Yeoman

Charles "Chuck" Marohn is the president of Strong Towns, a national organization he started in 2008 as a blog and grew into a widespread movement advocating for financially resilient, prosperous cities and towns through bottom-up, incremental development. Chuck is the author of countless articles and three books: Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (2019), Confessions of a Recovering Engineer (2021), and Escaping the Housing Trap (2024), and he hosts the Strong Towns Podcast while speaking widely across North America. Chuck lives in Brainerd, Minnesota, with his family.

Show notes at the Yeoman website.

Zak Slayback joins Geoff to discuss Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, the context in which it was written, and its relevance to today. Topics include the emergence of nationalism and industrial-scale capitalism, the subsequent fracturing of cottage industries, the rise of socialist reactionary movements, the obligations employers have to workers (and vice versa), subsidiarity, and the moral challenges investors face in our hyper-financialized consumer economy.

Zak is a venture capital partner at 1517 Fund and an occasional author.

Show notes here.

Vince Graham joins Geoff to talk about the early days of developing I’On in Mount Pleasant, SC. Vince and Geoff commonly hear people wrongly assume the neighborhood’s success resulted from strict controls and prescriptions, and they felt that misconception is so widespread that it merited a conversation. They discuss setting the stage, vision, rallying key players around that vision, recruiting builders, and cutivating the neighborhood’s early culture.

Geoff has spoken with Vince and their late father Tom in prior episides. Visit theionco.com to learn more about the history of the neighborhood’s development.

Shownotes at the Yeoman website.

Dr. Clay Routledge is an existential psychologist who specializes in nostalgia. He is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Clay is the author of Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World (published in 2018), Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life (2023), and many other books and articles. You can find his work at clayroutledge.com and he regularly posts on X at @clayroutledge.This episode is sponsored by Periodical.ink. Show notes at the Yeoman website.

Steve Mouzon and Geoff discuss the evolution of Steve's practice, the role of a town architect, vernacular construction, sustainability, beauty, lovable buildings, and the "Original Green".

Show notes on the Yeoman website.

Seth Harris & Patrick Lemon of Orthodox Masonry to discuss what it's like to build a company that builds things that last. To my great embarrassment, I transposed two of the letters in Patrick's last name when I introduced him.

Show notes: https://yeomanpodcast.com/2025/07/25/orthodox-masonry-24/

Professor W. Matthew J. Simmons, Sr. is the Assistant Director of the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina and a self-described old-school humanist academic. He teaches courses on Southern culture and literature, as well as an immensely popular new course on barbecue. In this episode, Geoff and Matt discuss the identity of the South, changing cultures and places, barbecue, and more.

Show notes at the Yeoman website:https://yeomanpodcast.com/2025/06/27/matt-simmons-23/

Lenny Wells is a pecan grower, writer, and Professor of Horticulture and Extension Pecan Specialist at the University of Georgia. Show notes: https://yeomanpodcast.com/2025/06/12/lenny-wells-22/

Ari Bargil is a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice and a co-lead of the Zoning Justice Project, a campaign to protect and promote the freedom to peacefully and productively use property. Ari frequently represents property owners battling aggressive zoning regulations and excessive fines in state and federal court nationwide. Ari’s work has been featured by USA Today, NPR, Fox News, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News and other national and local publications.

Vince Graham is Geoff’s brother and business partner with the I’On Company, as well as the owner of Loci, a developer in the Charleston, SC area. Vince has also appeared previously on the Yeoman Podcast.

In this episode, Geoff, Vince, and Ari discuss the changing legal landscape of zoning, the history behind key court decisions, issues raised across cases, and more.

Shownotes:

https://yeomanpodcast.com/2025/05/13/ari-bargil-with-vince-graham-21/

Emily Hamilton is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Urbanity Project at the Mercatus Center, where she focuses on urban economics and land-use policy. She publishes both academic research and policy work, contributes to outlets including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and writes an occasional column at Governing. Emily also advises state and federal policymaking and has testified before several state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives. In this episode, Geoff and Emily discuss building code reform, case studies on housing policy, the potential for progress around the country, and more.Show notes:https://yeomanpodcast.com/2025/04/07/emily-hamilton-20/