Go Cultivate!

Latest Episodes:

05 – Math, maps, and money: How fiscal analysis can change the conversation in communities Sep 15, 2018

Show notes

VERDUNITY's Felix Landry joins the show to discuss the importance of understanding the fiscal consequences of our development patterns, as well as the ways that cities can use map-based fiscal analysis to make more holistic land use decisions.

3:29 – Beginning of interview

5:00 – How Felix stumbled into looking at the economics of cities

7:00 – Pro formas—why don't city planning departments have them? (And more questions Felix had during his time in a his city's planning department)

12:00 – Confusion on how to go about applying fiscal analysis in planning work

17:53 – Insolvency issues and how fiscal analysis can be a common language for analyzing cities holistically

20:20 – How your city isn't like a hamburger joint

22:30 – What exactly do we mean by fiscal analysis?

25:25 – The backwards way most cities decide what gets built

26:50 – What would fiscal analysis actually look like for cities?

31:56 – How fiscal analysis maps can show us otherwise unseen trends

33:25 – Which development types are loss leaders for cities, and what it means if those areas make up too much of a city

37:32 – The gym analogy: treadmills vs. swimming pools

39:42 – Other analogies Felix likes to use for understanding development types and fiscal consequences: personal heath and grocery stores

50:05 – What happens when citizens insist on both an unproductive development pattern and a lower tax rate?

53:50 – Differences between modern-day suburbs and pre-war suburbs

1:17:00 – How cities can apply fiscal analysis to decision making? We discuss applications to zoning ordinances, comprehensive plans, economic development, and more.

1:20:20 – What Felix is reading these days

1:22:19 – Wrap-up with Kevin and Jordan

Show page: https://gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-05/

For more on our podcasts and blog, visit GoCultivate.org. This podcast is a project of the nice folks at VERDUNITY.

(This episode features music from Custodian of Records)

04 – Using the arts to connect neighbors and cultivate inclusivity Sep 07, 2018

Show notes

Joanna Taft of the Harrison Center discusses the role of the arts, place, and story to humanize, connect, and empower a neighborhood. We talk about how a neighborhood can change and improve in inclusive and equitable ways, and how important it is for people to feel known and loved in their community and their homes. Central to it all is being a neighbor to your neighbors. This is a jam-packed discussion you can't afford to miss!

2:15 – Brief recap of our Cultivating Strong Towns workshop in Shreveport

9:30 – Introducing Joanna Taft & the Harrison Center

14:15 – Beginning of interview: Joanna's role as a neighbor, helping her neighborhood grow stronger through the arts, education, entrepreneurship, youth development and more

15:00 – What "community building" means to Joanna, and how her thinking on the matter has evolved over the years

18:00 – Harrison Center's neighborhood partnerships, and how residents' concerns about being left out of their neighborhood's story and evolution led her organization to try a new approach to storytelling

22:45 – "Preenactment," or reimagining a neighborhood the way it ought to be

28:00 – How Joanna's team collected stories and concerns from the neighborhood

32:00 – Changing behaviors and attitudes, not just the physical makeup of a neighborhood, and how Joanna uses the concept of preenactment in her personal life

38:00 – Preenactment as a response to the question: "How do we revitalize in an inclusive way?"

39:05 – The centrality of art and place in building vibrant, equitable, and human neighborhoods

43:05 – Cultivating a generation of arts patrons at Herron High School

48:10 – Partnerships with the City of Indianapolis

50:15 – Some of the challenges (and unique opportunities) that come from working directly with a city government

52:50 – The role of relationships and how other cities could set themselves up to be welcoming to grassroots community building

54:00 – The Harrison Center's City Gallery: "Could the arts actually help with the abandoned housing issue?"

57:45 – Porching! How the simple act of inviting neighbors onto your front porch can begin to change your neighborhood

1:00:25 – How to start a grassroots community building movement in a neighborhood without much current involvement

(We had some audio quality issues on this episode. Sorry about that! Hoping to have those fixed for the next one.)

Links:

The Harrison Center

PreEnact Indy

City Gallery

Music in this episode is from Custodian of Records and Tours

03 – "No is an acceptable answer" Aug 28, 2018

Show notes

Many citizens think their local government has enough money to maintain its infrastructure and keep up services, because they pay taxes. The reality is most cities do not, and it can be challenging for city leadership to communicate this to citizens. Today's guests are bucking that trend of silence.

We talk to three key leaders (Mayor Connie Schroeder, City Manager Lynda Humble, and Hospitality & Downtown Director Sarah O'Brien) from the City of Bastrop, TX, about what managed growth means to the future of their city.

They discuss Bastrop's resource constraints and affordability challenges, why they are openly talking about their infrastructure funding gap when many cities' leaderships are reluctant to do so, and why cities need to be doing the math on the eventual costs of repairing roads and subdivisions. Find out more about their Building Bastrop initiative, which aims "to streamline the development process and create fiscally sustainable standards for future projects."

Your city may go by a different name, but it's likely facing many similar challenges to those in Bastrop, and it could certainly learn from this refreshing approach to sustainable development.

Follow Bastrop's progress on Twitter (@CityofBastropTX) and facebook.com/bastroptx

Show page: https://gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-03/

BONUS: A student's perspective on engineering Aug 24, 2018

Show notes

Kevin sits down with VERDUNITY's summer intern Nadia Whitehouse for a brief chat on the ways the engineering profession is changing, and what it means to bring a resource-conscious, people-first attitude to engineering school. They also get into some of the ways Nadia sees the world differently after a few months with the VERDUNITY crew.

02 – Dollars and sense: the future of civil engineering Aug 22, 2018

Show notes

An in-depth discussion with VERDUNITY's Kevin Shepherd, P.E., on the past, present, and future of the civil engineering profession—and the lasting fiscal and social impacts their work has on communities.

1:30 – What does is mean to be considered a "creative engineer”?

5:15 – What the conventional approach to civil engineering misses, and how Kevin’s thought process changed as his career progressed

9:50 – The impact of considering financial implications in the design process, vs. the assumption that “the money’s always going to be there”

15:00 – What is the engineer’s role and responsibility with regard to financial viability?

16:20 – Why Kevin left his big A/E firm to start VERDUNITY, and how he approaches his work with cities

17:55 – Why desperation makes cities more interested in fiscally viable infrastructure decisions

23:20 – How city planners tend to think differently than engineers, and the constraints on how much impact they can have

25:00 – Why a conventional approach to engineering is so prevalent, despite its broad lack of sustainability

27:50 – Why exactly did we start designing and building in such a destructive way to begin with?

32:00 – We can't let the planning profession off the hook, either

33:30 – Why other engineers used to think Kevin was crazy, and now they’re getting curious—and why it’s hard for engineers at big, status-quo-affirming companies to shift their organization’s approach

37:00 – Guiding cities and technical professionals to a more fiscally-informed and people-friendly approach to city-building

39:30 – What does it actually look like to give a city recommendations for a more financially viable infrastructure project?

43:00 – A “plangineer’s” approach to spanning silos and working at different scales

45:50 – Return on investment for infrastructure projects

Episode page: gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-02.

Learn more about VERDUNITY here.

(This episode features music from Custodian of Records and Tours)

01 – What to expect on the Go Cultivate! podcast Aug 09, 2018

Show notes

In the first episode of Go Cultivate!, we discuss what it means for a city to be financially resilient, resource-conscious, and people-friendly. Then, we talk about 5 key groups of community leaders.

1:03 – Why Go Cultivate? And what's up with the name VERDUNITY?

5:00 – Revisiting the purpose of the podcast: "helping community leaders grow financially resilient, resource-conscious, and people-friendly cities.

5:51 – "Financially resilient"

7:00 – "Resource-conscious"

8:00 – "People-friendly"

11:40 – What is the status quo and what keeps the status quo in place?

16:32 – Community leaders: five broad groups

17:52 – Elected officials

22:21 – City administrators

23:50 – City technical staff

25:28 – Economic development

27:17 – Implementers!