Environmental and civil engineer, professional hair braider, public health scholar, and triple HBCU alumna, Nemmi Cole, PhD joins the show to discuss outdoor air quality, warehouses, and respiratory health in California’s Inland Empire on the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast.

From 1980 to 2021 the number of warehouses and industrial buildings in the Inland Empire grew to 1 Billion Square Feet (1,000,000,000 SQ FT). Nearly 40% of all goods and products coming into the U.S travel on trucks through or sit in warehouses within San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. In 2024, the 5 most polluted cities in the entire nation were within the Inland Empire including Ontario and San Bernardino. Children and adults living in these communities have the highest rates of asthma, lung disease, and COPD in the State of California. Diesel trucks, industrial waste, truck idling, and output of industrial machinery contribute to chemicals in the air such as Sulfur Dioxide, Particulate Matter, Nitrogen Dioxide, and Volatile Organic Compounds. Our guest on the podcast is a native of San Bernardino so her work is personal. On the show Nemmi reminisces and laments the loss of parks and farmland in her community to industrial buildings and warehouses.

After completing her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Florida A&M University, our guest Dr. Nemmi Cole returned home to join the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California to study the impact of megawarehouses on children’s respiratory health outcomes in San Bernardino and Riverside County. Jasmine and Nemmi bonded over their shared passion for how neighborhood design shapes our mental and physical health. Download the episode to hear the civil engineering, environmental science, urban planning, and real estate perspective on warehouses, asthma, diesel trucks, globalization, zoning, and mental health.

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Read Nemmi Cole, Phd full bio:

Dr. Nemmi Cole is a researcher, engineer, and entrepreneur whose work sits at the intersection of science and social impact. Growing up in San Bernardino, California, with roots in Houston, Texas, she was driven by a deep intellectual curiosity about the world around her. That curiosity took her to Florida A&M University, where she became a proud triple alumna, earning her Bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Her professional background spans academia, state and federal government, and international research, including roles as a Florida Gubernatorial Fellow - Federal Affairs Fellow in Washington, D.C, and as a Regulatory Program Assistant with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Most recently, she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, where she led research focusing on the impact of the built environment on children’s respiratory health outcomes.

Off the clock, she has spent nearly 28 years running her business, Braids by Nemmi, where she treats hair as a sophisticated art form rooted in culture and care. As she steps into her next chapter as a future faculty member, her mission is to equip the next generation of engineers and STEM professionals with the knowledge and practical skills to translate their academic training into real-world impact.

References:

Kim C, Gharib C, Atamna H. Pediatric Asthma in the Inland Empire: Environmental Burden, Gaps in Preventive Care, and Unmet Needs. Children (Basel). 2025 Sep 4;12(9):1183. doi: 10.3390/children12091183. PMID: 41007048; PMCID: PMC12468150. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12468150/

Andre Perry. Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities. https://bookshop.org/p/books/know-your-price-valuing-black-lives-and-property-in-america-s-black-cities-andre-m-perry/6d4a4eab6505ab10?ean=9780815737278&next=t&next=t%2Ct

Rose Institute of State and Local Government. 2024 Inland Empire Outlook. https://roseinstitute.cmc.edu/research/inland-empire and https://roseinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IEO_Spring_2024_IE_Warehouses.pdf

Welcome back to The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! In this episode, our new-good friend, Roderick D. Hall joins the show! Roderick, is an urban planner, Los Angeles-transplant from rural North Carolina via the University of Oregon, housing advocate, former double-major in Political Science and Philosophy, and Marvel fan. Roderick is the Section Director for American Planning Association Los Angeles. APA LA is a professional development and urban planning advocacy non-profit organization, and the local arm of the National American Planning Association which has over 40K members across the U.S.

Roderick joins the show to mark the beginning of their term as the first Black and non-binary Section Director of the APA Los Angeles. We have an amazing conversation about their fun dirt road country upbringing and how that shapes their service to the community, the bundle of problems that contribute to the high cost of housing in Los Angeles, the joys of having family in close proximity, and how they hope to shape the future of the Los Angeles Section of the American Planning Association.

Roderick has over a decade of experience in urban planning. Rod shares insights on how urban planners and urban policy makers can and must use our existing tools to design and plan for equitable neighborhoods.

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Read Rod’s full bio below:

Roderick D. Hall is the Section Director for the Los Angeles Section of the American Planning Association and has been working in the field of urban planning and community development for a decade. Roderick serves as one of three co-chairs for the 2026 APA California state conference which will be held in Downtown Los Angeles October 3rd through 6th. Roderick is also a board member for the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust and Innovative Housing Opportunities, organizations that focus on the development of parks and affordable housing, respectively.

In addition to volunteering their time, Roderick is an affordable housing professional and works for the Los Angeles Housing Department where they nerd out affordable housing finance and asset management.

Follow the podcast on instagram @the4degreespod, watch this episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcast "The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast".

If this conversation was interesting to you write us a email sending us your feedback and thoughts at [email protected]

Priorities, politics, and pockets, the real PPP. If you want to know what the government cares about, check how they spend their money. In this first episode of Season Six of The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast we discuss how the federal government spends its $1,589,000,000,000 ($1.6 Trillion) dollar budget & how that spending directly relates to the political and social issues of 2026 such as DEI, immigration, and healthcare. And of course, how each of us can influence the political and financial system to champion our causes and benefit our neighborhoods. Our civil rights go well beyond voting; to calling, showing up at offices, writing letters, donating to candidates, and organizing our communities.

At the time this episode was recorded, the United States federal government was in a shut down. Congress had not solidified the upcoming fiscal year budget and technically all of the government hadn't been funded. In this episode we break down the six step process of putting together the U.S government budget, the players involved, and how a shut down happens.

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Follow the podcast on instagram @the4degreespod, watch this episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcast "The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast".

If this conversation was interesting to you write us an email sending us your feedback and thoughts at [email protected]

We love to hear from you!

The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast is celebrating its 5 year anniversary! Celebrate with us with a re-play of one of our favorite episodes from season two. A panel discussion with four Black women, working in four different sectors of the built environment, in four different cities, all with the same singular approach: improving the quality of life through urban planning. Your host is joined by Michelle Juma: project manager, real estate investment strategist and graduate student; Nimo Azeez former co-host of the podcast, and Jasmine Burnett community organizer, strategist, and narrative designer. This episode heats up as we get through it, so make sure to listen till the end.

This episode is for anyone at an inflection point in their career. The host and guests share their stories of making pivots in their career, the struggle to make the decision and the joy that comes from the result.

This episode is for anyone curious about urban planning/city design/real estate industries, each of the panelists are educated under the same degree: city planning but work in four vastly different roles. Give us a listen if you're wondering what “urban planning” entails and how you can enter the profession.

Where are the entrepreneurs? This episode is critical for independent creatives, social justice advocates, and others who want to do good in this world. The panelists are entrepreneurs and 9-5’ers wanting to grow, guests share our story of making the transition from employee to entrepreneur.

Finally, this episode is for anyone curious about how cities work. Through discussion of our roles as policy makers, designers of neighborhoods, and financiers of housing you will learn about the system of cities.

The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast is celebrating its five year anniversary!! This episode is a re-play of our season 2 episode “Four Degrees, Four Careers” from way back in 2021. But don’t worry, the topic of doing good for your community while earning a living and enjoying your life is still relatable today in 2025.

Thank you for listening to the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast. Share this episode with a friend or family member who cares about their neighborhood.

Don’t Sell Your Gramma’s House is a plea. A plea to first assess all of your options before selling property owned in a neighborhood experiencing gentrification.

Gentrification is the process of a neighborhood's economic and social make up or character changing. The economic changes often include: significantly higher rents, property tax increases, store closings of small businesses, store openings of new locations for major franchises, demolition of older homes and replacement with modern large homes, and brand new apartment buildings. To support these economic changes, the neighborhood’s population changes dramatically. The social character of a neighborhood changes as current renters are priced out of the market and current landowners sell or lose their property. In the place of the existing residents, enter a younger and wealthier population.

This episode is for property owners who want to play the long game in gentrification. Jasmine Jones-Bynes pulls from her tenure in commercial real estate finance to offer five steps for property owners to protect themself from displacement and generate profit during gentrification. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list but a starting guide to making a well-informed decision about property owned in a gentrifying community. Jasmine draws on her own lived experience growing up in a community experiencing gentrification and fighting to protect her family's assets. The steps offered are the source of both professional and personal experience.

This episode is a follow-up to Jasmine’s conversation on the Black Womens Healing Podcast, watch the episode on YouTube here. 

Follow us on instagram @the4degreespod or send us an email at [email protected] 

Resources from the episode: 

Displaced By Design National Community Reinvestment Coalition

 Andre Perry Know Your Price:Valuing Black Lives and Property in America's Black Cities

A different approach to boarded-up houses and devalued homes: Catalysts for community-led renewal in Black neighborhoods

Sustainable for whom? Green urban development, environmental gentrification, and the Atlanta Beltline

The Black Urbanist Substack 

Zoning as discussed on the show: 

Planning for a Growing Metropolitan Area while Growing your Planning Career

Planning for Impact with Desiree "Dee" Powell

Failing to plan is planning to fail   

A special collaboration episode with Black Women Healing Podcast and the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! Jasmine, host of the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast, joins Myra and Donika, hosts of the Black Women Healing Podcast to talk about city planning and mental health. You can watch this episode on YouTube here. 

Jasmine (New Jersey suburbs), Myra (Inglewood, California), Donika (Louisville, Kentucky) share their relationship with the field or industry of urban planning; the first time taking a city-wide public bus, the struggle of finding community after moving to a new city, and watching their hometown change through gentrification. 

The conversation gets local with all three ladies living and working in Los Angeles, California. The discussion shifts to fighting gentrification in Inglewood and South Central LA amongst planning decisions for SoFi Stadium, LAX, and metro line expansion. The message “DON’T SELL YOUR GRAMMA HOUSE” rings throughout the conversation as we break down some causes and solutions to gentrification, both personal and political. 

The hosts explore how the absence or presence of parks and greenspace [urban planning] impacts anxiety and depression [mental health], how certain infrastructure like highways can lead to health issues like asthma while others such as bike lanes and wide sidewalks fight diabetes and heart disease. The conversation sites research from The Trust for Public Land, New York City Community Parks Initiative, and Smart Growth America. 

The episode is available to watch on YouTube and listen on all streaming platforms.

Jasmine is so honored to be featured as a guest on the Black Women Healing Podcast! A special thank you and shout out to Myra Hollis and Donika Brown hosts of the Black Women Healing Podcast! Black Women Healing Podcast is a safe space hosted by two License Marriage and Family Therapists navigating the mental health field and the mental health world. Using their real-life experiences and expertise as professionals, this podcast will take you on a journey that starts and/or continues our viewer's healing. We bring realness and the work to do. 

Donovan X. Ramsey, author of When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era joins the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast to explore the relationship between the crack era and urban planning. 

The crack epidemic, more commonly known as the crack era, was the decade between 1985-1995 of high crack-cocaine use and distribution in U.S. cities and urban areas. The period birthed the “War on Drugs”, a series of laws that gave police permission to patrol and harass everyone in any neighborhood associated with the substance, created mandatory sentencing terms for drug-related offenses, punished users more severely than dealers, and did very little for substance abuse treatment for addicts. Popular media told the story of the crack epidemic through caricatures of “crackheads”, “crack babies”, and “super predators” to describe people, mostly Black people living in cities, impacted or associated with the substance. 

The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast invited Donovan X. Ramsey to the show to discuss the complex relationships between the crack epidemic, the war on drugs, urban policy, and the Black lived experience. Together, Donovan and Jasmine, explore the synergy between the war on drugs and urban renewal, Hope IV, the Federal Highway Act, and other urban planning policies. Ramsey shares his thoughts on how America heals from the crack epidemic. The conversation pulls back the curtain on the lies, stereotypes, and misunderstandings about the crack epidemic to enlighten listeners and champion the voices of those forgotten due to their association with the substance: crack-cocaine. 

When Crack Was King: A People’s History Of A Misunderstood Era is dedicated to “the misunderstood, the marginalized, and the maligned”. The goal of the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast is  “to empower and provide tools to overcome structural and institutional barriers”. Download the episode to hear how these two missions collide. 

And listen till the end for an exclusive on Ramsey’s next project. 

The special guest for this episode is Donovan X. Ramsey, his full bio is written below: 

Donovan X. Ramsey is an indispensable voice on issues of identity, culture, and patterns of power in America. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, WSJ Magazine, Ebony, and Essence, among other outlets. He has been a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, NewsOne, and theGrio. He has served as an editor at The Marshall Project and Complex. Ramsey is the author of When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era, a work of narrative nonfiction exploring how Black America survived the crack epidemic for One World, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House. He holds degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Morehouse College.

“Tell me your zip code, and I’ll tell you your life expectancy” famously stated by Dr. Anthony Iton of University of California - Berkeley to describe the dynamic relationship between race, class, neighborhood design, and public health. This episode is about just Environmental Justice - defined in community organizing as “the right of all people to live, work, and play in a clean and healthy environment, regardless of race, class, gender, or geography”. 

The host of the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast, Jasmine, is joined by Brittany Simmons, better known as @signedbritt to her 70,000+ followers on social media, to discuss environmental justice (injustice). Brittany is an urban planning professional with a content creation platform on Instagram, TikTok, and Substack. This episode is one of a 26-part series titled “The Planning Alphabet” on the for the city girls Substack website. In the episode the host and special guest discuss zip code 48217 in Detroit, known as Michigan's most polluted zip code. In which the neighborhood’s predominantly Black residents have been in a decades-long fight with the adjacent oil refinery company over air pollution and related asthma, cancer, and mental health issues. 

The Flint Michigan Water Crisis, Cancer Alley in Louisiana, and the Cross-Bronx Expressway are a handful of examples of environmental injustice in the United States. These are cases of air, water, and soil pollution that result from policy decisions and disproportionately impact minority and low-income communities negatively. In the episode, the host and special guest Brittany Simmons discuss the evolution of environmental justice from smoke-stacks and waste dumping to highways and food deserts as well as the implications of environmental quality on human health outcomes. 

Brittany Simmons Bio:

Brittany Simmons is a Detroit-based urban planner and storyteller who leads place-based, community-driven strategies to create more livable and equitable, vibrant cities. With experience in both New York City and Detroit, she brings a creative, interdisciplinary lens to urban planning, rooted in a deep understanding of people, place, and culture. Brittany’s expertise in community engagement ensures that local voices are centered at every stage of planning and development. Beyond her professional practice, she is also a content creator who shares insights on urban planning and city life, making the field more accessible and inspiring new conversations about the future of our cities. 

Share this episode with a friend who cares about their neighborhood! 

Thank you for listening to The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! Follow us on Instagram @the4degreespod and send us an email at [email protected].

Connect with Brittany on Instagram and TikTok @signedbritt and subscribe to the for the city girls Substack here.  

Think of your favorite debate show like First Take or Inside the NBA on TNT and replace sports with urban planning. That is what you can expect in this episode. 

The host, Jasmine, sits down with one of her best friends and fellow urban planner, Jonathan Braun, to discuss the housing affordability crisis, equitable access to public transportation, commonly ignored problems with electric vehicles, and so much more. Jonathan Braun is a senior consultant in urban planning working on transportation, land use, and environmental projects across the United States. Jonathan was born in Manhattan and raised in the New York City-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metropolitan statistical area before spending formative years in rural Iowa. In the episode he shares how these places shaped his opinions on the built environment.

This episode is the result of a six year friendship in urban planning. The Friends in Urban Planning episode is two friends going back and forth (like an Aaliyah record) about the issues of cities with a trained eye. The conversation at times is serious as we discuss the public health risks of transportation and at times straight hilarious when Jonathan shares his Washington, D.C theft story. 

Share this episode with a friend who cares about their neighborhood! 

Thank you for listening to The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! Follow us on Instagram

@the4degreespod and send us an email at [email protected].

If you had to describe the first three months of 2025 in one word, what would you say? For me, the first quarter of 2025 was bananas!! This episode is the 1st of quarterly bonus episodes summarizing all things city planning that happened in the previous 90 days. In addition to our regularly scheduled programming, our monthly episodes, these four times a year quarterly episodes take a broader view at the goings-on (things happening) across the U.S and sometimes internationally at the intersection of urban planning x community development. 

Q1 2025 Review in Urban Planning starts in January with Donald Trump taking the U.S Presidential/Executive office, the host: Jasmine and hundreds of thousands of people in Los Angeles having to evacuate their homes because of wildfires, and wraps up in March with a coast to coast run down of the hottest real estate deals. 

Listen to this episode to hear takes on: 

• Donald Trump’s first 90ish days as the 47th President of the United States 
• How the host: Jasmine navigated the historic Los Angeles Wildfires 
• Consequences and opportunities for cities with Forever 21 bankruptcy and store closings 
• Hot List of Real Estate Deals: Hudson Yards (New York, NY), Poplar Point Redevelopment (Washington, D.C), office-to-residential construction (Los Angeles, CA)

References:

Greater Los Angeles Wildfires - January 2025

Forever 21’s Bankruptcy Could Be a Win for Mall Owners  

Mayor Bowser Announces Selection of Therme Group’s Inclusive Health and Wellbeing Destination for Poplar Point

Therme Group 

About NYC Community Boards

Hudson Yards casino proposal by Related and Wynn Resorts rejected by Manhattan Community Board 4

Jamison Starts Mixed-Use Conversion