Livable City

Part II of my conversation with Doug Gordon, host of The War on Cars podcast and local better streets advocate in Brooklyn, NY. In this part we get even deeper on the way cars have impacted our cities and Doug has some very good advice on how you can begin to push back on cars where you live.

You can find Part I before this episode released on March 23.

Follow the work of Doug on Twitter and definitely check out his work with The War on Cars podcast.

Brought to you by SquadCast and post-production by Creekmore Music.

Are we talking about a literal war on cars here...not quite. Cars do have their legitimate place in our cities. But in many cities they’ve become the only real and viable way of getting around for millions of people and that comes with many, many problems unleashed on society at large. So where do cars belong in our cities then?

My guest today is podcast host and Brooklyn New York better streets activist Doug Gordon with the very fun and popular podcast called The War on Cars.

In this episode Doug talks about what he means by the podcast name and how it came to be. He also talks about why he lives in a massive city like New York City, what a livable neighborhood is like and all of the ways that a city oriented around the car prevents cities from being truly livable.

My conversation with Doug was a fascinating one and one that went long enough that I decided to release it in two parts. So this is the first part of the series.

Follow the work of Doug on Twitter and definitely check out his work with The War on Cars podcast.

Brought to you by SquadCast and post-production by Creekmore Music.

How does transit affect the livability of a place? Turns out, quite a bit. My guest today, Jeff Wood of the Talking Headways podcast, talks about how important it is to be able to experience your city through as many different transportation options as possible. 

A commonly held belief, particularly in North America, is that cars bring true personal freedom, but Jeff talks about why reality is actually quite the opposite. A place designed around the car is one that inherently makes it difficult to create experiential places, places that you want to be in that are public and outdoors. They make it difficult to connect with people around you by making places more stretched out and hostile to anything but moving through them.

A livable place is one that deprioritizes the car and values creating places where transit, walking, cycling and yes, even scooters, are the first thoughts. It doesn’t mean zero cars but it does mean low-car; for those that truly still need a car.

Jeff is founder and principal at his own architecture and urban planning company called the Overhead Wire, podcast host of Talking Headways and the Overhead Wire which is also the name of a weekly transit-oriented newsletter highlighting some of the best transit news from 1500 articles from around the world.

Follow Jeff on Twitter and on Instagram.

Join the Livable City community conversation. Support Livable City and the production costs by becoming a member.

Brought to you by SquadCast and post-production by Creekmore Music.

How calm and enjoyable is your neighborhood, your town, your city? I’m not talking about a sleepy place where very little is going on, but a vibrant place that is still, even while bustling, calm and enjoyable for the vast majority of people who live there or move through it. If not your town or city, then have you visited one where you really noticed and enjoyed this aspect about that place?

When people go and visit a place like the cities of the Netherlands where they are described as being low car. Even if one didn’t grow up in a Dutch city, most end up loving these places and even go home wondering why their home city is disproportionately car-dominated and not calm nor enjoyable. In fact our places designed around the car are downright forgettable and even hostile. So where have we gone wrong over the years in tricking ourselves into believing that we actually prefer car-dominated places?

My guests today are Chris and Melissa Bruntlett of Modacity fame. Chris and Melissa are well known by many who think a lot about these kinds of things. They have the very popular Twitter and Instagram feeds that tell the story about the amazing things that are possible when we change our mindsets and our relationship to the car.

And make no mistake, it really is our mindset around how we view our daily lives, our neighborhoods and how we get to work, to school and everything in between. Consider how fast the US reduced the total number of people who smoke cigarettes once the US as a nation decided it was no longer in our best interests together to keep promoting tobacco use.

Cycling, on the other hand, has only benefits of many kinds to contribute to a city and its residents. And as Chris and Melissa discuss, they’ve found firsthand that a city, and really a nation, that is oriented towards walking and cycling first is the most accessible, the most convenient, the most humane and dare we say, the most livable. Food for thought.

Follow the work of Chris and Melissa with Modacity on Twitter or Instagram and definitely check out their work at the Modacity website where you can be inspired by their work and get involved.

Also if you like the work that Chris and Melissa are doing, consider checking out their book Building the Cycling City and purchasing a copy to help them keep bringing their story to the world about the wonders of Dutch cycling cities.

Brought to you by SquadCast and post-production by Creekmore Music.

What does it take to lead change? Ultimately, it means taking action and not just getting stuck thinking about taking action. For my guest today, Gary Reiter, this was a conscious decision that he wrestled with and ultimately decided on if he was to help make a difference in his neighborhood in Indianapolis.

Gary is a dynamic guy with a ton of energy. He’s going to inspire you to get out of your home and see what kind of change is truly possible that you can lead.

He mentions the idea of intellectual and network capital. We all have it and we are all capable of developing more. What will you do with yours, how will you invest it in your neighborhood? Will you sit on the sidelines, complaining on social media what it, or will you become a doer?

The choice is yours.

Gary is a trust office for a large financial institution by day, but by night and weekends he is someone who makes change happen by networking with people, taking risks and committing to show up to find out what’s possible.

Outside of his day job, Gary has an impressive resume of being a doer of change:

• People for Urban Progress - 1st Board President 
• Indy Fringe Theatre Festival - Board Chair
• Riley Area Development CDC for affordable housing and economic Development - Board Chair
• Indianapolis Plan 2020 Fellow that led to creation of the $13 million Equitable Transit Oriented Development Fund

And it’s not about the resume to point to, it’s about the actual change that helps peoples’ lives that matters.

Follow Gary on Twitter.

Bike lanes are sometimes controversial in communities because they’re seen as something encroaching on the space, efficiency and our limited time in getting somewhere by car. Love cars or hate them, for many places in the world they’re the primary and many times only current way of getting somewhere. And we’re not here to solve this debate once and for all. But my guest today believes that one should be able to choose to use their bike, particularly in dense towns or cities, to get somewhere and not feel like their very life is threatened.

My guest is Christina Whitehouse, founder of the popular bike lane obstruction reporting and analytics software platform Bike Lane Uprising. Christina shares the genesis of Bike Lane Uprising, how to use it and where it might be heading.

She also shares a very helpful perspective that most of our city leaders do their very best with the tools that they’re given. Like previous guest Joanna Taft brought up, it’s critical that we lead with empathy first and always, even when we’re frustrated by dangerous situations like the lack of safety in biking around where you live. It’s only with empathy that change is even possible.

Follow the work of Christina with Bike Lane Uprising on Twitter or Instagram and definitely check out her work at the website where you can get involved and support her work.

Also a correction to the handles that are mentioned for Twitter and Instagram. They are both @livable_city.

Gentrification, cultural shifts, crime, unsafe streets, poverty and disconnection. They all sound pretty bleak especially when considered together. But my guest, Joanna Taft, has been experimenting along with her neighbors in the Herron Morton neighborhood in Indianapolis and have found some remarkably sensitive and effective ways to begin to reverse these trends. She has discovered the healing and effective power of art, empathy, personal connection and refraining from making sweeping judgements about the people around her. If anything, it could be said that Joanna takes a deliberate and meditative approach to living in her place keeping her posture open towards connection instead of disconnection.

Joanna Taft is the Executive Director of the Harrison Center for the Arts and co-founder of Herron Highschool in Indianapolis.

Find Joanna online: Twitter, Instagram

More about PreEnact Indy and a TedX talk given by Joanna

A tough but real pair of questions: do you know anyone, are you good friends with anyone within a short walk of your home? And how much of your life can you live everyday without needed to leave it to buy something?

In this episode, I interview Jacob Moses where he talks about these kinds of things for the neighborhood that he lives in Denton, Texas. Jacob shakes up the status quo for how we normally treat strangers by setting an amazing example for how to befriend people in your neighborhood and how to get to know them. Oh, and yes he’ll give you good reasons why you should even want to do this in the first place.

Why do we fear and resist doing this sort of thing and believe that being anonymous in our neighborhood is what we prefer?

I challenge all of us to reconsider this by doing some conversational experimentation looking for ways to keep connecting with these strangers around us until they become acquaintances and hopefully turn into friends.

And what can you do together with your new-found acquaintances to take small but deliberate steps towards improving the neighborhood that you share ownership of?

Jacob is the Community Builder for Strong Towns, an amazing organization doing the hard work of building financially strong and resilient communities. He’s the host of two weekly podcasts It’s the Little Things and The Not-Boring Tech Writer. Connect with Jacob on Twitter.

“I’m a sucker for walking in that neighborhood with narrow streets, wide sidewalks with a beautiful mix of single family homes, duplexes, four-plexes…” - Jacob Moses

Resources to help you connect better in your neighborhood:

• Strong Towns Strength Test for neighborhoods, towns and cities
• Strong Towns book: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
• Tactical Urbanism book

That's right, trains are greater than cars if you care about livable places. There, I said it - now for some background...

Have you ever experienced something so transformational that it caused you to make a major shift in how you do something?

My guest for this episode, Mike Christensen, had a large shift that completely changed the direction of his life. This came from an experience with the humble train on a trip to Europe with his father which impacted him deeply - so much so that years later in life he sold his car and has never looked back since.

In this episode, you’ll hear Mike talk about how this radically changed how he experienced his home of Salt Lake City, Utah and then inspired his educational and professional direction. You'll also hear him share how it's relationally connected him to so many people in his place.

Mike founded the Utah Rail Passengers Association.

Questions should go into our Facebook Group or DM me on Twitter @livable_city or Instagram @livable_city. Also join our Facebook Group to participate in group discussion around this episode.

Thanks for listening!

How do we make change of such massively complex ways of doing things for our cities and towns? My guest today has many thoughts about this and much practical advice to share.

In this sixth episode, I interview Michael Schneider where we talk about the gridlocked streets of Los Angeles and how he started the non-profit and coalition to change this, Streets For All. Michael has a ton of practical advice on how to channel your frustrations about your neighborhood into getting started making change.

He recommends starting with understanding your frustrations well, then go meet people and leaders where you live. Listen, don’t be afraid to ask even the dumb questions about why things are the way they are and then point out your frustrations to them. See if people share in your frustrations. Lead people into a new vision that inspires positive change and forms meaningful relationships. Remember that change is lasting when you have shared values with those around you.

Notable things Michael mentioned during the interview:

“Safely crossing the street outside where you live is a basic human thing.”

“We don’t need to live this way” on being stuck in traffic and choking on polluted air.

“Shift from blue skies and blind optimism” to “practical optimism that things can change”.