It's invaluable to have people who are able to step back and see our community as a whole and how it compares with other towns across the country. This week we sit down with one of the best that I know. You can find my full discussion with Danielle Richard here.

Here are the questions I asked:

0:29 1. I put you in with previous guests like Mack McCarter and LeVette Fuller, as one of the great thinkers about community that we have. And I want to nerd out today with you talking about and looking at our community.

But let’s start here. Let’s just level set.

You grew up in Franklin Parish, in Winnsboro, LA. Tell me a little about growing up in Winnsboro.

4:38 2. You are the owner and creative director of Richard Creative. Tell me about Richard Creative and some of the different services you offer.

6:55 3. You have studied social systems, writing an extremely thoughtful book entitled System Redesign Handbook For A Humane Era: Harnessing 12,000 Years of Knowledge to Edit Systems for Human Thriving.

Tell me some of the things you concluded that make a system more humane?

14:32 4. We have a sprawl issue in this community. Talk to me about some of the ways we can begin getting our core more densely populated.

25:32 5. In your book, you look at systems and explain that we made them all up as humans and so we have the power to un-make them as much as we want. I have heard you talk about City Building, Historic Preservation, Infrastructure and Transportation, Planning, and Incremental Development.

In our community, what systems would you prioritize as ripe for a redesign?