Upzoned

New York City is at a crossroads.

So say Carlo Ratti and Saskia Sassen in a recent Bloomberg CityLab article, “The Case for a Duty to the City.” Many wealthy residents are fleeing New York City for the suburbs. Perhaps a third of the small businesses that closed down last year won’t be returning. And, according to a recent survey, executives report plans to reduce office space by 30%. Ratti, the director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Sassen, a Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, say New York has a choice right now:

If we do not act, we might end up with a metropolis of zombie neighborhoods, engulfed in a downward spiral of struggling businesses catering to increasingly empty offices. However, if we implement the right policies and foster a quick restructuring of real estate assets, the looming disruption may give us an opportunity—to test out urban policies we have never had the will or the necessity to imagine, much less implement. With familiar options destabilized, the times are inviting us to be innovators.

To revitalize the city they suggest policy changes like vacancy taxes, more flexible zoning regulations, and working with governments and nonprofits to provisionally repurpose properties. They make the case that owners and tenants have a “duty” to the city: If you have a property in the city, you should not leave it empty. Why a duty? Because a city “is not just an agglomeration of real estate assets; it is primarily a repository of human vitality, without which those assets would be worthless.”

Ratti and Sassen’s article is the topic of this week’s episode of Upzoned, with host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and regular cohost Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns. Abby and Chuck talk about the challenge of transitioning the financial and regulatory environments in a place like New York, the pros and cons of a vacancy tax, and the systems that encourage land speculation. They also talk about the powerful rhetoric of “duty,” and how it might help towns and cities—including, but certainly not limited to, New York City—get unstuck and start building real prosperity.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck recommends Uprooted, the new book by Grace Olmstead. (Olmstead was our guest on Monday’s Strong Towns podcast.) And Abby talks about an upcoming vacation.

Additional Show Notes

• “The Case for a Duty to the City,” by Carlo Ratti and Saskia Sassen

• “Grace Olmstead: The Legacy—and the Future—of the Places We’ve Left Behind” (Podcast)

• “Richard Florida: Remote Work and ‘The Rise of the Rest’" (Podcast & Video)

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Strong Towns content related to this episode:

  • “New York transit is facing ‘Doomsday’ cuts. Should non-New Yorkers bail it out?” by Charles Marohn

  • “Pandemic Fallout: Will New York City Experience Long-term Decline?” (Podcast)

  • “Thank You from a Land Speculator” (Video)

  • “This $15 Trillion Market Is On the Verge of Collapse” (Podcast)

  • “Why Is That House or Storefront Vacant?” by Tracy Hadden Loh and Michael Rodriguez

  • “The Paradox of Persistent Vacancies and High Prices,” by Charles Marohn
    

Recent winter storms in Texas and elsewhere around the United States are just the latest example of how vulnerable cities and residents are to sudden shocks to their electrical grids. Last summer, about half-a-million homes in Californians experienced rolling blackouts. Wildfire concerns last year also prompted Pacific Gas & Electric—or PG&E, which provides electricity and gas to 16 million Californians—to make “preemptive power shutoffs.” This was in response to lessons learned from the 2018 Camp Fire, which was ignited by PG&E power lines, and which killed at least 86 people.

Big utility companies like PG&E have a near-monopoly in their respective regions. What alternatives do cities have—if any—to providing safe, reliable electricity to residents and businesses? The farming town of Gonzales, California (pop. 9,000) is finding a way. As described in a recent story on KCRW, Gonzales is creating California’s largest multi-customer microgrid. Microgrids are local power grids that can be either separate from, or connected to, the larger grid. “In California,” says KCRW contributor Joe Mathews, “[microgrids] are seen as tools to make electricity service more resilient and to better integrate renewable energy sources, like solar and wind. But efforts to establish microgrids face complex obstacles, including scarce financing, regulatory barriers, and utility opposition.” He continues:

What distinguishes Gonzales is how the town is bringing together different entities—a technologically advanced microgrid developer, agricultural businesses, and a municipal energy authority—to surmount those obstacles. If the microgrid launches successfully next year, Gonzales could provide a model for other communities, especially those in outlying areas poorly served by the existing grid.

In this episode of the Upzoned podcast, host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and regular cohost Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns, talk about why cities and residents are looking for resilient alternatives to the big utility companies. They discuss the history of how electric power went from something managed locally to the more centralized systems we have today. And they talk about the disconnect between the producers of electricity and the users of electricity, whether more cities should pursue the course being charted by Gonzales, and the role individual producers—for example, folks with their own solar panels—play in energy resilience.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck describes a book he’s reading by a former insider at the Federal Reserve. And Abby talks about binge-watching a show considered to be one of TV’s best ever.

Additional Show Notes

• “A small farm community leads the way on energy independence,” by Joe Mathews

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

On February 22, 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck near Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 people. Writing in Slate last month, James Dann said that the quake’s impact on the built environment of Christchurch, a city built on drained swampland, was unprecedented. “More than 1,200 buildings inside the central four avenues were destroyed by the quake or by demolition crews in the years after.” He continued:

In the suburbs, a process called liquefaction was just as devastating. As the ground shook, water and sand squeezed up through the soil to the surface, leaving the soil to subside into the space the water had vacated. Houses slumped, and roads folded inward like the icing on a failing chocolate cake. In the hardest-hit eastern suburbs, the government eventually bought out and demolished about 6,500 houses, upending countless families.

In his article—“The Last City of the 20th Century”—Dann describes not only the catastrophe of the earthquake itself but also the catastrophic missteps of local and national leaders in rebuilding Christchurch. In the months after the earthquake, there was a huge amount of public input—10,000 people with 100,000 ideas, literally—on how the city should move forward. Yet the national government rejected the community-generated, bottom-up proposal; it went instead with a top-down plan (created behind closed doors) called “the Blueprint.” The results will be sadly familiar to North American readers: Expensive and risky megaprojects, restrictive zoning, clustering activities into “precincts” (there’s even a Justice and Emergency Services Precinct), limiting the number of developers who can be involved, a focus less on current residents and more on luring tourists and out-of-town businesses—all couched in familiar buzzwords like “innovation” and “livability.” Dann concludes that the Blueprint plan “fundamentally misunderstood the organic, spontaneous nature of cities. Places evolve because of the people who live and work in them.”

Dann’s article and the Christchurch rebuild are the topics of this week’s episode of Upzoned, with host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and regular co-host Chuck Maroh, the founder and president of Strong Towns. Abby and Chuck talk about how Christchurch has become an object lesson in how not to rebuild after disaster, why great places aren’t manifestations of big projects, and about the Robert Moses theory-of-change that leads to top-down plans like the Blueprint in Christchurch...and to similar plans across North America. Chuck also reflects on meeting people from New Zealand at CNU and other gatherings in the years immediately after the earthquake...and how he watched those New Zealanders grow increasingly frustrated at the government’s handling of the rebuild.

Then, in what must be one of the most unusual Downzones ever, Chuck recommends a book by a Harvard scientist about the search for extraterrestrial life. And Abby talks about a book she’s reading with the subtitle “Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.” We won’t blame you if the Downzone makes you want to go rewatch The X-Files.

The truth is out there.

Additional Show Notes

• “The Last City of the 20th Century,” by James Dann
• Abby Kinney (Twitter)
• Charles Marohn (Twitter)
• Gould Evans Studio for City Design
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)
• Strong Towns content related to this episode:

  • “You Can't Achieve Jane Jacobs Ends with Robert Moses Means—But What If You Don't Have a Choice?” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Robert Moses' Methods Can't Achieve Jane Jacobs' Goals”

  • “Let's End ‘Entertainment Districts,’” by Nathaniel M. Hood

  • “It Should Be About People,” by Nathaniel M. Hood

  • “The Opportunity Cost of Tax Incentives in Kansas City,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Ready, Fire, Aim: Tax Incentives in Kansas City,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Conventional Thinking: Stop Pinning all Your City’s Hopes on Big Projects and Events,” by Rachel Quednau

Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn has said that one change every city should make is to allow the next increment of development intensity by-right—i.e., single-family zoning would now permit duplexes, and so on. But if every city should make that change, does that mean states should come in and make that decision for cities—as Oregon recently did for cities with House Bill 2001? Not necessarily.

This week’s episode of the Upzoned podcast is inspired by a recent article in Governing magazine called “States Preempt Cities Almost to the Point of Irrelevance.” In that piece, senior staff writer Alan Greenblatt describes how, over the past decade and across many issues, state governments have preempted local decision-making. For example, Texas, Arizona, Indiana and Louisiana are considering legislation that would prevent cities from reducing police or public safety budgets. Texas governor Greg Abbot went as far as to tweet: “We will defund cities that tried to defund police”. Yet as Greenblatt says, “If states are going to stop cities and counties from adopting their own spending priorities—no matter how misguided they may be—that raises the question of whether localities will be masters of their own fates or merely subservient branch offices of the state.”

In this episode, Upzoned host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and cohost Chuck Marohn talk about the trend of states preempting cities: When (if ever) should states step in to preempt local governments...and when does it become micromanaging?

Using examples from California and Missouri, among other states, Chuck and Abby discuss where decisions should be made, the principle of subsidiarity, the consequences of “removing dynamism from the system,” and the rude awakening may experience when a tool (state preemption) used to push through a policy they like is later used to force a policy change they don’t. They also talk about those times when state preemption might make sense—and how they can be kept under control.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck talks about a book he at least gave a shot. And Abby describes a recent homeowner’s scare involving frozen water pipes, a subsequent water leak, and an electrical box.

Additional Show Notes

• “States Preempt Cities Almost to the Point of Irrelevance,” by Alan Greenblatt

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Strong Towns content related to this episode:

  • “When should the state jump in to address local problems?” by Spencer Gardner

  • “Accessory Dwelling Units Rock. But Should States Be Overriding Cities' Laws About Building Them?” (Podcast)

  • “Do Property Tax Caps Help or Hurt Communities?"

  • “Mapping the Effects of California's Prop 13,” by Connor Nielsen

  • “The Local Case for Reparations,” by Charles Marohn

In 2015, the city of Peoria, Arizona made a deal to persuade Huntington University, an Indiana-based private Christian university, to open a satellite campus in Peoria. The agreement involved $2.6 million in subsidies; most went to Huntington, but $700,000 dollars also went to a private company that renovated a building for the university.

The specifics here may be unique, but cities make deals like this all the time to lure businesses to town, in the name of “economic development.” So what makes the case in Arizona so interesting?

Well, earlier this month, that state’s supreme court determined Peoria's Huntington deal violated the Arizona constitution’s gift clause. In an unanimous decision, the court ruled that state and local governments must ensure the public receives real benefits in exchange for subsidies. Bob Christie of the Associated Press wrote that the case will have “wide ramifications” for state and local governments that feel the need to cut deals to lure new business. Henceforth in Arizona, “providing subsidies must do more than provide greater economic activity, they must bring the city some real return on its investment or they are illegal.”

This story out of Arizona is the topic of this week’s episode of Upzoned, with host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and regular cohost Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns. Abby and Chuck discuss the ways cities often use subsidies now, which more closely resembles gift-giving than investing. They also talk about a Strong Towns approach to incentives, why cities really do have to function like families, and how this ruling in Arizona may make room for projects so long relegated to the sidelines—the ones that are less flashy, but much more likely to generate real wealth.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck talks about a book he’s reading about a pragmatic, non-alarmist response to climate change. And Abby describes how battling frigid temperatures have kept her too busy to read or watch much.

Additional Show Notes:

• “Arizona high court says cities must benefit from subsidies,” by Bob Christie
• Abby Kinney (Twitter)
• Charles Marohn (Twitter)
• Gould Evans Studio for City Design
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)
• Recent Strong Towns content on economic development
  • “Building Strong Local Economies (without Cheesecake Factory),” by Charles Marohn
  • “Chris Bernardo: Filling the Gaps to Support Local Businesses” (Podcast)
  • “This Is How You Grow a Local Economy” (Podcast)
  • “Fighting for Small Businesses and Local Economies” (Podcast)
  • “How Does Your Economic Garden Grow?” (Podcast)
  • “How should my town be doing economic recovery right now?” By Rachel Quednau 

One of the arguments against YIMBYism—YIMBY stands for “Yes in My Backyard,” a response to NIMBY (“Not in My Backyard”)—is that adding housing units in a neighborhood will actually increase housing scarcity, because, in the words of journalist Nathan J. Robinson, “we’re luring rich people from elsewhere to our city.” This scenario would be the housing equivalent of the “induced demand” phenomenon seen with traffic, whereby expanding road capacity induces more people to drive, quickly negating the benefits of the expansion.

In an article last month, Matthew Yglesias, took on the induced demand objection against YIMBYism. (Yglesias was also a guest on the Strong Towns podcast last month.) He says the induced demand critique “fails on four scores”:

• It is empirically false, at least most  of the time.

• Accepting its logic would counsel against all efforts to improve quality of life.

• If it were true, it still wouldn’t follow that new construction is bad.

• It misconstrues what the YIMBY proposal is in the first place.

Yglesias’s article is the topic of this week’s episode of Upzoned, with host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and regular co-host Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns. Abby and Chuck discuss the argument that increased housing worsens housing scarcity, where Strong Towns aligns with YIMBYism (and where it may diverge), and the problem with approaching the “wicked problem” of housing with a Suburban Experiment mindset: big solutions, big developers, big development. They also talk about why the fundamental problem of scale is crowding out the possibility of a city shaped by many hands.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck discusses reading “On the Shortness of Life,” by Stoic philosopher Lucius Seneca. (He referenced it in his Monday article too.) And Abby talks about rewatching Breaking Bad and rediscovering just how good it is.

Additional Show Notes

• “The ‘induced demand’ case against YIMBYism is wrong,” by Matthew Yglesias

• Matthew Yglesias on the Strong Towns podcast: Part 1, Part 2

• “How to Talk to a NIMBY” (Webcast)

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Strong Towns content related to this episode:

  • “Unleash the Swarm,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Why Housing Is the Wickedest of ‘Wicked Problems’” (Podcast)

  • “Is Strong Towns NIMBY, YIMBY, or What?” by Charles Marohn

  • “What Can Hives and Barnacles Teach Us About Solving a Housing Crisis?” by Patrick Condon

  • “Here's What Happens When a Handful of Developers Control the Housing Market,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Gentrification and Cataclysmic Money,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “The Trickle or the Fire Hose,” by Daniel Herriges

Strong Towns is a nonpartisan organization. Rigorously so. But it’s fair to say we allowed ourselves to be hopeful when then-President-Elect Joe Biden picked Pete Buttigieg to head the U.S. Department of Transportation. As mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg assembled a brilliant team of people who broke with the status quo, slowed the cars, made walking and biking a priority, and helped revitalize that city’s downtown. A recent Washington Post headline summarizes it well: “In South Bend, Pete Buttigieg challenged a decades-old assumption that streets are for cars above all else.” The Post article begins this way:

For years, South Bend drivers held in their heads a magic number: Get the car to hit that speed, and you could whip through downtown without seeing a red light.

When Pete Buttigieg took office as mayor of the Indiana city in 2012, he changed that. He pitched a $25 million plan to convert downtown’s wide, one-way roads into two-way streets with bike lanes and sidewalks. He hoped making it safer to get out on foot would encourage more people to spend time and money in the area.

Some residents who were skeptical of the changes became converts: “Downtown was a ghost town. You wouldn’t go there after dark,” one man said. “The results speak for themselves. It’s more than just the number of businesses, it’s the feeling of it not being dead anymore.”

Every week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and regular cohost Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns, take one story from the news and they “upzone” it—they examine it from the Strong Towns perspective. This week, they discuss the Washington Post article and why—in Chuck’s words—our cities need “a heaping helping of what South Bend did.”

Abby and Chuck talk about how for many years, South Bend, reeling from the effects of deindustrialization and depopulation, focused on speeding traffic: “building more and more lanes for fewer and fewer people.” Then they describe some of the changes Mayor Pete’s administration made and what cities can learn from South Bend’s example of doing much more with much less.

They also talk about what Strong Towns advocates can realistically hope for from a Mayor Pete D.O.T. On the one hand, Buttigieg says the South Bend program to slow cars and revitalize downtown will shape his approach to being Transportation secretary. (“It feeds my perspective on the value of local work around mobility,” Buttigieg told The Post. “I think a successful department is one that really empowers local leaders to makea and drive decisions that work in their communities.”) Yet, as Abby and Chuck describe, it will be a challenge to effectively allocate resources in a federal system designed for bad projects.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck talks about how he has been captivated by the GameStop/reddit story. And Abby is loving Skin in the Game, by the “patron saint” of Strong Towns thinking, Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Additional Show Notes

• “In South Bend, Pete Buttigieg challenged a decades-old assumption that streets are for cars above all else,” by Ian Duncan

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Other Strong Towns articles on South Bend, Indiana

  • “6 Ingredients in a Troubled City's Impressive Recovery,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “You Can't Understand the Rust Belt Without Understanding Its Suburbanization,” by Daniel Herriges

  • "‘A High School Education and an Hour of Your Time,’" by Daniel Herriges

  • “The Bottom-Up Revolution is... Using Art and Stories to Strengthen Your City” (Podcast)

  • “The Case for Tactical Urbanism in the Age of Coronavirus,” by Joshua Pine

We’ve written a lot at Strong Towns about the problems with big box stores: the acres of valuable land they (and their parking lots) consume, the way the buildings are designed to be obsolete, the way they siphon money out of town rather than build wealth from within. Yet it’s hard to put all the blame on the Walmarts and Home Depots and Costcos of the world; they have figured out how to succeed under the rules that we—the towns and cities—have established. If we consistently get outcomes we don’t like, we need to change the rules of the game.

The same is true of parking. American cities are massively overbuilt on parking. This has both real costs and opportunity costs. Some of the blame might be put on a parking developer who turns otherwise valuable land into a surface parking lot, holding onto it like a land speculator until it can be sold for a big profit. But don’t we the residents deserve some of the responsibility too? After all, parking developers are thriving within the system we made...or at least allow to continue.

In a recent article, Joe Cortright of City Observatory described aspects of that system: “We have too much parking for many reasons: because we’ve subsidized highway construction and suburban homes, because we’ve mandated parking for most new residential and commercial buildings, and because we’ve decimated transit systems. But a key contributor to overparking is the strong financial incentives built into tax systems.” Cortright then detailed a proposed ordinance in Hartford, Connecticut that would begin to correct this. Expanding fees on private commercial parking lots and structures, the ordinance would, he said, mimic the important features of a land value tax. “Call it LVT-lite,” he wrote.

In this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, and Chuck Marohn, the president of Strong Towns, discuss Joe Cortright’s article and how cities essentially subsidize parking. They talk about the land value tax, the way current tax systems incentivize parking and disincentivize improvements, and why all that parking is an anchor on our prosperity.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck talks about a course he’s been taking on the Black Death. And Abby talks about new adventures in cooking and making music.

Additional Show Notes:

• “How to Stop Giving Parking Developers A Free Ride,” by Joe Cortright (Streetsblog)

• City Observatory

• City Observatory (Twitter)

• Abby Kinney (Twitter)

• Charles Marohn (Twitter)

• Gould Evans Studio for City Design

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)

• Select Strong Towns articles on parking:

  • “Detroiters Push for Parking Reform in the Heart of Motown,” by Francis Grunow

  • “Asphalt City: How Parking Ate an American Metropolis,” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Parking Dominates Our Cities. But Do We Really *See* It?” by Daniel Herriges

  • “Life After Parking,” by Alexander Dukes

  • “Parking is Important and Not Important,” by Kevin Klinkenberg

  • “The Many Costs of Too Much Parking”

In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, journalist and novelist Ross Barkan wrote about public housing and the housing crisis. An eviction crisis is looming, Barkan wrote, staved off only by an eviction moratorium. But that moratorium will eventually expire. “When it does, a crushing housing emergency could descend on America—as many as 40 million Americans will be in danger of eviction.”

Barkan goes on to say the federal government must play an important role in addressing the short-term crisis as well the underlying problems in the housing market. One “major step,” according to Barkan, would be to repeal "an obscure 22-year-old addition to the Housing Act of 1937, the Faircloth Amendment. Passed in an era when the reputation of housing projects was at a low, the amendment prohibits any net increase in public-housing units.” The repeal of Faircloth is a regular feature in progressive proposals, including the Green New Deal and other efforts by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, is joined by regular co-host Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns, as well as by Strong Towns senior editor Daniel Herriges. The three of them discuss the Faircloth Amendment and the role of the federal government in addressing the housing crisis. They talk about where a federal response could align with a Strong Towns response, the problems with supersized solutions, and to what extent repealing Faircloth will address the underlying dysfunctions in the housing market.

Then in the Downzone, Daniel says he’s finally reading E.F. Schumacher, Chuck talks about a course he’s starting on the plague, and Abby discusses a show she’s been binge-watching, a terrifying psychological thriller.

Additional Shownotes:

• “It’s Time for America to Reinvest in Public Housing,” by Ross Barkan
• Online Course: “Creating Housing Opportunities in a Strong Town”
• Abby Kinney (Twitter)
• Daniel Herriges (Twitter)
• Charles Marohn (Twitter)
• Gould Evans Studio for City Design
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)
• Recent Strong Towns content related to this podcast
  • “What's Missing From the Green New Deal, by Daniel Herriges
  • “Form Without Function in Public Housing,” by Johnny Sanphillippo
  • “What Happens When a Third of U.S. Tenants Don’t Pay Rent” (Podcast)
  • “Can We Afford to Care About Design in a Housing Crisis?” by Daniel Herriges
  • “The Connectedness of Our Housing Ecosystem,” by Daniel Herriges

In the first few months of the pandemic, many towns and cities moved quickly to create “slow streets,” streets that restricted vehicle access in order to make room for socially distanced walking, biking, play, etc. While the thinking behind those adaptations may have been justified, the speed with which they were implemented often came at the expense of meaningful public engagement and buy-in from residents.

As Laura Bliss writes in a recent article for Bloomberg CityLab, slow streets have drawn “controversy, community resistance and comparisons with racist urban planning practices of earlier decades.” Bliss quotes Corinne Kisner, the executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, who said, “I think there’s a tension between planners wanting to act fast, because their work is so critical to reduce fatalities and greenhouse gas emissions — the reasons for this work are so compelling and historic. But the urgency to move fast is in conflict with the speed of trust, and the pace that actually allows for input from everyone who’s affected by these decisions.”

This article is the topic of this week's episode of Upzoned -- our first episode of 2021 and our 100th episode overall -- with host Abby Kinney, an urban planner from Kansas City, and regular co-host Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns. Abby and Chuck discuss why improving how streets and public spaces are utilized isn’t worth much if you get the process wrong. (“Robert Moses tactics can’t achieve Jane Jacobs goals.”) They also contrast the one-size-fits-all solutions that create resentment with the benefits of iiterative, truly collaborative approaches.

Then in the Downzone, Chuck talks about finishing The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix and recommends a blockbuster new religion podcast by a hometown host. And Abby talks about why climbing is the best sport for understanding incrementalism. Oh, and also about skydiving, which prompted Chuck to recommend this video.

Additional Show Notes

• “‘Slow Streets’ Disrupted City Planning. What Comes Next?” by Laura Bliss
• Robert Moses Tactics Can’t Achieve Jane Jacobs Goals
• Abby Kinney (Twitter)
• Charles Marohn (Twitter)
• Gould Evans Studio for City Design
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)
• Select Strong Towns content on “Slow Streets” and “Open Streets”
  • “Oakland’s Open Streets Programs Are Still a Work in Progress. That’s a Good Thing.” by Daniel Herriges
  • “The Bottom-Up Revolution is... Working Together to Make a Street for People” (Podcast)
  • “How’s that temporary street redesign your city started this spring doing now?” by Rachel Quednau
  • “The Evolving 2020 Open Streets Movement, or What if We Threw Out the Rule Book and Everything Was Fine? By Daniel Herriges
  • “Hearing One Engineer's Call to "Sit in the Ambiguity" of Transportation Planning,” by Daniel Herriges