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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Realtopia. I'm Naomi, your host. Today,
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I'm joined by Ellen Dunham-Jones, an architect and urban designer
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who taught at Georgia Tech for more than 20 years
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and who has spent much of her career rethinking what
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suburbs can become. With June Williamson, she wrote Retrofitting Suburbia,
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the book that showed how dead malls, empty office parks,
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and oceans of parking can be turned into walkable places.
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Her database now tracks more than 2,500 retrofits across the country.
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So much of America is suburban, while many conversations about belonging,
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including on this show, focus on cities. So, if belonging
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can be designed, the real test is whether it can
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be designed into a strip mall on a six-lane road.
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Ellen has spent her career on exactly that, so I've
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been looking forward to this one. Ellen, thank you so
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much for being here.
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My pleasure.
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What first made you look at a dead mall or
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an empty office park and see an opportunity rather than
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simply a failure?
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Like many academics, in the 1980s, I had been critiquing sprawl,
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but there was a point in the early 2000s, I
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was at a meeting of the Congress for the New
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Urbanism when architect and urban designer Victor Dover presented a
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commissioned proposal to retrofit the dead Eastgate Mall in Chattanooga
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into a more walkable mixed-use town center. And he used
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the term retrofitting suburbia. I thought it was a great project,
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but I also knew that it, you know, that was
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exactly kind of what should be happening more. But I
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knew that it wasn't the kind of sexy architecture that
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the magazines would publish. And at that moment, it really
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helped me shift from simply critiquing sprawl to documenting real
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efforts to improve aging, dying, car-dependent suburbs, and I was
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lucky to get my co-author, June Williamson, to join me.
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For someone who grew up in a suburb and likes it,
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what did the traditional post-war suburb make harder when it
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comes to people meeting, gathering, and feeling connected?
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The short answer is simply the suburbs separated everybody and
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everything apart from each other through zoning. But the longer
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answer is You know, I think it does focus to
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some degree on just how the patterns of mobility changed dramatically.
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Unlike the pre-war suburbs that were often centered on a
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train station and a few shops, usually right near, clustered
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around the train station, with most of the homes within
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walking or biking distance, in the 1950s and 60s, The
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post-war suburbs were built on the assumption that every house
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had a car and that all uses should be rigidly
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separated into their own zones. workplaces over office workplace over here,
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industrial workplace in a separate place, retail in little clumps
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along the highways, large lot wealthy homes to one side,
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and then apartments more sort of behind the strip malls
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and near the lower income homes. Only schools were planned
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in or near neighborhoods. And so the neighborhoods were just
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They were also really highly segregated, both by class and race,
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and with the federal government really making a lot of
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the rules on that. So there actually was still plenty
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of socializing. Tupperware parties, coffee clatches, kids' birthday parties, and
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weekend cocktail parties, mostly organized by the mostly stay-at-home moms.
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but they were only with people of the same race
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and class. And that was sort of the image of
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the conformist 50s. But that image began to change a
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lot by the 60s countercultures, embrace of individualism. There was
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a kind of mass rejection of the homogeneity of the suburbs.
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And the civil rights movements finally succeeded in banning racial discrimination.
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And by the 70s, one of the biggest changes to
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the suburbs was the massive number of suburban women who
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joined the workforce, in part to help pay for the home,
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which
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during recession, there was a couple of recessions there,
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you know, it was getting harder to do that, but
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also because of women's liberation. But it meant also that
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the suburban women no longer had the time to organize
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a lot of those meetings and gatherings that that were
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much more prevalent in the 50s. And it's interesting to
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compare it to today because the actual built pattern of
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the suburban subdivision has not significantly changed since the 50s.
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It's just their new ones are just further and further
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away from the city center, requiring even more driving and
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longer commutes. And most of what's built today is just
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extremely car-dependent, single-use, and segregated from shops, jobs, and schools now.
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And in the 90s, sociologist Robert Putnam found that every
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additional 10 minutes of commute time was associated with a
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10% drop in all forms of social capital, including volunteering
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or belonging to local clubs. Today, honestly, I'm still somewhat baffled.
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that so many women are going to college and they're
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aspiring to having a really great career and wanting to
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raise a family in a big house on a big
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lot in a single-use subdivision with a big house that's
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going to require a ton of driving and housework. And
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it just, you know, while it's a It's a pretty
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difficult thing to try to pull off with all that commuting.
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So while the suburbs today are more racially diverse, they're
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more segregated by class than ever before. And I don't
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think it's working very well.
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You described three ways to retrofit a suburb, reuse, redevelopment,
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and regreening. Of these three, which tends to change how
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people experience and connect to a place the most and why?
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Three changed the experience pretty dramatically, but the most dramatic
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changes tend to occur in growing markets where the demand
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is really strong for more urban living in more walkable,
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mixed-use town centers with actively programmed town greens. And little
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side note, 75% of urbanized land in the U.S. is
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zoned exclusively for single-family homes. And yet today's households are
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increasingly just one- to two-person households, and fewer and fewer
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of them have children in them. They're not all looking
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for a single-family home. So it's these dead-and-dying commercial properties
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that really are providing the opportunities to meet the demand
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for more walkable, more mixed-use, and more smaller homes and
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or apartments and condos. So today, over 125 dead malls
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and their parking lots have been redeveloped to meet this demand,
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another 500 in the pipeline, in addition to all sorts
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of other property types. But that just gives a sense.
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So the redevelopments are a very dramatic change. But in
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the slower markets, where the economy is not as strong,
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I love seeing dead big box stores be adaptively reused
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with social infrastructure. Sometimes it means they're actually, instead of
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selling consumer products, they're actually become job centers or they're
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providing health care or education. So those are often things
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a struggling market really needs. And in all cases, I
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always advocate for more re-greening. to help us connect to
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nature and each other while also addressing climate change.
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When a mall becomes a walkable center, what are two
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or three physical ingredients it absolutely needs if you want
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people to linger rather than just shop and leave?
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So one of the most common, and I think it
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really does serve a very important point, especially for the
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gathering and the people feeling a sense of belonging, part
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of a community, is to have an actively programmed town green.
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Just simply having a gathering space is nice, but to
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really make it help build community, it does have to
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be programmed. So we see, you know, the farmer's markets,
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the yoga classes in the morning, all sorts of sports activities,
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movie nights, festivals, various ways that just help encourage invite
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people to really come out and hopefully get to know
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each other. The second piece of it is that that
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town green should be well integrated into a walkable street
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network of small blocks that make it convenient to bike
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or walk instead of driving. And then the third thing
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you need is are pedestrian-friendly frontages along those streets. We
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sometimes talk about that a building, 20 feet up of
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every building and 20 feet out in front of every
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building really belongs to the street and to the public realm.
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Above that, the buildings can do whatever they want. But
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at the ground level, You really want a lot of
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little small shops, great shop windows that are constantly changing
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and that reward the pedestrian eye.
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Question I've asked other guests. Imagine you had to build
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a 0 to 100 belonging index for a place using
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only public data, things like shared spaces, walkability, parks, safeties,
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and tree cover. What would you include and what would
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you refuse to reduce to a number?
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So I would actually love to see such an index
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be around. And I think it should include counting the
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number of parking spaces as a negative and then adding
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points for transit, trails, and bike lanes. Since giving up
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my car 10 years ago, and I'm in Atlanta, 10
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years ago, that was unusual. Today, not so much. I
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bike everywhere. And it's meant that my... the boundaries of
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sort of where I go, my normal routes, have shrunk.
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I don't go more than about five to at most
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10 miles in an ordinary day on my bike. But
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my knowledge of my community along my routes has really
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deepened enormously. I've met people. I notice things. I see
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things in a way that it makes me feel I belong.
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It makes me feel I know my neighborhood and I
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know more of my neighbors know me in a way
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that wouldn't be true when I'm in a car. And
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I would also give points for
streets that succeed in
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providing enough spatial enclosure to feel like an outdoor room.
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If you think of a an urban street that has
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shops at ground level and a couple stories of apartments
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or offices up above, warehouses, there's any number of uses.
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But spatially, if the ratio of the height of those
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buildings and the width of the street is more or
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less a one-to-one or even two-to-one, three-to-one, but at least
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a one-to-one, It feels like an outdoor room. And that
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has a human scale to it that tends to just
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make people feel really comfortable and happy to linger there
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and to really have a sense of belonging. I think
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you have to not just pass through a place. You
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have to want to stop and linger.
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A lot of the things a score like that might
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count Cafes within walking distance, transit, short blocks naturally favor
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denser places. What kind of suburban belonging would a city-based
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gore risk missing?
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Really sure. But I think, you know, an architect for
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a very good suburban retrofit once told me, it's amazing
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how much just two picnic tables under twinkle lights on
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a parking lot can do. And I really agree with that. Sometimes,
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I mean, during the pandemic, we saw a lot of
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that kind of very small, ad hoc, little interventions that
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have stayed because people realized how much they enjoyed being outside.
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During the pandemic, you know, it was unhealthy to stay
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inside for too much, but you didn't want to get
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close to people. So being outside, it sort of, it
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helped us rediscover the pleasure of sitting at a picnic table,
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even if it is on a parking lot, um, or
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sitting on a porch. And a lot of suburban homes
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have porches, but a lot, some of, you know, some
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of them aren't, don't get used very much. And yet
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during the pandemic, I think a lot of, suddenly the
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porch became almost some, for some people, it became an office.
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It became a number of things. Now we have all
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sorts of porch festivals. Um, There are reading groups and
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book clubs that meet on porches. One of the neighborhoods
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near me has a really nice Porches and Pies Festival
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where they raise money for the neighborhood. Homeowners bake pies
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and sell slices of pie on a big day. There's
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also several neighborhoods that now have developed sort of porch
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fest where you have musicians on different porches throughout the
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suburban neighborhoods. So I would say the score should also
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look at really small interventions because from the small ones,
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sometimes bigger things grow. And look at festivals.
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I interviewed Ryan Gravel last week, who built the Atlanta Beltline.
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Would you say that development helped foster connection and belonging
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around Atlanta?
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Absolutely. I'm lucky I live only about two blocks from
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the Beltline, and it is just amazing to see how
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it has evolved. I've watched it from day one. And
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different groups are using it all the time. And so it,
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it really has collected people. You get the bird watchers,
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you get the joggers, you get the local, local track teams,
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you get just people out doing running errands. Um, and
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they aren't all necessarily really talking to each other, but they're,
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there's nodding and smiling and, you know, um, It's rather amazing.
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There's one guy, a rollerblader, older guy, and he just
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always would be singing. When he's on the Beltline, he's
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generally singing and he's kind of calling out to everybody, hey,
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you look beautiful today. And a local taco restaurant that
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is on the Beltline said, we love you. And we
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want to pay you. We're going to give you a t-shirt.
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We're going to give you free tacos for life. You
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don't owe us anything, but we just love you and
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we want to support you. And, you know, those kinds
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of things. There's so many Beltline stories, but that was
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one of my favorites.
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Have you seen a retrofit measurably change how people would
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use or feel about a place and not just how
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it looks? And what evidence convinced you that the social
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connection had actually changed?
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So I kind of talked about a little bit already
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about the importance of programming that open space. You know,
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just simply making an open space and assuming people will
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gather there is not enough. and especially not enough in
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the suburbs. People in the suburbs generally have enough opportunities
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to see leafy greens and hear some bird song. What
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they miss and crave are seeing other people. And so
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it's the programming that really is so essential. And there
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really have been, I think, some amazing projects. One that
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I quite like is called the Mosaic District. It was
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a former cinemaplex, redeveloped as a mixed-use town center by
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a company that is primarily known for building grocery-anchored strip malls.
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But their CEO, who had grown up from an intern
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all the way to CEO in the company, She was
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driving home one day on the radio. She hears the
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attorney general say that the U.S. is in a loneliness epidemic.
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And she had she pulled over to the side of
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the road and realized because she was crying and she goes, oh,
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my God, that's me. And that's most of my customers
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at strip malls. Everyone is really has become incredibly lonely.
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all right, I'm going to try this mixed-use town center thing,
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and I'm going to do everything I can to try
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to encourage people to interact. And I interviewed her, and
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we agreed. You can't really prove whether it has reduced loneliness,
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but she figured her town green is actually on the side.
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They build a new movie theater as sort of an
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anchor in the community. And on the side of it,
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they have a big screen that has yoga classes in
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the morning, I mean, all day long. Then office worker
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entertainment at lunch. after-school programs, and then every local sports
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game on at night. And she's just trying to invite
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people to come out of their homes and feel part
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of the community. She has seating everywhere. The Target has
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seating right in front of it. And she invests in
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sort of pretty controversial, not too super controversial, but provocative artwork.
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to try to encourage people to talk to one another.
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So that one, you know, we haven't been able to
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prove whether she's really addressing loneliness, but it's really popular.
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The place is packed, so people are enjoying it. Another project,
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quite different, Guthrie Green in Tulsa. The Mosaic District is
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in Northern Virginia. Guthrie Green in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a
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former truck dock and parking lot in a really industrial area.
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And there were already a few artists in some of
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the industrial buildings, but a nonprofit really wanted to help
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expand the artists, really make it an artist's neighborhood. And
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so they converted the truck dock into a park that
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is programmed with food truck Fridays, weekend movie nights, kids
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sports during the week. And it's absolutely now a bustling
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art community. And one of the cool things they did
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was when they depaved the parking lot, they installed a
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lot of geothermal wells. And those now provide very sustainable
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form of heating and cooling. to the nonprofit that is
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the one that is putting a lot of time into
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programming that park. But it's not just about programming green space.
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Another really great example that absolutely, I think, has changed
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how people view, even view their whole community, is BLVD,
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sort of short, just the initials to for Boulevard that
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is in Lancaster, California. And it is a great example
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of retrofitting a dying main street of a small suburb
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about two hours outside of Los Angeles, where the main
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street had just, it had sort of a couple antique
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shops or, you know,
thrift stores. It really, they couldn't
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compete with the mall. And so they'd widened the street
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and hoping that would make it easier for people to
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get downtown. It just made it easier for people to
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zip through downtown. And then they did the opposite. They
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put their five-lane main street, they reduced it down to
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two travel lanes. They put the parking in the middle,
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in between new street trees and street lights with the
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twinkle lights. and permeable paving because this is out in
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the desert and it's super, super hot. So they made
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it cooler and more shady. And you'd think it'd be
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a disaster. And they reduced the speed to 20. You'd
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think it'd be a disaster. But actually, when cars are
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going 40 or 50, they have to be far apart.
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When they're going 20 miles per hour, they can be
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very close to one another and you get more throughput.
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And I went out and visited, talked to several shop owners,
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and they're all like, oh, you know, this is the
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place to be. The mall keeps calling me. They want
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me back. No, no. You know, this is a great place.
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Because they now made their downtown, the central parking on
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the permeable paving, under the twinkle lights, it doubles as
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that's where they hold their huge Halloween parade festival event.
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That's where they have their farmer's market. It's double functioning,
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and it's just made the whole town, it's reduced the
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number of accidents, it's increased the number of shops now.
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They're starting to get some chain stores, which maybe isn't
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the best, but it's a sign of kind of how
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desirable they are now. So it's When I went out there,
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I was very impressed that absolutely there was, people were
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proud of the community in a way that they really
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hadn't been before that.
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I'm 15 and I live in Miami, where teenagers often
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need a ride to go almost anywhere. So what's the
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smallest suburban retrofit that could get teenagers a little more independent?
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A bike. I mean, and seriously, bike lanes, of course.
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But You know, in the bike lanes, if you got
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a couple of your friends together, you could just go
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out one day. You don't have to ask permission. You
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could just paint. You put some paint down and create
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some bike lanes. Now, when the city will complain or
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wonder what's happened, at that point you start, you explain
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exactly why you need the bike lanes. And you can
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call it a pilot project. That's how tactical urbanism in
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all of New York City's bike lanes got started, is
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you just say, oh, it's just a temporary pilot. We're
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going to just see if it really is a problem
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for the cars and if it improves safety for kids. Now,
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if that just doesn't seem possible in your neighborhood, another
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thing you could do is is actually collect data on
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you and your friends' trips and your health. So how
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many trips do you take a day? How many of
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them are by walking, by biking, by car, by bus,
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whatever mode? Just collect the data, but also data on
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your health. And see if you find any correspondences. And
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if so, write an op-ed for the Miami Herald. I
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will tell you that shortly after my TED Talk came
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out on retrofitting suburbia, I received an email from someone. Now,
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I don't really know if they were a teenager or
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if the story they were telling me was true. I
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just received the email. But I believe it was true.
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He claimed to be a teenager in a suburb somewhere
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in Florida. I don't remember exactly where. He said, It
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was a 45-minute walk from his home to anything that
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wasn't another private house. And I think that was just
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a gas station convenience store. He went on to tell
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me how many of his peers in his neighborhood got
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stoned or drunk almost every day after school because they
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were so bored and felt so trapped. And I made
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00:27:52.740
a similar suggestion to him. He said, what can I
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do about this? And I said, well, you can tell
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that story. And, you know, really, there's so many parents
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often think that they want the suburban dream for their kids.
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They think it's going to be healthy and better for
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their kids to have a yard. But it's often they
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don't realize how much, you know, I think it's great often,
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the suburbs are often way better for really little kids,
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but actually really can be very destructive for teenagers who
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need more stimulation and are often having to find it
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in very unhealthy ways.
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You just taught your final class after more than 20
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years at Georgia Tech. If the next generation inherits suburbs
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that were built for a very different way of life,
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what's the one thing you would want them to understand
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before they start changing them?
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Well, actually, I'll correct you a little bit. I've been
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teaching for 40 years, seven years at University of Virginia,
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eight at MIT, and 25 at Georgia Tech. But, um,
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What research has shown is that our happiness with certain
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actions has a shelf life. Eating a chocolate bar makes
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us feel good for about 20 minutes, and then we
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kind of have a little bit of regret, many of us.
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The new big suburban house that a couple buy, so
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their kids, just like I was saying, will have more
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than what maybe the parents had growing up, but it
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comes with a really long commute for both of them now.
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And research has shown that on average, folks stop being
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quite so happy about that big suburban house after only
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six months. They begin to realize that that they leave
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the house so early and get home so late that
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they hardly actually see their kids. The commute is really stressful,
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and they begin to fight over who does which of
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the chores to maintain the big house. And this is
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especially true for women. So, you know, more young women
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are in college now than young men. They are ambitious
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and want it all. But I recommend that instead of
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accepting yesterday's suburban dream built for the stay-at-home mom, take
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a look at the retrofitted suburbs. But most of all,
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figure out what truly makes you happy rather than assuming
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it's what is now a fairly tired pattern of suburbia.
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Ellen, thank you so much for joining me. I came
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into this conversation thinking about belonging was mostly a city question.
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And you're giving me a lot to think about, especially
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about the suburban places we already have and how much
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they can change without starting over.
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It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me, Naomi.
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Of course.
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And thank you for everyone listening to Realtopia. If this
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episode made you look at the nearest parking lot and
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imagine what it could be instead, that's exactly why I
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made this podcast. See you next time.