Yeoman

For the last two decades years, Chris Smaje has been a small-scale vegetable grower in Somerset in South West England. Prior to that, he was a researcher and teacher in political science and policy. Chris has authored two books: 2020’s A Small Farm Future and 2023’s Saying No to a Farm Free Future. Visit yeomanpodcast.com for show notes.

Geoffrey Long is the owner of Long Story Farms in Newberry, SC. We discuss his farm, his roots, what brought him to farming, and how his farm connects him to his community.

Please pardon the awkward delay. That left Geoffrey and I stumbling over each other a bit, hence the decision to continue the conversation face-to-face in the near future. So much more to discuss! Their soon-to-open retail location, Farms on Main. Southern Agrarians. Wendell Berry. Earl Butz. We’ll reconvene for more soon.

Buy from Long Story Farms:

https://app.barn2door.com/5PmxB

Long Story Farms on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/longstoryfarms/

On Insta:

https://www.instagram.com/longstoryfarmsc/

John Kempf’s Regenerative Agriculture Podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/show/14s0owdUUxjTYUeNXpWnv8?si=833cc155eb3a44a8

Dorito Effect, by Mark Schatzker:

https://www.markschatzker.com/doritoeffect-home-page

Fred Provenza, Sheep, and Nutritional Awareness:

https://www.amazon.com/Nourishment-Animals-Rediscovering-Nutritional-Wisdom/dp/1603588027

History of USDA:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/about-fsis/history

Gunthorp Farm’s processing facility:

https://gunthorpfarms.com/pages/our-processing-plant

White Oak Pastures’ processing facility:

https://whiteoakpastures.com/pages/on-farm-processing

Jake Wolki on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JakeWolki

Prime Act

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2814?s=1&r=59

CT Summer Hardware Store in Newberry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTTYPGxZzhE

Ivan Illich / Counterproductivity

https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counterproductivity

Charlie on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/OldUrbanist

Charlie's bio at Mercatus:

https://www.mercatus.org/scholars/charles-gardner

Some court decisions referenced in our conversation:

Euclid v. Ambler, 1926

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/272/365/

Spann v. City of Dallas, 1921

https://casetext.com/case/spann-v-city-of-dallas-1

Buck v. Bell, 1927

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/274/200/

Kelo v. City of New London, 2005

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/469/

Wilson v. Shaw, 1907

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/204/24/

Other things worth noting, in the order that they came up:

Ilya Somin discusses the constitutional case against exclusionary zoning on Yeoman #4:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Mh7i33XU2NCLcb5n8uVeq?si=3860a9cb143347a3

Brett McKay and author Louis Menand discuss the philosophy of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and his contemporaries on the Art of Manliness podcast:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/knowledge-of-men/podcast-752-the-metaphysical-club/

Charlie referenced "Town and Country Planning" in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_country_planning_in_the_United_Kingdom

"Fee tail"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_tail

The fee tail as featured in Downton Abbey:

https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1432&context=wlulr&httpsredir=1&referer=

Arbitrary Lines, Nolan Gray

https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines#desc

Land Use without Zoning, by Bernard Siegan

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538148631/Land-Use-without-Zoning-New-Edition

"Right to Roam: In Scotland, Hikers Can Go Anywhere", by Ken Ilgunas (I mispronounced Ken's last name in the podcast; my apologies, Ken!)

https://www.backpacker.com/stories/issues/scotland-right-to-roam/

It's worth noting that I probably overstated existing right-to-roam protections in Pennsylvania.

"Landowner will close access to two Colorado 14ers after lawmakers rejected legislation limiting liability"

https://coloradosun.com/2023/03/03/landowner-closing-14ers-mount-lincoln-democrat/

Other great resources on zoning reform and housing:

https://twitter.com/ebwhamilton

https://twitter.com/salimfurth

"Cutting Zoning Down to Size: Reevaluating the Legal Vulnerability of Urban Minimum Lot Sizes", by Charlie (currently in draft, full version will be published in May):

⁠https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4619301⁠

Ashley on Twitter

Rizoma Field School

Ashley's writings

Doomer Optimism podcast

I open our conversation quoting from this article by Ashley in Front Porch Republic.

Ashley referenced Andrew ⁠Szasz's Shopping our Way to Safety⁠.

"Spreadsheet Brain"

Ilya Somin joins Geoff to discuss the newly published paper, The Constitutional Case Against Exclusionary Zoning, that he co-authored with Joshua Braver.

What's the big deal about exclusionary zoning and what does it have to do with the overarching Yeoman theme? Glad you asked! Geoff answered that question in this thread.

Professor Somin is a Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights.

Ilya Somin’s bio and twitter

Josh Braver’s bio and twitter

Some things that came up in the conversation:

The Anti-oligarchy Constitution

Emily Hamilton's work on Houston

Edward Glazer's work on zoning and affordability

Pacific Legal Foundation

Institute for Justice

Michael Tavani is the founder and CEO of Switchyards, the world's first neighborhood work club. He joins Geoff to talk about creating a new—and much needed—type of "third place", his love of third places, the inspiration he took from Oldenburg's book The Great Good Place, building with soul, the advantages of being an owner operator, and the growth of the business.

Austin Tunnell joins Geoff for a conversation about his business Building Culture. They talk about getting started as a mason and a homebuilder, small scale real estate development, structural masonry, apprenticeships, living in a place like Carlton Landing, and creating beauty.

Some relevant links:

Austin on X

Build Culture on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify

Build Culture's new Townsend project

We discussed this Build Culture interview with Matt Hayes about the architecture profession

Clay Chapman on X and on Instagram

Here's the Samuel Hughes article that Austin mentioned (and Samuel on X)

Shop Class as Soulcraft (Austin mentioned this in passing)

Geoff Graham introduces the Yeoman podcast.