig Ustler "Mr. Downtown Orlando"- CNU - Congress for the New Urbanism- Walkable City book by Jeff Speck in the Active Towns Bookshop and on Amazon - Episode 121 w/ Jeff Speck - Strong Towns- Reinventing the Front Porch Video Part 1- Reinventing the Front Porch Video Part 2- CNU Charlotte Playlist of videosIf you are a fan of the Active Towns Podcast, please consider supporting the effort as an Active Towns Ambassador in the following ways:1. Join our Patreon community. Contributions start at just $1 per month(Note: Patron benefits include early, ad-free access to content and a 15% discount in the Active Towns Merch Store)2. If you enjoyed this episode, you can also "leave a tip" through "Buy Me a Coffee"3. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my storeCredits:- Video and audio production by John Simmerman- Music via Epidemic SoundResources used during the production of this video:- My recording platform is Ecamm Live- Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite- Equipment: Contact me for a complete listFor more information about the Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit our links below:- Active Towns Website- Active Towns on Twitter- Periodic e-NewsletterBackground:Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I'm a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.Since 2010,  I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them. Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2023 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

This podcast is a commentary and does not contain any copyrighted material of the reference source. We strongly recommend accessing/buying the reference source at the same time. ■Reference Source https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the_walkable_city ■Post on this topic (You can get FREE learning materials!) https://englist.me/187-academic-words-reference-from-jeff-speck-the-walkable-city-ted-talk/ ■Youtube Video https://youtu.be/KZSHeYBj63Q (All Words) https://youtu.be/YdUSLk8Alpc (Advanced Words) https://youtu.be/0nWha-Nojfk (Quick Look) ■Top Page for Further Materials https://englist.me/ ■SNS (Please follow!)

Welcome ladies, germs, and people of all genders! Join Taylor & Curtis as we discuss films set in the most haunting location of all....the suburbs! We discuss what makes the suburbs such a perfect setting for a horror movie (the term "liminal spaces" is used) before diving into to two very interesting examples of suburban horror!! We could have chosen literally a hundred movies (seriously there are so many horror films set in the suburbs!!) but we chose two oddly similar, sweaty movies!! Why are the suburbs so scary, specifically to Americans? What themes are common in suburban horror films? What would you do if you found a human ear lying in a field? Would it be scary if someone had their boobs and butt on the same side of their body? Listen and find out!Check out the resources we reference in this episode!"American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We're the Protagonists" by Shina Shayesteh: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/1/13/american-suburbs-are-a-horror-movie-and-were-the-protagonists"The Horror of Suburbia: What is “Universal” Horror?" by Shannon Lewis: https://slowburnhorror.com/2021/05/13/the-horror-of-suburbia/And if you want to learn more about urbanization and the suburbs, Taylor recommends: "The Death and  Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs, "Black Picket Fences" by Mary Pattillo, "The Big Roads" by Earl Swift and "Suburban Nation" by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck. Support affordable housing and public transit policies in your local communities!!! YIMBY!!!!Please connect with us on Twitter: @ahhreelfilms or Instagram: @ahhrealfilms, or drop us a line to let us know how we're doing, or to suggest a future topic or film to discuss: ahhrealfilms@gmail.com. We'd love any recommendations for this series or a future listener submitted episode! And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app! You can also find us both on Letterboxd! Follow us on our horror journey and occasional forays into romcoms (because let's be real).  Taylor: @happydeathtay Curtis: @let5groove2nit3 Movies Covered: Blue Velvet (1986), Society (1989), Evil Dead Rise (2023), Influencer (2023)

This podcast is a commentary and does not contain any copyrighted material of the reference source. We strongly recommend accessing/buying the reference source at the same time. ■Reference Source https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_4_ways_to_make_a_city_more_walkable ■Post on this topic (You can get FREE learning materials!) https://englist.me/182-academic-words-reference-from-jeff-speck-4-ways-to-make-a-city-more-walkable-ted-talk/ ■Youtube Video https://youtu.be/Ju027sNCXDo (All Words) https://youtu.be/FTR2rhgJl1c (Advanced Words) https://youtu.be/-KiwiK4wB_E (Quick Look) ■Top Page for Further Materials https://englist.me/ ■SNS (Please follow!)

Our kids and grandkids will be shaped by urban plans. What will their cities and neighborhoods look like?  Who will decide?  Are 15-minute cities and smart cities brilliant and humane, or the latest form of corporate cronyism? Where do churches fit in? Julianne Romanello, philosopher, and consultant on city planning, discusses people who think locally and act globally.   Additional resources:  heartsoverhexagons.com Hearts over Hexagons YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLuCF3OL3EQiQBrdRQQiIwJacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City Conversation Balloons Episode 21--Interview with urban planning expert Jeff Speck, "Are walkable cities rIght for all ages?"Jeff Speck, Walkable City RulesArticle with diagram: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/15-minute-city-stickiness/https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/paved-paradise/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/15minute-city-falls-short/

Stories we're covering this week:• Scientists log the state's second largest hailstone in Mansfield• Chamber releases statement amidst membership controversy• Community Read-In event set for Tuesday• Legacy High journalism team earns national honorsIn the Features Section:• Angel Biasatti talks about your health in Methodist Mansfield News to Know• Realtor Beth Steinke offers some important cautions to renters in the Mansfield Real Estate Market Update• Brian Certain takes you to a sunny beach paradise in the Cocktail of the WeekWe have the seven-day weather forecast and, in the talk segment, Steve concludes his in-studio talk with Walkable City author Jeff Speck. Plus, your chance to win a $25 gift card to a Mansfield restaurant of your choice with our Mansfield Trivia Question, courtesy of Joe Jenkins Farmers Insurance. We are Mansfield's only source for news, talk and information. This is About Mansfield.

Stories we're covering this week:• Juneteenth event promises to be the best yet• Council increases homestead exemption. We'll talk about in A Moment With the Mayor• MISD recognized for music education program• Mansfield ISD Committee to host community forum regarding high school boundaries• Downtown vendors create an event for the dads• In Sports, Lake Ridge grad achieves “Moore”In the Features Section:• Angel Biasatti talks about the world's largest swim lesson in Methodist Mansfield News to Know• Realtor Beth Steinke addresses getting pre-approved in the Mansfield Real Estate Market Update• Brian Certain serves up a Dave Matthews Punch in the Cocktail of the WeekWe have the seven-day weather forecast and, in the talk segment, Steve talks in-studio with Walkable City author Jeff Speck. Plus, your chance to win a $25 gift card to a Mansfield restaurant of your choice with our Mansfield Trivia Question, courtesy of Joe Jenkins Farmers Insurance. We are Mansfield's only source for news, talk and information. This is About Mansfield. 

Author Bill Bryson describes how buying an old house in England has made him appreciate how dramatically domestic life has changed in just a few generations. Then writer Pico Iyer explains why visiting difficult destinations can shed light on where — or what — "paradise" might be. And urban planner Jeff Speck celebrates some of the North American cities that are catching up with their European cousins in designing pedestrian-friendly streetscapes. For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.

Follow Jeff Speck on Instagram, and Twitter! And check out his website!Follow us on Instagram and on Twitter!Created by SOUR, this podcast is part of the studio's "Future of X,Y,Z" research, where the collaborative discussion outcomes serve as the base for the futuristic concepts built in line with the studio's mission of solving urban, social and environmental problems through intelligent designs.Make sure to visit our website - podcast.whatswrongwith.xyz- and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts so you never miss an episode. If you found value in this show, we would appreciate it if you could head over to iTunes to rate and leave a review – or you can simply tell your friends about the show!Don't forget to join us next week for another episode. Thank you for listening!

Ten years ago, Jeff Speck wrote a book called Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. Since it was published, in 2012, the book has become one of the most popular titles in urban planning. His blunt assessment of the state of the planning profession, along with 10 steps for improving street design, have influenced efforts to improve safety and livability across U.S. cities over the last 10 years. Basically, it's all about walking, for Jeff. Listen in and learn. After all, Jeff's TED talks and YouTube videos have been viewed more than five million times ... If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

An interview with Jeff Speck, Author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time.How do you create an environment in which people are making the choice to walk or bike, in fact, rather than to drive? And the answer is that the walk has to be as good as the drive. And for the walk to be as good as the drive. It needs to do four things simultaneously. It needs to be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting. So we look at the factors that contribute to each of those four things. And we try to improve them.Jeff SpeckUrban design and walkabilitySupporting the choice to walk or bikeWalkability and longevityWalkability and COVIDWalkability and quality of lifeWalkability and schoolsBike infrastructureBikeability and health benefitshttps://www.movetolivemore.com/https://www.linkedin.com/company/move-to-live-more@MovetoLiveMore

This week's book review isn't one you would generally call a sustainability book but I do believe it fits the criteria. Join Mike as he connects the urban planning manual and discusses how it can deeply assist our future cities to become more sustainable. If you enjoy this episode, please consider sharing on social media or sending it to a friend. If you want to help the show, please comment or review it on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening! Please consider supporting the podcast by joining our Patreon: Here Visit our product or recommended book: Here Visit the RS site: https://www.greeningyourlife.org/podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/realistic-sustainability/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/realistic-sustainability/support

Today's guest Jeff Speck is a familiar name around here! Anne's referred to his book Walkable City in a bunch of past podcast episodes, because it's a great example of how books can invite us to see and understand the world around us in a whole new way. We're excited to have Jeff on the show today to share more about his professional and writing experience, how his book came to be chosen for the 10th anniversary treatment, and to compile a reading list of fascinating nonfiction and fiction that opens up the world for readers. Connect with Jeff at his website, www.jeffspeck.com, and find the full list of titles mentioned today at our show notes page, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/372.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn welcomes back Jeff Speck, city planner and author, to talk about a brand-new version of his book, Walkable Cities: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. It's the 10th anniversary for the book, and a lot has changed in the U.S. since the original was published. While the content from the first edition is still relevant today, this updated version holds over 100 pages of new information useful to those actively working to make their cities stronger. Listen to Chuck and Speck talk in depth about some of those book additions, including (but not limited to) COVID's impact on cities, the reckless driver narrative, and a simple truth about street trees. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Get the new edition of Walkable Cities: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. Jeff Speck (Twitter). Charles Marohn (Twitter).

After years of being stuck in bureaucratic limbo, it appears that the old Central Library in Downtown San Diego will begin offering shelter services to the homeless later this month. Then, a volunteer group is providing medical care to unhoused people in Sacramento, where in 2021, almost 200 unsheltered people died. The practice of bringing medicine to the people is taking off around the state. Next, plastic waste is a huge environmental problem for the earth and its oceans. One answer to the problem is being explored in San Diego. Then, while in some ways the world-famous Hollywood-dwelling mountain lion, P-22 was unique, mountain lions aren't uncommon here and they make their homes closer to humans than you might think. Finally, we talk to Jeff Speck, author of, “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time” about efforts to transform America's cities away from cars, toward a more walkable future.

Are walkable cities ableist utopias? What about strollers on subways, baby seats in Ubers, and Grandma's walker on the bus? Internationally-acclaimed city planner Jeff Speck graciously and sagaciously parries these types of thrusts from Leah, in a conversation that will leave you looking at your city or town with new eyes. Jeff Speck, the 2022 winner of the Seaside Prize, was Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts and now heads Specks and Associates as a private design consultant primarily for American cities. His TED talks and YouTube videos have been viewed more than 5 million times and his book Walkable City was the best-selling city-planning book of the last decade. His Harvard course in the Graduate School of Design is detailed at https://execed.gsd.harvard.edu/walkable-city Additional Resouces: Resources by Jeff Speck: Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, Tenth Anniversary Edition, 2022 Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places, 2018 Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, 2001, with Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk "Nine Keys to Safe Downtown Streets" Public Square, https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2020/01/07/nine-keys-safe-downtown-streets "Why Walkable Communities are the Best Communities for Older Adults" https://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/livable-in-action/info-2018/walkable-communities-jeff-speck.html jeffspeck.com

Today my guest is city planner and urban designer Jeff Speck. Originally trained as an architect, Jeff is most famous within the FIRE community for his award-winning 2012 book: ‘Walkable City: How Downtown Saves America, One Step at a Time'.It's amazing how such a small detail like walkability can touch on so many tenants within the FIRE ethos. The economy, health benefits and sustainability are all areas that are impacted greatly by our poorly designed cities which are where the majority of humans on earth live.Some of the topics we cover in today's episode are:How Jeff became an expert in city planning. (00:03:25)What is urban design and city planning? (00:09:02)City development before the great depression and world war 2 (00:13:43)How do we solve this problem of a car-centric environment? (00:36:25)Health benefits of a walkable city (00:41:14)How we can change our roads to benefit pedestrians and reduce traffic (00:52:09)Different ways to make a city more walkable (00:57:48)LinksWebsite - www.jeffspeck.comTED - Jeff Speck: The Walkable CityBook - WALKABLE CITY: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Timewww.aussiefirebug.com/podcast/

Jeff Speck has been a leader in making America's cities vibrant and active for three decades. His seminal book Walkable Communities, is enjoying its 10 year re-release with tons of new content. To celebrate his work, Jeff joins the Planning Commission for a fabulous conversation about why and how our communities should strive to be more walkable.Check out our Facebook page and YouTube Channel for more episodes and announcements.

In 2012, Jeff Speck's Walkable City sparked a conversation about why pedestrianized places matter and became one of the best-selling books about the built environment in recent memory. Ten years later, though, so much about the world has changed — even as human-centered communities have become more important than ever. On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson sits down with Speck to talk about an update to his classic book featuring 100 pages of new material, and how new technology, pandemics, and the movement to make cities anti-racist have reshaped his view of America's transportation future. And along the way, he shares some of the highlights from his reading list, and how his goals as a pedestrian advocate are continuing to evolve. Read an exclusive preview of Walkable City: 10th Anniversary Edition here.

Watch the video version of this episode to get the full effect.Landing page for the episodeWe also discuss what led her on the journey to make this film on safer street design, a topic she knew nothing about before the cameras started rolling. She shares how making this film has profoundly changed how she sees our cities, streets, and land use patterns. From the film's website: "THE STREET PROJECT is the story about humanity's relationship to the streets and the global citizen-led fight to make communities safer.Digging deep into the root causes of traffic violence, the filmmakers engage a diverse array of experts, including street historian Peter Norton, city planner Jeff Speck, and urban design expert Mikael Colville-Andersen. These expert interviews are interwoven with the stories of real people working to make their communities safer.Jennifer Boyd has produced and directed more than 25 documentaries, nine of those films have won EMMY awards.  Recent projects include 3 Seconds Behind the Wheel, which Good Morning America called “Groundbreaking.” Boyd has also co-created and produced two music television series Infinity Hall Live and The Kate, with 40 episodes in distribution.Currently, she is executive producing and directing a 5-part series on the history of Las Vegas, and a documentary on Mesa Verde National Park.The Street Project was filmed over 4 years and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic." Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- The Street Project film website- 3 Seconds Behind the Wheel film- Filmmaker Jennifer Boyd's websiteFour Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my storeCredits:All video and audio production by John SimmermanMusic:Epidemic SoundResources used during the production of this episode:- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm- Adobe Creative Cloud SuiteFor more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:- Website- Twitter- Newsletter- Podcast landing pages- Facebook- InstagramBackground:Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.I'm a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2022Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Video version of this episodeSo excited to welcome back Darcy Kitching for an update on her doctoral dissertation research on the topic of creating kid-friendly communities, her upcoming edition of the Boulder Walk360 event, and her efforts to grow the Streets Are For People movement in Boulder, Colorado.Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- Tern HSD e-assist cargo bike- James Rojas - Place It- Growing Up Boulder- Tim Gill episode- Jeff Speck episode- Charles "Chuck" Marohn episode- Chuck Marohn - Strong Towns: A bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity- Chuck Marohn -  Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town- Not Just Bikes video on what a STROAD is- Will Norman's episode- Curbing Traffic - Melissa & Chris Bruntlett- Open Streets video- Darcy's Best Urban Hikes Boulder book - Growing Up Boulder- Walk2Connect Collective- Boulder Vision Zero– My Walk360 video– Boulder RamblersFour Easy Steps to Support My Efforts: 1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/activetowns (As a thank you will have early and commercial-free access as well as bonus content and special discounts in the Active Towns Store)2. If you enjoyed this video please give it a "thumbs up", leave a comment, and share it with a friend.3. Subscribe to the Channel and don't forget to "Ring" that notification bell and select your notification preferences4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store: https://bit.ly/ActiveTownsStore (note: see no. 1 for access to special discounts in the store)Credits: All video and audio production by John SimmermanMusic: - Intro and Outro mixed by John Simmerman- Video Clip background music licensed through https://www.musicbed.com/Resources used during the production of this episode:- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm- Adobe Creative Cloud SuiteStudio Equipment:- Main MIcrophone Sennheiser Pro Audio MKH416-P48U3- Rode RODECaster Pro Podcast Production Studio- Additional Microphone - Shure MV7- Camera - Sony ZV-E10 (currently sold out)- Lens - Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary Lens- Elgato Cam Link 4k- Elgato Streamdeck XL*- Elgato Streamdeck (*you may not need the XL)Editing Computer System:- Apple MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Pro- LG 34WP88C-B 34-inch Curved 21:9 UltraWide QHD (3440x1440) IPS Display with Ergo StandAll video, audio, and music production by me, John SimmermanFor more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along please visit my links below:- Website- Twitter- Newsletter- Podcast landing pages- Facebook- InstagramBackground:Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.I'm a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.Since that time I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities".My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.Thanks for tuning in, I hope you find this content helpful.Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2022Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. Any donations collected are used specifically to support the organization's mission.To make a donation to Advocates for Healthy Communities go here★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

From the joy of the "Just a Minute" campaign in San Francisco to the members of a colorfully named subreddit creating a digital parking lot, there's a lot of news in The War on Cars. We hear from listeners around the country and across the Atlantic. Is it possible to be more chill about people riding the wrong way in a bike lane? Should public transit be free? Why is it so hard to find a good bicycle with all the accessories you need for regular transportation? Plus, quick dispatches from the hosts' trips to car-dependent parts of the United States. Lear about what makes a good, walkable city from author and urban planner Jeff Speck at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education, June 13 & 14. This episode is sponsored by Cleverhood. Receive 20% off anything in the Cleverhood store with coupon code HAPPYCOMMUTE now through the end of April. Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to ad-free bonus content. LINKS: An anti-car subreddit took over a digital canvas and put up a digital parking lot. (Washington Post) San Francisco's "Just a Minute" campaign places cyclist safety over driver convenience. (Stephen Braitsch on Twitter) If you live near Somerville, MA and need a great bike for regular transportation, check out Bicycle Belle. The fundamental problems with free transit. (Alex Schieferdecker) Results from Boston's experiment with free bus fares are mixed. (Boston Globe and WGBH) Pick up some official War on Cars merch. Follow and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps people find us! This episode was recorded by Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio and edited by Ali Lemer. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our logo was designed by Dani Finkel of Crucial D. Easter egg via Treyton Zary. TheWarOnCars.org