Active Towns

In this episode, I connect with Holly Bennett, a world traveler, endurance athlete, and remote worker extraordinaire. She shares her story of personal transformation, commitment to active living, and some of the amusing things that happen to her when she’s out running and riding.

Holly also shares how a four-month-long bicycle trip changed her life trajectory and inspired a passion for movement

Additional Advice and Helpful Links from Holly:
 

Banjo Brothers Panniers

Nite Ize Bike Lights

Felt Bicycles

Go to your local bike shop, test ride a few different bikes, and buy the one that you feel the most comfortable on—doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive, just comfortable. Because the better you feel on the bike, the more likely you are to ride. You can also get inexpensive bikes at places like Costco, Target, etc.—so even if smaller shops are closed now, there are options. But your best bet is to establish a relationship with your local shop, as you’ll get more personalized service and advice.

Learn to change a flat tire! It’s a basic yet critical skill to have—and it’s not that hard. When I started riding regularly, I went to my local shop and asked them to show me how. Check your local shop or your community recreation program for basic bike mechanic classes. Or go online—you can learn just about anything on YouTube. Now, during the lockdown is the perfect time to practice! You’ll feel much more empowered when you know how to handle a flat, and your rides won’t get cut short unexpectedly by having to call for someone to pick you up on the road.

Carry basic tools: tube/patch kit, pump/co2, tire iron, allen wrench set for minor adjustments

Be prepared—pack snacks and plenty of fluids. What I carry on my bike right now in the Arizona heat:

• insulated Avana Sedona tumbler filled with ice water (the tapered tumbler fits perfectly in the coffee cup holder)
• insulated BlenderBottle Hydration Halex bottle* (designed to fit in bike bottle cages, this bottle has a unique vertical mode and integrated straw, allowing you to take a refreshing drink while keeping your eyes on the road) *btw the Halex is a brand new release and will be available on June 26th
• large insulated Owala FreeSip bottle (this bottle has a leak-proof, locking lid—I keep the 32-oz. size in my pannier full of ice water, then use it to refill my tumbler as needed)
• mixed nuts and dried fruit packed in Whiskware Snacking Containers
• Clif Bars

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Island Temptation by Sander Kalmeijer via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I catch up with the Boulder-based Follow Our Footprints dynamic duo Dom Nozzi and Maggie Waddoups of Boulder, Colorado. Dom and Maggie, as a couple, are enthusiastic supporters of the Active Towns Initiative, which we sincerely appreciate, and cheerleaders for all things associated with creating more livable, walkable, bikeable, and lovable places. 

Dom is a veteran urbanist and author of the book Road to Ruin: An Introduction to Sprawl and How to Cure It, whereas Maggie is a relative newcomer to the topic and provides a truly refreshing perspective to the discussion. 

We cover a wide range of subjects including their move to a downtown adjacent condo just a block away from Pearl Street, Maggie’s introduction to Dutch upright bikes and utilitarian cycling, the Mapleton Hill PorchFest, as well as their new blog Follow Our Footprints which strive to show how to engage in self-guided, affordable, unforgettable travel to the historic old town centers of Western Europe

“Bicycling in Europe is a lot of fun. You can bicycle almost anywhere in Europe – and not the kind of cycling where you put on your lycra and a helmet and push through 75 miles in a day. I am talking about riding a bicycle around town to see sights and visit neighborhoods, pedal through parks, and even ride to neighboring villages – all at a leisurely and enjoyable pace, and without getting run down by cars or feeling unsafe.”

Additional Helpful Links:

Follow Our Footprints Facebook page

Holiday Neighborhood

Victor Dover - Dover, Kohl & Partners Town Planning

PorchFest Mapleton Hill

Start Your Own PorchFest

Active Towns 2019 PorchFest Video

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Driving Passion by Simon Jomphe Lepine via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I connect with Alissa Walker with Curbed for a virtual stroll in Los Angeles. 

Alisa lives in Los Angeles, where she is a co-host of LA Podcast, a contributor to the KCRW show Greater LA, and a mom to the city's two most enthusiastic public transit riders.

From her bio at Curbed...

"Alissa Walker connects people with where they live through writing, speaking, and walking. As the urbanism editor at Curbed, she authors the column Word on the Street, highlighting the pioneering transit, clever civic design, and game-changing policy affecting our cities.

For her writing on design and urbanism, Alissa has been named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow and Journalist of the Year by Streetsblog Los Angeles. In 2012 her project Good Ideas for Cities was selected for inclusion in the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2015 she received the Design Advocate award from the LA chapter of the American Institute of Architects. She is also the co-founder of design east of La Brea, a nonprofit that has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants supporting its LA design events."

We cover a wide variety of topics in this episode, including walking in LA, the impacts of Covid-19 on transit and transportation, bike share, and so much more.

Additional Helpful Links

Alissa’s May 13 article about Covid-19 Impacting her family

Missing Persons “Walking in LA”

Purple Line Subway Extension 

Curbed article on Bike Share 

Metro Bike System

My Figueroa Project

The Pandemic Has Turned Los Angeles Into a Walker City by Geoff McFetridge, NYTimes, April 23, 2020

“When this is over, I don’t want the traffic to come back. I want all this extra time with my family. I want to hold on to this quietness.” 

“I want to see people walking our streets and not feel that their presence is somehow related to the world’s falling apart.” 

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

 Indie a la Mode by Will Dan De Crommert and Reflect for Later by William L Newman both via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I connect with Jeff Wood, founder of The Overhead Wire, a sustainable transportation and urbanism consulting firm and weekly news curation service. Jeff is also the founder and primary host of the Talking Headways Podcast, which is associated with Streetsblog USA

Jeff gives us some background about the firm, its name, and a view into the current situation in San Francisco.

Additional Helpful Links:

San Francisco Open Streets article

SF Covid-19 Response

Reconnecting America

New Zealand's Response: Funding Popup Bike Lanes

Active Towns Podcast episode with Mike Lydon

Austin's Transit Plan: Project Connect

The Rail~Volution Podcast

Active Towns Podcast Episode with Kea Wilson 

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Joyful Ride by Simon Jomphe Lepine via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I reconnect with Amanda Popken, principal owner of Amanda Popken Development, for an inspiring conversation about her placemaking & community engagement activities, which have an emphasis on building resilient neighborhoods and cities. And as you'll quickly learn she sees active mobility playing a critical role in achieving these goals.

Additional and Helpful Links:

Strong Towns

CNU - Congress for the New Urbanism

Active Towns Podcast episode with Mike Lydon

Streetsblog 

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Welcome Home by Neil Cross and Ultimate Inspiration by Sander Kalmeijer via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I reconnect with Lynn Richards, President & CEO of CNU (the Congress for the New Urbanism), a membership-based organization dedicated to building places people love.

New urbanists are a diverse, multidisciplinary, action-oriented group working to build places people love.

As head of CNU, Richards has launched the organization’s Project for Code Reform, which helps meet local governments where they are on their code reform process. Additionally, under her leadership, the organization has released two editions of Freeways without Futures, 25 Great Ideas of New Urbanism and Building Local Strength: Emerging Strategies for Inclusive Development.

Additional Helpful Links:

CNU's On the Park Bench
Virtual Public Engagement featuring Victor Dover, with Dover, Kohl, & Partners Town Planning
Mike Lydon, with Street Plans
R. John Anderson and the Incremental Development Alliance

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Building a Dream by soundscape via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I talk with Peter Norton, author of Fighting Traffic about some of the parallels of the dawn of the motor age with our current pandemic and the push for more people-oriented space on our streets.

We are in the midst of truly extraordinary times, there's no doubt about it, but with the current push to reclaim our streets from the motor vehicle to facilitate a bit of physical distancing while getting a breath of fresh air, who better to welcome into the Active Towns Podcast than the preeminent transportation historian, Peter D. Norton, Associate Professor of History in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, published in 2008, by the MIT Press.

Additional Helpful Links:

Fietsstraat (or bicycle priority street)

Woonerf (or shared street)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Level of Service (LOS)

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Happy News by Evgeny Kiselevich via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I catch up with Kea Wilson, Senior Editor with Streetsblog

As a writer of novels and a journalist, Kea is constantly constructing compelling narratives that move people. We caught up with her last week as she was sheltering in place at her home in St. Louis, MO.

In her role with Streetsblog she produces and publishes a healthy amount of content that we frequently share on the Active Towns social media channels.

She's also quite passionate about affordable housing and she's stepped up to put her own "skin-in-the-game" by purchasing and renovating a multi-family property, providing high quality, well-maintained places.

Some Helpful Links:

Streetsblog USA

We Eat Our Own Kea's Novel

Kea's Strong Towns Contributor Page

Our episode with Mike Lydon highlighting Tactical Urbanism

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Hip Hop Power Rap by Bobby Cole via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I reconnect with Mark Nickita of Archive DS for some city-building banter. We cover a lot of ground in this episode as we catch up with Mark Nickita, mainly because he is one very busy guy. He's a city commissioner and former mayor of Birmingham, MI, an architect and founder of the firm, Archive DS (short for Design Studio: he explains the name in detail in the episode), splits his time between Birmingham, Detroit, and Toronto, while maintaining an ambitious (prior to our current pandemic lockdown) international travel schedule.

Helpful Links:

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)

The National Association for City Transportation Officials (NACTO)

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Snap It Up by William Pearson via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.

In this episode, I reconnect with Chuck Marohn, President of Strong Towns, for a discussion about how he came to experience and understand how our shifting human habitat patterns have contributed to the financial insolvency of our cities and compromised our health and well-being and most importantly how we can turn things around, even in the midst of a global pandemic.

Helpful Links:

Strong Towns Community

Strong Towns Podcast

Strong Towns Videos

The Impact of Shade: San Antonio Video

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)

Smart Code book

Front Street in Brainerd, MN – article

Joe Minicozzi and Urban 3

Mike Lydon with Street Plans

Victor Dover with Dover, Kohl, & Partners Town Planning

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Funky is as Funky Does & Upbeat Funky Good Times by Jason Donnelly via AudioBlocks.com

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.