Upzoned (Strong Towns)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Upzoned
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
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| 25 Jan 2023 | The Governor of Missouri Wants to Spend $859 Million on Highway Expansion | 00:43:56 | |
The state of Missouri has a $6 billion budget surplus due to an increase in tax revenue and unspent federal aid. Governor Parson wants to use $859 million of it to expand I-70, the major transport route which connects Kansas City and St. Louis. This expansion would bulldoze through key areas in downtown St. Louis, areas west of downtown, and even the suburban areas of Columbia (which sits right near the middle of the interstate). Lots of people, even those unfamiliar with the Strong Towns perspective, think this expenditure proposal is a bad idea. Today, join host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn on the Upzoned podcast as they discuss this story and potential avenues for better spending. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 22 Jun 2023 | Behind the Scenes at the Strong Towns National Gathering | 00:43:30 | |
At the end of May, Strong Towns hosted its inaugural National Gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a two-day event packed with different speakers and sessions, where we heard from Strong Towns members about how they’re making incremental housing possible in their communities, how highways are destructive and how people are fighting expansions, how the property tax system is broken and what we can do about it, and so much more. In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney goes behind the scenes with Strong Towns staffers Norm Van Eeden Petersman and Rachel Quednau. They chat about how the National Gathering came together, a few lessons learned, and some possible changes for future gatherings. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES | |||
| 15 Jun 2022 | NIMBY: Hero, Villain, or None of the Above? | 00:34:04 | |
A quote from Batman, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become a villain,” echoes through a great discussion on this week’s Upzoned. Host Abby Kinney brings “Twilight of the NIMBY,” a New York Times article by California-based housing and economics writer Connor Dougherty, to the table. Dougherty profiles retired teacher Susan Kirsch’s two-decade battle to stop 20 condos from being developed in her neighborhood in the Bay Area community of Mill Valley. Kinney, a senior planner with Multistudio in Kansas City, was fascinated by this profile of Kirsch as a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) American archetype, a suburban homeowner who runs a nonprofit that “pushes back against statewide housing policy measures intended to subvert local anti-development activism.” In the profile, Kirsch is cast as a crusader for local control of development, working to protect her single-family home neighborhood from a condo development on an empty lot at the end of her street. “She believes in slow growth as a perspective and it’s partly reinforced by a distrust in large institutions…(a) ‘small C’ conservatism that local government is better and more responsive to citizens than a bigger one that is further away,” Kinney says in her introduction. “So she represents one person in this longer movement, fighting development and campaigning for the right for local cities and suburban cities to have control over the built environment.” Kinney’s guest, Strong Towns Senior Editor Daniel Herriges, recognizes the archetype Kirsch represents. Herriges is sympathetic to the idea that “neighbors who know the place best, who care about the place most…get the ultimate say in what happens around them.” The problem, however, is that Kirsch and many in her generation who seek local control of housing policy are eating from two plates. They are sitting atop a mountain of equity in their homes buoyed by a system of market supports in the form of government-backed mortgages and other state and federal development policies. Kirsch’s home, a modest, single-family residence she bought for $100,000 in 1979, is now valued at almost $2 million. A state law intended to give homeowners protection from property taxes rising alongside astronomical home values, Proposition 13, keeps the taxable value of Kirch’s home at $250,000. Herriges says, “The reality is that this whole cohort of people have been incredible beneficiaries of large institutional forces…massive subsidies for suburban homebuilding in the post-WWII era of billions and billions of dollars of investment in the interstate highway system, in freeways that opened up huge swaths of suburban land to development.” “We see it is unable to be replicated generation after generation, and so there's a whole bunch of younger people who would love to live Susan Kirsch's American dream, who can't dream of it. Middle-class, white-collar people in California who have given up on ever owning a home. That's the dissonance you have to reckon with.” Kinney agrees, but points out it’s too easy to turn homeowners like Kirsch into villains, reducing people who are, in the end, our neighbors, into cartoon characters. Should we see NIMBYs as heroes or villains? Dig into this episode of Upzoned to hear how name-calling won’t win any arguments, and the nuances of housing policy don’t lend themselves to broad stereotypes. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 01 Jun 2022 | Uber’s Bull Run Is Over, Says CEO | 00:31:03 | |
Uber has been providing cheap and convenient rides for the last decade, and has been knocking out transportation alternatives like Zipcar, taxis, and even public transit. As noted in a recent article from Slate, though, Uber is notorious for burning through cash. The company has lost more than $30 billion since it became public in 2019, amounting to an enormous investor-fueled subsidy of America’s ride-hailing habit. In a memo released earlier this month, Uber’s CEO called the past decade an “unprecedented bull run,” and that this next period will be different and will require a different approach. And consequentially, ridesharing will get much more expensive. In fact, both Uber and Lyft prices have already risen between 45 and 92%—and more recently, surcharges have been added to account for high gas prices. So, does this mark the beginning of the end for Uber? Join Upzoned host Abby Kinney and her regular co-host Chuck Marohn as they “upzone” this topic—and talk about how it relates to the economy, as a whole. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 16 Feb 2022 | Free (Rural) Land: Any Takers? | 00:31:00 | |
“Would you take free land in rural America?” asks a recent article in The Hustle. Because, as it turns out, small towns in Kansas are basically giving away free land and ultra-cheap houses. Of course, land and housing are commodities that have become the center of many of our debates in expensive cities across the country, and even beyond. As such, small towns in rural Kansas are experiencing a small real-estate boom of their own, as price-conscious urban dwellers seek out different opportunities and lifestyle options outside of the city. Because these small towns have lost so much of their tax base over the years, and are struggling to pay for basic public services, they’re doing whatever they can to welcome these urban newcomers. Today on Upzoned, Abby Kinney is joined by special guests Jay Stange, Content Manager at Strong Towns, and Kevin Klinkenberg, Executive Director of Midtown KC Now. They “upzone” this story, examining it through the Strong Towns lens and asking each other: (1) What does this mean for the future of small towns, and (2) would you take free land in rural America? Additional Show Notes | |||
| 24 Nov 2021 | The Infrastructure Bill, Racial Equity, and Local Government: How Should the Money Be Spent? | 00:31:27 | |
The moment everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived: The $1 trillion infrastructure bill is being signed into law. The bill will deliver $550 billion in new federal investments over the next five years, and includes $110 billion in new spending for highways, bridges, and roads. It also includes $105 billion for transit and rail investments, $65 billion for broadband upgrades, and a whole lot more—everything from investments in airports and ports to environmental remediation. As one might imagine, the original aspirations of the bill from the perspective of a lot of people were not necessarily met, as the legislation required a consensus from all ends of the political compass. According to a recent article from The New York Times, critics of the bill are not only concerned with the particulars of what is funded, but also how the funding will be administered. The decision for how half the money is spent falls on the states, meaning that states that are not aligned with what the federal government envisions for infrastructure spending (particularly with regard to racial equity) could neglect projects that would remediate the negative impacts of past infrastructure decisions, and potentially invest in projects that make matters worse. This week on Upzoned, regular host Abby Kinney and special guest Strong Towns Board Member John Reuter take this article from The New York Times and “upzone” it. That is, they examine it through the Strong Towns lens—which was already plenty skeptical of the infrastructure bill to begin with, as our readers and listeners know! Additional Show Notes | |||
| 17 Apr 2024 | Inside the Notorious Gridlock of Colorado's I-70 | 00:40:18 | |
Since the 1970s, the number of cars on I-70 between Denver and its surrounding resorts have jumped more than 500%. Coloradans and frequent visitors know that, in order to reach the mountains during the gridlock of ski season, you must leave as early as 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning. Writer Gloria Liu decided to investigate this chaos by jumping directly into the traffic and interviewing the people stuck in it, and the article she penned about her adventure is up for discussion on this week’s episode of Upzoned. Can I-70 be fixed? And what do famous recreational arterials like I-70 reveal about our relationship with nature in the U.S.? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 12 Oct 2022 | Yes, Getting Rid of Parking Minimums Is Good for the Climate—But That’s Just the Tip of the Iceberg | 00:31:15 | |
According to a recent article from TIME, a new law mandates that cities in California will no longer be able to impose parking minimums for housing, retail, or commercial development that sit within half a mile of major public transit stops. While this isn't a blanket elimination of parking minimums, is it at least a step in the right direction? And was it helpful or not for the law to be framed around climate concerns? Today on Upzoned, Chuck Marohn is stepping in as host for Abby Kinney as he talks with Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau about the impact of this state-wide reform, what it means for this decision to have been made at the state level rather than locally, the myriad benefits of eliminating parking minimums (beyond just being good for the climate), and more. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 02 Feb 2022 | Can Corporate Campuses Urbanize the Suburban Experience? | 00:34:47 | |
Following WWII, many corporations fled from city centers to settle down in the suburbs alongside homeowners. Now, though, it seems that some large companies are pivoting their real-estate models toward building more compact, mixed-use centers, rather than the typical single-user suburban office park for their corporate campuses. A recent New York Times article by Keith Schneider describes this as the “urbanization of the suburban experience.” It points to several examples, such as Capital One’s 24-acre campus in Tysons, Virginia; Walmart’s soon-to-be 350-acre headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas; JPMorgan Chase’s regional headquarters in Plano, Texas; and Microsoft’s future 90-acre regional headquarters on the western edge of Atlanta. Many of these examples have some kind of public-interfacing, mixed-use, residential component to them—a merging of both the modern models for corporate campuses and retail, mixed-use centers as a way of dually anchoring the development project. But is this approach a net positive or a net negative when it comes to suburban development? Find out today as host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn “upzone” this story, unpacking and analyzing it through the Strong Towns lens. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 12 Jun 2024 | An Inside Look at the Strong Towns National Gathering | 00:51:42 | |
Last month, Strong Towns hosted the National Gathering in Cincinnati. It was a two-day event packed with different speakers and sessions, with many advocates meeting each other in person for the first time. In this episode of Upzoned, Abby talks with Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn about his unique experience at the Gathering, the process of choosing a keynote speaker, how the National Gathering differs from the Congress for the New Urbanism and ways Gatherings might change in the future. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES | |||
| 08 Jun 2022 | Inflation or Lower Housing Values: Pick Your Cleanest Dirty Shirt? | 00:40:24 | |
During the height of the pandemic, the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve (aka The Fed), started a new round of bond purchases that swelled its portfolio of mortgage-backed securities to $2.7 trillion from $1.4 trillion it held in February 2020. That created ultra-low mortgage rates which heavily stimulated home buying and refinancing activity in America. To combat inflation, the Fed is now planning to let its holdings shrink as securities get paid off, writes Neil Irwin in his recent Axios post called “The Fed's $2.7 trillion mortgage problem.” The problem is that “[e]xtracting itself from this market risks crashing the housing industry and creating intense political blowback for incurring financial losses.” Irwin writes that the Fed’s pandemic actions to loosen up capital unseized a market and fueled a housing boom, but the opposite reaction could lose U.S. taxpayers billions and be bad for housing. Since housing is 15% of the U.S. economy, these decisions will have major implications. Upzoned Host Abby Kinney asks her podcast guests, Strong Towns President Charles Marohn and Andrew Ganahl, an infill developer in Kansas City who used to work for the U.S. Treasury, to put it into perspective on this edition of the podcast. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 20 Apr 2022 | Can We Build Strong Towns from Scratch in the 21st Century? | 00:39:54 | |
With the housing market still hot as a red poker despite an uptick in interest rates, Nolan Gray, in a recent article from Bloomberg’s CityLab, explores the idea of building brand-new cities (in the mode of 21st-century China or the Brasilia of the latter 20th century) to address the housing crisis. Alain Bertaud, a fellow at the Marron Institute for Urban Management and a former city planner at the World Bank, engages with Gray in this published interview to explain whether or not this is a realistic solution. Host Abby Kinney and her co-host Charles Marohn of Strong Towns chew it over in this episode of Upzoned. “Historically, infrastructure follows the market, not the other way around,” Kinney notes. “Huge public investments in infrastructure where there are no jobs are not really a very smart investment because the upfront costs of building an entire city's worth of infrastructure are so incredibly high. The public sector would have to be in a negative cash flow for a very long time.” Marohn talks about places where this has actually been done, with the government fronting the money for infrastructure and subsidizing individuals through mortgages and commercial real estate loans. “They fail in every financial metric that is longer than the immediate sugar high you get out of the transaction,” he says. There are interesting examples, as both hosts discuss, but it’s hard to beat an organically grown, incrementally developed city, where historic trial and error has made places that work. Where do you fall on this question? Additional Show Notes | |||
| 25 May 2022 | Corporate Investors Own Nearly Half of This City’s Residential Property | 00:44:00 | |
One hundred years ago, homes were primarily places for people to live, and weren’t considered as investments. Most Americans acquired wealth through income, and homes were only partially an investment consideration. For many reasons since the Great Depression, home ownership has begun to play a larger role than income in carrying generational wealth for Americans. “Housing has become (more of) a financial investment, not a place where you live,” Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn states in this latest episode of Upzoned. “And that changes everything about how we deal with housing.” Those changes include the role of institutional investors, who have become a much more significant player in many housing markets. Upzoned host Abby Kinney and Marohn, her regular guest, talk over an article about research done by the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). The study found corporate investors in Newark, New Jersey, now own nearly half of Newark’s residential property, the highest rate in the nation, researchers said. Dig into the details of this discussion and hear an early notice about an upcoming Strong Towns book on housing on this week’s Upzoned. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 24 Jul 2024 | Why New York City’s Traffic Congestion Plan Crashed and Burned | 01:00:05 | |
The governor of New York recently announced the dissolution of the city’s congestion pricing program after years of planning and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. This program would’ve initiated a $15 toll on vehicles entering certain parts of Manhattan, and it was partly established to help support reinvestment in the transit system. It was shut down less than a month before it was supposed to start operating — after all the tolling infrastructure was already installed. In this episode of Upzoned, Chuck and Abby discuss how this debacle shows a fundamental misunderstanding of congestion pricing, the politics underpinning this decision and how the city could’ve handled things better. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 14 Sep 2022 | E-Bikes: The Frankenstein’s Monster of Transportation? | 00:41:01 | |
How cool are e-bikes? How revolutionary will they be? During 2020 and 2021, e-bike sales surged 2.4 times over previous periods and essentially transitioned from a fringe product to an almost mainstream purchase in North America. E-bike sales could be considered a huge win for micromobility and alternative transportation advocates, but don’t tell that to Ian Bogost, whose recent Atlantic piece paints e-bikes in a humor-laced take as an awkward, doomed-to-fail Frankenstein of the motorcycle and bicycle. In “The E-bike Is a Monstrosity,” Bogost derides e-bikes as unsafe, awkward to ride, and less cool than a motorcycle or a $5,000 road-racing bicycle. Clearly, Bogost is examining e-bikes through a cultural lens, rather than one focused on transportation. Today on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn discuss the e-bike’s potential to hasten a transition to more thickly settled places with slower-moving streets, allowing families to own one car and then supplementing it with other micromobiity options. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 06 Oct 2021 | The Global Energy Crisis Is a Story of Fragility | 00:43:18 | |
Millions of people around the globe are soon going to feel the impact of soaring natural gas prices—or so says an article recently published in Bloomberg Businessweek titled, “Europe’s Energy Crisis is Coming for the Rest of the World, Too.” European governments have been warning their citizens of blackouts, factories are being forced to shut down, and other sources of energy, such as wind turbines, have not been producing enough output to pick up the slack. Gas is becoming more necessary and more expensive, especially in climates where gas is relied on to heat homes during the winter. And the crisis is spreading beyond Europe. This week on Upzoned, regular host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn “upzone” the rising costs of gas—i.e., they look at it through the Strong Towns lens. They discuss how the underlying story here is the fragility of these large, complex, interconnected systems, and how it impacts us all at the local level. Then, in the downzone, Chuck needs a vacation from his vacation and Abby is getting ready to welcome a special guest to Kansas City (hint: it’s Chuck). Additional Show Notes | |||
| 29 Sep 2021 | A Downtown Baseball Stadium in KC: Who Pays? | 00:26:24 | |
In a recent press conference, John Sherman, the primary owner of the Kansas City Royals, was asked if the team was exploring the possibility of building a new stadium in downtown Kansas City. This is something that’s been talked about in Kansas City for years, and it’s a question Sherman gets asked often. It made news this time because Sherman publicly acknowledged that, yes, the team was exploring that option (among others) and that he anticipated some level of public funding would be needed. In this episode of Upzoned, we’re talking about the potentials and pitfalls of a downtown stadium and how much (if any) of it should be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers. Regular host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn are both out for the week. Subbing in for them are Rachel Quednau, program director at Strong Towns and host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, as well as John Pattison, the Strong Towns content manager…and lifelong Kansas City Royals fan. Rachel and John evaluate the case for building a new stadium in Kansas City’s downtown, its risks and rewards, and why the clock is ticking for the Royals on whether or not to pursue this. They also discuss whether or not the economic rationale for public funding—more jobs, more tax revenue, etc.—is likely to live up to the hype. Then in the downzone, John describes a book that has him taking photographs of his pencil sharpener (the promised pictures are below), and Rachel recommends this weekly digest from her Strong Towns colleagues. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 15 Dec 2021 | Disaster Relief for America‘s Housing Crisis | 00:48:10 | |
$75 billion of support for at-risk renters and homeowners was distributed during the COVID pandemic to prevent evictions and foreclosures. Such a level of funding was spurred under the context that our country is facing an unprecedented and unpredictable emergency situation that is requiring disaster relief—but what about when the pandemic ends? Should we consider reutilizing the systems that have been set up during COVID to distribute federal aid, to alleviate the pressures of the housing market? That’s what host Abby Kinney and regular co-host Chuck Marohn discuss on this week’s episode of Upzoned, where they address this “wickedest of wicked problems” through the Strong Towns lens. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 17 May 2023 | Parking Regulations Threaten to Demolish Coffee Shop | 01:05:09 | |
In Kansas City, Kansas, parking regulations have threatened to demolish a local coffee shop for a parking lot. An out-of-state developer is trying to meet the city’s strict parking requirements for a new apartment complex across the intersection, and the coffee shop owner, T.J. Roberts, is trying to save what’s become a special community hub. On this Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney talks with Roberts about his inspiration for building community, and his struggle to keep his coffee shop, Kinship Cafe, from getting torn down. Also on the show is Dennis Strait, a principal at architect firm Multistudio, to talk about why city builders should care about a coffee shop over convenient parking spaces. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 08 Mar 2023 | The 15 Minute City - A Good Life or an Infringement on Freedoms? | 00:26:51 | |
The 15 Minute City: a term to describe mixed use neighborhoods, has become a political concept where critics believe the idea could result in an infringement on personal freedoms. On this Upzoned podcast, host Abby Kinney and special guest Kevin Klinkenberg, talk about this contentious topic of the 15 Minute City and answer the question: Are the concerns people have (about 15 minute cities) warranted, or is this something that we should all be rolling our eyes at and moving on from? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “The 15 Minute City - Where Urban Planning Meets Conspiracy Theories,” by Chris Standford, The New York Times (March, 2023) “The Messy City Podcast” by Kevin Klinkenberg. Abby Kinney (Twitter) Kevin Klinkenberg (Twitter) Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom | |||
| 28 Aug 2024 | Why Cities Need To Become More Family Friendly | 01:01:39 | |
In this episode of Upzoned, co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn talk about the rapid population decline of children under five years old in large urban areas. They discuss the factors that can drive would-be urban families out of cities, how the rapidly declining population will affect services like schools and the importance of cities being able to accommodate diverse lifestyles in a dynamic way. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 26 Jun 2024 | Doug Barrick: Building a Strong Town as a Member of Local Government | 00:43:44 | |
In this episode of Upzoned, host Abby Newsham is joined by Doug Barrick, the town manager of Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Rutherfordton was one of the contestants in the 2024 Strongest Town Contest. Barrick discusses what it was like to compete, what Rutherfordton is doing to become a stronger town, and how the town’s unique location and history influence those efforts. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES | |||
| 10 Aug 2022 | The ”Other Story” of Buffalo | 00:40:52 | |
Several months ago, a tragic shooting took place in Buffalo, New York, that drew the nation’s attention. In the wake of that tragedy, C.J. Hughes has written an article in The New York Times about the city’s identity and its history and where it’s moving, going forward. Buffalo has experienced de-industrialization and suburbanization—both causing the city decades of decline. And now, for the first time in 70 years, Buffalo is seeing a population increase and signs of economic recovery after WWII. Hughes attributes much of this recovery to a years-long effort to improve the city through strategic public and private partnerships. Here today on Upzoned to talk about this story of progress and revitalization is Bernice Radle, a small-scale developer who has written and spoken for Strong Towns before about Buffalo. Radle joins Upzoned host Abby Kinney as they discuss the city’s recent evolution and growth. Additional Show Notes
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| 03 Nov 2021 | The Gathering ”Swarm” of Small-Scale Developers | 00:33:50 | |
It’s no secret here at Strong Towns that the many places that urbanists consider to be the most enduring and timeless and wonderful—from small towns to big cities—were the result of incremental development. In other words, they weren’t the result of careful planning, but rather of a decentralized process with ad hoc adaptation over time. Rooted in the creation of these places were ecosystems of tradespeople, laborers, lenders, and small-scale developers. The latter, in particular, are the focus of Strong Towns Senior Editor Daniel Herriges’s recent series, Unleash the Swarm: Reviving Small-Scale Development in America’s Cities. In this week’s special episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney talks with Daniel about incremental development, and what work still needs to be done in order to truly build up a “swarm” of small-scale developers across North America. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 09 Nov 2022 | This Man Overcame Homelessness by Building His Own Tiny Home…on Hollywood Boulevard! | 00:40:22 | |
An army veteran who was homeless in Los Angeles got tired of having his tent cleared out by the city's sanitation teams...so he decided to build his own house. By working with the community, the man, who goes by "Q," gathered the materials necessary to build a tiny home, complete with a generator and potted plants. Q earns money fixing electric scooters and wants to start his own business, stating that he hopes to be an example for others in his situation. Given that, what can we learn from Q's housing solution, and from others who are responding to the housing crisis in unique—yet logical—ways? Find out on today's episode of Upzoned, featuring host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn! ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 15 Feb 2023 | We’re Getting Worse at Construction Despite Technology Advances | 00:39:41 | |
Despite global advantages and new technologies, we are getting worse at construction. At least, that’s the case that Ezra Klein makes in his New York Times article, “The Story Construction Tells About America’s Economy Is Disturbing.” Today on Upzoned, join host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn as they talk about this idea and add on to the conversation with an explanation on the difference between “complicated” and “complex.” ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 03 May 2023 | An Abandoned Downtown Equals a Pot of Gold? | 00:32:49 | |
Not everyone who left the office for remote work returned after the pandemic lockdown ended. Many employees stayed remote, and, in doing so, they left behind a swath of empty office buildings in downtowns across North America. Developers see these abandoned places as easy cash, that is, if you can find the right sort of abandoned office space. On this episode of Upzoned, urban developer Andrew Ganahl talks with host Abby Kinney about the challenges of this pattern of growth, but also the good that could come out of it. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 09 Feb 2022 | Where Does Cohousing Fit in the Housing Ecosystem? | 00:32:23 | |
After her marriage of 17 years ended, Holly Harper, a consultant and entrepreneur in Washington, DC, rented a one-bedroom apartment for herself and her daughter. Harper wanted to own a home again (it was a priority for her financial stability) but she was a self-employed, single parent in an expensive city. What to do? In two recent articles in Insider, Harper tells the story of how she became “a post-divorce homeowner” through cohousing. Harper now lives with two other single moms, and their five children, in a multi-unit home in Washington. Harper estimates that she saved $30,000 last year by cohousing. “The financial, social, and emotional benefits have been life-changing,” she writes. “Not only do I get to save money every month, but I get to live beyond my means by pooling our extra belongings and using them when needed.” This week’s Upzoned looks at cohousing and the essential role it can play—should play—in a city’s housing strategy, and how it can make homeownership a reality for more people. Host Abby Kinney, an urban planner in Kansas City, is joined this week by guest co-host John Pattison, the community builder for Strong Towns. Abby and John talk about where cohousing fits in the housing ecosystem, and the ways in which towns and cities make it easier or harder for people to pursue. John also talks about his own family’s experience with cohousing—or something very like cohousing—and the financial and social benefits it has brought them. Then in the Downzone, Abby talks about her upcoming trip to the CNU gathering in Oklahoma City, and John recommends a recent National Geographic article about why the restoration of Notre Dame cathedral begs the question: “Restore to what?” A reminder: Nominations for the Strongest Town contest are due by Sunday, February 20. Want to highlight the progress your town or city is making toward becoming stronger and more resilient? Nominate your community today! Additional Show Notes | |||
| 20 Mar 2024 | Our Financial System Favors Large-Scale Development…but at What Cost? | 00:52:27 | |
On this week’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Newsham and co-host Chuck Marohn are joined by Coby Lefkowitz, who penned the article that’s up for discussion: “Why small developers are getting squeezed out of the housing market.” It focuses on how finance shapes our cities, why debt is used to develop cities in the first place, how lenders deal with risk, and why risk mitigation is critical to understanding why the world looks the way it does. And, most notably, it dives into America's housing financial system and why it privileges large-scale institutional development at the expense of more incremental and community-based building. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 27 Oct 2021 | Regulating by Use | 00:33:13 | |
Question: As the demand for office and retail space shrinks (especially with changing workplace habits, the rise of online retailing, and issues with the global supply chain), and demand for residential and warehousing space (think Amazon fulfillment centers) grows, are our zoning codes prepared to adapt to rapidly changing consumer needs? A recent article from Market Urbanism Report, by author Scott Beyer, says no, and that the way we regulate property primarily by land use has caused major mismatches between what is allowed and what consumers actually want. To address this, Beyer offers two suggestions. First, that cities should become more adaptable by updating their zoning codes to focus on demand for more residential and warehousing space. Second, that we should eventually consider an approach to zoning that leans away from regulating by use, altogether. This week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and regular co-host Chuck Marohn “upzone” this article, and how it ties in to the larger market urbanism conversation—and what parts of it do and don’t jive with a Strong Towns approach to zoning reform. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 26 Jul 2023 | Arizona Pushes for Suburban and Rural Development, Despite Dwindling Water Supply | 00:48:07 | |
State-level officials in Arizona are getting more serious about water scarcity issues, despite the still-booming growth pressures that exist there. Some listeners may remember from a story we covered in July 2022 that rural areas outside of Phoenix, like the Rio Verde foothills, have found it almost impossible to drill wells and are now facing challenges from having their water delivered by truck. Now, the state has determined that there is not enough water for already-approved housing projects and will stop some developers from building if they rely too heavily on groundwater, given that it has become a finite resource. Arizona's allocation of Colorado River water is also being decreased due to drought, making alternatives quite limited. Still, the Arizona water agency has given permission to build 80,000 housing lots, and for the most part, construction is going to move forward on these lots. On today's episode of Upzoned, Chuck and Abby discuss why this development pattern in Arizona—and most of the Southwestern United States—is, as you might have guessed, unsustainable. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 05 Jul 2023 | The Invisible Reason for High Housing Prices: Restrictive Land-Use Regulations | 00:38:48 | |
It is extremely difficult to build housing in Rhode Island. It’s also expensive to buy homes, with prices having increased by 34% since the summer of 2020. Why? Adam A. Millsap makes the case in Forbes that because Rhode Island zoning laws are overly restrictive, developers are unable to meet the current and past needs of housing. Millsap writes: “Places with fewer land-use regulations and more flexible zoning have lower housing prices and slower rent growth. Land-use regulations such as density restrictions, height restrictions, minimum lot sizes, parking requirements, and complicated set-back rules prevent developers from building more housing, especially more affordable housing.” In this episode of Upzoned, join host Abby Kinney as she talks with guest Nolan Gray, author of Arbitrary Lines, about his perspective on zoning laws and Rhode Island’s efforts to address their housing crisis. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 19 Dec 2022 | Thanks for a Great Year | 00:08:46 | |
It's been a great year here on Upzoned; thanks for listening. We wanted to close out 2022 with one last message, and to wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! | |||
| 26 Jan 2022 | No Insurance for Wildfire-Prone California | 00:25:55 | |
In September of 2020, an article was featured on Upzoned titled, “They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?” It discussed the frustrations that people working on the ground in forest fire management felt, knowing that the fires were being caused by decades of overzealous fire oppression and the lack of controlled burning efforts. They knew that the situation was only going to get worse—and sure enough, nowadays California is having to take a reactive approach to the situation, rather than a proactive one. Today, host Abby Kinney and Strong Towns Senior Editor Daniel Herriges follow up on this story, looking at the current situation in California. They discuss a new article from POLITICO that highlights a different approach to the problem: discouraging development in hazardous areas from the get go. This is happening primarily because insurance companies are starting to recognize that they cannot continue to insure properties in high-risk areas. Is this the right answer? It’s certainly a very controversial move, and some argue that we can’t afford to raise insurance rates during a housing crisis. Join Abby and Daniel as they “upzone” this controversy, analyzing it through the Strong Towns lens and exploring why it is that seemingly “nothing will deter people from moving into some of the most disaster-prone corners of the United States.” Additional Show Notes | |||
| 04 May 2022 | Are Cars Here to Stay? | 00:43:01 | |
Are cars here to stay? This week on Upzoned, Host Abby Kinney leads a spirited discussion (joined by Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns Board Member John Reuter) on just such a provocatively titled post written on the Persuasion Substack by Alex Trembath. For Kinney and her guests, the summary or subtitle, “Real progress on climate change will require innovations that some on the left won’t like” was the poke in the ribs that got the conversation rolling and moods shifted. Trembath writes that fossil fuel manufacturers and automakers are not responsible for the appetite Americans have for commuting to suburban developments. The author criticizes the urbanist and climate movements for not adequately reckoning with the enduring appeal of suburbs and car commutes. What's the Strong Towns take on this issue? Find out in this episode of Upzoned! Additional Show Notes | |||
| 31 Jul 2024 | You Don’t Actually Want To Abolish Property Taxes, and Here’s Why | 00:46:15 | |
This fall, seven states will have the opportunity to cut — or abolish, in some cases — property taxes, according to an article by Governing. In this episode of Upzoned, co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn discuss the Strong Towns perspective on property taxes, the consequences of removing them and how most people (including city officials) don’t realize how much it costs to run a city. Chuck emphasizes that Strong Towns is not anti-tax and that taxes are essential to successfully running any city. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 13 Jul 2022 | Water Wars in the Modern Wild West | 00:33:04 | |
In the mid-1990s, another oil boom was on in Calgary, Alberta, and it was literally possible to stand in the prairie and watch suburban development coming at you: bulldozers pushing out new roads, linemen installing power cable, and flatbeds full of stick lumber roiling the dust. There’s no oil boom in the outlying desert of the Phoenix, Arizona, metro region, but there is a continuous growth push onto the fringes there, fueled by attractive winter weather, favorable tax rates for business developments creating jobs, and transplants escaping high housing prices in California. Maricopa County has been at the top of the annual population growth charts for many years. At Strong Towns, we talk about financial challenges inherent in patterns of suburban development like those we’re seeing recently in Maricopa County. Developers take advantage of higher home sales prices supported by low interest rates to build out fringe development and leave future maintenance costs to local governments in an endless Growth Ponzi Scheme. We are most interested in understanding the intersection between local finance and land use. How does the design of our places impact their financial success or failure? We’ve found that 20–25 years out from development, many municipalities struggle to maintain the infrastructure created in this pattern. In the Rio Verde foothills outside Phoenix, unincorporated developments on the fringes are running up against another, more immediate, issue in their development pattern, one which isn’t taking 25 years to become obvious: They are out of water as the Colorado River continues to dry out in a generational drought. A recent New Yorker piece by Rachel Morse called “The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs” points out the almost insurmountable issue facing families who are buying $600,000, 2,000-square-foot plus homes in the Rio Verde foothills and then finding it impossible to drill wells or have water delivered in trucks. Those with water are worried those without will ruin it all by bringing county-level interventions or regulations, or even (gasp!) Home Owner Associations, into the mix. It’s currently a Wild West rural lifestyle full of stars, dirt roads, gorgeous desert landscapes, and quiet nights. But neighbors fighting neighbors over a diminishing water supply isn’t stopping suburban-style development, which continues unabated. “Despite the ruptures within the community, the one thing that everyone seemed to agree on was that there was way too much development in the Rio Verde Foothills,” Morse writes in her New Yorker piece. Karen Nabity, a Rio Verde resident featured in the article, is well aware that last year Maricopa County added more residents than any other county in the country. “Well, yeah, it’s because they’re issuing building permits with no water,” Nabity tells Morse. “We are building way beyond our means.’” This week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney of Multistudio in Kansas City is joined by Strong Towns Content Manager Jay Stange to discuss the water wars in Arizona. Both agree that rural lifestyles are attractive for many reasons, as long as people are truly independent. But what happens when the bill comes due for all that independence? Is it fair to ask county-level governments to step in to stop a water war? Additional Show Notes
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| 05 Oct 2022 | We Have Plenty of Land in the United States. But Can All of It Support Housing? | 00:42:00 | |
A recent article from The Wall Street Journal posits that “The U.S. Is Running Short of Land for Housing.” Land values in favorable locations are booming right now, and land owners across the country are, in some cases, making extremely high returns on their long-term holdings—so long as conditions enable their land to support development. Such opportunities are, according to the article, very limited. The U.S. is filled with a lot of open space, and one might think that means we have plenty of space for housing. But in order to support housing, this author believes that land needs to be positioned in a few different ways. So, what are the three major requirements, according to The Wall Street Journal, that enable development potential in any given plot of land—and what’s the Strong Towns take on this? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 29 Mar 2023 | Homelessness in Rural America | 00:38:11 | |
Homelessness in rural areas can look different than in bigger cities: as noted in a recent article by The Daily Yonder, rural homelessness is more “hidden,” and is expressed through couch surfing, roommate arrangements, and housing insecurity versus seeing people without homes on the street. What can we do to address the housing crisis in rural communities? Join host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn on the Upzoned podcast as they talk about this growing problem and possible solutions. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 16 Aug 2023 | Is Affordable Housing Possible Under Current Zoning Laws? | 00:43:54 | |
Durham, North Carolina, is experiencing a hot debate over changing its zoning code. The proposed “Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development” (or SCAD) presents tactical adjustments that focus on loosening the current rules so local people can make small-scale changes to their neighborhood. The changes would eliminate parking mandates, legalize smaller homes on smaller lots, and permit mixed-use development. In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Newsham talks to Aaron Lubeck, who’s been closely involved in developing SCAD, about the proposed changes. They discuss why SCAD is such a controversial topic, and if it’s different from other reforms. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 07 Dec 2022 | Homeowners Struggling to Get Insurance in Wildfire-Prone Colorado | 00:39:26 | |
An increasing risk of wildfires has made insurance carriers wary of certain areas in Colorado—according to a recent Denver Post article—raising their premiums and, in some cases, opting to not cover them, at all. In just the past few years, heavily forested areas of the state have been hit hard by wildfires. The Marshall Fire of December 2021, for instance, caused $2 billion in damages and has turned out to be the most expensive wildfire in the state's history. Quite often, homeowners discover that they're underinsured when these things happen, meaning their insurance policies don't provide enough money to rebuild their homes once a fire occurs. In mountain communities like Aspen, Vail, Telluride, Steamboat Springs, and others, insurance companies are starting to pull out, altogether. So, what are homeowners to do? Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn discuss the situation in today's episode of Upzoned. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 22 Nov 2023 | Ryan Johnson: Builder of the First Car-Free Neighborhood Made From Scratch in the U.S. | 00:23:56 | |
Upzoned has been on a bit of a hiatus for the past couple of months, but we wanted to have at least one final episode of 2023 (and rest assured that the podcast will be returning with weekly episodes in 2024). This episode is an exciting one, as host Abby Kinney is joined by a guest whose work she’s been following for several years: Ryan Johnson, the builder and resident of the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S., called Culdesac Tempe. We hope you enjoy this special end-of-the-year interview and look forward to more content coming soon! ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES | |||
| 13 Apr 2022 | Who Should Be Able to Veto New Housing Production? | 00:26:17 | |
Should states and counties push back against local governments to crack open more options for housing? Will that be counterproductive? How much do multiyear litigation strategies by “Neighborhood Defenders” affect new housing production in tight markets? A recent post in the DCist blog written by Ally Schweitzer got a lot of traffic from the housing, transportation and urbanist communities, who debated this nuanced question. A zoning battle ten years ago in the affluent Maryland suburb of Silver Spring was so contentious it’s still hot as a coal today and provides the infrastructure for this debate. “Fights like this play out every day in cities and suburbs across the country, “ Schweitzer wrote. “But in the D.C. region, where local governments are struggling to address a severe housing shortage that is driving up prices, elected officials are under growing pressure to push back against civically engaged homeowners who mobilize against new housing construction. Montgomery County, an affluent D.C. suburb that has experienced transformative growth and demographic change in the last 30 years, exemplifies how hard that can be.” Jenny Schuetz, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who examines the national housing shortage in her book Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America’s Broken Housing Systems, told Schweitzer: “We have this system where local governments are the gatekeepers for new housing production…local governments, in turn, have outsourced a lot of their authority to existing residents, so existing homeowners in particular have essentially veto power over proposals to build new housing.” Upzoned host Abby Kinney and her guest, Strong Towns Content Manager Jay Stange, discuss how to respect local neighborhood’s choices about where and how new housing options should be considered in tight markets. Top down solutions rarely work, but change has to be greater than zero or communities will stagnate. | |||
| 05 Apr 2023 | Cowboy Hotels for Housing Shortages | 00:42:32 | |
Like all major cities in America, Seattle is facing a housing shortage. And 100 years ago, Seattle faced a housing shortage bigger than the one it has now. The initial response to the historic shortage was to build small, boxy, apartment buildings holding four to six apartments (called Cowboy Hotels) that blended in with the houses already established in the neighborhood. In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn talk about Cowboy Hotels and their financial possibilities. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 21 Aug 2024 | What Los Angeles Can Learn From Paris’ Olympic Village | 00:54:55 | |
In this episode of Upzoned, co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn talk about the Olympic Village that was built in Paris and what the city plans to do with the development now that the Games are over. They discuss the accusations of gentrification and greenwashing that Paris officials are facing, the challenges inherent in trying to complete large-scale, sustainable projects on a deadline, and lessons that both Paris and Los Angeles — which will be hosting the 2028 Games — can take from past hosts. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 19 Oct 2022 | We Need More Housing—But Also More People Who Can Build More Housing | 00:35:58 | |
Are there enough construction workers to build the housing we need in the U.S. and Canada? According to The Globe and Mail, the Ontario government has stated that the province will need 100,000 new construction workers and 1.5 million homes over the next decade. However, a current shortage in skilled trades and labor means that the process of building homes now takes longer than before, and the situation has only been exacerbated since 2020, as many construction workers retired during the pandemic. As such, industry leaders are not optimistic about meeting forecasted housing needs, as there are just not enough new people to replace those who recently retired—along with those expected to retire in a looming retirement boom. This is one of those acute problems that feels overwhelming to the point where you want to step back and say, "How the heck did we get here?" Tune in to today's episode of Upzoned to find out. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 22 May 2024 | From Bike Lovers to Zoning Experts: The Voices of Strong Towns | 01:14:39 | |
This special edition of Upzoned was recorded last week at the 2024 National Gathering. Join host Abby Newsham as she talks to attendees about their efforts to build stronger towns. Interviewees: (0:00) Lisa Hutson, a business owner who’s turning an abandoned factory into a mixed-use community hub. (8:52) Sean Suder, a zoning reform expert who helps cities make their zoning codes more people-friendly and defensible. (18:40) Chris Wyatt, a transit advocate who’s working to make public transit more pleasant and useful. (26:00) Hannah Stanton-Gockel, a bike commuter who uses her marketing experience to advocate for people-centric city design. (38:41) Isaac Gonzalez, one of the National Gathering presenters, who discusses how to be a good long-term advocate. (50:40) Jackson Lester, a public transit planner who intends to combat the housing crisis through infill development. (1:02:15) Jaclyn Cheves, director of policy and partnerships for Blue Zones, who discusses how cities can become healthier places. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES | |||
| 11 Aug 2021 | The Reconnecting Communities Act: What Was Promised Vs. What's Being Delivered | 00:35:19 | |
The U.S. Senate has been in the final hours of debating a 2,700-plus-page infrastructure bill. The bill is part of a compromise between Senate Democrats and Republicans, and has thus been subject to heavy negotiations. One of the things put forth by the administration into the original American Jobs Plan was the idea of a “Reconnecting Communities Act,” which would use $20 billion to undo some of the damage that had been done to urban neighborhoods (and particularly minority neighborhoods) in the early days of highway building. However, that figure of $20 billion has now been brought down to $1 billion. In other words, out of a $1 trillion bill, a token amount of money has been dedicated to the Reconnecting Communities initiative. Naturally, people are disappointed. This week on Upzoned, regular host Abby Kinney is out on vacation, so Chuck Marohn takes up the mantle of host and invites Strong Towns Board Member John Reuter on to “upzone” this story about the Reconnecting Communities Act—i.e., they discuss it through the Strong Towns lens. They talk about how advocates are pushing back on the Senate’s decision, and the disillusionment people are feeling over what has been promised by the infrastructure bill versus what’s being delivered. Then, in the downzone, John has been obsessed with a parody of old school musicals, and Chuck has been reading a real page-turner about microbes invading the sun. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 18 May 2022 | Philadelphia Is Launching the First Public Bank Owned by a City | 00:33:48 | |
This week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney wades into a proposal for a new Philadelphia-based public bank, a financial institution being created to provide new loans with reduced cost of capital in marginalized neighborhoods. Along with co-host Charles Marohn, president and founder of Strong Towns, Abby examines the concept of public banks as presented in a podcast by the progressive non-profit media outlet, Next City. Next City Executive Director Lucas Grindley and Senior Economics Correspondent Oscar Perry Abello ask whether the first public bank owned by a city can be a “systemic gamechanger for the racial wealth gap,” according to the group’s summary of the podcast. Derek Green, a Philadelphia city council member championing the city’s public bank, joins the Next City hosts to explain that loans to small businesses can be a source of jobs in economically stagnant “bank deserts.” This could be a creative option if you're looking for creative financing solutions in your place and find that local Community Development Financial Insitutions (CDFIs) are too strapped to make loans. Nevertheless, it might make sense for public bank shareholders—aka local taxpayers—to be watchful. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 24 Aug 2022 | New York’s New Experiment in Fighting Gridlock | 00:29:51 | |
America’s first experiment with charging a toll to enter a congested urban area is going to begin in New York City next year. All next week, a public hearing battle over the details will rage between advocates for and against congestion pricing, which might cost as much as $23 per trip for a passenger vehicle and more than $100 per trip for a commercial vehicle. New Yorkers enjoy the most well-used transit system in America, but it’s in need of billions of dollars’ worth of maintenance. Congestion pricing might raise $1 billion per year to start paying for it, but the impacts will be profound to almost 2 million people driving into Manhattan daily. Congestion isn’t all bad. The average travel speed for a car in Manhattan has dropped into the single digits—about the same speed as a recreational runner, but these slower speeds reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries. Can New York drivers commuting in from the outer boroughs afford to pay to get below 60th Street? How can New York City afford to keep allowing so much space for automobiles? Geometry, after all, is a key to this question. Upzoned host Abby Kinney, an urban planner with Multistudio in Kansas City, takes on these questions (and more) raised in the Guardian article, “No Car for Me: Will a $23 Toll Finally Rid Manhattan of Gridlock?” Abby is joined by podcast guest Jay Stange, Content Manager for Strong Towns, who drove a car four (4!) times during a five-year Manhattan residence beginning in 2010. Additional Show Notes
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| 29 Jun 2022 | State Preemption: A Means To Reform Zoning, or a Threat to Localism? | 00:41:53 | |
A recent Governing article, “The Bad Things That Happen When States Tell Cities What to Do,” features an interview with University of Virginia law professor Richard Schragger on his book, City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age. One of the major things Schragger’s book argues against is state preemption—ad in general, Schragger is interested in re-articulating the appropriate constitutional relationship between cities and states. He’s also expressed skepticism about regionalism as a viable strategy for equalizing the resources between cities and suburbs. So, Schragger’s view is that state and federal land use interventions are typically disastrous—citing urban renewal and the Mount Laurel doctrine as examples. His concern is that state preemption will be used to override local opposition in a way that promotes market-rate developers at the expense of low-income urban neighborhoods, and that local reform to zoning needs to be driven by affordable housing coalitions and activists at the local level. State preemption is a controversial issue in the planning world, and one can’t make a blanket statement on whether it’s good or bad. Nevertheless, on today’s episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn talk about whether or not there is a Strong Towns stance on the subject of state preemption. Additional Show Notes
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| 01 Sep 2021 | American Cities, Through European Eyes (and Vice Versa) | 00:39:10 | |
Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn is back on the Upzoned podcast after returning from a family vacation to Italy that included visits to Rome and Venice, among other classic sites. Part of the impetus for the trip, Chuck tells host Abby Kinney, was his desire to show his teenage daughters some of the things that make the traditional development pattern (still the default in many European towns and cities) so superior to the suburban development pattern that holds sway in North America. By coincidence—kind of—the article Chuck and Abby discuss on this week’s episode of the podcast is about the converse: the experience of a European newly transplanted in America. Guillaume Rischard moved to New York City barely a month ago. As a former member of the Luxembourg city’s mobility commission, Rischard writes in Streetsblog, “I have…spent a lot of time looking at how infrastructure moves New Yorkers around.” There are things about New York Rischard wishes more European cities would emulate. But Rischard is kind of shocked by other aspects of the transportation system. Like how much capacity is reserved for moving car traffic…in a city where 80% of the people don’t own cars. Or why street parking is so inexpensive. Or why biking in the city is dangerous, which means the people on bikes aren’t families—as in Europe—but “young daredevil men like me.” Abby and Chuck talk about why the common cultural knowledge about how to build great places endures in Europe but is fading here. They discuss the importance of making places for people vs. making places for automobiles. (This is a major theme of Chuck’s new book, out next week.) They also talk about how seeing one’s own place—whether you’re in Europe or North America—through the eyes of outsiders can help you see what’s working, what’s not, and how it can be fixed. Then in the Downzone, Chuck describes a kayak tour that showed his family parts of Venice that even many Venetians may not have seen. And Abby weighs whether it’s finally time to read the Harry Potter series. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 18 Jan 2023 | The U.S. Is Running Out of Skilled Labor. Is It Gen-Z’s Fault? | 00:31:28 | |
The U.S. is crying out, saying we NEED more carpenters, plumbers, and other people in skilled trades and technical industries—but the generation about to take over the workforce, Gen Z, doesn’t seem interested. As time presses forward, we’re continuing to see more open positions, and not enough people to fill them. This could impact not only agriculture, infrastructure, housing, and transportation, but everyone’s daily lives, in general. The “shortage of workers” discourse tends to point a finger at Gen Z’s lack of work ethics, but in this episode of Upzoned, podcast host Abby Kiney and guest Daniel Herriges talk about variables that are often left out of the conversation. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 31 Jan 2024 | Today’s Generation of Families Are “Disillusioned” by Suburbia | 00:30:48 | |
Five families from Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Pittsburg move to the suburbs in search of the American dream, drawn by promises of better schools and all the other amenities promised by suburban life…but instead, they’re experiencing the decline of the suburbs, rather than the benefits that were sold to them. On this week’s episode, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn discuss this story, told in “The Suburbs Have Become a Ponzi Scheme,” and based on the book, Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 20 Oct 2021 | The ”Great Supply Chain Disruption” | 00:35:54 | |
From ports to warehousing to trucking to railway systems, the supply chain is clogged across the board, and it's causing all kinds of ripple effects on a global scale. It’s just one of the many consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, recently dubbed the “great supply chain disruption” by Peter S. Goodman in The New York Times. This week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and regular co-host Chuck Marohn “upzone” Goodman’s article, discussing how what was once expected to be a temporary phenomenon (an unintended consequence of the pandemic lockdowns) is increasingly being viewed as a new reality, one which could require a substantial refashioning of the world shipping infrastructure. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 23 Nov 2022 | These 3 Cities Are Eliminating Parking Minimums. Are They Going About It the Right Way? | 00:44:58 | |
It's #BlackFridayParking week at Strong Towns, which means we've got a special parking-related episode of the Upzoned podcast today. Host Abby Kinney, co-host Chuck Marohn, and special guest Edward Erfurt (director of community action at Strong Towns) come together to discuss three stories from three different cities—Burlington, Vermont; Nashville, Tennessee; and Cambridge, Massachusetts—all of which are taking big steps to eliminate parking minimums. And in some cases, the cities are even looking at establishing parking maximums! Does it make sense for cities to have a blanket policy on parking, one way or the other? How can communities have these conversations about parking, especially when there are people—residents and developers alike—who argue and push back against parking reform? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 17 Jul 2024 | Faith in Action: How Religious Institutions Can Help Solve the Housing Crisis | 00:59:49 | |
You’ve heard of YIMBYs and NIMBYs, but have you heard of YIGBYs? YIGBY stands for “Yes In God’s Backyard,” and it’s a movement focused on leveraging land owned by religious institutions to alleviate the housing crisis. This has the potential to benefit both people in need of housing and religious institutions. In this episode of Upzoned, hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn discuss the potential benefits of the YIGBY movement, the practicalities of implementing it, and broader mindsets surrounding religious institutions and what their land should be used for. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 22 Sep 2021 | CDOT‘s Proposal for Transit-Induced Pollution | 00:38:21 | |
The Colorado Department of Transportation recently drafted a new rule that would require state and local governments to measure and potentially offset greenhouse gas emission impacts of transportation projects. In this scheme, local government entities would have preset greenhouse gas emission budgets, and would be required to offset emissions if they exceed those budgets when implementing transportation projects. That could take the form of transit services, bicycle infrastructure, zoning decisions that enable density, et cetera. If these public entities do not meet requirements and don't offset emissions, then the state may restrict their use of certain funds. (Note that this is literally the wording of the legislation itself: "certain funds." It doesn't specify which funds.) This, of course, all comes as CDOT is slated to receive billions of dollars of new funding from the state and the federal government. The intent of the new rule, then, would be to shift conditions that are currently enabling status quo infrastructure investment that would continue to spread Colorado's development pattern out farther and farther. This week on Upzoned, Abby and Chuck take a look at an article from Colorado Public Radio that tackles this subject and they "upzone" it—i.e., they look at it through the Strong Towns lens. They talk about what does and doesn't work with the top-down, bureaucratic approach this legislation is taking to address our development and climate issues. Then, in the downzone, Chuck is following up on old characters, and Abby's gearing up for a fun trip. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 27 Apr 2022 | Process Versus Visible Outcomes | 00:33:40 | |
The U.S. Department of Transportation was the administrative tool with which the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 was implemented, a massive public works program of a scope not seen since in the United States. It resembled the scale and transformative impact of the high-speed rail China built in the 21st century. Now, the USDOT is rolling out a $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) over the next five years. Among its 539 amendments and 127 related bills is the law of the land for transportation funding for the next five years. Contained within are new requirements for equity in the way IIJA locates minority-owned contractors and conducts public hearings in underserved neighborhoods. In their blog, Pedestrian Observations, Alon Levy takes issue with USDOT’s equity action plan. Levy’s April 15 essay, called “The Solution to Failed Process isn’t More Process,” says the plan “suffers from the same fundamental problem of American governance, especially at the federal level: everything is about process, nothing is about visible outcomes for the people who use public services.” In this episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney points out that local knowledge and participation are critical to successful projects in her experience as an urban designer. But transportation budgets are more telling than rhetoric, Kinney argues. Her co-host Charles Marohn of Strong Towns says in order to get $8 billion of equity funding, Congress had to pass a $1.2 trillion budget. That’s less than 1% for equity. IIJA funding for projects such as $1 billion dedicated to removing freeways built through poor neighborhoods of color in the 1960s (originally $20 billion) pale in comparison to the hundreds of billions which will be spent to expand the highway system in America in the next decade. Since the Interstate Highway Act, massive DOT budgets and the highway projects they support have served to marginalize and pollute urban neighborhoods where poverty is concentrated. “Maybe we should just abolish the U.S. Department of Transportation?” Marohn asks. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 18 Aug 2021 | You Need to Know About Walla Walla, Washington | 00:40:58 | |
Have you heard of Walla Walla? It's a city of 32,000 located in the southeastern region of Washington state, in the Walla Walla valley. Given that it's a fairly secluded place (the closest big cities, Portland and Seattle, are four or more hours away), we wouldn't blame you if it hasn't turned up on your radar. You should definitely be paying attention to Walla Walla, though, because starting in 2018, it's been quietly adapting zoning changes that have eliminated single-family-only zones. These changes were prompted by the recognition that the city is growing, but it is unable to grow outward. Walla Walla acknowledged that it must reinvest in itself. So, after a two-year process, the city consolidated its neighborhood zoning districts into one, and reformed the regulations to allow a broad spectrum of neighborhood-friendly uses. The site and development standards have been radically simplified. On this week's episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and special guest Strong Towns Board Member John Reuter "upzoned" this story—i.e., they look at it through the Strong Towns lens. They discuss why single-family zoning is ultimately unhelpful for the evolution of communities, and look at Walla Walla as a case study for possible alternatives to single-family zoning. Then, in the downzone, John has been reading about the toll of racism, and Abby just got back from a hiking trip. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 28 Sep 2022 | The Paris of the Plains Can’t Afford Its Fountains Anymore | 00:33:17 | |
If you’ve ever been to Kansas City or have any awareness about Kansas City, you may have heard it called the Paris of the Plains or the City of Fountains. A lot of people associate the city with its fountains, and it’s a big source of civic pride. However, recently the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department was forced to shut down its 48 fountains, citing unmanageable operating costs. This has left residents up in arms, claiming that the out-of-operation fountains are attracting vandalism and causing issues for their neighborhoods. Unfortunately, though, Parks and Rec has its hands tied, since the city has gone over its water budget for the year and can’t afford to keep fountains running. Today on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and co-host Daniel Herriges analyze this story against another article, produced a few years ago by the Urban Land Institute, that discusses the issue of Kansas City’s park system, the history of its park system, the costs, and—particularly relevant to this story—the deferred maintenance issues. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 10 Nov 2021 | ”Zillow Offers”...Homes to Investors, Not Homeowners | 00:38:44 | |
For the past couple of years, the website Zillow has expanded their business model into the home speculation and flipping game. The “Zillow Offers” program offers cash for homes, followed up by Zillow going in and implementing home renovations—and the company planned to do this with thousands of homes in 2021. Yet now, two months before the year has even ended, Zillow announced that not only would it no longer be buying homes, but it also needs to offload thousands of the homes it did buy —and not to homeowners and landlords, but to institutional investors. Additionally, the company will be laying off 25% of its workforce, and estimates that it’ll lose over half a billion dollars. Why? That’s the question on today’s episode of Upzoned: Using a recent article from The Verge as a springboard for discussion, host Abby Kinney and regular co-host Chuck Marohn discuss the possible reasons why Zillow has had to reverse course on its foray into the home-flipping business. Additional Show Notes
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| 22 Jun 2022 | Looking for an Affordable Starter Home? HUD Suggests Trying a Manufactured Home. | 00:35:27 | |
More than 75,000 kit homes in 400 different styles were ordered from Sears Roebuck and Co. and put together by the people who bought them a century ago. A new White House proposal aims to fill a need for affordable starter homes with a new generation of manufactured homes. The Sears kit home has many examples still standing in good shape in Kansas City, where Upzoned Host Abby Kinney lives and works. Those homes arrived on railroad cars and were assembled by the homeowners, for the most part. They were somewhat more complex than the modern manufactured home, but the concept is similar. Kinney and her guest, Strong Towns Senior Editor Daniel Herriges, talk over the possibility that manufactured homes might be a realistic approach to the problems encountered by people seeking affordable housing in 2022 and beyond. The question is brought to the podcast this week by an article in Bloomberg’s CityLab called, “Factory-Built Homes Could Make a Comeback as Affordable Housing.” “We just can’t continue to build the houses we grew up in,” says U.S. Housing Secretary Marcia L. Fudge in the CityLab piece. “These houses are more efficient, more resilient. But the other thing is, we need so much new housing. These can be built quickly, installed quickly. They are at a great cost point. And so it is a big part of the solution.” A 450-square-foot manufactured home model can be purchased and assembled for $100,000, resulting in a mortgage payment below $1,000 per month, Kinney notes. But stigma surrounding whether they fit into a neighborhood, issues with financing, and zoning hurdles remain unaddressed. But the potential to provide affordable, safe options in many overheated housing markets—perhaps even as accessory dwelling units—is undeniable, says Herriges. “How does this reshape the American landscape if it catches on big?” Find out on this week’s episode of Upzoned. Additional Show Notes
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| 08 Sep 2021 | Let‘s Talk Great Streets | 00:46:45 | |
This week on Upzoned, we're shaking things up with something a little different: To celebrate the launch of the newest book in the Strong Towns series, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, host Abby Kinney is interviewing Strong Towns President and author of the book, Chuck Marohn. In particular, they discuss the fifth chapter of Confessions, which is all about great streets. So many cities bear remnants of formerly great streets—streets that were originally designed to be wealth generators, supporting public space and public activity. Those streets have since degraded in favor of allowing the free flow of cars, to move people in and out of cities as quickly as possible. Undoing this degradation is going to be a vital task for this generation, and generations to follow. So, have a listen as Abby and Chuck discuss the insights Confessions provides about streets as platforms for building wealth, strategies for planning streets (including the use of a street design team), and more! Then afterward in the downzone, Chuck and Abby are both brushing up on their history, though Chuck's readings place him on the other side of the world, whereas Abby's studies situate her a little closer to home. And if you're interested in reading more of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, order it today at wherever books are sold! Additional Show Notes | |||
| 21 Feb 2024 | Could this New Approach to Public Housing Actually Work? | 00:46:19 | |
A suburb of Washington, DC is exploring a new approach to creating more affordable housing through public-private partnerships. And it’s seeing success! In this episode of Upzoned, Chuck and Abby discuss the history of public housing and government housing subsidies in the US, the good, the bad and the ugly. Then they consider whether this new model could be helpful or harmful to cities. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 27 Oct 2022 | This Seattle Highway Is Facing a $29 Million Financial Crisis | 00:34:17 | |
During the winter of 2019, a tunnel for State Route 99 (SR 99) opened, running beneath downtown Seattle, Washington. It was a long-anticipated project with a price tag of $3.3 billion—with an accompanying tolling program to cover $20 million in construction debt and operating costs. The tunnel was toll-free for the first nine months after opening, so that drivers would be enticed to change their routes. However, only a couple of months after the tolling began, so did the COVID-19 pandemic. This drastically changed traffic patterns, and even now in fall 2022, traffic patterns have not picked up to 2019 levels. Consequently, the tunnel is now facing what some call a "financial crisis," even after imposing an urgent 15% toll rate increase to make up for 2020 losses. In all, SR 99 is estimated to have a $29 million deficit right now—which podcast host Abby Kinney and Strong Towns Editor-in-Chief Daniel Herriges explore on this week's episode of Upzoned. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 01 Feb 2023 | Portland’s Cully Neighborhood To Use “The One Ring” for Good | 00:42:35 | |
Portland’s Cully neighborhood is about to embark on a big urban renewal experiment with the intention of maintaining that area's current affordability. Yes, you heard that right. In the past, the term “urban renewal” was mainly associated with mid-20th century schemes that displaced residents by seizing and demolishing large swaths of neighborhoods in order to modernize them with highways, roads, and other infrastructure elements. Now, Cully hopes to use similar tools for the better. Under what the city has labeled an “urban renewal” plan, it would borrow against future tax revenues to invest in programs and purchases that are intended to stabilize residents and businesses (versus tearing them down for pavement projects). In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn talk about the reality of a top-down plan like this and how it can be dangerous for communities to think this way, even if they only intend to do good. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 19 Jun 2024 | Is the Non Profit Sector a Mess of 'Misconduct, Greed and Corruption'? | 00:55:54 | |
Nonprofit organizations straddle the line between the private and public sectors, receiving both private donations and funding from the government to provide services. The problem with this model, an article in American Affairs says, is that nonprofits are then motivated to sabotage their own efforts so they can receive more money. This is only one example of the kinds of corruption that flourish within the poorly regulated, overly trusted nonprofit sector, the article argues. What’s the Strong Towns take on this? And what does it mean for local governments? Join host Abby Newsham and co-host Chuck Marohn on this week’s episode of Upzoned to find out. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 02 Nov 2022 | What Does the ”Airbnbust” Mean for the Housing Market? | 00:38:23 | |
There's been much speculation on the internet lately—to the point of almost becoming a meme—about whether we are witnessing the great "Airbnbust." In other words, people are saying that short-term rentals are a bubble that is popping right before our eyes. As reported in Market Watch, many short-term rental owners are voicing concerns on forums like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook about their bookings plummeting over the past three to four months. In some cases, hosts say they were at 80% occupancy, but now find themselves all the way down to zero. At this point, it's not completely clear what's happening or why it's happening, but host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn unravel what we do know on today's episode of Upzoned. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 11 Jan 2023 | People Move to Places with Zoning Laws, Ergo Zoning Is Good? | 00:39:08 | |
In a recent Planetizen article titled, “Is Exclusionary Zoning a Good Thing?” author Michael Lewyn examines a theoretical argument presented by Judge Glock in the American Affairs Journal: that because people move to places that have zoning laws, zoning must be good. In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn unpack the zoning debate between these two authors and how zoning is truly impacting cities. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 23 Feb 2022 | Blaming Drivers for the Mistakes of Traffic Engineers | 00:45:49 | |
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, pedestrian fatalities have grown to record levels. In 2020, they were up roughly 5% from the previous year, and pedestrian deaths per vehicle miles traveled was up 21% in that same year. Preliminary data from 2021 suggests that this trend is only continuing. Originally, experts believed that the opposite would happen: they asserted that pedestrian deaths were going to decrease due to reduced driving during lockdown and stay-at-home orders, and increased numbers of people working from home. Instead the emptier roads are permitting people to drive faster, so the official narrative has pivoted to blame accidents on increased anxiety levels, increased alcohol consumption, and the general fraying of social norms. This narrative was repeated recently in The New York Times, in a piece titled “Pedestrian Deaths Spike in U.S. as Reckless Driving Surges.” So, today on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and cohost Chuck Marohn take this piece and “upzone” it, analyzing it through the Strong Towns lens. Here’s a hint: The problem has a lot less to do with driver error and a lot more to do with bad street design. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 10 Jul 2024 | The Dollar Difference: Why Rural Poverty Benefits Dollar Stores More Than Urban | 00:48:05 | |
This week on Upzoned, hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn discuss a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “The Dollar-Store Showdown Comes Down to Real Estate.” It highlights the differences between Dollar General, which has stores located in mostly rural areas and is expanding its reach, and Family Dollar, which has stores located in mostly urban areas and is closing hundreds of stores. Why is one of these companies succeeding while the other struggles? And what do dollar stores help or harm poor neighborhoods? Listen to this week’s episode to find out. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 06 Mar 2024 | $350 Million Mixed-Use Development Presents a "Huge Opportunity" for South Bend, IN | 00:35:58 | |
This week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney is joined by Mike Keen, a retired professor and incremental developer in South Bend, Indiana, to discuss a recent article in WSBT, “Major mixed-use development could be largest in downtown South Bend history.” It highlights a $350 million project that has been proposed in downtown South Bend: a mixed-use district that would include hotels, apartments, and commercial uses, to be completed by 2028. The development, led by nearby Memorial Hospital, will take up about two city blocks and is expected to be a catalytic project for the city. So, we ask: is this project going to be a positive for South Bend and its small-scale developers like Keen? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 03 Jul 2024 | How To Successfully Navigate the World of Incremental Development | 00:53:26 | |
Incremental development is the most resilient and financially responsible way for communities to grow and improve. As North America struggles through a housing crisis, this style of development becomes increasingly important. On this Upzoned episode, host Abby Newsham is joined by town builder Monte Anderson to talk about his experience as an incremental developer and the important principles of the field. Anderson is one of the founders of Incremental Development Alliance, which trains small-scale developers, and a managing partner of Neighborhood Evolution, a development consulting group. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 24 Jan 2024 | Millennials Are Fleeing Cities in Favor of the Exurbs | 00:40:27 | |
Millennials are officially getting old. They’re having children, buying houses, and getting replaced by Gen Z in urban areas. As one article from Business Insider puts it, “Millennials are getting priced out of cities,” and are starting to leave the urban neighborhoods that they’ve been building their lives in, up to this point. According to the author, since the cost and types of housing available in urban areas isn’t conducive to family life, millennials are having to instead flee to the only place they can afford to live: the exurbs. What’s the Strong Towns take on this? Join host Abby Newsham and co-host Chuck Marohn as they discuss this article on this week’s episode of Upzoned. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 28 Jun 2023 | Why Can’t We Have the “Perfect” Neighborhood? | 00:44:41 | |
“Who Can Afford America’s Perfect Neighborhood?” asks The Guardian. Longmont, Colorado, holds many elements of the American dream: tree-lined streets, neighbors walking to fulfill errands, children racing about, cafes, beautiful parks, gyms, and community events. To many, it sounds like a place of paradise. But housing prices have skyrocketed, and it’s not uncommon for a million-dollar home to sell in less than a week. In this Upzoned podcast, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn talk about this neighborhood and answer the question: Why is this “perfect neighborhood” not easily copied in other places? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 07 Feb 2024 | Coming Back Down to Earth After a “Next-Level” Downtown Revitalization | 00:43:59 | |
This week’s Upzoned episode covers a story that sounded promising at the start: “The Town That Took Downtown Renewal to the Next Level”? Sounds great! Right? Alas, residents of Morristown, Tennessee, have discovered that the Skymark (i.e., an elevated sidewalk) they built in the 1960s was not the salvation for their downtown they’d hoped it would be. Join host Abby Newsham and co-host Chuck Marohn as they take a deep dive on how this huge investment, unfortunately, didn’t pan out as a long-term strategy for economic prosperity. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 23 Aug 2023 | Transportation Meltdown: Children on the School Bus Till 10 p.m. | 00:35:33 | |
Kentucky’s largest school system recently had to cancel the second and third day of classes due to what they're calling a disastrous overhaul of the bus system. On day one, some children were still on their bus at 10 p.m. AP News reported this issue is partly the result of a bus driver shortage, which definitely plays a role in why Kentucky is having this transportation problem. But Kentucky isn’t the only place that’s struggled with getting children to and from school. There's more to the story, and it has to do with the suburban development pattern, and the closure of neighborhood schools. In this Upzoned episode, host Abby Newsham digs into details of why, seemingly every year, many school districts have trouble with the transportation of students. She invites Dr. Michael Ralph, director of research at MultiStudio, and Daniel Herriges, Strong Towns’ editor-in-chief, to share their insights on the subject. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 06 Jul 2022 | TxDOT Proposes to Dig a $1 Billion Infrastructure Grave in Downtown Dallas | 00:38:21 | |
This week on Upzoned with Abby Kinney, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) makes her co-host, Strong Towns President Charles Marohn, almost want to start swearing. For many years now, TxDOT has studied the feasibility of removing Interstate 345, which is a 1.7-mile segment of elevated highway that dissects downtown Dallas in Deep Ellum. Proposals to make the downtown stronger and more productive by creating a boulevard have been in the works for almost a decade, supported by prominent urban planners such as Patrick Kennedy. Then last month, the agency released their official conclusion that removing the highway is unfeasible. Instead, TxDOT now recommends tearing down the elevated freeway and rebuilding it in a 65-foot-deep trench that will contain 10 travel lanes and cost more than a billion dollars. An article by Matt Goodman in D Magazine outlines the agency’s proposal to bridge local streets over that trench to reconnect the neighborhoods, instead of creating a boulevard to distribute traffic and create neighborhood streets that build wealth in a people-centered design. If this hybrid approach moves forward, it seems to send a pretty clear message that highway capacity and maintaining commute times are the central priority of the Dallas Metro, not reconnecting neighborhoods or improving the downtown neighborhood quality of life. Urban planners Kennedy and Brandon Hancock first pitched the idea of tearing I-345 out, which would free up land the city could re-zone to create a mix of housing, office, and retail. The D Magazine article says TxDOT estimated in 2016 that removal would generate about $2.5 billion in new net value, a “significant increase in employment totals,” and an additional $67.4 million in property tax revenue over 30 years. “This is the quintessential situation where a Strong Towns approach … says this is a corridor for building wealth and capacity in the community (with an) investment that would be lower cost, the payoff would be way higher,” Marohn says. “And that whole mindset is trumped by this delusion that we are going to try to move vehicles quickly. And that somehow the city of Dallas itself is going to benefit more from a marginal, theoretical increase in traffic counts, than it will from billions of dollars of private sector investments.” So what happened? That’s where we almost lose our tempers here at Strong Towns. Find out more on this episode of Upzoned. Additional Show Notes
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| 09 Mar 2022 | Can a Houstonian Approach to Homelessness Work in L.A.? | 00:31:28 | |
As many people know, homelessness has grown at an alarming rate in recent years and pursuing solutions is becoming a major challenge for cities across the country. There doesn’t seem to be a one-size-fits-all approach and much of the work is left to local municipalities or nonprofit organizations—even activist groups and charitable organizations. This means that approaches vary from city to city, and so does the rate of success and actual outcomes. Much has been published on the issue over the last couple of weeks specifically looking at Los Angeles and how, according to an audit, the city spends as much as $837,000 per unit for housing homeless people—an approach that has raised a lot of criticism. Moreover, homelessness has actually decreased in other parts of the L.A. metropolitan area, such as in Pasadena and Glendale. That’s making people wonder what part of L.A.’s approach isn’t working, and a recent article from the L.A. Times has suggested that maybe the city should be taking its cues from another massive Sunbelt city: Houston, Texas. Today on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and special guest Rachel Quednau “upzone” this proposal, analyzing it through the Strong Towns lens. Additional Show Notes
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| 16 Mar 2022 | Our Fragile System Runs on Cheap Oil | 00:39:10 | |
The cost of gas has been rising rapidly for the past couple of months, and a recent VICE article reminds us that this is something that has happened before. The author, Aaron Gordon, posits that this happens once every decade or so, and Americans panic over it, but never commit to any kind of change that would impact the fundamental dynamics that make this such a problem, to begin with. Today on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and regular co-host Chuck Marohn “upzone” this story, discussing how these crises and our responses to them highlight the fragility of our transportation system and built environment. And why it needs to change. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 01 Mar 2023 | Whose Responsibility Is It To Ensure That Buildings Interact With the Public Realm in a Delightful Way? | 00:31:01 | |
It’s important to build safe and productive streets, but how do we ensure those streets are a place people want to be and live in? Whose responsibility is it to ensure that buildings interact with the public realm in a delightful way? Design is hugely impactful in our daily lives: it can determine if a place is somewhere for people, or if it’s unlivable and unusable. And design isn’t wholly up to the “eye of the beholder.” It’s possible to quantify beauty. Today on the Upzoned podcast, join host Abby Kinney as she welcomes a special guest: Tristan Cleveland, Strong Towns member, urban planner at Happy City, and PhD candidate with Healthy Populations Institute. In this episode, Abby and Cleveland talk about his recent Planetizen article, “The Responsibility of the Building to the Street.” ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 01 May 2024 | Cincinnati Pledges $200K in Funding for Popular Bikeshare Service | 00:38:20 | |
The city of Cincinnati has pledged $200k to keep the popular bikeshare program Red Bike alive for another year. Joining us to talk about bikeshare programs and Red Bike’s financial difficulties is Bryce Mortera, a member of Civic Cincinnati. Are these programs really beneficial for residents? And if so, is there a more sustainable way to fund them than relying on sponsors? | |||
| 15 Mar 2023 | When a Building Is Demolished, What Should Happen to the Materials? | 00:36:07 | |
“What happens when old buildings have reached the end of their life, either their useful life in terms of safety or their desirable life in terms of modern living?” a Next City article asks. The piece goes on to say that when buildings throughout the U.S. get demolished, the once useful construction materials often end up in landfills. But there’s a growing movement to try and disassemble buildings carefully, and rescue building materials to be used in other projects. In today’s Upzoned episode, host Abby Kinney and co-host Chuck Marohn talk about this growing movement. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 25 Aug 2021 | We Cannot Rely on Large-Scale Development | 00:35:39 | |
Our modern, conventional city-building approach for both infill and greenfield development is overwhelmingly geared toward a broad-scale master planning approach, where a single developer or developer group takes control of a large area to implement their plans. Such developers are not only in charge of constructing buildings, but also investing in all of the infrastructure, laying out streets, etcetera, etcetera. A recent article, titled “Against Master Developers,” argues that this all-at-once, large-scale development doesn’t offer the environment in which resilient economic ecosystems emerge, and that the lack of risk distribution among the developers and public entities is inherently fragile. Clearly, it’s a take that’s relevant to the Strong Towns approach, which often contrasts this type of development pattern with traditional, incremental development. So, this week on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and special guest Daniel Herriges, Senior Editor of Strong Towns, “upzone” this article—i.e., they look at it through the Strong Town lens. They parse out the development process and all the components involved in developing a site, in general. They also discuss some of the nuance around how we define the terms “master developer” and “master planner,” and how that relates to the specific usage of these terms, in this article. Then, in the downzone, Daniel took some time off of work to bring his daughter back to his old stomping grounds, and Abby is getting ready for next month’s Parking Day festival. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 12 Jan 2022 | Population Growth and the Housing Crisis | 00:33:26 | |
Upzoned is back after a short hiatus for the winter break! To kick off 2022, Abby Kinney and regular cohost Chuck Marohn are looking at an article from Bloomberg, titled “U.S. Housing Crisis Only Gets Worse as Population Shrinks.” While this may seem contradictory, a smaller population does not necessarily result in more affordable housing for those looking for it. The author, Conor Sen, argues that people don’t want to live in places that are shrinking, and there will be even less housing demand in metro areas that were stagnant before the pandemic. Sen’s suggestion? When thinking about housing dynamics, we should start framing the U.S. as “384 metro areas (plus 50 million Americans who don't live in places big enough to qualify as a metro area) rather than one continuous country.” He argues this could help us understand where in the U.S. we might see continued decline or growth in population, and that national population stagnation could mean that housing affordability issues will worsen over time as people leave declining metro areas. Abby and Chuck “upzone” this notion of population growth driving the prosperity of cities, analyzing it through the Strong Towns lens—starting with the underlying premise that drives this article’s thesis, in the first place. Additional Show Notes | |||
| 12 Apr 2023 | One Reason American Architecture Is Considered Boring: Stairs | 00:33:51 | |
Have you ever wondered why multifamily housing has the same, copied look in most places? Part of the reason is due to the way regulations require architects to build stairs. On this Upzoned podcast, host Abby Kinney talks with special guest and architect Kevin Klinkenberg about how building codes and zoning laws can be helpful, yet at the same time limit building possibilities. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 14 Feb 2024 | Parking Minimums Might Be on the Way Out in Dallas | 00:43:42 | |
Local officials in Dallas are considering eliminating minimum parking requirements in the city. The zoning ordinance advisory committee just voted to advance the measure to the city planning commission, and if approved there, it would then go on to the city council. Critics believe that this is a one-size-fits-all approach to parking reform and that it’s not an ideal solution to Dallas’s parking dilemma, whereas proponents say the change will cut down on unused parking spaces and accelerate the city’s economic development. So, is this measure a good or a bad move for Dallas? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 17 Nov 2021 | The ”Bikelash” Phenomenon (and Why It Shouldn‘t Scare Local Leaders) | 00:27:18 | |
You may have noticed that bike lane projects tend to draw ire from neighborhood residents, but once they’re actually in place, residents realize they like their community when it’s more people centered and less car centered. Moreover, they tend to vote to reelect local leaders who implemented the bike projects in the first place. A recent article from The Guardian examines this pattern in different international cities, where new bike infrastructure is first created, and, subsequently, the local leader (usually a mayor) who led the project gets reelected. This, in spite of the backlash (or, if you like, “bikelash”) that such bike projects get in angry tweets and article headlines. The reasons behind this phenomenon are the subject of this week’s episode of Upzoned—hosted by special guests Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau (who also hosts The Bottom-Up Revolution) and Strong Towns Board Member John Reuter. By the way, it’s also Member Week at Strong Towns, and podcasts like Upzoned wouldn’t be possible without the support of our members! So join today to support the movement and help get this message out to more people who, like you, believe in making our places stronger and more financially resilient. Additional Show Notes
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| 16 Nov 2022 | Why Is It So Expensive To Build Public Transit in the U.S.? | 00:48:26 | |
A recent VICE article shares the conclusions of a report published by an NYU research group. The research, led by Alon Levy, spans some 15 years and demonstrates the extent to which transit projects in the U.S. are inflated compared to other countries around the world—and what we can do about it. For instance, the cost of constructing a subway in New York is double what it costs in Tokyo and 10 times what it costs in Paris. The research found New York to be the most expensive place to build transit in the world, and the lack of efficiency means we get less transit for more money, and we have a lot of public sector debt. Why is this the case? Levy offers several reasons, which Abby and Chuck unpack in today's episode. And by the way, it's Member Week at Strong Towns! We’re celebrating our members and everything that they do to make their communities stronger and more resilient. If you want to join this movement of a million local heroes, then do so by becoming a Strong Towns member today. | |||
| 19 Jan 2022 | Weaponizing Historic Preservation | 00:40:47 | |
Today on Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and regular co-host Chuck Marohn are joined by a special guest: Shomari Benton, the co-founder of Benton Lloyd & Chung (a law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, that specializes in land use and real estate). He is also an avid urbanist, historic preservation advocate, and small-scale developer. Together, they discuss an article from The Atlantic by Nolan Gray, titled “Stop Fetishizing Old Homes.” Gray takes a rather spicy approach to talking about historic preservation, and how it has ultimately harmed the capacity for many cities across the U.S. to develop a sufficient number of housing units in a housing crisis. He argues that the fetishization of old homes has encouraged our society to weaponize preservation in a self-righteous pursuit that clouds the more important need of building more housing. According to the author, we need to start getting serious about new construction, as opposed to preserving old housing—which he compares to poorly maintained, unsafe junker cars being forced back into service after their intended lifespan. What’s the Strong Towns take on this conversation? Find out as Abby, Chuck, and Shomari “upzone” it! Additional Show Notes | |||
| 24 Apr 2024 | Department of Justice Opens Criminal Investigation Into “Housing Cartel” | 00:56:42 | |
The U.S. Department of Justice is opening a criminal investigation into a major software company called RealPage, which is described in the lawsuit as the “big tech” company of rental housing. It provides software that is used by landlords (and, typically, landlords who are large holders of rental property) to estimate supply and demand for their listings in order to help them maximize rents. The question is whether or not RealPage is facilitating algorithmic price fixing for some of the largest residential property owners and management firms—amounting to what DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb has described as a “housing cartel.” And since Strong Towns has just released Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis, we figured there was no better time to discuss this story than now. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 22 Mar 2023 | High-Income Earners Are Renting Instead of Buying Homes | 00:33:52 | |
High-earning Americans are renting instead of buying homes. Some even say they plan to rent indefinitely. Why is that? In this week’s Upzoned episode, join host Abby Kinney and guest Norm Van Eeden Petersman as they talk about this trend. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 03 Apr 2024 | “Redesigning” Cincinnati With the Connected Communities Plan | 00:36:31 | |
Cincinnati is currently undergoing a significant planning reformation effort, which involves unveiling what’s being called the Connected Communities plan. It includes a number of proposed land-use-related policy changes that are intended to help Cincinnati grow, with the goal of advancing zoning code changes, as well as supporting diversification and affordability of housing and bolstering business districts. Here on Upzoned this week to talk with host Abby Newsham about the proposal is John Yung, an urban planner, Program Manager at the Haile Foundation, and co-leader of the Cincy host committee for the upcoming Congress for the New Urbanism, which (along with the Strong Towns National Gathering) will be taking place in Cincinnati in May. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 07 Aug 2024 | How To Handle Small-Scale Development Finance: Insights From Kansas City | 00:49:17 | |
In this episode of Upzoned, host Abby Newsham is joined by Jason Carter-Solomon, an incremental developer and commercial lender in Kansas City, to talk about financing small-scale development. They discuss the layers of risk that small-scale developers must navigate, and Solomon offers his perspective and advice on facing common challenges, such as dealing with entitlements and building inspectors. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES | |||
| 13 Mar 2024 | Traffic Deaths Now Exceed the Number of Homicides in LA. This Initiative Aims To Change That. | 00:35:22 | |
This week on Upzoned, host Abby Newsham is joined by Michael Schneider, founder of Streets for All and the campaign manager for Healthy Streets Los Angeles. They discuss an article from The Los Angeles Times titled, “L.A. bus and bike lane measure will cost $3.1 billion, a new report says. Backers cry foul.” This piece was written in advance of the ballot proposal Measure HLA, which was recently approved by voters, and mandates the installation of hundreds of miles of transportation improvements in L.A. over the next decade, with a focus on bike lanes and sidewalk improvements. (Editor’s note: This episode was recorded before the results of the ballot were released.) ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 14 Jun 2023 | Live From the National Gathering | 01:35:50 | |
A few weeks ago, the first Strong Towns National Gathering took place in Charlotte, NC. While people buzzed back and forth between sessions, Upzoned host Abby Kinney sat at a table and invited those walking by to join her on the podcast. This week, you’ll hear Strong Towns members from all over talking about who they are, what they’ve seen in their communities, and what they’re doing. Also, it’s Member Week at Strong Towns, and podcasts like Upzoned wouldn’t be possible without our members! Join today to support the movement and the advocates who are making our places stronger and more financially resilient. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 14 Aug 2024 | Indianapolis Empowers People and Drives Change Through Tactical Urbanism | 00:52:40 | |
Indianapolis officials are encouraging residents to be involved in improving the city, both through fund-matching programs and by opening a lending library of tools and equipment to help residents start pilot projects. In this Upzoned episode, co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn talk about how Indianapolis’ programs and initiatives are a great example of changing a city’s bureaucratic structure and processes to better meet residents’ needs. They discuss the growing pains that come with this kind of change and the necessity of officials and residents accepting failure as part of an incremental, experimental process. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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| 31 Aug 2022 | Professional Engineers: Speak Up. The Stakes Are Life and Death. | 00:34:28 | |
More than 40,000 people walking and biking are killed on America’s roadway each year by system designs that value speed and throughput more than safety and cost. Charles “Chuck” Marohn, Strong Towns founder and president, made the decision a decade ago to step outside the cloistered halls of the engineering profession to advocate for change in the way North American cities and infrastructure are designed. For those following a recent decision by the Minnesota licensing board to censure Chuck, today’s Upzoned episode (hosted by Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, as Abby Kinney takes a well-deserved break) offers a reflection of how his decision to become an activist, as well as a professional engineer, has caused ripples and fissures throughout the industry. Additional Show Notes
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| 19 Jul 2023 | Atlanta’s New Idea To Address Their Housing Crisis | 00:43:29 | |
The United States is in the midst of a housing crisis. More and more cities are recognizing that part of the issue is due to restrictive zoning laws, which make building affordable homes a difficult feat. On this episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney talks with the principal of Krongberg Urbanists and Architects, Eric Kronberg, on Atlanta’s new approach to addressing their housing issue. They’ll introduce the “social housing model” Atlanta plans to adopt, talk about the mixed-income housing aspects of Atlanta's plan, and explain what makes up a “Capital Stack.” ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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