The Messy City Podcast

From Iain, whose excellent site you can find at this link:

The term 'messy' is a growing one when it comes to cities just now, and it's a refreshing one in what has for the last little while been the domain of the planner, who tends to see the world from the top down. But what makes cities, and indeed a lot of companies, so good is that they embrace what comes from the bottom up.

In cities that means what's happening on the street, and how the people are shaping it. In companies it means the front line staff or factory worker being empowered to make changes when they notice something.

Anyway, my most recent guest for Challenger cities was Kevin Klinkenberg who has been writing about The Messy City for a while now. So I loved hearing his stories of applying this in his own realm of Kansas City.

We talked art walks, roundabouts, neighbourhoods, backyard cottages and the trouble of trying to be neat, tidy and perfect all the time. I suspect people will be really into this one, and a bit thanks to Karen from Strong Towns for making the connection!

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

Usually when a Kansas Citian talks about Memphis, it’s to discuss their bbq vs ours. And trust me, they do make some good ribs on Memphis. But today we are here to learn about housing and redevelopment. The City of Memphis has taken some solid steps in recent years to reform all manner of codes and processes to enable more and better housing options. John Zeanah joins me to discuss the specifics.

There’s a lot in here for the policy wonks, and I’m here for it as well. But what I love the most is the attitude displayed by John, and his statement that they want to be problem solvers, not just regulators. What you hear from him is someone not content to check a box, do a plan and let it sit, or issue platitudes. This is what it looks like when people get their hands dirty, and truly work to fix issues that need fixing.

The episode I had with Emily Hamilton is a great companion to this one, where she went into detail on State-level reforms for housing policy.

For more, here’s John’s website.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

Jed Byrne is a man of many hats, but what he really cares about is demystifying real estate development for ordinary people. Jed’s podcast, Dirt NC, focuses primarily on issues in North Carolina and especially the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill “Triangle” area.

Earlier this year, Jed and a group of people from the local Chamber visited the Kansas City region on a mission to learn from each other. I’m not sure they talked much basketball (Kansas - the birthplace of North Carolina basketball as the saying goes), but they did talk a lot about economic development. And while here, Jed had a chance to check in with our local small development group. We talk about why it’s important to have a local ecosystem of small developers like we have, and what he hopes to achieve by having one in the Triangle. Jed also has some insights on what it’s like to live in a fast-growing region, vs. the sort of slow and steady growth we have in most Midwestern markets.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

One of the critical dilemmas of our time for people in retailing is, how do you get people to put down their devices and come out to shop in the real world? Jaime Izurieta of Storefront Mastery, talks about how shopping has become commoditized, and what to do about it. We discuss how to create an experience that makes people want to come out, and how businesses are adapting to the new reality.

Stay tuned through the whole episode, as we also get into an interesting discussion on money, Bitcoin and place-making.

Jaime’s book: “Main Street Mavericks”

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s episode isn’t exactly Coughlin’s Laws, nor is it my whole list of Klinkenberg’s Rules, but it is full of some life advice I’d like to share for the dog days of Summer. I’ve long enjoyed solving problems of all kinds, and trying to help my community progress. But it isn’t easy, and it takes the right mindset to have success. Whether you are working in development, planning, policy change or just trying to fix problems generally, I hope this offers something useful for you.

Key link: Symphony in the Flint Hills

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

What's it like to start an architecture school from scratch? That’s a question that has run through my mind for years. So much of the education of architects and designers is, at best, misguided. As I discussed on my appearance on The Aesthetic City podcast, it’s also very cult-like and sends people down roads that aren’t terribly productive nor do they produce beautiful buildings that the public enjoys.

John Haigh, who’s the Chair of the Architecture program at Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas, aims to do something about all this. You likely haven’t heard of Benedictine before, as it’s a small college in a small town in flyover country. But you might want to pay attention to what they’re doing now, and what is rumbling up from the grass roots in higher education.

We cover a lot in this podcast, including

* the importance of learning to draw by hand, in the computer age

* What is the impact of AI on the school and the students?

* Why this is happening in Catholic schools?

* can a college teach architects to become developers?

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

Why is the production of housing, especially new housing in big cities, so expensive? Why doesn’t inclusionary zoning make our cities more affordable? How can cities amend the building code itself to help in housing production, and even make for better quality apartments?

To answer these questions and more, I had a long and code-nerdy chat with Emily Hamilton. Emily is the Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Urbanity Project at Mercatus Center, George Mason University. That’s a long title and way of saying, she’s someone who does a LOT of research into housing policy, and really knows her stuff.

I’ve been in this game long enough to be able to detect people who act like they’re serious about housing policy, but really aren’t. As in, they really don’t much about how housing gets built, who builds it, why they build it, and why they might build more. Emily is not one of those people. She has a clear interest in getting more of all kinds of housing built, to help with the price crunch that exists in so many markets.

If you want to talk code reform and housing policy, this is your episode.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

Terrell Jolly didn’t start out making it his mission in life to become a small-scale developer. But somewhere along the way, from Detroit to Kansas City, he made it happen. And boy is KC lucky to have him.

TJ, as most people know him, is a unique guy in this town, and has a very unique process. But should it be unique, or should what he does be much more normal? He talks through how he bootstrapped his way into becoming a developer, how he works with Missouri’s Abandoned Housing Act in neighborhoods that the vast majority of developers avoid, and why he takes on such a difficult task.

When I hear TJ talk, I think to myself, this is what our cities need. For a lot of cities in the Midwest in particular, we have a LOT of older homes and buildings that need renovation. We also have people who need affordable places to live. It’s people like TJ that figure out how to make it all economical, and are showing us a path towards something that can scale. But as he says, “you gotta have the guts.” It’s not easy. It’s not for the faint of heart. But it sure does have its rewards.

Every city probably has a Terrell Jolly, and every city could use about a dozen more.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

“The solution to the housing problem is more housing. Getting there is the hard part.” So says my friend Dennis Strait, now retired Principal of multistudio in Kansas City. Dennis is a planner, architect, landscape architect, civic volunteer and frequently wise counsel on all matters related to city-building.

Dennis has been lately working on his notion of housing as an economic development strategy. That sounds logical - entirely too logical. But it’s often not how people in the world of economic development think. In particular, for modest-cost cities like Kansas City and much of the Midwest, affordability in housing has long been a value proposition. How do we retain that as times change, and as we grow? We discuss this, as well as working to improve disinvested parts of our city, and explore the notion of whether or not our urban core is actually growing.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

Not long ago, I started noticing these long and interesting regular Facebook posts coming through my feed by an account named “Revitalize or Die.” Often compelling rants on towns, economic development and planning, this was right in my wheelhouse. I like people with actual thoughtful (and sharp) opinions, especially when they cut to the core of issues I’m familiar with. For example, “growth doesn’t always equal improvement.” And, “we have a lot of institutions and agencies that haven’t kept pace with the times.”

Jeff Siegler is the man behind the account, and he’s built a nice little business on the backs of his tough love and his experience. He denies he’s the tough love guy, and he clearly is a likable person. But I’ll stick with the meme - I think what he does is try to snap people out of their slumber with some tough love. Jeff says people need to have hard conversations, because when you don’t, you end up disappointing vastly more people. I agree. Check out his book, “Your City is Sick,” and his website for more info.

Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page.

Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe