Nov. 27, 2024

Urban Visionary: We Need to Redesign Our Cities

Urban Visionary: We Need to Redesign Our Cities
This Anthro Life
Urban Visionary: We Need to Redesign Our Cities

How do our physical spaces shape the way we live, connect, and thrive? In this episode of This Anthro Life, we delve into how design and the built environment impact today’s biggest challenges—climate change and social division. Featuring Vishaan...

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Season 2DesignCulture

How do our physical spaces shape the way we live, connect, and thrive? In this episode of This Anthro Life, we delve into how design and the built environment impact today’s biggest challenges—climate change and social division. Featuring Vishaan Chakrabarti, architect and author of The Architecture of Urbanity, we explore how rethinking our spaces can foster joy, connection, and inclusivity.

Discover why our housing and public spaces matter more than ever in rebuilding our social fabric. From suburbs to cities, and rural America to bustling urban centers, this is a conversation about the role design plays in creating a better, more sustainable future.

Follow Vishaan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishaan-chakrabarti-faia-a004b9113/

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Most of us. We walk around and we imagine that

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the physical environment that we're in has sort of always

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been here. It's just sort of an a Priori kind

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of idea. Suburbs are super new. Really, suburbs didn't come

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into fruition until after World War Two, and they were

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built very much by design Federal Highway Act, Mortgage Intratroduction

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GI Bill, and then all sorts of other things that

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racialized them, like redlining. I mean, I am not saying

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all suburbs are racist, and we please stipulate that. All

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I'm saying is that the origins of the suburban story

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were very much about a certain white middle class that

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government was designing for and our economic system was designing for.

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In fact, I think a lot of the anger the

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again in Maga is about the fact that government. It

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wasn't that people weren't on government welfare. They were, It's

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just that that welfare served a certain group of people,

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and there is a desire to go back to that hell.

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Everybody, welcome to this anthe life as always with your

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host Edam Gambo. Really excited to be here with you today,

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and we're diving into a topic that I think is

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both super important and really really interesting for how we

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might think about what we can do with the future.

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And this is of course around like the lived and

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built environment and basically how the spaces that we build

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will shape what kind of society that we can be

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here or it could be right. And so I'm really

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thrilled to be joined today by Vishon Chakrabarti, who's the

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founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism or Powell.

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As well as the author of a really awesome new.

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Book call The Architecture of Robanity, Designing for Culture and

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Nature and Joy. And it's interesting because, like a lot

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of the conversations that we see happening online and around

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folks like about cities like get stuck between these two

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technical areas. One is kind of on the idea of

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like do we have the right metrics and the right

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kind of carbon capture things that we're thinking about and

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other things about that cities are either just like wastelands

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or like the problem for climate change because there's so

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many people, there's a lot of pollution, all these elements

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kind of coming together, but you approach this problem differently.

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And I think that it's important right that we can

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actually think about design in a thoughtful way that can

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kind of help usall some of these biggest challenges that

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we have coming, you know, from things like social isolation,

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climate change to I think importantly helping create more joyful

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in connected communities. So as an apologist that I like

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this idea and this approach.

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So let's let's kind of talk about that.

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Like, the one of the things that really caught my

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attention early on in your work is this idea of

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like cities as an area that we can create positive

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social friction. And I love this idea because oftentimes we

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think about that friction feels like a bad word or

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something that we don't want. But then you know, on

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the other side, I'm like a frictionless experience might be

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a little bit too slippery, and we might think about

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that in terms of Amazon's you know cart from product

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to buying is a little bit too frictionless that I

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end to buy too many things sometimes. So somewhere in

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between ite and the right kind of friction, especially social,

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seems important. So what is this this kind of concept.

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I think it's a really important kind of anchoring piece

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for us to think about. What is it that cities

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can do for us in this kind of space of

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creating this positive social friction.

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Yeah, well, thanks for having me out, and it's great

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to be here. So the book is about, you know,

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what design and the built environment have to do with

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I think the pressing challenges of our time, and to me,

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the ones that are the most pressing are climate change

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and social and political division. Obviously, we just came out

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of a very very tough election, very divided country, and

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so this idea of social frictions I think really timely

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and poignant to talk about, because you know, a frictionless

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world is sort of one where everyone agrees with you, right,

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And so a lot of social media algorithms are out

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there putting us in our silos with other people who

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agree with us, and so we experienced sort of less

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and less friction until like the algorithm decides to like

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tit one of us against the other in some like

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anger filled you know, social media rage. And so I

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think collective physical environments. And I'm going to use that

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kind of wonky terms with the cities because the book

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is really trying to define urbanity very expansively, not just

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as big cities, but even small villages, even rural main streets. Right,

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that what the space of collective environments do is they

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bring us together face to face, and we then have

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to you know, confront people who look different than us,

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pray differently differently than us, vote differently than us, and

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you know, to me, the distinction between community and urbanity

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is community is often the way with people who are

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very like minded find common cause together, and there's nothing

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wrong with that. But urbanity is this idea of being

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confronted and ultimately celebrating difference. Right that if you see

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a person in a borca, maybe they are way less

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scary in person than they are as like this kind

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of thing to be feared online. Right. And similarly, so

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like a lot of our work as a firm is

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in the industrial Midwest, and it's literally like a lot

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of the cities where the red pixels and the blue

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pixels meet, and we create a lot of public space

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in those cities. So I've seen people who are clearly

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you know, in one political camp and clearly in another

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political camp, and like I've actually helped create space where

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they're dancing together. And like that to me is really

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really important in the times we live in and coming

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out of the aftermath of this election, and so you know,

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I was really glad to get this invitation because you know,

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I don't think the fields outside of design take anthropology

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think that much about correct me if I'm wrong, think

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that much about design and the built environment is something

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that's really influential on how people behave. But I think

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that there is a strong case to be made that

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in a world of social media and a world of AI,

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and a world where technology and algorithms are actively sort

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of messing with our heads and doing things with our

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sense of solidarity as a people, that the built environment

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can kind of do the opposite. The built environment can

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provide a kind of societal glue in terms of again,

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like you know, we need to rebuild rural main streets

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in this country. Rural main streets have been decimated, and

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that's something we can talk about. But even in our

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big cities, we need better and more public space that

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feels safe and places where we can really celebrate difference

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and that that celebration, in turn is an act of joy.

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And I think it's really important to lean into that

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because I think you're right, a lot of the literature

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around cities is either kind of technocratic or completely misses

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the environmental argument by saying, well, they're heat islands and

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there are lots of people and they're polluted. No, no, no cities,

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When people especially like live in apartments and use mass transit,

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we have a way lower carbon footprint per person. They're

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actually very environmental friendly. Even a small village where people

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can just walk around more as opposed to getting in

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a car to get a quarter of milk has substantial

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environmental benefits. And so there's a lot we could talk

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about here about what the environment can do. And I

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just find that most policymakers academics don't really pay attention

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to this aspect of society at all. Yeah.

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No, it's a good point, and I think you're right

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that there's kind of a it's just like a there

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right that literally it's the place in this right where

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we are, but we don't often kind of reflect on

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that in terms of how is our activities behavior shaped

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by like how are we in certain spaces?

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Right?

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And it's funny because like a lot of folks might

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also approach this from the perspective of like, okay, if

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I'm beginning to think about built the environment in space,

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like both I can I think about, like how am

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I about to walk around a sidewalk.

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Some people might come at it from the like Jane Jacobs, you.

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Know, neighborhood's eyes on the street kind of perspective of

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like how can we all be in a neighborhood space together.

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And build that.

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Others might come from it from a kind of I

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guess the consumer oriented lens worth thinking about like Howard

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Schultz from the former CEO of Starbucks idea of like

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third space in terms of like what can a coffee

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shop it be? That's not work, that's not home. But

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you know, I kind of think also the important way

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of how you're approaching this too is that we're we're

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kind of missing things before just going from these these

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two angles only, and that I love this idea that

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urbanity doesn't have to be in a city, right, that

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like it's it is about like when we think about

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productive frictions too. It is like I think you talk

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about that it can be in like rural villages, right,

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it can be in these other much smaller spaces. And

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so that's something that it's important for us to take seriously.

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And what I appreciate that your work does too, is

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that you approach this kind of like an anthropologist, right,

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you are saying, how do we bring all these disparate

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perspectives and viewpoints of how we approach solving a problem together,

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because we can't solve them as silos. That's actually part

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of the that's actually part of the problem, right, we

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keep siloing our thinking into into one arena. And so

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in this case, like the question of housing, I think

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is such an important piece ford of like how we

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are able to live together?

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Right?

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And you know it might be either the masaceust in

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me or the I don't know, the social scientists, but.

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I appreciate it.

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Also how you walk us through in architection of rumanity

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to think about like a lot of how did we

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get to some of these challenge points right in terms

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of like auto focused car culture, the rise of suburbs, right,

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and like you know, in a lot of practices that

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were like redlining in terms of like doing racial segregation

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intentionally in cities to split out split out groups. And

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so I'm curious, like as you think about like some

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of these historical trends now for folks that haven't checked

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out the book yet, like walk us through I guess

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to some of these, like how we how we have

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like gotten ourselves to this point of challenge in terms

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of like how we've been setting up cities since the

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fifties really, I mean obviously before that too, Yeah, like

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what took place here?

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And so at the first half of the book is

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really about how we got here. And I think the

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important thing to understand is for your listeners especially, you

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said something that's really critical, which is most of us

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we walk around and we imagine that the physical environment

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that we're in has sort of always been here. It's

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just sort of an a Priori kind of idea. Right.

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Suburbs are super new. Really, suburbs didn't come into fruition

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until after World War Two, and they were built very

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much by design, Federal Highway Act, Mortgage introtroduction GI Bill,

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and then all sorts of other things that racialized them,

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like redlining. I mean, and people sometimes get the wrong

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hear the wrong thing when I say that, I am

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not saying all suburbs are racists, and we please stipulate

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that all I'm saying is that the origins of the

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suburban story were very much about a certain white middle

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class that government was designing for, and our economic system

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was designing for. In fact, I think a lot of

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the anger the again in MAGA is about the fact

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that government. It wasn't that people weren't on government welfare

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they heer is just that that welfare served a certain

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group of people, and there is a desire to go

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back to that. And then you know, sixties civil rights

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movement happens, the definition of public expands. It wasn't until

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nineteen sixty five intol African American women had the right

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to vote nationwide, and so yeah, yeah, I mean that's

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the year I was born. I mean, I still I

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find that it's astonishing. And so our definition of public

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doesn't really include everyone until the late sixties, and by

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that point they're you know, and so this mentality around

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government spending. So, you know, a country that only ten

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years earlier had passed the biggest federal infrastructure bill in

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the country, the National Highway and Defense Act, that built

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our interest at highway system. None of that was seen

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as government waste, none of it was seen as like profligate.

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And by the time you move into to Lyndon Johnson's

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Great Society programs, suddenly it's all like we've got to

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starve the beast. You know, it's all the government waste.

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And so the point is, no matter where you sit

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with that politically, the important thing to understand is that

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the physical environment we have today was a consequence of

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policy and a consequence of design, and there have been

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lots of failures in terms of that. We created, basically

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with suburban living, the most carbon intensive, racially, socially and

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economically segregated form of human habitation in the history of

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our species. And you know, we actually have this idea

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that it's about the American dream. That's not true. The

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American dream was defined in the nineteen thirties had nothing

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to do with houses and cars. That had to do

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it equal opportunity. And so what could a new version

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of the American dream look like? And this is actually

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important internationally because that old version of a house and

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a car to cars along set up a definition of

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success not just for Americans but for people around the world.

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And so like two billion people entered the middle class

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around the world since the nineteen nineties, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Turkey.

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Those people, many of them emulated the suburban life as

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their kind of definition of success, and so the planet

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is really straining under the resource demands of that, you know,

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David Wells. Wells talks about the fact that most of

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the we associate climate change in greenhouse gases with the

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industrial revolution, most of the most pernicious stuff has happened

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since the first episode of Fleinfeld Eric, and he talks

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about this, right that, like, really, this is a pretty

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recent phenomena in terms of how intensively we started using resources,

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mainly driven by expanding houses and expands and cars. But

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the other thing we did is we made all that

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stuff really unaffordable. We locked in a certain set of

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benefits for people my age, right and basically made it

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exclusionary to generations that are younger than me. And so

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we you know, everywhere we wrote this article. My firm

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POW wrote this article in the New York Times about

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how to create more housing across New York City, and

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it was extraordinary the global response to that article. And

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what I basically discovered is that there's an affordability crisis

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of housing everywhere, like in almost everywhere in the world,

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in almost every size community in America, from small towns

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to villages all the way up to the big cities,

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and so to me, the important aspect of being able

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to say we designed for one kind of you know,

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settlement pattern, it means we can design for another right.

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And so means we can design for another right. And

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so if people want to live in multi family housing,

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they want more walkable environment, aggressive say so, but there's

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data right like, so you can the most walkable environments

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in the country are the most popular, and they're increasingly

286
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the most expensive. So that's where people want to live.

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It's just more convenient. That's true of red states, it's

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true of blue states. So how do we produce more

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of that? How do we make it more affordable? Because

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we know it's more ecological and I believe it's more joyful.

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You know, there's a great book called The Good Life

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that talks about, you know, human health and longevity and

293
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basically says that if you control for a bunch of variables,

294
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that what really leads to human health and longevity is

295
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the strength of one social connections, right, which leads me

296
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as an architect to think about, well, what are the

297
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kinds of environments that create social connection? And so like,

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Towards the end of the book, I talk about housing

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and housing prototypes that could build more neighborliness, basically build

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more of a sense of community again amongst different people,

301
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but that's much more affordable and in a way that,

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again I think would be joyful and just turn down

303
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the political heat that we seem to be experiencing right now,

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because everyone, regardless of your political camp, are feeling the

305
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stresses and strains of this right and so I think

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we're at a really good moment to reconsider how we've

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been living, what our definition of success is, whether we

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need to kind of retool the American dream so that

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it is more inclusive and more environmentally friendly, less segregated,

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and more joyful. I think that's an interesting conversation to have,

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and I don't think it's a particularly partisan conversation. I

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think it's something that most everyone wants to get involved

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with at some level. Mm.

314
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Yeah, I agree, I think that, and I think it's

315
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that's I think part of the power of this approach

316
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is that we often get caught either in an abstract

317
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conversation and or as like a boogeyman thing that we're

318
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trying to like, or a straw man we're trying to

319
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fight against. Typically, when it comes to you know, political division,

320
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but then we think about both what do we share

321
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and that can literally be the shared environment, but then

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also what is it that we are having trouble sharing

323
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and how is it related to our belt environment too?

324
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You know, because it's like this interesting piece that when

325
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we think about like what is like a public space

326
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that can actually help foster you know, kind of cultural interaction,

327
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like interaction with nature, interaction that's joyful with folks.

328
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You know, Oftentimes we might think of like a.

329
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Park, right, so we can all all kind of like

330
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congregate in a space together. But I'm kind of curious

331
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like as we think about that, because like that's that's

332
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like a super baseline example, right, And so actually I'm

333
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glad you brought up that that kind of housing example too,

334
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because the kind of the Goldilocks size of density that

335
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you kind of talk about towards end the book. Do

336
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I think it's really compelling way to have us kind

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of think about one, Like, I totally agree. I think

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it's important point for us to recognize like that another

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world is possible because we built this one, and it

340
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like it doesn't mean because we built this one that's it, right,

341
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And as we kind of think through that when it

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comes to things like housing and dwelling as something that

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like both is it should be afforded to.

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Everybody as a right.

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Then on top of that, like to live with dignity

346
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at thest like another another key piece here that I've

347
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also seen you write about, and that it's important for

348
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us to kind of think, you know, we kind of

349
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talk about both the home as that kind of place,

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and like there's there's two angles that are kind of

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percolating in my head here, and like the one is

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the kind of public spaces that we share, like parks, sidewalks, uh,

353
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you know, maybe a shopping flosy kind of area, and

354
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the other one, of course is like the dwelling, like

355
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like the home, and how we've set these both up

356
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Like one you're kind of pointing towards here too, that

357
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like the suburbs is one of those places that like

358
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having like the auto automobile focus and like in the

359
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single family home or like this radically new experiment in

360
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the human story, right that we've like decided we didn't

361
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like we haven't had We've not had the suburbs for

362
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a long time, right, And so that's like being a

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built in fracturing of how we lived together separately, and

364
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then on top of that, like how are we thinking

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about public space and in terms of you know, who

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has access to it? And that's also comes to our

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affordable housing kind of crisis question too. So as you're

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you're thinking about this and like and maybe we can

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talk about the kind of the research you did around

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the how to we like build the homes for for

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a million a million New New Yorkers As we think

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about that, like you kind of bring up this idea

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of the Goldilocks dimensions of a building, right because we

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kind of think, oh, if I need to have like

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either you know, affordable housing or new housing, it's like

376
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immediately people tend to think of And I did it

377
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first too, before I was looking at your work, like

378
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you know, seventy five story building, not the top, but

379
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just like you know, like a fifteen story building, and

380
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like you have this kind of incorrect idea of like

381
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what the size actually has to be, and like this

382
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Goldilocks you know dimensions you kind of talk about, like

383
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is three stories that's not at all crazy to think about.

384
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You know?

385
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:11.000
Yeah? Yeah, So I mean, look, fifteen stories might be

386
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absolutely appropriate in downtown Boston or you know New York

387
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and Philadelphia, San Francisco. Most of the countries are much

388
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lower scale, and we need to be super sensitive to that.

389
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The three story thing, really it's a consequence of the

390
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building code. Basically, the building code says you can build

391
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a three story building without an elevator as long as

392
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the ground floor units are accessible to a wheelchair, and

393
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so as soon as you have so it's a step function.

394
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As soon as you have four stories, you need an elevator,

395
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and that changes everything because you need one elevator, you

396
00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:43.759
need two elevators, and then you need fire stairs, and

397
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then you're pouring a bunch of concrete. And then the

398
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only way the developer can like even break even is

399
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building a fifteen story building. And so that's why that

400
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Goldilocks module and the Goldilocks reference is something between a

401
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single family house and a tower basically, right, So it's

402
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wheat spot in between. And the beauty of that and

403
00:21:05.240 --> 00:21:08.119
the reason it's important for this idea of social connection

404
00:21:08.359 --> 00:21:11.279
positive social friction is you're right, a park is one

405
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example of all of that. But the reason this housing

406
00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:16.720
lends itself to that it is really two things. One

407
00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:20.039
is if you basically just got a single stare that

408
00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:23.279
connects all the apartments in a building. It means people

409
00:21:23.359 --> 00:21:25.440
run into each other on that stair you know, if

410
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there's an elderly neighbor that you haven't seen for a while,

411
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you get worried. There's something about it that's much less anonymous.

412
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And you know, we used to there's a picture of

413
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the book of like these really beautiful forms of density

414
00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:43.599
we built all over the world, Rome tel Aviv, Mumbai,

415
00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:48.680
which was basically, you know, like twenty apartment units wrapped

416
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:51.640
around a staircase and one single elevator that was in

417
00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:54.160
a case. All of that's illegal today because of fire

418
00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.640
code and wheelchair code and for legitimate reasons. But we

419
00:21:57.960 --> 00:22:02.599
we you know, we regulated ourselves out of some really

420
00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:05.839
beautiful Basically, most of Europe has built in that kind

421
00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:09.400
of density, and most of it's illegal today in terms

422
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.599
of building code, which is why everything has to revert

423
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:14.920
to skyscrapers when it gets bigger. So this three story

424
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.079
thing does build community just by having that single stare.

425
00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:21.640
The other thing about it is it's a building block,

426
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:24.920
and it's really a prototype. It's not a design, but

427
00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:29.519
it's a building block that allows you to organize streets

428
00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:33.519
or courtyards or other forms of sort semi public space,

429
00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:38.279
which all of our great cities have, right, which is like,

430
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:40.799
you know, you come off a big street, then you're

431
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:43.319
on a small street. Maybe you walk through a little

432
00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:47.000
courtyard or a use to get to an apartment. And

433
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:51.200
that hierarchy of public space is very important to people's

434
00:22:51.240 --> 00:22:55.960
sense of their community, their neighborhood, what scale they relate to,

435
00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:59.319
who they run into at the grocery store, the dry cleaner,

436
00:22:59.799 --> 00:23:03.559
all of that stuff really matters. It makes people feel connected.

437
00:23:03.599 --> 00:23:07.200
We have a loneliness crisis in the country right now,

438
00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:11.640
and you know, and I just want to like, we

439
00:23:11.640 --> 00:23:15.720
can talk about the suburbs, but to me, the you know,

440
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:21.160
the suburbs that are close into cities, right the Lexington, Massachusetts,

441
00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:27.279
and the Montclair, New Jersey, and all those places are fine,

442
00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:30.039
and like some of them have some mass transit access.

443
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So what worries me much more? Like I just finished

444
00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:38.559
my sixth cross country trip and like, again I go

445
00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:43.559
back to this election and how disconnected I feel people

446
00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:45.440
are on the coast, whether they live in the cities

447
00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:49.079
or the suburbs, from what's happened in rural America and

448
00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:52.680
why there is the level of anger at both parties.

449
00:23:52.720 --> 00:24:00.599
At both parties, we've decimated rural America right through policy,

450
00:24:00.680 --> 00:24:05.519
through design, you know. And so like most of rural

451
00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:09.319
America had main streets, and those main streets were where people,

452
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:13.000
where older people saw each other, where teenagers flirted, all

453
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:16.319
of that kind of stuff. The main streets then got

454
00:24:16.519 --> 00:24:20.839
replaced by shopping malls, you know, through the seventies and

455
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:23.799
eighties and into the nineties. So the main streets, all

456
00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:27.400
the stores became vacant, right, and so everyone hang out

457
00:24:27.480 --> 00:24:29.559
at the shopping mall, but at least there was some

458
00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:33.480
kind of societal space in the shopping mall. Then big

459
00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:37.920
box e commerce came along and said, oh, we don't

460
00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:39.799
have to build all of that social space that's in

461
00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.079
a shopping mall. We can just have a big box

462
00:24:42.119 --> 00:24:43.720
store and a bunch of asphallt.

463
00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:45.079
Right.

464
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:47.440
Yeah. And so when you go through all of that,

465
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:51.920
which you notice is there is now no social fabric anymore.

466
00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:56.000
There's no social glue that's pulling people together. I mean,

467
00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:58.279
I'm sure people can still go to church or go

468
00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:02.559
to a dance something, but that's a destination. It's not

469
00:25:02.920 --> 00:25:05.759
just a place where people hang out. We did this

470
00:25:05.839 --> 00:25:08.960
project in Columbus, Indiana, which is just a canopy over

471
00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:12.640
an intersection, but it was an invitation for people to

472
00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:17.119
use that canopy to close the street to cars and

473
00:25:17.240 --> 00:25:20.640
do festivals there. And there have been all sorts of

474
00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:26.039
very different ethnic events, you know, Pride Week and Mike

475
00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:28.960
Pences Indiana, you know, all of this stuff that happened

476
00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.240
there just by virtue of trying to create an invitation

477
00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:35.839
of some public space on a space that's normally used

478
00:25:35.839 --> 00:25:41.039
by a car. And so, you know, this is one

479
00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:45.440
of my main takeaways from going cross country that we've

480
00:25:45.559 --> 00:25:51.039
ripped away all the physical places there are no there

481
00:25:51.079 --> 00:25:55.000
are no parks per se, right. You know, sure some

482
00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:57.480
of the bigger cities across the country and parks, but

483
00:25:58.079 --> 00:26:01.720
just a regular small town, it'd be hard pressed to

484
00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:05.400
find a park, a playground, you know, in some cases

485
00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:09.839
even a sidewalk, right. And so what you're then doing

486
00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:14.440
is you're relegating people to their basements and glowing screens

487
00:26:14.480 --> 00:26:19.160
where they find community. And that, of course is algorithm

488
00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:22.720
driven in the most dimissive form of finding community. And

489
00:26:23.079 --> 00:26:29.680
so I think that like this is now you know, look,

490
00:26:29.839 --> 00:26:32.440
obviously I wish the other person had won, because she

491
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:34.799
was talking about three million new housing units, and I

492
00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:38.680
think there would have been a really interesting conversation about

493
00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:40.960
what kind of housing and for whom and could it

494
00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:45.400
form more community fabric. I'm still hopeful that even the

495
00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:50.640
things that are flowing out of Biden's infrastructure bill will

496
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:55.559
you know, provide some powder for us to go out

497
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:57.720
and build some of the kind of societal fabric I'm

498
00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:01.400
talking about. But that, to me is the physical challenge

499
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:06.000
needs in front of us that would over time, help

500
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:08.279
to seal some of the riffs that we're feeling in

501
00:27:08.279 --> 00:27:15.640
our country because there's just no place to go to

502
00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:16.279
be together.

503
00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:17.759
Yeah.

504
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:21.519
No, and that that's like a that's it's it's it's

505
00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:25.880
a stark reminder, right that we have to understand where

506
00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:27.720
we're looking for one right, And I can kind of see,

507
00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:31.200
like where are these stories? I recently I was speaking

508
00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:35.119
with Brian Reisinger on the podcast, and he is a

509
00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:38.319
he's a fourth generation Wisconsin farmer and and you know,

510
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:40.359
and just wrote a book about like basically his family's

511
00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:43.000
story over the past one hundred years, you know, and

512
00:27:43.039 --> 00:27:45.440
like basically this to your exact point, that the ultimate

513
00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:48.200
decimation of kind of like rural America and how that

514
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:50.400
is on one had led to like, yeah, this is

515
00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:54.200
like this deep anger at like both political parties right again,

516
00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:55.640
it's not just not just a one off or like

517
00:27:55.680 --> 00:27:58.279
one party kind of anger. But recognizing this is this

518
00:27:58.319 --> 00:28:00.240
is a really important point too, of like, as like

519
00:28:00.279 --> 00:28:02.519
the physical space of towns have changed, right, and that

520
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:05.279
oftentimes if you're in royal community you're more spread out.

521
00:28:06.079 --> 00:28:08.119
But then where do you come together? Right for these

522
00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:10.160
kind of you know, get togethers. And that's an interesting

523
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:13.440
piece I thought about in terms of like a church

524
00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:16.359
as a destination space versus necessarily just like you might

525
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:18.240
just happen to be there, right, you know, because it's

526
00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:20.079
like it's more and more of a timed event kind

527
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:20.240
of thing.

528
00:28:20.279 --> 00:28:20.440
You know.

529
00:28:20.440 --> 00:28:22.440
It can be a general public space too, of course,

530
00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:24.640
but like that's an important thing for us to recognize.

531
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:25.960
Two of Like, even if we say, well, there's this

532
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.799
area people can get together, it's like, but is it

533
00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:29.720
what kind of character does it has in terms of.

534
00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:30.599
Like how are we getting together?

535
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:33.400
Well? Again, this is the distinction in my mind between

536
00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:36.640
community and urbanity. If it's a destination space, you know,

537
00:28:36.680 --> 00:28:38.839
if it's a church, it's people who pray together and

538
00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:42.599
there's that's great, but it is not gonna bring people

539
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:46.200
of different faiths together, right for the most part. Right

540
00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:50.839
it it's it's so you know, like a Mason's lodge,

541
00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:53.240
whatever it is. Those are people who are finding common

542
00:28:53.319 --> 00:28:56.480
cause and they you know, great. But the thing is

543
00:28:57.200 --> 00:29:02.599
what real public space does is it creates places of serendipity,

544
00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:04.640
places where you're going to run into people that you

545
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:07.599
didn't plan to run into, and see people you didn't

546
00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:13.960
plan to see. And again, especially like you know, the

547
00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:18.119
country is much more diverse than people think, you know.

548
00:29:18.759 --> 00:29:22.279
And so like take this Springfield, Ohio thing, right, Like

549
00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:26.160
you know, like the real story is they're legal migrants.

550
00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:30.440
People wanted them in the air because they needed workers. Now,

551
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:34.880
how do you create spaces that people can interact so

552
00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:40.279
that community understanding can take place between you know, the

553
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:46.200
populations that there and newcomers, right? And that I think

554
00:29:46.359 --> 00:29:52.440
is a really American story, right, Like this is kind

555
00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:55.640
of like the foundations of this country that we don't

556
00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:59.880
just hang out together in tribes, right, but that we

557
00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:05.920
actually are a big polyglot nation. And so and I

558
00:30:06.039 --> 00:30:09.359
really believe in that. Look, I've I grew up outside

559
00:30:09.400 --> 00:30:13.160
of Boston and experienced a tremendous amount of racism. And

560
00:30:13.240 --> 00:30:16.240
I've experienced a lot of that kind of stuff on

561
00:30:16.319 --> 00:30:20.400
both coasts, and yet in my six cross country cross

562
00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:25.200
country drives, have experienced a lot less of it. You know,

563
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:28.640
the country is an amazing place. And even though people

564
00:30:28.680 --> 00:30:32.680
may harbor whatever views they harbor, when you're face to face,

565
00:30:33.559 --> 00:30:35.759
and this is the whole thing about this positive social

566
00:30:35.759 --> 00:30:40.079
friction idea. You know, people can be so repugnant online,

567
00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:45.079
but when people are face to face, it's a different interaction.

568
00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:51.160
And I would argue that good social inhibition depths in

569
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:57.519
and because it's steps in, it's you know, there is

570
00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:03.160
organically some sense of like if I was I was

571
00:31:03.960 --> 00:31:09.160
in a pretty rural town in Utah and there's a

572
00:31:09.160 --> 00:31:14.400
place called New York Pizza. I had a slice of

573
00:31:14.519 --> 00:31:16.839
pizza in there, and I said, you know, I got

574
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:18.720
to tell you, the pizza is really good. And I'm

575
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:21.200
from New York City and so you know, I'm talking

576
00:31:21.240 --> 00:31:23.240
to the woman behind the counter who has never been

577
00:31:23.279 --> 00:31:26.839
to New York City. I assure you, and like that

578
00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:32.599
stuff is really important. That's what gives you some definition

579
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:37.839
or idea that you actually share this idea of America

580
00:31:37.880 --> 00:31:44.079
and this idea of a country, right, And so I

581
00:31:44.200 --> 00:31:46.440
just think that there's a lot of work to do here,

582
00:31:47.400 --> 00:31:51.960
you know that, Like there's just so many different you know,

583
00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:54.880
where we want this competition to expand the rock and

584
00:31:54.960 --> 00:32:00.200
Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and rock and role

585
00:32:00.359 --> 00:32:02.039
is kind of like, you know, there's only a few

586
00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:04.599
bipartisan things left in the country, you know, it's sort

587
00:32:04.599 --> 00:32:08.200
of like pizza, rock and roll and maybe NASA, right,

588
00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:12.519
Like there's like, you know, so this again is a

589
00:32:12.559 --> 00:32:18.640
space of social interaction, and we were able to create

590
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:22.920
this kind of jam space, this lobby that people could

591
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:25.680
come to without having to pay for a ticket, and they

592
00:32:25.720 --> 00:32:28.000
can hang out in. Young people can hang out in

593
00:32:28.240 --> 00:32:31.559
make music together. And again you'd get a lot of

594
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:35.200
walks of life through that space. And so I think

595
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:37.799
there's just an example after example that you can look

596
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:42.240
to where we could create this very positive sense of

597
00:32:42.359 --> 00:32:46.640
urbanity even in very small places.

598
00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:47.359
That's a great point.

599
00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:49.880
And so part of it too, it makes me think,

600
00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:54.000
is like how are we thinking about the built environment

601
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:59.279
spaces and like we can take something as quote unquote small, right,

602
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:01.240
or like individual as a home and thinking about how

603
00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:03.319
we're building that in terms of multi family housing or

604
00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:06.559
you know, a bigger example that can either be you know,

605
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:08.960
a train station, thinking of like like Pennsylvania Station. I

606
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:11.240
was thinking of the work that y'all have done on

607
00:33:11.559 --> 00:33:13.119
planning in that space, and also in like rock role

608
00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:15.200
Hall of Fame is a good example too of like

609
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:17.480
there's a paid way to go into the building, but

610
00:33:17.519 --> 00:33:19.799
then also like you also have a public space kind

611
00:33:19.799 --> 00:33:21.559
of in the in the entry area too, to hang

612
00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:25.319
out and have that kind of serendipitous space. And I

613
00:33:25.359 --> 00:33:27.759
guess as we think about that too, it's like I

614
00:33:27.799 --> 00:33:30.759
love this idea of kind of intentionally designing for serendipity, right,

615
00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:32.720
like having these kind of chance encounters with folks that

616
00:33:32.759 --> 00:33:35.079
you may have not planned to see. But then that's

617
00:33:35.119 --> 00:33:37.240
like where like the magic kind of happens, you know,

618
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:40.039
And it's like I'm also thinking about this from you

619
00:33:40.279 --> 00:33:42.160
like the the I guess the other weirder example of

620
00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:44.920
like Burning Man that's like designed around serendipitous occasions and

621
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:47.279
just you know, wacky coming together, but it's got its

622
00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:50.279
own class issues, right, But like you know, so how

623
00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:51.720
do we think about that like in terms of if

624
00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:54.359
like what does it mean to kind of design for serendipity,

625
00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:55.799
if we're kind of thinking about this in a space.

626
00:33:55.880 --> 00:33:59.240
Well, so you mentioned Penn Station, and for your listeners

627
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:01.599
who don't know, Penn Station, it's the most horrible place

628
00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:05.359
in the United States. It's it's you know, it's this

629
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:08.519
underground train station. It's the busiest transportation hub in the

630
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:11.119
Western hemisphere. Very confusing, right, Well, it was designed for

631
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:14.639
one hundred and twenty thousand people a day. It handles

632
00:34:14.679 --> 00:34:19.079
about six hundred thousand, and so it's incredibly congested. There

633
00:34:19.159 --> 00:34:21.119
was a beautiful old station there that had been torn

634
00:34:21.159 --> 00:34:24.440
down years ago, triggered the nation's landmarks laws, and now

635
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:26.159
we're left with its mess, and a number of us

636
00:34:26.199 --> 00:34:28.800
have been trying to fix the mess. But I compare

637
00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:34.800
it to Grand Central Station, right, not very far away, glorious, right,

638
00:34:35.239 --> 00:34:39.239
And this is the way I'm going to try to

639
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:41.159
answer a question about how you designed for these things.

640
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:45.679
You can look at the train stations, right, like, so

641
00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:49.119
it's supposed to be functional, to Penn Station was designed

642
00:34:49.159 --> 00:34:51.199
to be this functional thing. You get off the subway,

643
00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:54.199
you race to your commuter train, and like, if you

644
00:34:54.360 --> 00:34:57.280
look at the people at Penn Station, they all look miserable.

645
00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:00.199
They're all staring down at the floor. They're not looking

646
00:35:00.239 --> 00:35:02.760
at each other eye to eye. There is no real

647
00:35:02.800 --> 00:35:06.480
serendipity because you're just like bumping and grinding your way

648
00:35:06.519 --> 00:35:12.280
through the thing. Grand Central is a ballet. When you

649
00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:16.320
look at Grand Central and there's hundreds of thousands of

650
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:19.760
people moving through there too, but there's big, lofty ceilings,

651
00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:23.719
there's natural light coming in. There's almost no signage because

652
00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:26.159
the architecture tells you where to go. You don't need

653
00:35:26.199 --> 00:35:28.599
the signs. But to me, when I'm always amazed by

654
00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:30.679
is I walk from Grand Central Station all the time,

655
00:35:31.199 --> 00:35:37.000
and they're always tourists taking pictures from different vantage points,

656
00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:41.880
and you know they are observing the ballet, like there's

657
00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:45.599
people taking video, and there's this way in which everyone's

658
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:48.159
moving around each other and not bumping and grinding into

659
00:35:48.199 --> 00:35:50.960
each other like pland Station. And what that does is

660
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:54.039
it gives everyone the room to kind of exhale, and

661
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:56.920
so you can look up and when you look up again,

662
00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:00.360
you see people who think differently than you. That and

663
00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:03.599
I know people might think, oh, New Yorkers, like everyone's

664
00:36:03.639 --> 00:36:06.199
the same. That's not true at all. I mean, not

665
00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:11.880
just in terms of like racial or social diversity, but

666
00:36:11.920 --> 00:36:14.599
also political diversity. You know, if you look at the

667
00:36:14.679 --> 00:36:17.599
numbers that came out of this last election, you know

668
00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:21.800
it was much closer than people think. And so you know,

669
00:36:22.440 --> 00:36:26.039
to me, the contrast between the two stations kind of

670
00:36:26.079 --> 00:36:29.000
tells you all that you need to know about, like

671
00:36:29.159 --> 00:36:31.559
what makes for good public space and what makes for

672
00:36:31.719 --> 00:36:37.039
terrible public space. And you know, the distinction between those

673
00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:41.079
two things in terms of cost is is so deminimous

674
00:36:41.159 --> 00:36:48.320
compared to the uplift the sense of positive experience that

675
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:53.760
you get. And again, same thing in small towns where

676
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:56.639
you can have a bus station, you can have a park,

677
00:36:56.719 --> 00:36:59.320
you can have just a main street and just a

678
00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:04.599
little bit care of that says that there's this idea

679
00:37:04.639 --> 00:37:07.400
that we care about ourselves, that we have a sense

680
00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:12.920
of society, and that therefore we can get along and

681
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.880
can bridge our differences. And I'm just you know, it

682
00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:20.199
may sound all very naive, but we can have to.

683
00:37:21.199 --> 00:37:24.079
We're at a cultural moment in this country where we

684
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:26.559
have to kind of go back to ground zero and say,

685
00:37:26.679 --> 00:37:29.840
hang on a second, what is the country about. I mean,

686
00:37:29.880 --> 00:37:32.119
to me, the one piece of good news that came

687
00:37:32.159 --> 00:37:35.519
out of this election was that it was not close,

688
00:37:37.239 --> 00:37:42.039
and that meant that those who lost have to kind

689
00:37:42.039 --> 00:37:44.480
of look in the mirror and have to kind of

690
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:47.039
understand that this is the country that they live in

691
00:37:47.599 --> 00:37:50.760
and that there needs to be some sense of humility

692
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:53.800
about what we missed. I'm going to say we because

693
00:37:53.800 --> 00:37:58.159
I'm just going to include myself in that, right, And

694
00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:03.159
to me, a very good starting point is how do

695
00:38:03.719 --> 00:38:07.159
we come together with people who think so fundamentally differently

696
00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:10.960
than us and find common cause? And I think you

697
00:38:11.239 --> 00:38:14.480
need a platform for that. I think you need space

698
00:38:14.519 --> 00:38:16.920
for that. I don't think social media is going to

699
00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:17.280
do it.

700
00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:20.880
Yeah, one hundred percent would agree with that too, and

701
00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:26.360
that it's we we've been algorithmically driven or drooped or

702
00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:28.159
whatever we want to say verb wise of just like

703
00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:29.800
what is it that we're paying attention to?

704
00:38:29.880 --> 00:38:30.000
Right?

705
00:38:30.039 --> 00:38:32.800
Or I guess we're sarah to genergic. What's the words

706
00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:35.880
sarrasin energic and the you know, our brains are saying, hey,

707
00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:36.280
this is good.

708
00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:39.000
I'm not smart enough to know that word.

709
00:38:40.239 --> 00:38:42.159
I don't either, so we're so someone knows that word.

710
00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:44.480
But you know, again, don't mean hit from like wanting

711
00:38:44.519 --> 00:38:46.599
to look at our phones, but realizing that like that's

712
00:38:46.599 --> 00:38:49.719
actually a huge fuel of our kind of isolation crisis,

713
00:38:49.800 --> 00:38:52.239
right that we looking down versus up, and like it's

714
00:38:52.280 --> 00:38:55.320
it's amazing. It's a great great contrast of like Penstation

715
00:38:55.400 --> 00:38:58.119
and Grand Central Station to realize like how are we

716
00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:00.920
actually physically being in a space and like is it

717
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:02.679
in like does it inspire us to look up? Or

718
00:39:02.719 --> 00:39:04.159
like you know, make I want to take pictures of you,

719
00:39:04.280 --> 00:39:06.039
like the like the kind of bault of the seedlings

720
00:39:06.079 --> 00:39:08.199
and or yeah, it's just like watching how how it's

721
00:39:08.280 --> 00:39:10.960
like the flow is happening, right, and there's something that's

722
00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:12.360
like really alluring of that too.

723
00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:14.159
But just seeing that kind that kind of human that

724
00:39:14.280 --> 00:39:15.320
human flow piece.

725
00:39:16.679 --> 00:39:18.639
This makes me think too that like one of the

726
00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:22.719
other contrasts, I really think that's important. And then also

727
00:39:22.840 --> 00:39:26.000
I like that you explore is the the idea of

728
00:39:26.039 --> 00:39:29.840
like one of the challenges and the something that you

729
00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:31.599
put words to the thing that I'd just seen before

730
00:39:31.639 --> 00:39:32.840
I hadn't thought too much about, but that like a

731
00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:35.159
lot of downtowns just looks the same across the world, right,

732
00:39:35.239 --> 00:39:37.599
there's like a very similar skyscrape or architecture that.

733
00:39:37.559 --> 00:39:39.960
You can just envisions. Oh that that's what a downtown

734
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:40.400
looks like.

735
00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:44.039
And as we think about like being intentional about our

736
00:39:44.039 --> 00:39:46.280
built environment how it shapes how we interact with one another,

737
00:39:46.599 --> 00:39:50.639
there's this interesting piece of like keeping like local cultural flair,

738
00:39:51.199 --> 00:39:55.480
but then also kind of putting you know, what are

739
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:58.000
great standards that we can use across different places, you know,

740
00:39:58.039 --> 00:40:00.719
in spaces and kind of globally, and so how do

741
00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:03.119
we kind of think about that that idea of like

742
00:40:03.960 --> 00:40:07.320
keeping the kind of local cultural flavor of you know,

743
00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:09.559
buildings and spaces, but then also like letting us kind

744
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:11.800
of think about different scales of buildings. So it's like

745
00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:13.800
we don't have just kind of the similar or saving

746
00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:16.519
exact kind of downtown construction, but recognize that like we're

747
00:40:16.559 --> 00:40:19.599
e were trying to build a certain space that we

748
00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:22.599
can have things that we know work I guess, like

749
00:40:22.639 --> 00:40:26.079
whether it's using digenous materials or it's you know, kind

750
00:40:26.079 --> 00:40:28.400
of being intentional about it if it's a bigger building,

751
00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:31.199
I suppose, you know, don't. I'm kind of back and

752
00:40:31.239 --> 00:40:33.280
forth trying to think about about this idea of like

753
00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:35.559
what does it mean to do that, Like how do

754
00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:39.480
we keep like efficiency requirements and safety regulations in place

755
00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:42.400
as well as keeping like local culture as part of our.

756
00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:44.760
Building The process book talks a great deal about this.

757
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:46.840
I mean, I think we need to sort of step

758
00:40:47.079 --> 00:40:53.639
so really, since the advent of commercial air travel and

759
00:40:53.679 --> 00:41:03.679
then accelerated by global technology, technological services, communications, and so forth,

760
00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:06.639
you know, we obviously went through this period of mass

761
00:41:06.639 --> 00:41:11.559
globalization that included the ability to mass produce all sorts

762
00:41:11.559 --> 00:41:16.880
of building materials and so and actually the globalization of

763
00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:20.280
the real estate industry, and so you had a lot

764
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:21.960
of you still have a lot of big firms that

765
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.719
are international firms now that build with a lot of

766
00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:29.320
the same materials, to the point where you know, our

767
00:41:29.480 --> 00:41:32.760
built environment is indistinguishable, you know, and I hear this

768
00:41:32.880 --> 00:41:36.599
all the time. I'm a very pro growth, pro city person,

769
00:41:37.039 --> 00:41:40.480
but it's hard to be pro urban growth if the

770
00:41:40.599 --> 00:41:43.920
urban growth is so soul crushing. You know, this stuff

771
00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:46.239
all looks the same, It's got the same chain store

772
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:48.119
at the bottom of it. It just you know, and

773
00:41:48.159 --> 00:41:52.679
you don't even know where you are anymore. I would

774
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:57.679
argue that we've been experiencing for a while now, but

775
00:41:57.760 --> 00:42:00.320
with the pandemic and now you've got a president talking

776
00:42:00.320 --> 00:42:05.159
about tariffs like we're we're moving to I mean, I

777
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:08.679
don't think globalization is going to completely stop, but we're

778
00:42:09.599 --> 00:42:14.000
transforming what it was to be. You know, like NAFTA,

779
00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:17.000
all of that stuff was a different period of globalization.

780
00:42:17.960 --> 00:42:21.159
And I think part of that is coming from a

781
00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:26.519
real yearning people have to make sure that local histories

782
00:42:26.559 --> 00:42:32.320
and narratives and cultures are somehow bulldozed by this universalist

783
00:42:32.679 --> 00:42:36.440
kind of mentality that tries to make everything the same.

784
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:40.400
And architecture is both a mirror and a window into

785
00:42:40.440 --> 00:42:45.079
what's going on in society, right and so it you know,

786
00:42:45.440 --> 00:42:50.440
it both represents kind of that banala globalization, it's also

787
00:42:50.639 --> 00:42:54.800
kind of, I think a window into the potential for

788
00:42:54.840 --> 00:42:58.639
a different future. And so like our Domino project in Brooklyn,

789
00:42:59.320 --> 00:43:03.320
you know, is very much about being rooted in local

790
00:43:03.440 --> 00:43:07.840
history and culture and heritage and also looking forward to

791
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:12.239
a kind of different reality in a different time. And

792
00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:15.639
I think that duality of having that bosan kind of

793
00:43:15.679 --> 00:43:18.840
liminal condition of being able to say, you can be

794
00:43:19.719 --> 00:43:23.000
both of the larger world, but you have to pull

795
00:43:24.519 --> 00:43:28.039
people with you alongside you in terms of history and

796
00:43:28.119 --> 00:43:32.239
narrative and culture. And I think this is really endemic

797
00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:34.840
to our species. I think it's something that's really important

798
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:39.960
to us. And so what I and the book talks

799
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:42.679
about this a lot. What I've just sensed a great

800
00:43:42.719 --> 00:43:46.679
deal of in that globalizing of cities is this kind

801
00:43:46.679 --> 00:43:51.920
of on nui, this tremendous sense of loss, right, where

802
00:43:52.079 --> 00:43:56.760
people just feel like their environments are getting bulldozed in

803
00:43:56.840 --> 00:44:00.639
favor of something that like is kind of unrecognized and

804
00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:03.840
kind of banal and awful. And it just doesn't have

805
00:44:03.960 --> 00:44:07.559
to be that way. And so that's meant to be

806
00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:10.159
a clarion called in my industry, not just the architects,

807
00:44:10.239 --> 00:44:14.239
but the real estate developers and the just all the

808
00:44:14.280 --> 00:44:17.920
people who are responsible for this, the government officials to

809
00:44:18.559 --> 00:44:22.119
just care more about the environments in which they're building,

810
00:44:22.679 --> 00:44:26.199
to build things that are just more materially sensitive, you know.

811
00:44:26.320 --> 00:44:28.400
So like in our firm, we have a whole set

812
00:44:28.440 --> 00:44:31.440
of criteria that we put any design through to say,

813
00:44:31.559 --> 00:44:37.280
you know, is this design connective for people connected to

814
00:44:37.320 --> 00:44:41.440
this place? You know, if you can pick up the

815
00:44:41.480 --> 00:44:45.079
building and move it somewhere else and it still makes sense,

816
00:44:45.159 --> 00:44:51.079
we've failed, yeah, right, And so uh and this is

817
00:44:51.119 --> 00:44:53.960
a hard challenge, but it's a good one, and so

818
00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:55.800
we do a lot of this. You know, at Princeton

819
00:44:55.840 --> 00:44:58.159
we're building a building and it's very contemporary, but we're

820
00:44:58.159 --> 00:45:02.039
building it out of materials that will absolutely resonate with

821
00:45:02.079 --> 00:45:04.639
the historic fabric of the campus. There are ways of

822
00:45:04.719 --> 00:45:11.199
doing this right. It just requires attention and intention, you know,

823
00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:15.360
and and so look, this isn't going to solve the

824
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.760
world's problems, but I think people feeling more connected to

825
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:22.239
their culture and their climate and there you know, they're

826
00:45:22.280 --> 00:45:27.599
they're just general environment. I think again lowers the amount

827
00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:31.480
of political tension political resentment. Mm hmm.

828
00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:34.480
Yeah, I think that's a that's right, and that's it's

829
00:45:34.519 --> 00:45:37.239
an important piece that Like again, I love the idea

830
00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:40.719
of saying, how do we both provide and bring attention

831
00:45:40.880 --> 00:45:44.559
intention too to the building space? Isn't I wanted to

832
00:45:44.679 --> 00:45:47.280
like I don't know if I read Path two past,

833
00:45:47.320 --> 00:45:49.440
but I want I want to provide a little space

834
00:45:49.519 --> 00:45:53.599
to like get a sense from you, like from your

835
00:45:53.679 --> 00:45:56.800
six cross country trips, like how I guess what do

836
00:45:56.800 --> 00:45:59.719
you what do you think that the the left mist

837
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:01.679
answer like what like what are they not seeing that?

838
00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:03.199
Like that?

839
00:46:03.199 --> 00:46:03.320
That?

840
00:46:03.480 --> 00:46:05.199
Like I think and I will say like that being

841
00:46:05.239 --> 00:46:07.159
there like showed you like that they can show any

842
00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:08.360
of us. Like if you spend time in a place

843
00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:10.320
with like attention intension, like what do you what did

844
00:46:10.360 --> 00:46:12.519
you see that's like kind of caught your attension of

845
00:46:12.559 --> 00:46:15.039
like what should we be thinking about for the world

846
00:46:15.079 --> 00:46:15.719
that we want to build?

847
00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:20.480
So my son and I pull an airstream and so

848
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:24.480
we're in you know, sometimes we're in national parks. Sometimes

849
00:46:24.519 --> 00:46:29.000
we're in trailer parks. And when you're in the trailer

850
00:46:29.039 --> 00:46:32.199
parks and you're going through especially the industrial in Midwest, uh,

851
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.960
you know, which I've heard is politically kind of important,

852
00:46:38.400 --> 00:46:42.119
you really see a lot of pain and desperation, right

853
00:46:42.199 --> 00:46:44.800
And and so for the people out there who somehow

854
00:46:44.920 --> 00:46:50.239
think that this election was just only driven by racism

855
00:46:50.440 --> 00:46:55.519
or misogyny, I think they're just missing something enormous about

856
00:46:55.639 --> 00:47:00.280
their fellow citizens. You know, there are many count that

857
00:47:00.360 --> 00:47:03.719
voted for Barack Obama twice that went for Trump. And

858
00:47:03.760 --> 00:47:07.519
so it's just too easy an explanation. I find. Sure

859
00:47:07.679 --> 00:47:09.679
is some of that fueling some of the anger out there,

860
00:47:09.719 --> 00:47:12.639
of course, but I just think it's not the line's

861
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:15.119
share of it. I think what the left miss is

862
00:47:15.199 --> 00:47:19.960
the extent to which inflation, and let's not forget hyperinflation

863
00:47:20.079 --> 00:47:22.840
is what elected Adolf Hitler. I mean, inflation is an

864
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:27.679
insidious thing, particularly for the working class living paycheck to paycheck.

865
00:47:29.599 --> 00:47:32.400
But I think there's a larger thing that is about

866
00:47:32.440 --> 00:47:37.360
this globalization thing. And unfortunately, as an immigrant, you know,

867
00:47:37.440 --> 00:47:41.239
I feel this like immigration is too much of the

868
00:47:41.400 --> 00:47:46.719
channel for this anger. But this started again with both parties.

869
00:47:47.119 --> 00:47:51.280
So in the nineties you had NAFTA, right, which basically

870
00:47:51.480 --> 00:47:55.400
did outsource a lot of jobs. Then in the two

871
00:47:55.440 --> 00:47:58.840
thousands you had the wars, and you had the subprime

872
00:47:59.440 --> 00:48:03.039
mortgage cis. And what I don't think we at all

873
00:48:03.079 --> 00:48:08.400
feel on the coasts is the disproportionate impact those things

874
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:11.760
had on the middle of the country, their sons and

875
00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:15.800
daughters that went off to war. It's you know, you know,

876
00:48:15.880 --> 00:48:19.199
New York City at the depths of the subprime real

877
00:48:19.280 --> 00:48:22.599
estate crisis lost about twenty twenty five percent of its

878
00:48:22.639 --> 00:48:25.960
real estate value, which bounced back inside of eight or

879
00:48:25.960 --> 00:48:31.480
ten months. Whereas people lost their homes, they live in

880
00:48:31.519 --> 00:48:37.639
trailer parks because they lost their homes. The trauma of

881
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:40.920
that doesn't go away in a year or two years

882
00:48:41.039 --> 00:48:45.159
or four years. So the remaking of the GOP by

883
00:48:45.199 --> 00:48:48.480
this man has to do with the fact that George W.

884
00:48:48.559 --> 00:48:53.119
Bush's GOP failed the middle of the country in ways

885
00:48:53.119 --> 00:48:56.079
that are just massive and still unaccounted for. And then

886
00:48:56.079 --> 00:48:58.800
of course people didn't feel like the people who created

887
00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:04.920
that crisis paid anything for their misdeeds, right, And so

888
00:49:05.320 --> 00:49:07.599
the system does feel rigged to people. And then there's

889
00:49:07.599 --> 00:49:09.880
one other piece I'd just like to say that's very

890
00:49:09.880 --> 00:49:14.119
true of both coasts, which is there's a huge private

891
00:49:14.119 --> 00:49:17.639
equity apparatus that went in and then picked the meat

892
00:49:17.679 --> 00:49:21.960
off the bones of the carcass. So the last pharmacy,

893
00:49:22.079 --> 00:49:27.440
the last family owned store, got you know, consolidated into

894
00:49:27.480 --> 00:49:30.760
big box and changed stores and e commerce and just

895
00:49:31.119 --> 00:49:35.519
decimated the landscape. And so, you know, there were earlier

896
00:49:35.559 --> 00:49:37.360
times when I took my son through some of these

897
00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:39.400
towns and he'd say things like it just looked like

898
00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:42.320
some sort of bomb had gone off. And this isn't

899
00:49:42.320 --> 00:49:45.119
the richest country in the world. People who are very

900
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:48.960
well aware when they watch Seinfeld and Friends and section

901
00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:51.199
of the city that there's this whole other life going

902
00:49:51.239 --> 00:49:56.880
on in their country that they have no pardon. Yeah,

903
00:49:56.920 --> 00:50:00.599
And I just I think that we have really lost

904
00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:05.880
touch with that and so and and then gotten you know,

905
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:10.199
involved in a lot of you know, these people are

906
00:50:10.199 --> 00:50:13.239
not focused on what pronouns to call people, and so

907
00:50:13.239 --> 00:50:19.519
so it's just you know, there's there's it's it's important

908
00:50:19.719 --> 00:50:23.800
to stand up for equity and lack of bigotry and

909
00:50:24.079 --> 00:50:26.760
you know, and be a party of progress. But at

910
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:30.440
the same time, it has to include everyone. And that's

911
00:50:30.519 --> 00:50:33.760
I think what we missed. I think we fundamentally missed

912
00:50:33.880 --> 00:50:37.199
how much pain people were in, how desperate they are

913
00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:43.079
for change, and the fact that anyone who who reeks

914
00:50:43.079 --> 00:50:48.119
of establishment is going to be painted with that brush, right,

915
00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:49.559
I think that's what we missed.

916
00:50:49.639 --> 00:50:52.320
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think it is.

917
00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:54.760
It's it's it's important kind of both because at the

918
00:50:54.800 --> 00:50:56.440
same time too, it's like we want to encourage people

919
00:50:56.480 --> 00:50:58.239
that just like just to point fingers saying, oh, it's

920
00:50:58.239 --> 00:50:59.920
this or that, right, because I think, as you want,

921
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:01.519
if we said to that, like, there's there's a lot

922
00:51:01.559 --> 00:51:04.000
of nuance there that we have to recognize, right, and

923
00:51:04.079 --> 00:51:06.400
and that like it's not about painting broad strokes of

924
00:51:06.440 --> 00:51:08.480
one one group or one story.

925
00:51:08.480 --> 00:51:10.440
Like we understand that there are elements of that in there,

926
00:51:10.440 --> 00:51:10.960
but it's like.

927
00:51:13.599 --> 00:51:15.960
When we go back to the topic at hand, the

928
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:19.000
places that I saw that were more physically coherent or

929
00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:22.119
more socially coherent. There was less distress in those places,

930
00:51:22.239 --> 00:51:25.280
the places that still had an intact main street or

931
00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:29.960
intact downtown, right, because again there's just this sense of

932
00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:34.199
togetherness and social bond and looking out for each other

933
00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:37.920
as opposed to those towns that were just again just

934
00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:38.880
kind of decimated.

935
00:51:40.519 --> 00:51:42.639
Yeah, that's I think that's a great point too.

936
00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:46.480
Is there like a way to help I guess also

937
00:51:46.519 --> 00:51:48.320
because when you think of urban design, I guess, well

938
00:51:48.400 --> 00:51:50.199
urban if we think of design and architecture, like we

939
00:51:50.280 --> 00:51:52.079
tend to then jump to the urban, right, like the

940
00:51:52.119 --> 00:51:52.920
actual city space.

941
00:51:52.920 --> 00:51:55.079
But it's like, how do we how can we help

942
00:51:55.159 --> 00:51:56.599
kind of like bring.

943
00:51:56.280 --> 00:52:00.760
More design movement to rural spaces too, right 'banity right,

944
00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:02.239
the kind of in between, Like how do we do that?

945
00:52:04.119 --> 00:52:05.920
Well, we try to do it a lot. We're trying

946
00:52:05.920 --> 00:52:07.840
to work in as many of those kinds of places

947
00:52:07.880 --> 00:52:11.039
as we can find that where people you know, people,

948
00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:14.039
I got to say, people are just astonished when you

949
00:52:14.119 --> 00:52:17.199
show up. You know, they just they think of themselves

950
00:52:17.239 --> 00:52:20.280
as flyover country. They think that like we're all just

951
00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:24.559
out to ignore them, and so showing up is half

952
00:52:24.599 --> 00:52:29.719
the battle. Yeah, and not just to canvas for elections,

953
00:52:29.760 --> 00:52:33.360
but you know, to really be there in some sort

954
00:52:33.360 --> 00:52:39.519
of set, in some sense of solidarity, right. And you know, look,

955
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:45.000
the fact is these places need investment, right, they need

956
00:52:45.119 --> 00:52:49.400
jobs back. You know. I do think that a lot

957
00:52:49.400 --> 00:52:54.199
of the the infrastructure build the Chips Act, the things

958
00:52:54.199 --> 00:52:57.840
that float out of the Biden Harris administration are going

959
00:52:57.880 --> 00:53:00.159
to do a lot of good things in the kind

960
00:53:00.159 --> 00:53:04.880
of communities that we're discussing, including rebuilding social fabrics and infrastructure.

961
00:53:06.320 --> 00:53:08.519
I don't think the maiden Harris administrations is gonna end

962
00:53:08.559 --> 00:53:11.039
up getting a lot of credit for that stuff, but

963
00:53:11.280 --> 00:53:14.840
I do think that is going to be helpful. But

964
00:53:15.280 --> 00:53:18.440
a lot of it, beyond money and resources in public policy,

965
00:53:18.679 --> 00:53:24.360
is just attention of just feeling like, you know, we're

966
00:53:24.360 --> 00:53:27.760
all in this together. And you know, again, a lot

967
00:53:27.800 --> 00:53:29.400
of the work we do is trying to do that.

968
00:53:29.519 --> 00:53:32.519
It's just you know, a lot of my peers are off,

969
00:53:32.719 --> 00:53:36.960
you know, designing crazy spaceships in Saudi Arabia, zero interest

970
00:53:37.079 --> 00:53:39.079
in that. You know, there's a lot of work to

971
00:53:39.119 --> 00:53:42.079
do here, right, and I think all of us in

972
00:53:42.119 --> 00:53:46.159
different disciplines can really think about that, like it is

973
00:53:46.199 --> 00:53:50.920
a privilege to be somewhat successful in this country. You know,

974
00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:53.320
my parents came here with thirty two dollars and so,

975
00:53:54.519 --> 00:53:57.079
you know, I think one way of paying it forward

976
00:53:57.159 --> 00:53:59.639
is to just pay attention to a lot of the places.

977
00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:01.760
By the way, not all these places are in the

978
00:54:01.800 --> 00:54:05.920
industrial Midwest. Some of them are in a town, you know,

979
00:54:06.199 --> 00:54:10.400
two towns over from you. Yeah, right, And so that's

980
00:54:10.440 --> 00:54:14.800
also very important to think about. And so I you know,

981
00:54:14.880 --> 00:54:18.639
I'm kind of cautiously optimistic that like, you know, maybe

982
00:54:18.679 --> 00:54:20.480
we just got a big wake up call and we

983
00:54:20.519 --> 00:54:23.000
need to now pay attention. Mm hmm.

984
00:54:23.440 --> 00:54:23.679
Yeah.

985
00:54:23.880 --> 00:54:25.519
No, I think that that's a great that's a great

986
00:54:25.519 --> 00:54:27.360
place for us to then say, let's let's put our

987
00:54:27.400 --> 00:54:29.239
attention there, because I think that's that's.

988
00:54:29.159 --> 00:54:30.519
Uh, what is needed.

989
00:54:30.760 --> 00:54:33.519
And I think honestly, it's like as we like dilate

990
00:54:33.599 --> 00:54:34.599
in and it's like that's what a lot of people

991
00:54:34.639 --> 00:54:36.079
want to They want to both be seen, to be

992
00:54:36.119 --> 00:54:38.079
heard and to hear others, right like that that is

993
00:54:38.119 --> 00:54:40.840
that the sense of connection that we can get in

994
00:54:40.920 --> 00:54:42.880
recognizing that like in part it might be some that's

995
00:54:42.880 --> 00:54:44.559
a few undred miles away. Other ways it might just

996
00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:46.599
be yeah, it's just down the road, right, it's a

997
00:54:46.639 --> 00:54:49.480
town or two over. So I think that's that's uh,

998
00:54:49.559 --> 00:54:51.840
that's really great. So I appreciate you sharing that. And

999
00:54:51.920 --> 00:54:53.400
so you want to say thank you for joining me

1000
00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:54.880
on the podcast today. It's been it's been actually really

1001
00:54:54.920 --> 00:54:57.039
fun to talk with you, and I appreciate you sharing

1002
00:54:57.039 --> 00:54:59.079
your insights and excited to get the book into the

1003
00:54:59.119 --> 00:54:59.840
hands of listeners.

1004
00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:02.679
So so yeah, I mean, keep doing the great work.

1005
00:55:02.679 --> 00:55:03.199
I mean is always.

1006
00:55:03.199 --> 00:55:05.199
I'd love to keep the conversation going in the future

1007
00:55:05.199 --> 00:55:08.800
because it's it's important to kind of broaden these these pieces.

1008
00:55:08.800 --> 00:55:10.519
And I appreciate how you connect a lot of the

1009
00:55:10.519 --> 00:55:12.199
different elements together. And then we kind of we can

1010
00:55:12.239 --> 00:55:13.840
begin from one discipline, but we have to kind of

1011
00:55:13.840 --> 00:55:17.440
see social problems require social fabric, and fabric is sewn together, right.

1012
00:55:17.440 --> 00:55:19.199
I can't just say it's this one one approach.

1013
00:55:19.239 --> 00:55:22.159
So I appreciate your disciplinary right on.

1014
00:55:22.360 --> 00:55:23.880
All right, cool, Well, thank you again for joining to me,

1015
00:55:23.880 --> 00:55:25.559
and it's pleasure great, Thanks very much for