TRANSKRIPTIO 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:11.480
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Realtopia. I'm Naomi, your host. Today,
2
00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:14.699
I'm joined by Ellen Dunham-Jones, an architect and urban designer
3
00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:16.739
who taught at Georgia Tech for more than 20 years
4
00:00:16.859 --> 00:00:18.780
and who has spent much of her career rethinking what
5
00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:23.539
suburbs can become. With June Williamson, she wrote Retrofitting Suburbia,
6
00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.320
the book that showed how dead malls, empty office parks,
7
00:00:26.379 --> 00:00:28.899
and oceans of parking can be turned into walkable places.
8
00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:33.320
Her database now tracks more than 2,500 retrofits across the country.
9
00:00:33.859 --> 00:00:37.240
So much of America is suburban, while many conversations about belonging,
10
00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:40.689
including on this show, focus on cities. So, if belonging
11
00:00:40.729 --> 00:00:42.770
can be designed, the real test is whether it can
12
00:00:42.789 --> 00:00:44.929
be designed into a strip mall on a six-lane road.
13
00:00:45.549 --> 00:00:47.609
Ellen has spent her career on exactly that, so I've
14
00:00:47.630 --> 00:00:49.869
been looking forward to this one. Ellen, thank you so
15
00:00:49.909 --> 00:00:50.530
much for being here.
16
00:00:51.549 --> 00:00:52.219
My pleasure.
17
00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:55.340
What first made you look at a dead mall or
18
00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:57.820
an empty office park and see an opportunity rather than
19
00:00:57.880 --> 00:00:58.520
simply a failure?
20
00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:05.719
Like many academics, in the 1980s, I had been critiquing sprawl,
21
00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:10.280
but there was a point in the early 2000s, I
22
00:01:10.329 --> 00:01:13.140
was at a meeting of the Congress for the New
23
00:01:13.310 --> 00:01:18.950
Urbanism when architect and urban designer Victor Dover presented a
24
00:01:19.189 --> 00:01:24.909
commissioned proposal to retrofit the dead Eastgate Mall in Chattanooga
25
00:01:25.209 --> 00:01:29.420
into a more walkable mixed-use town center. And he used
26
00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:34.409
the term retrofitting suburbia. I thought it was a great project,
27
00:01:34.870 --> 00:01:37.109
but I also knew that it, you know, that was
28
00:01:37.189 --> 00:01:40.409
exactly kind of what should be happening more. But I
29
00:01:40.469 --> 00:01:43.870
knew that it wasn't the kind of sexy architecture that
30
00:01:43.909 --> 00:01:48.920
the magazines would publish. And at that moment, it really
31
00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:54.900
helped me shift from simply critiquing sprawl to documenting real
32
00:01:55.060 --> 00:02:00.159
efforts to improve aging, dying, car-dependent suburbs, and I was
33
00:02:00.219 --> 00:02:03.219
lucky to get my co-author, June Williamson, to join me.
34
00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:06.879
For someone who grew up in a suburb and likes it,
35
00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:10.150
what did the traditional post-war suburb make harder when it
36
00:02:10.189 --> 00:02:12.590
comes to people meeting, gathering, and feeling connected?
37
00:02:13.789 --> 00:02:18.870
The short answer is simply the suburbs separated everybody and
38
00:02:19.030 --> 00:02:24.199
everything apart from each other through zoning. But the longer
39
00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:26.990
answer is You know, I think it does focus to
40
00:02:27.050 --> 00:02:33.159
some degree on just how the patterns of mobility changed dramatically.
41
00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:37.080
Unlike the pre-war suburbs that were often centered on a
42
00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:40.900
train station and a few shops, usually right near, clustered
43
00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:45.650
around the train station, with most of the homes within
44
00:02:46.069 --> 00:02:51.810
walking or biking distance, in the 1950s and 60s, The
45
00:02:51.870 --> 00:02:55.360
post-war suburbs were built on the assumption that every house
46
00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:59.009
had a car and that all uses should be rigidly
47
00:02:59.169 --> 00:03:05.509
separated into their own zones. workplaces over office workplace over here,
48
00:03:05.710 --> 00:03:10.789
industrial workplace in a separate place, retail in little clumps
49
00:03:10.930 --> 00:03:15.569
along the highways, large lot wealthy homes to one side,
50
00:03:16.129 --> 00:03:20.289
and then apartments more sort of behind the strip malls
51
00:03:20.449 --> 00:03:25.409
and near the lower income homes. Only schools were planned
52
00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:29.710
in or near neighborhoods. And so the neighborhoods were just
53
00:03:30.060 --> 00:03:35.180
They were also really highly segregated, both by class and race,
54
00:03:35.719 --> 00:03:39.650
and with the federal government really making a lot of
55
00:03:39.689 --> 00:03:44.750
the rules on that. So there actually was still plenty
56
00:03:44.909 --> 00:03:51.229
of socializing. Tupperware parties, coffee clatches, kids' birthday parties, and
57
00:03:51.330 --> 00:03:57.370
weekend cocktail parties, mostly organized by the mostly stay-at-home moms.
58
00:03:57.939 --> 00:04:01.340
but they were only with people of the same race
59
00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:05.580
and class. And that was sort of the image of
60
00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:09.620
the conformist 50s. But that image began to change a
61
00:04:09.740 --> 00:04:15.599
lot by the 60s countercultures, embrace of individualism. There was
62
00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:20.430
a kind of mass rejection of the homogeneity of the suburbs.
63
00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:25.790
And the civil rights movements finally succeeded in banning racial discrimination.
64
00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.980
And by the 70s, one of the biggest changes to
65
00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.139
the suburbs was the massive number of suburban women who
66
00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:36.939
joined the workforce, in part to help pay for the home,
67
00:04:37.420 --> 00:04:40.449
which
Load full transcript
during recession, there was a couple of recessions there,
68
00:04:40.470 --> 00:04:43.970
you know, it was getting harder to do that, but
69
00:04:44.089 --> 00:04:48.889
also because of women's liberation. But it meant also that
70
00:04:49.470 --> 00:04:52.769
the suburban women no longer had the time to organize
71
00:04:52.910 --> 00:04:57.629
a lot of those meetings and gatherings that that were
72
00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:02.040
much more prevalent in the 50s. And it's interesting to
73
00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:05.519
compare it to today because the actual built pattern of
74
00:05:05.620 --> 00:05:10.819
the suburban subdivision has not significantly changed since the 50s.
75
00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.139
It's just their new ones are just further and further
76
00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:18.100
away from the city center, requiring even more driving and
77
00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:22.120
longer commutes. And most of what's built today is just
78
00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:30.069
extremely car-dependent, single-use, and segregated from shops, jobs, and schools now.
79
00:05:30.689 --> 00:05:34.959
And in the 90s, sociologist Robert Putnam found that every
80
00:05:35.139 --> 00:05:40.579
additional 10 minutes of commute time was associated with a
81
00:05:40.579 --> 00:05:45.649
10% drop in all forms of social capital, including volunteering
82
00:05:46.189 --> 00:05:51.610
or belonging to local clubs. Today, honestly, I'm still somewhat baffled.
83
00:05:52.170 --> 00:05:55.509
that so many women are going to college and they're
84
00:05:55.930 --> 00:06:00.779
aspiring to having a really great career and wanting to
85
00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:03.839
raise a family in a big house on a big
86
00:06:03.939 --> 00:06:09.240
lot in a single-use subdivision with a big house that's
87
00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:13.689
going to require a ton of driving and housework. And
88
00:06:14.170 --> 00:06:19.170
it just, you know, while it's a It's a pretty
89
00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:22.569
difficult thing to try to pull off with all that commuting.
90
00:06:22.709 --> 00:06:28.100
So while the suburbs today are more racially diverse, they're
91
00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:32.860
more segregated by class than ever before. And I don't
92
00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:34.420
think it's working very well.
93
00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:40.100
You described three ways to retrofit a suburb, reuse, redevelopment,
94
00:06:40.199 --> 00:06:43.240
and regreening. Of these three, which tends to change how
95
00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:45.660
people experience and connect to a place the most and why?
96
00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:51.800
Three changed the experience pretty dramatically, but the most dramatic
97
00:06:51.860 --> 00:06:56.899
changes tend to occur in growing markets where the demand
98
00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:01.189
is really strong for more urban living in more walkable,
99
00:07:01.389 --> 00:07:07.189
mixed-use town centers with actively programmed town greens. And little
100
00:07:07.250 --> 00:07:12.850
side note, 75% of urbanized land in the U.S. is
101
00:07:12.930 --> 00:07:19.189
zoned exclusively for single-family homes. And yet today's households are
102
00:07:19.230 --> 00:07:24.079
increasingly just one- to two-person households, and fewer and fewer
103
00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:27.279
of them have children in them. They're not all looking
104
00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:36.470
for a single-family home. So it's these dead-and-dying commercial properties
105
00:07:36.910 --> 00:07:41.050
that really are providing the opportunities to meet the demand
106
00:07:42.009 --> 00:07:49.600
for more walkable, more mixed-use, and more smaller homes and
107
00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:55.180
or apartments and condos. So today, over 125 dead malls
108
00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:58.300
and their parking lots have been redeveloped to meet this demand,
109
00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:01.800
another 500 in the pipeline, in addition to all sorts
110
00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:04.980
of other property types. But that just gives a sense.
111
00:08:05.019 --> 00:08:12.930
So the redevelopments are a very dramatic change. But in
112
00:08:12.970 --> 00:08:16.310
the slower markets, where the economy is not as strong,
113
00:08:17.430 --> 00:08:22.129
I love seeing dead big box stores be adaptively reused
114
00:08:22.269 --> 00:08:27.589
with social infrastructure. Sometimes it means they're actually, instead of
115
00:08:27.990 --> 00:08:34.289
selling consumer products, they're actually become job centers or they're
116
00:08:34.309 --> 00:08:39.740
providing health care or education. So those are often things
117
00:08:39.889 --> 00:08:44.679
a struggling market really needs. And in all cases, I
118
00:08:44.799 --> 00:08:48.320
always advocate for more re-greening. to help us connect to
119
00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:52.100
nature and each other while also addressing climate change.
120
00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:56.080
When a mall becomes a walkable center, what are two
121
00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:59.179
or three physical ingredients it absolutely needs if you want
122
00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:01.299
people to linger rather than just shop and leave?
123
00:09:02.659 --> 00:09:05.740
So one of the most common, and I think it
124
00:09:05.879 --> 00:09:09.259
really does serve a very important point, especially for the
125
00:09:09.370 --> 00:09:14.049
gathering and the people feeling a sense of belonging, part
126
00:09:14.090 --> 00:09:19.240
of a community, is to have an actively programmed town green.
127
00:09:20.220 --> 00:09:26.299
Just simply having a gathering space is nice, but to
128
00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:30.539
really make it help build community, it does have to
129
00:09:30.580 --> 00:09:35.159
be programmed. So we see, you know, the farmer's markets,
130
00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:39.759
the yoga classes in the morning, all sorts of sports activities,
131
00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:46.120
movie nights, festivals, various ways that just help encourage invite
132
00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:50.159
people to really come out and hopefully get to know
133
00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:55.049
each other. The second piece of it is that that
134
00:09:55.149 --> 00:09:59.970
town green should be well integrated into a walkable street
135
00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:04.490
network of small blocks that make it convenient to bike
136
00:10:05.169 --> 00:10:08.990
or walk instead of driving. And then the third thing
137
00:10:09.370 --> 00:10:16.230
you need is are pedestrian-friendly frontages along those streets. We
138
00:10:16.269 --> 00:10:22.919
sometimes talk about that a building, 20 feet up of
139
00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:26.340
every building and 20 feet out in front of every
140
00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:30.639
building really belongs to the street and to the public realm.
141
00:10:30.659 --> 00:10:34.100
Above that, the buildings can do whatever they want. But
142
00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:39.820
at the ground level, You really want a lot of
143
00:10:39.899 --> 00:10:44.830
little small shops, great shop windows that are constantly changing
144
00:10:45.190 --> 00:10:48.210
and that reward the pedestrian eye.
145
00:10:50.210 --> 00:10:53.210
Question I've asked other guests. Imagine you had to build
146
00:10:53.289 --> 00:10:55.830
a 0 to 100 belonging index for a place using
147
00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:59.980
only public data, things like shared spaces, walkability, parks, safeties,
148
00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.360
and tree cover. What would you include and what would
149
00:11:02.379 --> 00:11:03.500
you refuse to reduce to a number?
150
00:11:05.019 --> 00:11:10.480
So I would actually love to see such an index
151
00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:13.820
be around. And I think it should include counting the
152
00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:18.820
number of parking spaces as a negative and then adding
153
00:11:18.919 --> 00:11:23.549
points for transit, trails, and bike lanes. Since giving up
154
00:11:23.590 --> 00:11:27.450
my car 10 years ago, and I'm in Atlanta, 10
155
00:11:27.450 --> 00:11:31.330
years ago, that was unusual. Today, not so much. I
156
00:11:31.389 --> 00:11:36.759
bike everywhere. And it's meant that my... the boundaries of
157
00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:40.039
sort of where I go, my normal routes, have shrunk.
158
00:11:40.570 --> 00:11:46.070
I don't go more than about five to at most
159
00:11:46.070 --> 00:11:52.090
10 miles in an ordinary day on my bike. But
160
00:11:53.190 --> 00:11:57.539
my knowledge of my community along my routes has really
161
00:11:57.679 --> 00:12:02.159
deepened enormously. I've met people. I notice things. I see
162
00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:07.929
things in a way that it makes me feel I belong.
163
00:12:08.110 --> 00:12:10.409
It makes me feel I know my neighborhood and I
164
00:12:10.450 --> 00:12:13.340
know more of my neighbors know me in a way
165
00:12:13.379 --> 00:12:16.220
that wouldn't be true when I'm in a car. And
166
00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:21.080
I would also give points for
streets that succeed in
167
00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:27.259
providing enough spatial enclosure to feel like an outdoor room.
168
00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:30.980
If you think of a an urban street that has
169
00:12:31.059 --> 00:12:35.840
shops at ground level and a couple stories of apartments
170
00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:40.820
or offices up above, warehouses, there's any number of uses.
171
00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:47.129
But spatially, if the ratio of the height of those
172
00:12:47.230 --> 00:12:52.809
buildings and the width of the street is more or
173
00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:58.100
less a one-to-one or even two-to-one, three-to-one, but at least
174
00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:04.759
a one-to-one, It feels like an outdoor room. And that
175
00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:08.110
has a human scale to it that tends to just
176
00:13:08.190 --> 00:13:12.789
make people feel really comfortable and happy to linger there
177
00:13:13.509 --> 00:13:15.789
and to really have a sense of belonging. I think
178
00:13:15.830 --> 00:13:19.669
you have to not just pass through a place. You
179
00:13:19.710 --> 00:13:21.519
have to want to stop and linger.
180
00:13:21.539 --> 00:13:26.019
A lot of the things a score like that might
181
00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:30.259
count Cafes within walking distance, transit, short blocks naturally favor
182
00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:33.559
denser places. What kind of suburban belonging would a city-based
183
00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:34.600
gore risk missing?
184
00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:41.669
Really sure. But I think, you know, an architect for
185
00:13:41.710 --> 00:13:46.009
a very good suburban retrofit once told me, it's amazing
186
00:13:46.210 --> 00:13:50.470
how much just two picnic tables under twinkle lights on
187
00:13:50.509 --> 00:13:56.240
a parking lot can do. And I really agree with that. Sometimes,
188
00:13:57.090 --> 00:14:00.169
I mean, during the pandemic, we saw a lot of
189
00:14:00.309 --> 00:14:06.110
that kind of very small, ad hoc, little interventions that
190
00:14:06.730 --> 00:14:11.570
have stayed because people realized how much they enjoyed being outside.
191
00:14:12.169 --> 00:14:14.429
During the pandemic, you know, it was unhealthy to stay
192
00:14:14.490 --> 00:14:17.110
inside for too much, but you didn't want to get
193
00:14:17.149 --> 00:14:20.529
close to people. So being outside, it sort of, it
194
00:14:20.610 --> 00:14:26.120
helped us rediscover the pleasure of sitting at a picnic table,
195
00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:30.090
even if it is on a parking lot, um, or
196
00:14:30.190 --> 00:14:33.809
sitting on a porch. And a lot of suburban homes
197
00:14:34.250 --> 00:14:39.070
have porches, but a lot, some of, you know, some
198
00:14:39.090 --> 00:14:42.389
of them aren't, don't get used very much. And yet
199
00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:45.700
during the pandemic, I think a lot of, suddenly the
200
00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:49.120
porch became almost some, for some people, it became an office.
201
00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:52.519
It became a number of things. Now we have all
202
00:14:52.559 --> 00:14:57.029
sorts of porch festivals. Um, There are reading groups and
203
00:14:57.090 --> 00:15:00.820
book clubs that meet on porches. One of the neighborhoods
204
00:15:00.899 --> 00:15:06.120
near me has a really nice Porches and Pies Festival
205
00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:13.370
where they raise money for the neighborhood. Homeowners bake pies
206
00:15:13.470 --> 00:15:18.250
and sell slices of pie on a big day. There's
207
00:15:18.269 --> 00:15:21.659
also several neighborhoods that now have developed sort of porch
208
00:15:21.779 --> 00:15:28.460
fest where you have musicians on different porches throughout the
209
00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:33.019
suburban neighborhoods. So I would say the score should also
210
00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:38.590
look at really small interventions because from the small ones,
211
00:15:38.889 --> 00:15:42.470
sometimes bigger things grow. And look at festivals.
212
00:15:45.450 --> 00:15:48.740
I interviewed Ryan Gravel last week, who built the Atlanta Beltline.
213
00:15:49.179 --> 00:15:52.480
Would you say that development helped foster connection and belonging
214
00:15:52.519 --> 00:15:53.159
around Atlanta?
215
00:15:54.179 --> 00:15:58.470
Absolutely. I'm lucky I live only about two blocks from
216
00:15:58.519 --> 00:16:04.370
the Beltline, and it is just amazing to see how
217
00:16:04.490 --> 00:16:07.629
it has evolved. I've watched it from day one. And
218
00:16:10.450 --> 00:16:15.269
different groups are using it all the time. And so it,
219
00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:19.639
it really has collected people. You get the bird watchers,
220
00:16:19.700 --> 00:16:23.379
you get the joggers, you get the local, local track teams,
221
00:16:23.419 --> 00:16:28.919
you get just people out doing running errands. Um, and
222
00:16:29.179 --> 00:16:33.370
they aren't all necessarily really talking to each other, but they're,
223
00:16:34.029 --> 00:16:39.750
there's nodding and smiling and, you know, um, It's rather amazing.
224
00:16:39.789 --> 00:16:46.990
There's one guy, a rollerblader, older guy, and he just
225
00:16:47.629 --> 00:16:51.129
always would be singing. When he's on the Beltline, he's
226
00:16:51.190 --> 00:16:54.059
generally singing and he's kind of calling out to everybody, hey,
227
00:16:54.159 --> 00:17:00.759
you look beautiful today. And a local taco restaurant that
228
00:17:01.539 --> 00:17:06.220
is on the Beltline said, we love you. And we
229
00:17:06.259 --> 00:17:10.460
want to pay you. We're going to give you a t-shirt.
230
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:14.160
We're going to give you free tacos for life. You
231
00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:19.410
don't owe us anything, but we just love you and
232
00:17:19.450 --> 00:17:22.309
we want to support you. And, you know, those kinds
233
00:17:22.390 --> 00:17:27.250
of things. There's so many Beltline stories, but that was
234
00:17:27.309 -->
00:17:28.150
one of my favorites.
235
00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:31.900
Have you seen a retrofit measurably change how people would
236
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.059
use or feel about a place and not just how
237
00:17:34.099 --> 00:17:36.890
it looks? And what evidence convinced you that the social
238
00:17:36.950 --> 00:17:38.299
connection had actually changed?
239
00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:41.859
So I kind of talked about a little bit already
240
00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:47.289
about the importance of programming that open space. You know,
241
00:17:47.430 --> 00:17:52.890
just simply making an open space and assuming people will
242
00:17:52.930 --> 00:17:57.319
gather there is not enough. and especially not enough in
243
00:17:57.359 --> 00:18:02.740
the suburbs. People in the suburbs generally have enough opportunities
244
00:18:02.839 --> 00:18:09.710
to see leafy greens and hear some bird song. What
245
00:18:09.750 --> 00:18:15.569
they miss and crave are seeing other people. And so
246
00:18:15.609 --> 00:18:23.250
it's the programming that really is so essential. And there
247
00:18:23.269 --> 00:18:27.390
really have been, I think, some amazing projects. One that
248
00:18:27.490 --> 00:18:31.369
I quite like is called the Mosaic District. It was
249
00:18:31.410 --> 00:18:37.170
a former cinemaplex, redeveloped as a mixed-use town center by
250
00:18:37.190 --> 00:18:44.279
a company that is primarily known for building grocery-anchored strip malls.
251
00:18:44.839 --> 00:18:48.819
But their CEO, who had grown up from an intern
252
00:18:49.019 --> 00:18:53.089
all the way to CEO in the company, She was
253
00:18:53.369 --> 00:18:57.250
driving home one day on the radio. She hears the
254
00:18:57.309 --> 00:19:01.819
attorney general say that the U.S. is in a loneliness epidemic.
255
00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:05.059
And she had she pulled over to the side of
256
00:19:05.099 --> 00:19:10.039
the road and realized because she was crying and she goes, oh,
257
00:19:10.059 --> 00:19:13.910
my God, that's me. And that's most of my customers
258
00:19:14.130 --> 00:19:19.710
at strip malls. Everyone is really has become incredibly lonely.
259
00:19:20.549 --> 00:19:23.809
all right, I'm going to try this mixed-use town center thing,
260
00:19:23.890 --> 00:19:27.259
and I'm going to do everything I can to try
261
00:19:27.339 --> 00:19:33.819
to encourage people to interact. And I interviewed her, and
262
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:41.680
we agreed. You can't really prove whether it has reduced loneliness,
263
00:19:41.789 --> 00:19:48.869
but she figured her town green is actually on the side.
264
00:19:48.910 --> 00:19:51.200
They build a new movie theater as sort of an
265
00:19:51.339 --> 00:19:54.140
anchor in the community. And on the side of it,
266
00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:59.299
they have a big screen that has yoga classes in
267
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:04.569
the morning, I mean, all day long. Then office worker
268
00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:10.599
entertainment at lunch. after-school programs, and then every local sports
269
00:20:10.660 --> 00:20:14.359
game on at night. And she's just trying to invite
270
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:19.849
people to come out of their homes and feel part
271
00:20:19.869 --> 00:20:24.650
of the community. She has seating everywhere. The Target has
272
00:20:24.789 --> 00:20:30.509
seating right in front of it. And she invests in
273
00:20:30.569 --> 00:20:36.039
sort of pretty controversial, not too super controversial, but provocative artwork.
274
00:20:37.130 --> 00:20:40.309
to try to encourage people to talk to one another.
275
00:20:40.329 --> 00:20:44.029
So that one, you know, we haven't been able to
276
00:20:44.089 --> 00:20:50.190
prove whether she's really addressing loneliness, but it's really popular.
277
00:20:50.390 --> 00:20:55.170
The place is packed, so people are enjoying it. Another project,
278
00:20:55.980 --> 00:21:01.059
quite different, Guthrie Green in Tulsa. The Mosaic District is
279
00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:07.859
in Northern Virginia. Guthrie Green in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a
280
00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:13.539
former truck dock and parking lot in a really industrial area.
281
00:21:14.819 --> 00:21:18.740
And there were already a few artists in some of
282
00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:24.829
the industrial buildings, but a nonprofit really wanted to help
283
00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:31.589
expand the artists, really make it an artist's neighborhood. And
284
00:21:31.670 --> 00:21:37.799
so they converted the truck dock into a park that
285
00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:43.480
is programmed with food truck Fridays, weekend movie nights, kids
286
00:21:43.559 --> 00:21:48.509
sports during the week. And it's absolutely now a bustling
287
00:21:48.690 --> 00:21:51.829
art community. And one of the cool things they did
288
00:21:51.890 --> 00:21:56.779
was when they depaved the parking lot, they installed a
289
00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:02.859
lot of geothermal wells. And those now provide very sustainable
290
00:22:03.339 --> 00:22:07.509
form of heating and cooling. to the nonprofit that is
291
00:22:07.589 --> 00:22:09.869
the one that is putting a lot of time into
292
00:22:10.009 --> 00:22:16.289
programming that park. But it's not just about programming green space.
293
00:22:17.529 --> 00:22:22.880
Another really great example that absolutely, I think, has changed
294
00:22:23.410 --> 00:22:30.539
how people view, even view their whole community, is BLVD,
295
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:36.349
sort of short, just the initials to for Boulevard that
296
00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:40.690
is in Lancaster, California. And it is a great example
297
00:22:40.930 --> 00:22:46.329
of retrofitting a dying main street of a small suburb
298
00:22:46.390 --> 00:22:51.279
about two hours outside of Los Angeles, where the main
299
00:22:51.339 --> 00:22:55.319
street had just, it had sort of a couple antique
300
00:22:55.400 --> 00:23:00.200
shops or, you know,
thrift stores. It really, they couldn't
301
00:23:00.259 --> 00:23:04.529
compete with the mall. And so they'd widened the street
302
00:23:05.289 --> 00:23:08.190
and hoping that would make it easier for people to
303
00:23:08.230 --> 00:23:10.549
get downtown. It just made it easier for people to
304
00:23:10.609 --> 00:23:15.369
zip through downtown. And then they did the opposite. They
305
00:23:15.450 --> 00:23:20.890
put their five-lane main street, they reduced it down to
306
00:23:21.069 --> 00:23:26.230
two travel lanes. They put the parking in the middle,
307
00:23:27.019 --> 00:23:31.680
in between new street trees and street lights with the
308
00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:36.390
twinkle lights. and permeable paving because this is out in
309
00:23:36.410 --> 00:23:39.579
the desert and it's super, super hot. So they made
310
00:23:39.599 --> 00:23:44.160
it cooler and more shady. And you'd think it'd be
311
00:23:44.180 --> 00:23:46.660
a disaster. And they reduced the speed to 20. You'd
312
00:23:46.700 --> 00:23:49.579
think it'd be a disaster. But actually, when cars are
313
00:23:49.619 --> 00:23:52.240
going 40 or 50, they have to be far apart.
314
00:23:52.819 --> 00:23:55.319
When they're going 20 miles per hour, they can be
315
00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:58.880
very close to one another and you get more throughput.
316
00:23:59.740 --> 00:24:04.099
And I went out and visited, talked to several shop owners,
317
00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:06.140
and they're all like, oh, you know, this is the
318
00:24:06.180 --> 00:24:09.960
place to be. The mall keeps calling me. They want
319
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:12.930
me back. No, no. You know, this is a great place.
320
00:24:12.950 --> 00:24:21.470
Because they now made their downtown, the central parking on
321
00:24:21.490 --> 00:24:25.950
the permeable paving, under the twinkle lights, it doubles as
322
00:24:26.230 --> 00:24:30.519
that's where they hold their huge Halloween parade festival event.
323
00:24:31.160 --> 00:24:38.059
That's where they have their farmer's market. It's double functioning,
324
00:24:38.079 --> 00:24:42.700
and it's just made the whole town, it's reduced the
325
00:24:42.740 --> 00:24:46.960
number of accidents, it's increased the number of shops now.
326
00:24:47.099 --> 00:24:50.140
They're starting to get some chain stores, which maybe isn't
327
00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:52.700
the best, but it's a sign of kind of how
328
00:24:52.809 --> 00:24:58.819
desirable they are now. So it's When I went out there,
329
00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:03.339
I was very impressed that absolutely there was, people were
330
00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:07.119
proud of the community in a way that they really
331
00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:09.240
hadn't been before that.
332
00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:14.019
I'm 15 and I live in Miami, where teenagers often
333
00:25:14.039 --> 00:25:16.579
need a ride to go almost anywhere. So what's the
334
00:25:16.619 --> 00:25:19.700
smallest suburban retrofit that could get teenagers a little more independent?
335
00:25:20.690 --> 00:25:26.170
A bike. I mean, and seriously, bike lanes, of course.
336
00:25:26.890 --> 00:25:30.859
But You know, in the bike lanes, if you got
337
00:25:31.079 --> 00:25:34.180
a couple of your friends together, you could just go
338
00:25:34.299 --> 00:25:39.480
out one day. You don't have to ask permission. You
339
00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:43.380
could just paint. You put some paint down and create
340
00:25:43.420 --> 00:25:47.240
some bike lanes. Now, when the city will complain or
341
00:25:47.299 --> 00:25:53.569
wonder what's happened, at that point you start, you explain
342
00:25:54.069 --> 00:25:59.980
exactly why you need the bike lanes. And you can
343
00:26:00.039 --> 00:26:03.480
call it a pilot project. That's how tactical urbanism in
344
00:26:03.700 --> 00:26:06.759
all of New York City's bike lanes got started, is
345
00:26:06.779 --> 00:26:09.259
you just say, oh, it's just a temporary pilot. We're
346
00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:11.819
going to just see if it really is a problem
347
00:26:11.859 --> 00:26:15.789
for the cars and if it improves safety for kids. Now,
348
00:26:16.210 --> 00:26:22.309
if that just doesn't seem possible in your neighborhood, another
349
00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:29.319
thing you could do is is actually collect data on
350
00:26:29.420 --> 00:26:33.380
you and your friends' trips and your health. So how
351
00:26:33.420 --> 00:26:35.400
many trips do you take a day? How many of
352
00:26:35.460 --> 00:26:39.089
them are by walking, by biking, by car, by bus,
353
00:26:39.190 --> 00:26:45.210
whatever mode? Just collect the data, but also data on
354
00:26:45.450 --> 00:26:51.569
your health. And see if you find any correspondences. And
355
00:26:51.630 --> 00:26:55.369
if so, write an op-ed for the Miami Herald. I
356
00:26:55.390 --> 00:26:58.730
will tell you that shortly after my TED Talk came
357
00:26:58.950 --> 00:27:04.859
out on retrofitting suburbia, I received an email from someone. Now,
358
00:27:05.099 --> 00:27:07.319
I don't really know if they were a teenager or
359
00:27:07.339 --> 00:27:09.099
if the story they were telling me was true. I
360
00:27:09.140 --> 00:27:12.240
just received the email. But I believe it was true.
361
00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:16.119
He claimed to be a teenager in a suburb somewhere
362
00:27:16.160 --> 00:27:20.000
in Florida. I don't remember exactly where. He said, It
363
00:27:20.039 --> 00:27:24.420
was a 45-minute walk from his home to anything that
364
00:27:24.579 --> 00:27:29.319
wasn't another private house. And I think that was just
365
00:27:29.380 --> 00:27:33.380
a gas station convenience store. He went on to tell
366
00:27:33.420 --> 00:27:38.930
me how many of his peers in his neighborhood got
367
00:27:39.089 --> 00:27:44.230
stoned or drunk almost every day after school because they
368
00:27:44.269 --> 00:27:49.250
were so bored and felt so trapped. And I made
369
00:27:49.289 -->
00:27:52.740
a similar suggestion to him. He said, what can I
370
00:27:52.819 --> 00:27:57.559
do about this? And I said, well, you can tell
371
00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:03.500
that story. And, you know, really, there's so many parents
372
00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:10.990
often think that they want the suburban dream for their kids.
373
00:28:11.069 --> 00:28:14.390
They think it's going to be healthy and better for
374
00:28:14.430 --> 00:28:21.380
their kids to have a yard. But it's often they
375
00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:25.619
don't realize how much, you know, I think it's great often,
376
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:31.519
the suburbs are often way better for really little kids,
377
00:28:32.259 --> 00:28:38.289
but actually really can be very destructive for teenagers who
378
00:28:38.369 --> 00:28:42.309
need more stimulation and are often having to find it
379
00:28:43.029 --> 00:28:44.490
in very unhealthy ways.
380
00:28:45.809 --> 00:28:48.410
You just taught your final class after more than 20
381
00:28:48.410 --> 00:28:51.490
years at Georgia Tech. If the next generation inherits suburbs
382
00:28:51.529 --> 00:28:53.230
that were built for a very different way of life,
383
00:28:53.730 --> 00:28:55.470
what's the one thing you would want them to understand
384
00:28:55.509 --> 00:28:56.609
before they start changing them?
385
00:28:57.450 --> 00:29:00.230
Well, actually, I'll correct you a little bit. I've been
386
00:29:00.269 --> 00:29:03.950
teaching for 40 years, seven years at University of Virginia,
387
00:29:03.970 --> 00:29:09.309
eight at MIT, and 25 at Georgia Tech. But, um,
388
00:29:10.509 --> 00:29:15.410
What research has shown is that our happiness with certain
389
00:29:15.630 --> 00:29:21.779
actions has a shelf life. Eating a chocolate bar makes
390
00:29:21.839 --> 00:29:24.700
us feel good for about 20 minutes, and then we
391
00:29:24.740 --> 00:29:27.319
kind of have a little bit of regret, many of us.
392
00:29:28.299 --> 00:29:31.960
The new big suburban house that a couple buy, so
393
00:29:31.980 --> 00:29:35.089
their kids, just like I was saying, will have more
394
00:29:35.109 --> 00:29:39.869
than what maybe the parents had growing up, but it
395
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.160
comes with a really long commute for both of them now.
396
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:51.349
And research has shown that on average, folks stop being
397
00:29:51.470 --> 00:29:55.869
quite so happy about that big suburban house after only
398
00:29:56.049 --> 00:30:00.759
six months. They begin to realize that that they leave
399
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:04.039
the house so early and get home so late that
400
00:30:04.059 --> 00:30:08.359
they hardly actually see their kids. The commute is really stressful,
401
00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:11.700
and they begin to fight over who does which of
402
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:14.900
the chores to maintain the big house. And this is
403
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.880
especially true for women. So, you know, more young women
404
00:30:19.940 --> 00:30:23.480
are in college now than young men. They are ambitious
405
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:27.180
and want it all. But I recommend that instead of
406
00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:34.859
accepting yesterday's suburban dream built for the stay-at-home mom, take
407
00:30:34.900 --> 00:30:38.769
a look at the retrofitted suburbs. But most of all,
408
00:30:39.069 --> 00:30:44.609
figure out what truly makes you happy rather than assuming
409
00:30:45.329 --> 00:30:53.920
it's what is now a fairly tired pattern of suburbia.
410
00:30:55.660 --> 00:30:57.940
Ellen, thank you so much for joining me. I came
411
00:30:57.980 --> 00:31:01.910
into this conversation thinking about belonging was mostly a city question.
412
00:31:02.289 --> 00:31:04.329
And you're giving me a lot to think about, especially
413
00:31:04.369 --> 00:31:06.809
about the suburban places we already have and how much
414
00:31:06.849 --> 00:31:08.210
they can change without starting over.
415
00:31:09.549 --> 00:31:12.690
It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me, Naomi.
416
00:31:12.710 --> 00:31:13.450
Of course.
417
00:31:13.910 --> 00:31:16.529
And thank you for everyone listening to Realtopia. If this
418
00:31:16.630 --> 00:31:18.630
episode made you look at the nearest parking lot and
419
00:31:18.690 --> 00:31:21.029
imagine what it could be instead, that's exactly why I
420
00:31:21.049 --> 00:31:22.630
made this podcast. See you next time.