Podcasts about not just bikes

A lot of people get into advocacy for better cities and urbanism by watching what's perhaps YouTube's biggest urbanism channel,  @NotJustBikes . But that leads many to think that with enough advocacy, their hometowns could one day also look like a city in the Netherlands. Not Just Bikes' Jason Slaughter says it's not that simple.In this conversation, journalist Cara Stern and economist Mike Moffatt talk to Jason about what North American cities can learn from the Netherlands. They explore the principles of Dutch urban design, the importance of context in urban planning, and the need for holistic approaches that go beyond just implementing bike lanes. Links:Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can):https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU?si=uB-fSJYD0ouxDHivStrong Towns:https://www.strongtowns.org/Guest: Jason Slaughter, Not Just Bikes https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikesHosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern Produced by Meredith Martin This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.

 @NotJustBikes is many people's gateway into urbanism, and an understanding into how much better our cities and towns can be, if we just make some policy changes.In this conversation, journalist Cara Stern, economist Mike Moffatt, Not Just Bikes creator Jason Slaughter discuss the challenges and implications of car-dependent suburbs in North America. They explore personal experiences, historical context, and the impact of legislation on urban design. The discussion also delves into economic factors influencing suburban living, the potential for transformation, and cultural attitudes towards housing.Links:Not Just Bikeshttps://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikesSuburbs that don't suck:Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto) (youtube.com)Wortley Villagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wortley_VillageStrong Towns:https://www.strongtowns.org/The Sprawl Repair Manual https://sprawlrepair.com/home/Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern Produced by Meredith Martin This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.

I'd heard of Strong Towns for years, mainly through guest Jason Slaughter's Not Just Bikes video series, and finally joined the community by taking a couple of their courses. I can't recommend them enough. Chuck Marohn founded that community. He found and publicized several of their core discoveries. Some include: North American cities grow based on a Ponzi scheme, the combination of a street and a road fails at both and wrecks everything it touches, cores of cities usually make the most economic sense, and outlying areas usually sap money and vitality.I invited Chuck because of the overlap between city planning and sustainability. Over half of humans live in cities. Many can't avoid following the patterns of where to live, traffic, where to eat and shop, and how to spend money determined by their urban environment. I often say we don't need more electric cars, we need fewer roads, not that electric cars help.I also learned from reading about him and you'll hear in our conversation that I wanted to learn from his having started a community running against the mainstream values making a lot of people money. I see him as a role model in this way. We talked about it some, but then got into the Spodek Method, which I think you'll hear he enjoyed.Strong Towns web pageTheir courses (I've taken 101 and their Not Just Bikes courses so far and recommend them) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

New York City was about to roll out congestion charging. The cameras were up, the staff were hired, the metro projects were financed, and thousands of people were lined up to make public transit better ... and then the governor cancelled it on vibes.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing_in_New_York_Cityhttps://thewaroncars.org/2024/06/07/kathy-hochuls-congestion-pricing-flip-flop-fiasco/https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/new-york-city-toll-hochul-democrats-00161930https://hellgatenyc.com/lawsuit-congestion-pricing-teachers/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0965856409001256https://www.transportportal.se/SWoPEc/CTS2012-3.pdfhttps://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/11/28/congestion-pricing-was-unpopular-in-stockholm-until-people-saw-it-in-actionThe War on Cars: https://thewaroncars.org/Not Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/notjustbikesSupport the Urbanist Agenda by signing up to Nebula, and get every episode early!https://nebula.tv/agendaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How I'm I supposed to live my life with a car that only goes 300 miles per charge when I might need to go to the dry cleaner 4 miles from my house?BONUS EPISODES available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/deniersplaybook) SOCIALS & MORE (https://linktr.ee/deniersplaybook) CREDITS Created by: Rollie Williams, Nicole Conlan & Ben BoultHosts: Rollie Williams & Nicole ConlanExecutive Producer: Ben Boult Producer: Gregory Haddock Editor: Brittany TerrellResearchers: Carly Rizzuto, Canute Haroldson & James CrugnaleArt: Jordan Doll Music: Tony Domenick Special thanks: The Civil Liberties Defense CenterSOURCESAllen, S. (2016, August 22). The horror of alligator attack on boy at Disney World resort is detailed in new reports. Los Angeles Times.Better Offline. (2024, May 8). Enron Musk ft. Ed Niedermeyer.Contributor, G. (2023, August 13). Are Electric Cars Really Cheaper To Own And Drive Than Gas Cars? CleanTechnica. Coren, M. (2023, August 8). Advice | Is it cheaper to refuel your EV battery or gas tank? We did the math in all 50 states. Washington Post. Electric Classic Cars. (2021, January 4). VW Beetle converted to electric in a day. YouTube. Enel X Way. (2022, November 21). Future of gas stations vs EV chargers | Enel X Way. Www.enelxway.com. Energy.Gov. (n.d.). The Cost to Charge an Electric Vehicle Explained. Energy.gov. Retrieved May 14, 2024, from https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/cost-charge-electric-vehicle-explained#:~:text=Using%20the%20U.S.%20household%20averageFederal Highway Administration. (n.d.). National Household Travel Survey. Nhts.ornl.gov. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-tripsFischer, J. (2022, September 22). The Average Price of an Electric Car Keeps Dropping (2024 Update). CarEdge. Forest Breaking News. (2023, September 20). WATCH: Pete Stauber Tears Into Sec. Pete Buttigieg Over EV Mandates. Www.youtube.com. fueleconomy.gov. (2019). How many gas stations are there in the U.S? Fueleconomy.gov. Hoonigan. (2017, March 28). [HOONIGAN] DT 012: Electric Smart Car Burnouts, Donuts and Other Bad Ideas. YouTube. Jalopnik. (2020, June 2). Unboxing The World's Cheapest New Car Reveals It's So Much Better Than You Think. Www.youtube.com. Jalopnik. (2021, June 29). How The Cheapest Electric Car In The World Held Up After 1 Year. YouTube. Keley Blue Book. (2024, February 13). Kelley Blue Book Reports New-Vehicle Transaction Prices Continue to Tumble, Down 3.5% Year Over Year in January. Kelley Blue Book. Marklines. (2024, January 4). USA - Flash report, Automotive sales volume, 2023 - MarkLines Automotive Industry Portal. Www.marklines.com. Meyer, R., & Jenkins, J. (2024, May 8). ‎Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins: Elon Musk Is Putting the EV Transition in Peril on Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts. Nadel, S. (2024, January 10). Charging Ahead: How EVs Could Drive Down Electricity Rates | ACEEE. Www.aceee.org. Not Just Bikes. (2023, March 6). These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us. Www.youtube.com. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. (2022, March 21). FOTW #1230, March 21, 2022: More than Half of all Daily Trips Were Less than Three Miles in 2021. Energy.gov. Policy, A. P. (2024, March 7). Comparing the Total Cost of Ownership of the Most Popular Vehicles in the United States. Atlas Public Policy. Randall, T. (2023, March 9). US Electric Cars Set Record With Almost 300-Mile Average Range. Bloomberg.com. Shilling, E. (2022, January 27). Trucks And SUVs Are Now Over 80 Percent Of New Car Sales In The U.S. Jalopnik. Squires, A. (2023, June 27). Building the 2030 National Charging Network. Www.nrel.gov. St. John, J. (2024, May 2). Tesla's Supercharger team layoffs perplex EV charging industry. Canary Media. Sturges, D. (2023). Near to Far: A design for a new equitable and sustainable transportation system. Dan Sturges.The Economic Times. (2023, December 3). Trump on electric vehicles: “They don't go far, they cost a fortune.” Www.youtube.com. The International Council on Clean Transportation. (n.d.). Five things you know about electric vehicles that aren't exactly true. International Council on Clean Transportation. The Simpsons. (n.d.). The Simpsons - Electric car of the future. Www.youtube.com. Retrieved May 14, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wjyaF8ut_E. Season 14, Episode 7.Torchinsky, J. (2023, April 27). This Indian-Market Brochure For The New MG Comet EV Is Concentrated Cringe Injected Right Into Your Brain. The Autopian. Torchinsky, J. (2024a, January 5). You'll Never Guess The Technology That Hospital Beds And Premium Cars Share, And For Very Different Purposes. The Autopian. Torchinsky, J. (2024b, January 8). VW Will Be The First Carmaker To Offer Integrated ChatGPT After All None Of You Demanded It. The Autopian. Torchinsky, J. (2024c, January 24). EV Startup Canoo Announces Deal With Post Office To Provide A Comically Small Number Of Vans. The Autopian. Torchinsky, J. (2024d, January 30). America Is Missing Out on the Best Electric Cars. The Atlantic. Torchinsky, J. (2024e, February 27). Congratulations! You Have Achieved The Same Results As Apple's 10-Year-Long EV Program Which They Just Shut Down. The Autopian. Torchinsky, J. (2024f, March 29). Huge Smartphone Company Xiaomi Just Showed The World Their Under-$30,000 Tesla Model 3 Fighter. The Autopian. Torchinsky, J. (2024g, April 12). “Fully Automated AVs May Never Be Able To Operate Safely” Says One Of The Oldest Professional Computing Technology Organizations. The Autopian. Witt, J. (2022, December 12). Winter & Cold Weather EV Range Loss in 7,000 Cars. Www.recurrentauto.com.Additional Media: The horror of alligator attack on boy at Disney World resort is detailed in new reports - Los Angeles TimesAmerica Is Missing Out on the Best Electric Cars - The AtlanticRobinson Meyer, Elon Musk Is Putting the EV Transition in PerilEd Zitron, Enron Musk Ft. Ed NiedermeyerVW Beetle converted to electric in a dayHow The Cheapest Electric Car In The World Held Up After 1 YearUnboxing The World's Cheapest New Car Reveals It's So Much Better Than You Think[HOONIGAN] DT 012: Electric Smart Car Burnouts, Donuts and Other Bad IdeasI'm an electric car - The SimpsonsWATCH: Pete Stauber Tears Into Sec. Pete Buttigieg Over EV MandatesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It occurred to us the other day that we have lived 10 years without owning a car. This didn't happen intentionally, we just moved to a walkable neighbourhood and living car-free just made the most sense. In this episode, I talk with Mrs. NJB about what it's been like to live without a car, how it made more sense for us even with two kids, and about why we'll likely never own one.Not Just Bikes: https://nebula.tv/notjustbikesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Not Just Bikes, normally a champion of all things Amsterdam, talks to RMTransit about why the Amsterdam Metro isn't good enough. And if GVB has their way, it might become even worse.https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/219864/metrolijnen-50-en-53-worden-samengevoegd-30000-passagiers-zullen-moeten-overstappenhttps://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-info/dutch-expat-news/major-overhaul-amsterdam-public-transport-fewer-trams-more-transfershttps://www.dewestkrant.nl/tram-19-en-3-voorlopig-gered-gvb-broedt-op-ander-plan/https://over.gvb.nl/nieuws/geen-netwerkwijzigingen-in-aangepast-vervoerplan-2024/Not Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/@notjustbikesRMTransit: https://youtube.com/@rmtransitSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Un episod ca un semnal de alarmă pentru cele patru rânduri de alegeri care urmează. Povestim despre: - Cum stă România la capitolul siguranță în trafic pentru copii. Prost. Foarte prost. - Măsura de creștere a natalității: prioritatea la casele supermarketurilor. - Părinții-taximetriști. ___ Server Config: https://www.server-config.ro/outlet ___ Raport cu privire la siguranța pe șosele în UE: https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-08/ff_children_20220706.pdf ___ Recomandări: Not Just Bikes - https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes Mâncarea și telefonul. Cum le distrugem atenția copiilor | Vocea Nației #194 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_O1WXYr0Ts Elogiul plictiselii. De ce e important să-ți lași mintea să rătăcească | Vocea Nației #195 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qia_ycBtSyY&t=2s Alexandru Solomon. Arsenie, ortodoxie, OZN-uri. Găleți de ură și gândire liberă. Ciorbele și filmul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzK8eKVbiuw ___ Poți comanda cartea Atenție cu intenție de aici: https://bookzone.ro/carte/atentie-cu-intentie-bkz

After reading about 34th Avenue in Queens and watching the video linked below, I had to ride to see it. Over a mile of a once congested street was transformed into safer, quieter places people enjoyed, especially kids. There are three schools along the route. The kids can come out and play.I met Jim there, felt inspired to do something similar near me, and invited him to the podcast. He talks about what made it possible, what's happened since it started, resistance, celebration, and more.After we recorded, we walked around my neighborhood and he showed what streets would work best to start the program with. I'm already starting to act.Before we overbuilt streets for cars, people did fine without cars. Once built, people adjusted their lives, forgot how things worked before, and claim they have no choice to drive. They act like this privilege and addiction helps the poor it impoverishes or people who can't walk everywhere whom it traps.The answer is to change our environment so cars aren't so necessary. People can adjust back.Please listen to my episode with Jason Slaughter of the video series Not Just Bikes for more advanced city changes. The U.S. is sorely lagging.Queens' 34th Avenue Shows What Open Streets Can Do for People34th Avenue Oral History on Jim BurkeDesigning Open Streets video Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rowhouses have been around for literally thousands of years: a house that's connected to the house next to it. This type of housing is illegal in huge swaths of the US and Canada, but it's extremely common elsewhere because it is the greatest form of housing.Jason from Not Just Bikes is joined by Justin Roczniak from the Well There's Your Problem podcast to discuss why rowhouses are the superior form of housing, and why we should bulldoze every city to build them.References and further reading:https://statisticalatlas.com/neighborhood/Pennsylvania/Philadelphia/East-Passyunk/Populationhttps://www.phila.gov/media/20190521124726/Philadelphia_Rowhouse_Manual.pdfGet the next episode one week early and support this podcast by signing up to Nebula: https://nebula.tv/agendaWell There's Your Problem: https://www.youtube.com/@welltheresyourproblempodca1465Not Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/@notjustbikesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Paying for public transit is way too complicated, especially if you're an occasional user or tourist. Can open payments make this process easier for everyone?In this conversation, Jason from Not Just Bikes and Thea from Urban Caffeine discuss recent developments in open payments. If we're going to charge for public transit (which is a whole other conversation), how should payments be collected? Why are we still using obtuse way s of paying when credit cards and debit cards exist?References and further reading:https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-better-payment-systems-can-improve-public-transportation/https://www.bytemark.co/bytes-of-knowledge/what-are-open-loop-payments-in-public-transithttps://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/78096/open-loop-payments-united-states/Get the next episode one week early and support this podcast by signing up to Nebula: https://nebula.tv/agendaNot Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/@notjusbikesUrban Caffeine: https://youtube.com/@urbancaffeineSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weeks program Chris chats to Cr Edward Crosslands about testing improvements to Yarra's cycling network, Elizabeth Street seperated lanes, councillor conversations and work finally commencing on the Gipps Street steps ramp replacement.Bicycle-themed news includes Melbourne western suburbs transport challenge, the latest Not Just Bikes video, Dutch Cycling Embassy Five Design Principles for Bicycle Infrastructure; Directness and a whisper about upcoming Critical Mass rides leading into spring.Also a massive thanks to our wonderful listeners who helped Yarra Bicycle Users Group Radio make 134% of our 3CR radiothon target!

Toronto's mayor stepped down, which gives the city a unique opportunity to make a meaningful change. Without an incumbent in the race, the field is wide open for someone new to take charge. Will Toronto choose good urbanism, or will it continue down its car-centric trajectory?In this episode, Jason from Not Just Bikes and Reece from RMTransit go through the top candidates in the Toronto mayoral election and give our takes on who we think should be (or shouldn't be) the next mayor of Toronto.Relevant articles:https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2023/06/11/toronto-election-reality-check-how-the-mayoral-hopefuls-would-unclog-city-streets.htmlhttps://toronto.ctvnews.ca/why-does-doug-ford-care-who-becomes-mayor-of-toronto-1.6436389Support the Urbanist Agenda by signing up to Nebula (with a $20 discount): https://go.nebula.tv/agendaNot Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/@notjustbikesRMTransit: https://youtube.com/@rmtransitSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this fortnight's episode of Induction, Tom chats to Jason Slaughter from the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes about the recent boom in urban planning content. How has this once-niche subject area come to take over the internet and become... dare I say it... cool?Watch or listen to every episode of Induction two weeks early at http://go.nebula.tv/inductionCheck out Jason's channel at http://youtube.com/@NotJustBikesThe Induction TeamHosted by Tom NicholasEdited by Georgia BurrowsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Season 20 Episode 2 Apologizing - Celler Dwellers Or Else - Marina Allen Superreality - Marina Allen If You Love Her - Tokyo Tea Room Feel Your Heart - Tokyo Tea Room Poor Devil - Fruit Junior Saddle Up -Fruit Junior The Promise (feat. Jelani Aryeh) - Samia As You Are - Samia Edge of the Edge - Panda Bear & Sonic Boom Everything's Been Leading To This - Panda Bear & Sonic Boom Sleeper Agent - Smaller Hearts Vento a Favor - Sessa This episode features a clip from the new podcast The Urbanist Agenda from Jason of the great Not Just Bikes. His co-host for the inaugural episode was Adam Something who shows off his pitch-perfect Slavoj Žižek impression as they talk about living in human-friendly cities.

A podcast by the creator of the popular YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, The Urbanist Agenda is an exploration of the latest topics in urban planning and urban mobility from your favourite urbanist YouTubers.Each month we'll put another important topic on the agenda and pull back the curtain to discover how online urbanists plot and scheme to make cities work better for everyone.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you're familiar with the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, there's a chance you've been "orangepilled." This is what fans of the channel have called the radical shift in worldview that they experienced once they found the channel. The host, Jason Slaughter, is on a mission to educate the world not just about the benefits of walkable cities, but about the absurdities that come along with the western suburban sprawl that millions of people have accepted as normal. He does a fantastic job of pointing out how completely abnormal and backwards it all is.Today we talk about his experience of moving to Amsterdam and discovering the joy of living in cities that prioritize people over cars, and discuss ways that we can transform our current cities into something more healthy and sustainable.You can find Jason over at his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you've spent any time at all poking around urbanism threads on Twitter, you've likely seen Nathan and his catchy, engaging TikToks on Third Places, Walkable Communities, Missing Middle Housing, and so much more. After reading a Strong Towns article profiling both Nathan and Jason Slaughter with Not Just Bikes, I reached out to get him the podcast, and this is the resulting interview that we recorded in late December 2022. I hope you enjoy it.Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- Watch the video version of this episode- Nathan's TikTok account - Nathan on Twitter- Nathan's Beacons.ai page- Nathan on Insta- Nathan's YouTube Channel- Not Just Bikes- Strong Towns- Subreddit f-cars- Alan Fisher's Channel- Paul Stout on TikTok - talking cities- Strong Towns article featuring Jason Slaughter and Nathan- Landing page of this episodeFour 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 ★

Watch the video version of this episode to get the full effect.Landing page for the episode We also talk about her writing and video work in the early days of the Strong Towns organization, as well as her contributions to the Incremental Development movement. I also learned that she is originally from and initially started her running routine in London, ON, or as Jason Slaughter with Not Just Bikes likes to call it, Fake-London. Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- Strong Towns- CNU- Urban3 - Order your own set of STEP Cards- My recent episode w/ Chuck Marohn- My episode w/ Pekka Tahkola in Oulu, FinlandFour 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 ★

This week we share another interview from Micromobility Europe - This time it is the timeless interview of Jason Slaughter, creator of the largest urban planning YouTube Channel - Not Just Bikes being interviewed by Julia Thayne DeMourdant from the Rocky Mountain Institute, about why many cities suck, but Dutch cities don't. Our host Oliver has often joked that if you spend enough time talking about Micromobility, you end up falling backwards into discussions about urbanism, space allocation and what makes for great cities. Jason nails why that is in this interview, and being in the Netherlands for this conference we can see what he was referring to. The intersection between transport, vehicles, felt experience and finances are all laid to bear. This was also released on our YouTube channel that has turned out to be our most popular ever with more than 100,000 views on You Tube. Specifically they tackle: The origin of Not Just Bikes and Jason's background Why car dependency creates sprawled suburbs How urban planning and design can determine if a city will suck or not A city that is built for cars is not built for people We need to move away from building car-centric cities, and instead build people-friendly cities with walkable neighbourhoods and good land use. Any micromobility solution needs to be compatible with walking If you like this, you'll love Micromobility America coming up in San Francisco on the 15th and 16th of September 2022. We are expecting 1000 people from hundreds of companies to talk about the latest on Micromobility technology services companies and more, as well as the wider implication for micromobility in climate, transport systems and cities. I will be up there and would love to see you there – please come and join us by getting your tickets at micromobility.io Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you. Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team! We're also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Jason Slaughter, producer of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, is a pretty cool and talented guy. He's created multiple excellent videos on Strong Towns ideas, taking our written words and translating them through his own voice into visual representations. A lot of our dedicated members have discovered us through Not Just Bikes' compelling videos.  In this episode, Chuck welcomes Jason back onto the Strong Towns Podcast, where they discuss one of his recent videos, “America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit).”  U.S. and Canadian transit systems disrespect the people who use them. Most of the time, public transit is a hassle, it's impractical, and it doesn't make sense to use when transit routes take much longer than a car ride. The millions of dollars that are spent on our transit systems seem to go to waste when land use is not considered during the construction process.  In this podcast, Jason and Chuck go more in depth about some of the absurdities of our modern transit system and the urban deserts they tend to drop riders off at—bringing to light some reasons why people don't want to use public transit. They debunk the reasons some DOTs use for why we can't have better transit, and what the process for building efficient public transportation systems should look like. Bonus: Jason describes a time he and his kids used the transit system where he lives in Europe.  ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Not Just Bikes (YouTube). Check out Not Just Bikes' livestreams on YouTube and Twitch! Support Jason through his Patreon. Jason (Twitter / Reddit). Charles Marohn (Twitter).

Cities and cars and a climate crisis, oh my! For the past 70 years, urban design in Canada has been centred around the car. Cities have started making changes, but are they doing enough to meet Canada's climate goals? Featured in this episode: Dr. Edda Bild, postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and lead soundscape researcher for Sounds in the City. Jason Slaughter, creator of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes. Brent Toderian, city planner and urbanist at TODERIAN UrbanWORKS. Links: Sounds in the City website Not Just Bikes YouTube Channel “The Power of Parking” paper Support Canadaland at canadaland.com/join Sponsors: oxio, Article Additional Music is by Audio NetworkSupport CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a special Member Week episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, featuring two amazing Strong Towns members: Nick and Amanda Lanata, from Zachary, Louisiana. Nick is a data scientist and Amanda works for the Louisiana Main Street program, and also helps run a small family business. It probably won't come as a surprise to hear that when this duo encountered Strong Towns, they were hooked and soon got involved. Nick was drawn to Strong Towns' focus on doing the math and assessing the value per acre of developments in our cities. He's even done analyses on his own community and shared those with elected leaders. Amanda was interested in the Strong Towns approach to helping downtowns and small businesses get activated again and grow economically resilient. The Lanatas took the Strong Towns mission and really ran with it over the last couple years: meeting and getting to know their city councilors, helping their neighbors see the potential in their city, starting a Local Conversation group, and allowing the Strong Towns approach to guide their personal choices—like how they get around town. We're excited for you to hear from these inspiration Strong Towns members and hope that you'll take a step and join them by becoming a member yourself. Additional Show Notes Learn more about value per acre analyses. Not Just Bikes on YouTube Visit the Urban3 website Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Frederik Zevenbergen was jarenlang community manager voor Tweakers, meerdere seizoenen panellid bij Met Nerds om Tafel en inmiddels is hij gedeputeerde voor Verkeer en vervoer, Bestuur en maatschappij & Vergunningverlening in Zuid Holland.In deze afleveringen hebben wij het over Frederik Zevenbergen's werk als gedeputeerde, de uitdagingen van het kiezen van een elektrische auto en de overname van Twitter door Elon Musk.Tijdschema00:00:00 Koningskleedjes00:05:16 Voorstellen: Frederik Zevenbergen00:15:15 Hoe werkt provinciepolitiek ookalweer?00:28:09 To laadpaal or not to laadpaal?00:48:24 De overname van Twitter door Elon Musk01:02:46 Vragen van de luisteraar01:18:33 Tips01:28:00 AfkondigingTipsSander BijleveldApple Macbook Air M1Jurian UbachsNFL Draft is deze week!The Dropout op Disney+Frederik ZevenbergenJe powerbank op tijd opladenVanMoof S5Fenix Food FactoryRandal PeelenBusiness Parks Suck (but they don't have to) van Not Just Bikes op YoutubeZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Video version of this episodeElectric-assist bikes and e-cargo bikes have in many ways supercharged the bike industry and provided much-needed practical utilitarian solutions to many households worldwide. Ten years ago Chris Nolte had a vision that people would want a better, cleaner way to get around and so he launched his e-bike shop, which has now grown to three locations, Brooklyn, NY, Long Beach, CA, and Wilmington, DE.And as many of you know, a few years ago, he launched the Propel YouTube channel to help support the coming e-bike revolution, share empowering e-bike and cargo bike stories, and promote the development of better cycling infrastructure. He is supported in this endeavor by his intrepid, talented videographer, storyteller, and editor Tara Salvesen.Jason Slaughter with Not Just Bikes has a short cameo at the very end of the video. Dr. Meredith Glaser with the Urban Cycling Institute and Melissa & Chris Bruntlett with Modacity are mentioned. Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):- Propel Bike Shops- Propel YouTube Channel- History of Propel Video- Riding w/ Mayor John Bauters- Night riding w/ Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes- Study Tour w/ Dr. Meredith Glaser- Riding w/ Melissa & Chris Bruntlett- Tara's websiteMy Personal Call To Action:- Become a Patron! Please consider supporting my efforts via Patreon- Please check out my new store for some fun Streets Are For People merch- If you enjoyed this episode please give it a "thumbs up", leave a comment, and share it with a friend.- And if you haven't yet done so, please also subscribe to my YouTube Channel and don't forget to "Ring" that notifications bell; this lets you know when I post a new video or schedule a premiere.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 ★

Over the past few years, deaths from car accidents in the United States have spiked dramatically. Journalists and commentators have been quick to point to pandemic-induced stress and anxiety to explain the increase. But is that account too pat? On episode 44 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with three guests about road design, automobile regulation, and what's wrong with blaming crashes on reckless drivers. Guests include Charles Marohn, the author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer; Jessie Singer, the author of There Are No Accidents, and Jason Slaughter, the creator of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Video for this Episode - first released as a special Holiday bonus video in DecemberJason Slaughter with Not Just Bikes in Amsterdam chats with me about how the Dutch have created what he calls "bicycle roads" and have teased out and separated their cycle priority networks from the networks serving other modes, including walking, transit, and cars.The result is a brilliant compilation of coordinated mobility choices that is arguably the best in the world.My Personal Call To Action:- Become a Patron! Please consider supporting my efforts via Patreon-  Please check out my Active Towns store for some fun #StreetsAreForPeople items- If you enjoyed this video please give it a "thumbs up", leave a comment, and share it with a friend.- And if you haven't yet done so, please subscribe to the Channel and don't forget to "Ring" that notifications bell; this lets you know when I post a new video or schedule a premiere.Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):We reference and play some of these Not Just Bikes videos during this conversation:- The Best Way to Cycle - Bicycle Only Roads in the Netherlands- The Bike Lanes You Can't See - Ontvlechten- Why the Dutch Wait Less at Traffic Lights- The Best Country in the World for Drivers- The Trains that Killed an Airline - Italian HSR- Landing Page for this Episode - My first episode featuring Jason - Jason's merch site - Nebula and Curiosity Stream - NJB Live  Resources used during the production of this episode:- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm- Adobe Creative Cloud SuiteStudio Equipment:- 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 ★

THIS. IS. CYCLING!!!!!!!!! *kicks u into traffic* Not Just Bikes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/notjustbikes BicycleDutch as mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/c/BicycleDutch Sources for Nerds: A Historical Perspective on the AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities and the Impact of the Vehicular Cycling Movement: http://tooledesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/TRB_Paper18-05962_HistoryofAASHTO_BikeGuide_TRB_rev.pdf Archive of John Forester's site: https://web.archive.org/web/20190225013436/http://www.johnforester.com/ Fifty Years of Bicycle Policy in Davis, CA: http://groups.dcn.org/dhrg/3-authors/BuehlerThesisFinalDraft.pdf/document.pdf Archive of Bikeway Planning Guidelines, 1972: https://web.archive.org/web/20080216022317/http://drusilla.hsrc.unc.edu/cms/downloads/BikewayPlanningGuidelines1972.pdf   Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Our Merch: https://www.solidaritysuperstore.com/wtypp Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 40178 Philadelphia, PA 19106 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Gracen Johnson, a founding member and long-time contributor to Strong Towns, recently had that now-common experience of moving mid-pandemic—to Ottawa in Canada. Yet she's found small but powerful ways to get to know neighbors and be a positive part of her neighborhood. Having a dog to walk regularly helps. So does observing what's going on around her and finding ways to plug into that, rather than showing up with her own agenda. If you've heard of our "4-Step Process for Public Investment" at Strong Towns, this is exactly what Gracen is talking about. Gracen has lived in rural and urban areas, but she says she's not a city person or a small town person—rather, she's “a neighborhood person.” In this episode, you'll hear a lot from Gracen about how to connect with your neighbors and, as she says, “give more than you take” with those around you. Near the end of the interview, we also have an interesting conversation about top-down versus bottom-up advocacy, because the reason Gracen moved to Toronto was to work for a quasi-federal government housing agency. It's certainly a valuable discussion. Additional Show Notes Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest. Read Strong Towns articles by Gracen. Read Gracen's "Places I Don't Want to Sit" photo essay. Why are street trees important? Read "The Magic of Tree-Lined Streets," by Sarah Kobos. Watch the Curbside Chat video series Gracen created for Strong Towns Check out the popular Not Just Bikes channel on YouTube. Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

You might take it for granted that a bicycle has two spoked wheels with rubber tires, pedals, a chain, a diamond-shaped frame, and functional brakes, but this was not always the case. In this episode we explore the early history and development of the bicycle, and its evolution from a toy for rich douchebags to a catalyst of the feminist movement. We also complain about silly grad student projects that try to re-invent the wheel.Main topic starts at 17:58RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/carsandcomrades/feed.xmlEmail us with tips, stories, and unhinged rants:carsandcomrades@gmail.comFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/cars_and_comrades_podcast/https://twitter.com/CarsAndComradeshttps://www.facebook.com/Cars-Comrades-Podcast-101908671824034https://www.reddit.com/user/CarsAndComradeshttps://www.hexbear.net/u/CarsAndComradesAll music from the free album Polygondwanaland by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard:https://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/polygondwanalandLinks/Sources:Guy angry about gas prices: https://twitter.com/Santos4Congress/status/1469545742780047365 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle#History Street Strider overpriced weird elliptical bike thing https://www.streetstrider.com/products/streetstrider3i Fliz bike/hobbyhorse https://www.designboom.com/technology/fliz-pedal-less-bicycle-concept-10-04-2017/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bike_boom https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOJ4W1 https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/1186952-touring-penny-farthing-2.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycling_and_feminism https://www.vox.com/2014/7/8/5880931/the-19th-century-health-scare-that-told-women-to-worry-about-bicycle Not Just Bikes https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

Maximum functions, minimum amount of materials. That needs to be part of the sustainable future of design. What technologies might be helpful for both the design and production process? We talk with Delft Design researcher Jun Wu about possible technological solutions using 3D printing for what he calls generative design: using algorithms to print the most sustainable product possible. Also in this episode: how to create more problems with your solutions, growing bridges with metal or tree vines and bicycles. References in this episode: MX3D printed metal bridge → https://mx3d.com/industries/infrastructure/mx3d-bridge/ The ingenious living bridges of India → https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211117-how-indias-living-bridges-could-transform-architecture TopOpt app by DTU → Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TopOpt.TopOpt&hl=en&gl=US → iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/topopt/id507454646 Bicycle mount for Apple Air Tag → https://www.getnewthings.com/airtag-bike/ Not Just Bikes → https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A

Guillermo Mash from Imagining Community coffee chats with life-long, mid-twenties-aged, Addison Winslow who shares his extensive knowledge of the neighborhoods of Chico, California. All within the context of Strong Towns and Not Just Bikes, two popular, apolitical research organizations that shed light on what makes for a safe, happy and thriving community.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/imagining-community/message

Jason Slaughter is the creator of Not Just Bikes, the wildly popular YouTube channel that covers urban design and daily living in the Netherlands. Jason's videos are informative and entertaining, and whether they're about the shaky finances on which the suburbs are built or something as simple as grocery shopping, each one helps viewers understand larger concepts about building cities for people, not cars. Doug sat down with Jason in Amsterdam to talk about the origins of Not Just Bikes and why places that force everyone to drive whether they want to or not just plain suck. ***The episode is sponsored by Rad Power Bikes.*** SHOW NOTES: Subscribe to Not Just Bikes on YouTube. Follow Not Just Bikes on Twitter. Watch the videos mentioned in this episode: Why Many Cities Suck (But Dutch Cities Don't) Why Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam Why Dutch Bikes Are Better (and why you should want one) The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive access to exclusive ad-free bonus content. Plus we'll send you stickers. Get official War on Cars merch, including our new CARS RUIN CITIES t-shirt, at our store. Check out The War on Cars library at Bookshop.org. Follow and review us on iTunes. It helps people find us! Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our logo is by Dani Finkel of Crucial D. TheWarOnCars.org      

In episode 67 of The Eric Norcross Podcast, Eric talks with Jason Slaughter, creator of the popular YouTube channel, Not Just Bikes. Their conversation focuses on the importance of re-thinking city planning, making cities less car-friendly and more bike-friendly. Intact Discourse: Jason's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes Subscribe, Like, Share - and get The Eric Norcross Podcast here on Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts! -- Please contribute to my PATREON by visiting the URL: https://www.patreon.com/ericnorcross And learn more about me at: http://www.EricNorcross.com Eric Norcross is a filmmaker, writer, and artist. Reach out, ask questions, and let's create! https://www.ericnorcross.com/contact Copyright © 2021 Eric Norcross - All Rights Reserved --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/eric-norcross/support

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Here are the notes I read from, responding to this op-ed piece and this review for a book I've talked to the author about but haven't read.Geoengineering Prologue or Epilogue for Humanity?Introduction, contextGeoengineering is becoming a more common topic as people feel more desperate. The common theme is that when things get serious, we have to put everything on the table, even things that may not work. The problem isn't if they'll work on their intended goal, but everything else. Over and over again in history, the unintended side-effects dwarf the intended ones. In fact, the story of oil, plastics, and most of our environmental problems today, since nobody chose to pollute but did try to improve people's lives despite side-effects they hoped would be small, geoengineering continues that story. Each time people thought they would solve. Each time it exacerbated and here we are.What got us into this mess won't get us out. It will get us deeper.Two recent pieces on geoengineering: Gernot Wagner book and David Keith NY Times editorial. Both results of months of just writing based on years of research and dedicated practice. I've met Gernot in person. Haven't read book but got some of it vocally. Don't know Keith but mutual friends.David Keith invited to engage by Twitter, which I think is disaster and one of our main problems today. People trying to checkmate each other in 160 characters, as he did in saying, please provide data.I will provide data, but not the kind he thinks. As you'll see, I believe history proves his approach disastrous.Both present unassailable perspective: we have to study, not dismiss out of hand, though I think they miss many have studied and out of thoughtful consideration and with difficulty but confidence reject.With 7.9 billion people, no objection to some studying. Plenty of resources.I don't say don't read the article or book. Besides that I haven't read the book, they mean well and want to save humanity from ecological catastrophe. Both value stopping emissions as primary.I'm not saying don't read them, but I recommend other works first. I'd startI may be misinterpreting, but I see them as approaching in two ways: at science and engineering level, understanding the situation, both the state of nature and the state of our technology, and innovating solutions. At the decision-making level, figuring out what we should do.I have a PhD in physics, I helped launch satellites with NASA and ESA to observe atmospheres, I've invented and patented several inventions, brought them working to the world, raising millions to do it. I also ran businesses, got an MBA, and coach executives at some of the world's largest and most prominent organizations, so I'm not a babe in the woods in these areas.How to look at itWhat data do I suggest and what do I suggest reading first, before their works?While tempting to look at it as engineering issue, I see it as high-stakes decision-making where we don't have the luxury of not responding somehow, can't possibly have all the information we want, and sections of global economy including millions to billions of lives affected, even human extinction in play.There is precedent, which is the data and history to learn from.Caveat: nothing is perfectly relevant. We are in uncharted territory. In all comparisons, more differences than similarities. But we have no alternate universes to practice on, only history of huge decisions. I don't like situation either, but agree on research.Each comparable itself could be studied forever in infinite detail. None had control groups or alternative realities. But like Gernot and Keith, I believe more study. At end I'll get to where lines of research I prefer could lead.Comparables and resourcesVietnamMcNamara and best and brightest from Harvard, etc.Data was last war. Sought numbers in kill ratio, etc.But underlying model was Domino Theory, we're huge and they're third-world, we beat HitlerJohnson focused on domestic agenda, where he was master, and just wanted this to go away. Didn't face it.Military said we have solutions. Believed they could overpower, had to overpower because of Domino Theory.Domino Theory was wrong, without basis. Numbers distracted from hearts and minds.Simple, enjoyable resource on decision-making: Path to War, "Television critic Matt Zoller Seitz in his 2016 book named Path to War as the 6th greatest American TV-movie of all time"Also Fog of War about McNamara's reflections looking backSpace shuttleSome data but not relevant so had to extrapolate. People felt desperate and scared not to act.Lots of ways to interpret. There always will be. In this case they made the wrong choice. They knew if they chose otherwise, people could always second guess and say they were wrong.Resource: One of Harvard's case studies of conflicting interests. As physicist, Richard Feynman's stories of decision-making morass.Building highways into cities, Robert Moses, Jane JacobsRobert Moses always had the data and always got the funding. But data and projections were based on a model as flawed and unfounded as the Domino Theory, that traffic implied demand and more roads would lower congestion. Opposite happened most of the time. We have to live with results for centuries, including today's climate and pollution.By contrast, look at Amsterdam, especially channel called Not Just Bikes. Amsterdam could have looked like Houston does today. Imagine Houston looked like Amsterdam and was as livable.Resources: The Power Broker and Death and Life of Great American Cities.D-Day and EisenhowerTo launch or not launch invasion where weather is difficult to predict, can make all the difference, and if you don't go one day, moon and tides mean next time might be a month or never. Hundreds of thousands of men's lives at stake, or all of Europe and free world.Resource: Ike: Countdown to D-Day starring Tom Selleck for focusing on the decision-making and teamwork amid civilization-in-the-balance stress.Green Revolution and Norman BorlaugFaced with people dying immediately, he did what he could to save them. Mid-career he saw the consequences. He enabled more population growth. He used the term "population monster". If anyone knew population, the consequences of its growth, and balancing saving people now and risking bigger problems later and facing the systemic problems now, he did.He spent the latter half of his career talking about the population monster, helping the Population Media Center, for example.Resource, his own quote: The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only.Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the “Population Monster”. . . Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth…We haven't acted, his prediction is happening, and geoengineering will at least repeat the problem, more likely augment it. At least it seems a close comparison.Also, recent PBS American Experience on him.Cuban Missile CrisisJoint Chiefs of Staff said situation was serious and we had to act before missiles were armed.Even JFK thought negotiation wouldn't work. It did. We didn't invade.We learned decades later that the warheads were armed, Castro had approval. If he expected to be killed, he could have launched missiles to kill tens of millions and start WWIII.Data suggested invading was best option.Resource: Movie 13 Days. I haven't yet read the book.CVS Drugs -> HealthAll advice was to keep selling their top profit line. If they didn't, anyone could walk a few steps to another store.Within twelve months they reached former profit levels.Big case: the abolitionists pushing to end slavery in the British Empire. 1807.Their model and mineI think they see situation like we're heading to a cliff and have to stop the car. They say best solution is to take foot off gas, which is pollution and greenhouse gases, but that doesn't stop the car. Their solutions are more like putting chemical in gas tank to stop engine.I'll grant that view, but only looking at climate misses full situation. Our environmental problems are more than just temperature. If they see the cliff in front and rapidly approaching, I think they see it like the end of Thelma and Louise, broad, flat, lots of space. Not cops behind.But more than climate. It's more like we're on a thin promontory or like thin pier over since there are many other dangers. To the right might be biodiversity loss, which could doom us too. To the left, pollution. About 10 million people a year die from breathing air. But we need more dimensions we could fall off so maybe there are land mines, which represent deforestation, and huge storms representing ocean acidification, and we have to construct more things to represent overpopulation, overfishing, running out of minerals, depleting aquifers, depleting topsoil, and you've seen the headlines and know many more, few of which geoengineering would help and most of which it would exacerbate, not buy us time.So geoengineering is more like we're headed toward a cliff, already with cliffs immediately to our left and right, and more, and geoengineering is like slashing the tires or causing the engine to seize violently, which might possibly keep us from the cliff in front, but first causing us to lose control. Here the analogy is too small because it could cause us to fall off both the left, right, and other dimensions, hit a land mine, get hit by lightning, roll over and crash, and so on.But their version of the Domino Theory and self-confidence blinds them from seeing anything other than one problem and all the other side-effects and the line of thinking that got us here.LessonsActing out of desperation, helplessness, and hopelessness, even when desperate, produces poor decisions.Don't have to ignore long-term to act on short-term. We can regret wrong decisionsStudy leadership and decision-making. Rarely do technical solutions to social problems solve them.Look for social solutions to social problems. Look at Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand, Population Media Center.Expect unintended side-effects to be greater than effects, as Norman Borlaug eventually realized.Then there's how to learn any performance-based skill: practice. Want to get to Carnegie Hall, Wimbledon, or NBA finals? Practice. If you haven't practiced, you haven't developed the skills. Want to live sustainably? Try! If you pollute more than the average, you probably don't know many solutions that work. Just spoke with James Rebank, a bestselling author, a farmer who started path to industrial. When he tried regenerative things he couldn't have imagined worked.Watch Fog of War to see how McNamara saw how flawed their process was. For that matter, the term fog of war comes from Von Clausewitz. I'm in the middle of reading his work, but listen to my episode with Marine Corps General Von Riper, who cleaned up the floor with the US military in the millennium challenge, playing a woefully under-resourced red team.Solutions?My goal here is not to be comprehensive, just some quick thoughts since I don't want to take too long to respond to David Keith's tweets.There is a solution that works. Not full solution but major part: live sustainably, as humans have for about 300,000 years. The knee-jerk response is, "but we live differently today." Yes, how we live is what we have to change. The longer we wait, the harder.I just recorded a conversation with a guy who lost his legs to flesh-eating disease. Would you rather live sustainably or lose both legs? Because if you prefer living sustainably, well he was minutes from death, but just returned from Tokyo with a silver medal and shared how lucky his life and great he's made it. He points out everyone suffers and we all face challenges often we didn't ask for. If he can with the choice you don't want, we can do so with the preferable choice. Only we'll eat more vegetables and live closer to family. Mostly life improvements.They downplay the possibility. Listeners to this podcast know I lived like the average American, probably polluting more, but dropped 90 percent. It was as hard for me as everyone, but once committed, doable. Once done, fun, freedom, joy, and better, because living by universal values. Actually, still going as skills develop.Engaging people we disagree with, who think there's no problem, who see population as impossible to changePope and evangelicalsFollowing domination to stewardship transformation (and Earth not center), grains of sand prophecy interpretation.Contraception: I haven't had vasectomy, but if you can imagine colonizing Mars, I can imagine an implant that can stop and start flow of sperm. Nearly half of pregnancies accidental. Nearly 300,000 years of human history was replacement level and endured. I can imagine a similar device for women. I can even imagine Popes endorsing.When we change our values we innovate just as much, but in direction of new values, which I propose to be stewardship and increasing Earth's ability to sustain life.We can come up with more solutions if we try. Few people are innovating by those values, certainly not in Silicon Valley, Washington DC, or academia. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We talk about Covid scares in public schools, parents should be the vanguard, the Heist on Netflix, growing up in a city versus a suburb, unsustainable sprawl, Not Just Bikes youtube channel, Amsterdam, affairs are actually good for the marriage and families, and the Olympics is still happening, contaminating and militarizing a community near you! The butterfly effect of the 911 attack on the quality of weed in the United States and a shout out to Action Bronson. Gabe Pacheco, a Chicano comedian with a background in education and Sameer Naseem, an Indian American comedian and marketing maven Two products of the Global South talking trash and centering ourselves at the heart of culture and empire here in lovely Brooklyn. And just like the Wu, we it do for the children IG: @gabepac1 IG: @sameermon Music by Sareen @Sareenpatel @brownprivilege Not Just Bikes Contact: Halalcartels@gmail.com

Not Just Bikes made some great videos about some research the Strong Towns nonprofit organization found about car-centric cities. They showed how absolutely terrible, unhealthy, inefficient, ugly, unAmerican, financially wasteful, and all around stupid it is to build cities around cars instead of people. Check it out here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa

Show Notes: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be? As you'll learn from this episode, that's precisely the question Jason Slaughter and his wife pondered when they became disillusioned with the overly car-centric design of the Toronto, Ontario, Canada area. With the stakes high, they did their research, relied upon their vast travel experience, and did several "trial-stays" in the finalist cities.Once the decision had been made and Amsterdam was their new home, they were continually asked by friends, family, and even new acquaintances - Why move from Canada to The Netherlands? In an attempt to answer these questions, Jason decided to do a little "show and tell" in the form of short videos, and thus Not Just Bikes was born first on the Twitter platform and then he migrated the effort to its natural home on YouTube, where it has just exploded in popularity.Additional Helpful Links:Active Towns Landing Page for this Episode - direct access to the videos we discussedA video version of this Episode on the Active Towns YouTube ChannelNot Just Bikes YouTube Channel and the NJB Live ChannelNot Just Bikes Patreon - support Jason and the Channel!Not Just Bikes Videos Mentioned What Makes a Great City - the video that started it all Why Dutch Bikes Are Better We Have No Garbage Day in Amsterdam Why Cars Rarely Crash into Building in The Netherlands Why Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam How America Bankrupted its Cities - Strong Towns concepts The STROADS video - Strong Towns concepts Do Your Buses Get Stuck in Traffic? Car Sharing  Cities Aren't Loud Cars Are Loud - a recent video in honor of Melissa & Chris Bruntlett's new book Curbing Traffic Ryan Van Duzer's Grocery Shopping VideoBicycleDutch - Mark Wagenbuur and Mark's blog post & video on the 10-year Improvements in UtrechtStreetFilms - Clarence Eckerson, Jr.Strong Towns - The Strong Towns Interview of JasonStrong Towns Bottom-Up Revolution Podcast Interview of JohnPlain Bicycle Episode w/ Erin Riediger on the Active Towns PodcastCNU - Congress for the New UrbanismBooks Mentions:High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV by Keith BradsherTraffic - Tom VanderbiltMiracle Pill by Peter WalkerConcepts Mentioned:Downs-Thomson ParadoxShow Credits:Audio Production by Active TownsA not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity.Creative Commons License: Attributions Non-Commercial No Derivatives 2021Please consider supporting the Active Towns Podcast by making a donation or becoming PatronTo sign up for our monthly newsletter, scroll down to the form at bottom of our home pageBe sure to check out our video podcasts on our YouTube ChannelYou can reach John Simmerman by email at john@activetowns.org Music: Various Logic Pro X mixes by John Simmerman ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Show Notes:A livable street is like a good friend that gives you energy. In contrast, an unlivable street drains you.Bruce Appleyard is an Associate Professor of City Planning & Public Administration, at San Diego State University and serves as both the Associate Director Active Transportation Research Center (ATR) and the Associate Director Center for Human Dynamics in our Mobile Age (HDMA).He is the author of Livable Streets 2.0 published by Elsevier which is actually an expanded update of his father, Donald Appleyard's classic 1981 urbanism text Livable Streets. When the original edition first came out it was the first to put forth the theory that streets are for people.In this episode, John and Bruce discuss in detail many aspects of the book and his recent contribution on Designing for Active Travel he made to the International Encyclopedia of Transportation (TRNS).Livable Streets 2.0 is a complete manual on walking, bicycling, and traffic calming. So if you want to learn more about these things, we highly encourage you to get the book.Additional Helpful Links:Landing Page for this Episode on Active Towns websiteMike Lydon and Tactical UrbanismShared Streets and Woonerfs - Hans Monderman and Ben Hamilton-BaillieCharter for Humane and Equitable StreetsTransit and Bikes - Roland Kager's Active Towns Podcast EpisodeThe MUTCD - NACTO's positionRight of Way book and Angie Schmitt's Active Towns Podcast EpisodeContinuous, Raised Sidewalks and Sidepaths and a Not Just Bikes video on the subjectAdvisory Bike Lane Streets Fietsstraat Active Towns Podcast Episode PeopleForBikes Jan Gehl - Building at Human Scale books Cities for People and Life Between Buildings Interested but Concerned - Geller and 2011 follow up by Dr. Jennifer Dill  Berkeley Barriers Traffic Calming History Chuck Marohn - Strong TownsSTROAD:- Definition- Not Just Bikes STROAD video Show Credits:Audio Production by Active TownsA not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity.Creative Commons License: Attributions Non-Commercial No Derivatives 2021Please consider supporting the Active Towns Podcast by making a donation or becoming PatronTo sign up for our monthly newsletter, scroll down to the form at bottom of our home pageBe sure to check out our video podcasts on our YouTube ChannelYou can reach John Simmerman by email at john@activetowns.org Music: Various Logic Pro X mixes by John Simmerman★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Jason Slaughter is the creator of Not Just Bikes, a fast-growing YouTube channel about urban planning and urban life. Based in Amsterdam, he often makes videos about why city living in The Netherlands is so good...including the bikes, but not just the bikes. Yet Slaughter grew up in London, Ontario, and many of his most-watched videos feature trenchant analyses of the North American suburban development pattern. He's also creating a popular series (with five installments so far) on core Strong Towns themes. We're excited to welcome Jason Slaughter as this week's guest on the Strong Towns Podcast. In this episode, Slaughter tells Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn the story of how a half-mile, death-defying walk along a Houston stroad changed everything for him. They talk about why Amsterdam's renown for its bikeability and bike culture wasn't an inevitability, and what other cities—from Brussels to Brainerd—can learn from Amsterdam's example. They also discuss Amsterdam's safe streets movement, why Slaughter has been surprised by his channel's growing (and shifting) popularity, and why building a biking city shouldn't be the goal. This is Member Week at Strong Towns. If you think this message is important and want to see it reach more people, support the movement. Become a member of Strong Towns. Help us grow the movement by becoming a member today. Additional Show Notes Not Just Bikes (YouTube) Not Just Bikes (Patreon) Not Just Bikes on Twitter NJB Live (YouTube) NJB Live (Twitch) Not Just Bikes — Strong Towns Series Related Strong Towns Content “Can the Dutch Strategy for Cycling Work in North America?” by Aubrey Bryon “Choosing the Car Free Life” (Podcast) “Turning our family's unremarkable day-to-day into something remarkable,” by Chris and Melissa Bruntlett “How a bike will save you money (and you don't even have to give up your car),” by Rachel Quednau

Koud, nat en regen, maar wel met een Espresso Martini in de hand. Deze aflevering bespreken we het grote verlies voor de Nederlandse designwereld; het overlijden van Jan Des Bouvrie. Michelle geeft haar must see tips voor Youtube en bewonderen we het Deense drijvende woonhuis van Bjarke Ingels (BIG Architects) in het item "Ik vraag dit voor een vriend". De invloed van de nu 10 jaar oude app Instagram op hoe architecten ontwerpen en de uitwerking ervan op de ruimtelijke vormgeving is ons hoofdonderwerp. Ook de ervaringskunst en de Instagram musea passeren de revue. 1. Wit is ook een kleur Slecht nieuws, Jan des Bouvrie is op 78 jarige leeftijd overleden. De man die alle huizen in Nederland aan de witte muren heeft geholpen. Hij laat naast een vernieuwende blik op interieurs ook bijzondere architectuur en design objecten achter. Zijn bekendste ontwerp is de Kubusbank waarvan 50.000 exemplaren zijn verkocht. Bronnen De Architect - https://www.dearchitect.nl/interieur/artikel/2020/10/interieurontwerper-jan-des-bouvrie-overleden-101253719 2. Michelle's tips We zijn weer veel meer op ons eigen huis aangewezen en toe aan wat (digitaal) entertainment. Michelle deelt haar twee favoriete Youtube kanalen: Rick88888888 en Not Just Bikes. Bronnen: Rick88888888 - https://www.youtube.com/user/Rick88888888 Not Just Bikes - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A 3. Ik vraag dit voor een vriend Bjarke Ingels van BIG Architects ontwerpt over de hele wereld spectaculaire woonhuizen. Zijn eigen huis drijft in Kopenhagen. Samen met zijn vrouw, die ook als architect werkt, kocht hij een oude veerpont en verbouwde het tot een woonhuis waarvan menig mens enkel kan dromen. Of kunnen we zelf ook een pontje van de GVB overkopen en aan het verbouwen slaan? Bronnen: Architectural Digest - https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/inside-bjarke-ingelss-innovative-houseboat 4. Instatectuur & instamusea Instagram bestaat dit jaar 10 jaar. Gezegd wordt dat de familie Kardashian de app groot heeft gemaakt. Eén post op Instagram kan veel invloed hebben en kan voor veel geldinkomsten zorgen. Het is een machtige marketingtool. Een ontwikkeling wat ook architecten niet onopgemerkt is gebleven. Het blijkt ook dat architecten steeds meer sturen op het ideale Instagram decor. En waarom poppen "Instagram musea" op als paddenstoelen uit de grond? Wat voor kunst is populair en waarom zetten ook de gangbare musea in op "de ervaring"? Doe ook mee aan onze giveaway! Win het boek 'A spectator is an artist too' van Johan Idema, uitgegeven door BIS Publishers. Bronnen: Vogue - https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/kardashian-jenner-familys-impact-on-the-world The Cut - https://www.thecut.com/2019/11/kim-kardashian-west-on-her-decade-of-multi-platform-fame.html Forbes - https://www.forbes.com/sites/seamuskirst/2015/12/17/the-kardashians-social-media-influence/#38fa7e001f03 Tate - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/yayoi-kusama-8094/yes-but-why-yayoi-kusama Het Parool - https://www.parool.nl/ps/in-museum-the-upside-down-is-instagram-geen-bijzaak-maar-hoofdzaak~be450d81/ Artnet - https://news.artnet.com/art-world/experience-economy-museums-1486807 ArchDaily - https://www.archdaily.com/876903/instagram-is-changing-how-we-design-spaces-and-creating-incredibly-lucrative-businesses The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/nov/23/snapping-point-how-the-worlds-leading-architects-fell-under-the-instagram-spell Duck of shed - http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/arch374/winter2001/mwildm/ Podcast over Assemble's muur - https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/instant-gramification/ Gids met insta-tips voor architecten: https://valearc.com/insight/2017/11/30/0s46178l4r72ewmoqx07irg1ke5g2b