Struggletown

On this episode of Pod Places, Jeff is joined by Aaron Domini, Principal at OHM Advisors, and Allen Penniman, Urban Planner and Designer for the City of Detroit. 

The three discuss issues plaguing the planning industry, including equity and inclusion, public engagement, a lack of implementation and plans that try and address everything. 

On this week's episode, we discuss First + Main Film's most recent installment of the Small Town Spirit Series. Filmmaker John Paget, joins Ryan and Jeff to discuss his experience visiting Monessen, Pennsylvania and how an optimistic young mayor is helping the community overcome its struggles. 

Brennan Kane joined for the Planning Festivus episode, in which we aired all of our  grievances with the industry. Jeff and Ryan had a chance to discuss Brennan's thoughts on how Covid impacted city planning, how the industry needs to change and why cookie monster might be the hero we all need. 

Phil Eich returns this week to discuss his new business, Storyville Social and how through storytelling, we can help residents learn to love their community again. We talked about John Paget's recent article on why we get branding all wrong and how a brand doesn't mean much if you don't meet the promises it makes. And finally, we discussed Ryan's Proud Places advent calendar and why taking small simple actions are the key to making permanent and meaningful change in a community. 

This week, on a special Thanksgiving edition of Pod Places, we were joined by Chef, magazine editor and Dean of the Hospitality School for Universidad Internacional del Ecuador in Quito, Ana Carolina Maldonado. We discussed the role food plays in creating great places, why a meal is so much more than eating, and how etiquette affects us all.

Ana Carolina Maldonado
Chef, blogger for La Comilona blog, magazine editor for Muyuyo magazine and Dean of the Hospitality School for Universidad Internacional del Ecuador in Quito. Dedicated to education for the last 17 years she has specialized her craft through her MBA and experience in F&B management such as catering businesses and restaurants. She is now dedicated to culinary marketing and communication through food.

Are we dressing more casual because we have no place fancy to go anymore, or are we more casual these days and we build to reflect this shift in our culture? This week on the pod, we discuss the casualness of our society and whether or not it has an impact on our places. 

Rural communities have been devastated by the repeal of economic regulations meant to protect them. As local businesses struggle to compete with ever expanding national chains, small towns keep losing out the the Fortune 500 host cities. We talk about what rural communities can do to combat these effects and how in raising standards, it becomes possible to level the playing field. 

We were joined this week by Deb Brown of Save Your Town. Deb is a consultant, public speaker, traveler and rural advocate. She is based in Iowa, but works all over the United States and Canada helping rural communities restore their economic health and sense of self. 

Ann Sussman is a registered architect and cognitive researcher. She joined us this week, along with guest host, Jaime Izurieta, to discuss her book, Cognitive Architecture, and how the places we build, shape our brain. Ann has done extensive research on the impact of architecture on the mind and how our modern places are having an extremely negative impact on our mental health.

Ann Sussman, RA, an architect, author and researcher is passionate about understanding how buildings influence people emotionally. Her book, Cognitive Architecture, Designing for How We respond to the Built Environment (2015), co-authored with Justin B. Hollander, won the 2016 Place Research Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). A frequent speaker, she has given more than 80 lectures at regional conferences, colleges and universities, including keynoting architecture events in Houston, Cincinnati and Nashville in 2017, and presenting at Greenbuild/Berlin in 2018 and Greenbuild/Amsterdam in 2019

Matt Shorraw was elected the Mayor of Monessen, Pennsylvania in 2018, when he was just 28 years old. Monessen is the archetypical Rustbelt town in the Monongahela Valley in Western Pennsylvania. Like so many other former steel towns in the region, Monessen has suffered from huge employment and population losses and deals with generational apathy. Matt's optimism helped him get elected, but his policy knowledge and small project approach has allowed him to be successful. 

Today, Ryan and Jeff were joined by community branding guru, Ben Muldrow. Ben came on to discuss his recent video "Guide to Winter Strategies" about how cities can prepare their downtowns for winter months. The conversation turned to strategies business can adopt to help cope with a decrease in foot traffic and other issues keeping local business from thriving. 

Ben Muldrow is a talented graphic artist who has been designing for over 25 years with experience in a wide variety of marketing applications. He provides community identity and branding services for communities across the United States. Ben has worked on a number of projects specializing in the development of city and neighborhood identities, wayfinding strategies, and promotional marketing material.

This week, hosts Ryan and Jeff were joined by First + Main Films Founder and Proud Places contributing member, John Paget. John is a co-founder of the Better Cities Film Festival, which just wrapped up its first year as a virtual event. The festival included 80 submissions on place, urbanism and cities. The three discussed the origins of the festival, some of the more memorable submissions and how the concept of place is starting to grow.