The Urbanist Executive Director Owen Pickford stops by and chats with Ian about his urban evolution from smalltown Ohio, through Madison, Wisconsin to London, Mumbai, Austin and finally Seattle. They discuss what makes a policy or a change "good" based on whom it's impacting -- can broad, region-wide initiatives be tailored so they also serve the local communities they most put at risk? Owen describes the MASS campaign and urges listeners to get involved.

Seattle poet, playwright, longtime former advice columnist, and book-publishing industry impresario Greg Brisendine popped by the bookstore for a chat about finding the balance between day job and night moves -- between carreer and passion for the thousands of artists and innovators who don't make enough money to live off of art. Greg and Ian perform a love poem to HTML, and Greg describes the "risk paradox" of the book publishing industry in the early 2000s. Ian and his pal Doug Abbott discuss a cure for Internet trolls over a bowl of chicken dumpling soup.

Longtime advocate and former mayoral finalist Cary Moon swings by the bookstore and raps with Ian about growing up in the Midwest, land planning in Seattle, and the value of our city's connection to the water. She explains the distinction between the successful public park (a city project) and the viaduct (a controversial state project) and discusses what she learned -- and what confirmed that she already knew -- during her 2017 run.

University of Washington Law School professor Hugh Spitzer stopped by the bookstore for a free-flowing discussion on how Washington State's founding history played into the national populist, and then progressive, movements popular in the state's earliest years, and how state constitutions don't only reflect political culture, they create it, too. After a brief history on the follies of Seattle transit, Professor Spitzer sets Ian straight on the distinction between a "home-rule" and a "Dillon-rule" state, although Ian remains unconvinced that Seattle has sufficient leeway to tax itself.

It's showtime! Ian interviews Ellen Abram and Ryan Purcell of the Williams Project about their desire to pay good actors a living wage to make cutting-edge theater that's still accessible to the community, the discontents of artistic "success," and what "pay what you can" really means for patrons of all economic strata. They discuss the eerie contemporary resonance of their new show, "A Bright Room Called Day," despite having been authored in the mid-1980s.

In celebration of Capitol Hill Art Walk, UpZones hosted its first ever live recording, with three of the key voices in the Seattle arts scene. Iconic muralist Ryan "Henry" Ward and Seattle emcee Messiah Jenkins join Randy Engstrom, Director of Seattle's Office of Arts & Culture, for a discussion about the state of public art in the city. This free-flowing panel discussion touches on the temporal nature of public art, the paradox of being an artist in a growing city, and "the artist's hustle."

Designer and Amplifier Deputy Director Cleo Barnett talks with Ian about the difference between New Zealand and the US. Cleo then recounts the story of the "We the People" campaign's origins during the inauguration of January 2017. She then explains Amplifier's business and educational model and plugs its latest campaign, "We the Future."

Longtime decorated PNW architect and Lid I-5 co-founder John Feit stops by the bookstore to clarify the confusion around his name, then he brings Ian up to speed on the distinctions between drawing-based and policy-based urban design philosophies; he has a clear favorite. Then he walks Ian through his Lid I-5 project to "heal Seattle’s freeway scar" by replacing the I-5 canyon with parks, commerce, and affordable housing.

Aiko Schaefer has worked for 20 years to promote economic justice and elect good people to office; she stopped by the bookstore to chat with Ian and discuss Ballot Initiative 1631, the most ambitious climate policy advanced since the Obama Administration left office. They discussed organizing, living in Indiana, and the false narrative that says identity politics the evironment are at odds.

After a brief celebration of one season of UpZones under the books, Ian hears from Boundless founder and CEO Xiao Wang, a Chinese-American immigrant whose local company is tackling the information problems that plague nearly all immigration processes in the U.S. He discusses the feeling of seeing couples allowed to stay together after years of trying, and what his immigrant parents think of his risky career choices.