April 14, 2022 • 47 mins
In an age that seems dominated by conflict, it’s important that we step back and remind ourselves of our amazing capacity to work together. And there’s perhaps no greater example of that than the modern city. From the smallest details to the large-scale infrastructure, every piece of a city was thought about, designed, and built by someone to make one large living thing we could all inhabit. When it all works well, it enables our society to work well, too.
Roman Mars has spent his career chronicling these bits of human ingenuity that we so often take for granted—things like the utility codes, the curb cuts, the traffic signals, and much more. As host of the 99% Invisible Podcast and, with Kurt Kohlstedt, co-author of the book The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, his work challenges all of us to look up and around, and to think about the how and the why of design around the world in a different way.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
One of the most important non political political books I've
read in the last decade or more is The Social
Conquest of Earth by the great biologist E. O. Wilson,
who passed away last year at the age of ninety two.
In it, Wilson argues that the most successful species that
have ever inhabited our planet are ants, termites, bees, and people,
(00:27):
because they, out of all those species that have ever existed,
have been able to repeatedly avoid opportunities to destroy themselves
or be destroyed by others. And the one thing they
all have in common is that they all have very
high levels of cooperation. But of all species, Wilson says,
(00:49):
humans are the greatest co operators because their consciousness enables
them to evolve in advance, and their conscience pulls them
back from off destructive behavior before it's too late. So
why am I telling you this? Because in an age
that seems so dominated by a conflict, it's important that
(01:10):
we step back and remind ourselves of our amazing capacity
to work together. There's perhaps no greater example of that
than the modern city. From the smallest details to the
large scale infrastructure, every piece of the city was thought about,
design and built by someone to make one large living
(01:31):
thing we could all inhabit together. When it all works well,
it enables our society to work well too. My guest
today spends his career chronicling these bits of human ingenuity
that we so often take for granted, things like the
utility codes, the curb cuts, the traffic signals, and much more.
(01:54):
Roman Mars is the host of The Invisible Podcast and
co author of The Invisible City. His work challenges all
of us to look up, look around, and think about
the how and the whua of design. Roman, thanks so
much for being here. Oh my pleasure, Miss President, Thank
(02:15):
you so much, and thanks for writing that book. It
was It's really really good. I had so much fun
with it. I appreciate it. My colleague Kirk Colestead and
I put it together as we were doing the show,
and it was probably one of the hardest things that
we've ever done, but it was it was really gratifying
in the end. I appreciate you reading it. Was there
(02:36):
one specific thing that kind of got you started on
this whole idea of invisible and how you came to
focus on it. Well, I was in radio for a
long time. I just love the way explaining things on
the radio. I love the way people talk on you know,
public radio in particular. And I also was as a
person who like went on architecture tours and so I
(02:59):
have no training. I was trained to be a scientist actually.
And there was one building there was the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
UM has a boat tour in Chicago that talks about
the architecture. It's it's amazing, like I recommended to everybody.
I've been on it like five or six times, like
I really do love it. And they told this story
of the Montgomery Ward complex that's that's along the river,
(03:23):
and Montgomery Ward is, you know, kind of long gone
as a as a company, but there's this one the
headquarters building was this kind of generic UM rectangular modernist building,
but it had these four concrete post on the corner.
And I had passed this building all the time. I'd
never cared much for it. And then the architecture the
(03:45):
curator on the on the boat, the docent said that, well,
the reason why that building is the way it is
is that the Montgomery Ward company sort of pride itself
on it's a galitarian hierarchy, and they wanted to build
their headquarters so that there were no vps fighting over
who got the corner office, and so they've made a
building with no possibility of a corner office at all.
(04:07):
And I just love that story and made me love
this building that I thought was boring. It made no
impression on me, but then it made me love it.
And then I realized, well, if you can tell a
story like that that's independent of the aesthetics and the
sort of like image of the building, then I could
tell stories about architecture on the radio. And that's where
I sort of got the idea that that we could
(04:28):
do this. All the thought that goes into things that
most people don't think about is really tantalizing to the brain.
They go, oh, yeah, I guess I have always noticed that,
and then it begins to build on something. And then
they begin to read plaques and they noticed the sidewalk
markings of like what the utility lines are underneath the street,
And it makes the world just a little bit more
(04:51):
delightful once you begin to sort of key into those
those little markers. I want to talk a little bit
about radio as a medium, and then i'll come back
to what you said. But I remember in two after
I had lost in the Reagan landslide in and become
the youngest ex governor in the history of America. And
(05:13):
I was thinking about running again. And that's all the
polls show that I had a chance to win, but
we had never had a governor elected, defeated and elected again.
And I read a book by a New York media
guy named Tony Schwartz. He had this theory that if
done well, radio would be more compelling than television because
(05:35):
it had more power over the imagination. Yeah, and I'll
never forget I talked to him. I bet for two
hours about it one night, and for the next several
years I invested a lot of time, money, and effort
in radio communications and trying to imagine what would trigger
(05:56):
an open mind. He also said, you know, if you
if somebody has been against you're on the other side
of something, it's harder for them to look at you
than it is to listen to you. So he said,
you know, if somebody just kind of comes along, they
talked and the same halfway decent, you know, and you're
not losing face by listening, even if you've been calling
(06:16):
them names for years. I love that Tony Schwartz is
super fascinating as a human. I'm so like envious that
you got to meet him. I love the sound of
people's voices. I'm sort of hook line sinker, like for radio.
All the time there's people talk about having radio voices,
and I love all voices. I love the tone of
people's voices. I love what it conveys. This is something
(06:38):
about storytelling in this way that has always sort of
made my brain light up. I don't know what it is.
You've done all these episodes about things that we've all
seen but not seen, things that are obscure or at
least rare, like the only street light with green on
the top instead of the bottom, and so accuse. But
(07:02):
of all the things you've written about, and I again,
if for any of our listeners who have not listened
to your podcasts or read your book about the Invisible World,
what are two or three of your favorite stories and sights,
things that you just were interested in and you got
involved in them, and it's surprised to what you learned. Well,
(07:25):
one of the first things I did a story about
that I thought about a lot. We're actually municipal and
city and state flags. I really love flags. I really
love graphic design, and I worked in Chicago at a
radio station. They're called w b e Z. And when
(07:46):
you're in Chicago, all of a sudden, you notice that
there's the flag of Chicago because it is everywhere, and
if you really go to almost any other city, you
never see the flag of a city as much as
you see the city of Chicago flag. And and I
didn't even know cities had flags before I moved to Chicago.
And then I began to sort of look at them
and realized that like basically every city over fifty thou
(08:09):
people has a flag. They're just not really well designed
and they're kind of an afterthought and no one notices them.
And so I began to really like think about the
design of flags and what you can do with them.
And and that was the one that really sort of
like kind of took off. I even did a Ted
talk about city flags um at a certain point and UM,
and it was a really kind of crazy moment where
(08:32):
you know, TED conference starts, all these extremely important people
like yourself presenting, I'm about to do my little flag talk,
and I felt so sort of silly, but it really
resonated with people because my contention was was that the
reason why Chicago's flag was was so used. It was
because it was so it was so beautiful and so
well done. And if people don't know it, it's it
(08:53):
has a white field, it has two horizontal blue stripes
and four six pointed red stars across the center. And
you will see it like on cops uniforms, you will
see it on municipal building but you also see it
on like punk rockers tattoos. Like everyone has claimed it.
And it wasn't just that you know, people love Chicago
who lived there and therefore love the flag. I also
(09:15):
think that people loved Chicago more because the flag was
so cool and the power of that type of graphic
design to unify people, for like somebody who represented the
city to use it, for someone protesting the city to
use it. These municipal symbols that weren't owned by anyone,
that we're owned by all of us, was really like
(09:35):
inspiring to me. And so then UM, I think other
ones you know, like I think that you know that
one of the first stories I ever did was about
the Transamerica Perramid. I'm located in the Bay Area, I
um see it every day out my window. Um is
very striking. And one of the things that I had learned,
(09:59):
which was kind of like the impetus for the whole show,
was that the local chapter of the American Institute of
Architects truly opposed this building when it was built. Like
they thought it was it was sort of a height
of modernism, so like the pyramid to make the pyramid shape,
the top two feet of the building is kind of
empty glass, like it has no real purpose, and modernism
(10:21):
is all about, you know, like unadorned like functional forms,
like no no extra anything. And it was like offensive
to modernists that there would be this like two ft
of air that did nothing except for complete shape of
a pyramid. And they posed it and they talked im
poorly about it. But you know, like in the sort
of many decades since it become you know, this thing
(10:43):
that everyone loved and it's identified with with San Francisco,
it wasn't so much like whether or not the building
was beautiful or ugly, or worked or didn't work, or
violated this principle whatever. What I'm interested in is what
are the values of the things that we build, and
what does it say about and how does it change
over time? The effective things it's the human activity that
(11:05):
centers around these objects that is really what the show
is about. In my interest, I've read an interesting fiction
actually about San Francisco more than a years ago and
about the earthquake and what happened during the earthquake, what
happened after the earthquake. Is there anything that stands out
to you about how after the earthquake building standards or
(11:29):
neighborhood organizations were changed in a way that made life
at least somewhat more secure. Yeah, I mean, you know,
the founding and most cities can be pretty haphazard. You know,
they begin people plot outland. There usually isn't a grand
design and grand plan, and then disasters like the Chicago
(11:50):
fire and the Nineteam of six earthquake give people a
chance to like really start with a plan now that
they've seen that the city is there and in his
robust and there's a need for it. You know, Sees
like Chicago and Paris who went through like really strong,
sort of heavy handed design, have a certain style. And
(12:10):
what I think is interesting about cities is when you
have these moments of evolution and what we grab onto
and what we build off of them really reflects the
moment in time and then you sort of go from there.
And when I was, I mean not not to sort
of equate these disasters necess early, but like I was
(12:34):
really struck. The book came out right when the beginning
of COVID shutdown started, and all of a sudden, this
sort of like ingenuity of like the built space like
sort of cropped up over night so that people could
still function. So they're like plexiglass like showed up in
front of you know, bodega cash registers and and like
(12:54):
little markings on the floor to tell us where to stand,
and sidewalks became you know, play is for us to
sit and congregate when they used to just be the
domain or you know, even into the roads that used
to just be the domain of roads. Like no one
took away a road from anybody. But but like all
of a sudden, you could form a cafe and people
accepted that. And the thing that I love about thinking
(13:16):
about cities is that when you're in them, there's a
habit of thinking these this thing is the way it is.
It was this way when I was born into this
world and noticed it, and it's very hard to change.
But they've always been these evolving entities that reflected our values.
(13:37):
And I like noticing that because I think that that's important.
Two considering change in a place, Like if you don't
think a thing is fixed and it is a way
that it's supposed to be, then all of a sudden,
the possibilities of what you can do with a road
(13:58):
opens up, because like roads started for like millennia, they
were like multipurpose, multimodal, like people walked across them, vendors
would sit on them, cars would be on them, horses
would be on them, trolley lines would be on them,
and all of a sudden, for about a hundred years,
we just gave away roads to just cars cards meant roads.
And then we went through this period of crisis with COVID,
(14:19):
where all of a sudden we were like, well, maybe
a car is and the most important thing in this
spot right now, maybe a cafe sitting area is the
most important thing. And it kind of dislaunches us to
think about the possibilities that these built structures that seem
so permanent, so fixed, are really malleable reflections of our values,
and they can always be re examined and they can
(14:41):
always have input, you know, and and change because of them,
and theose moments of crisis kind of shock us into
thinking of of how we can change something for the
better when for most of our lives, most of our existence,
these seems like completely attractable and placable, unchangeable forces because
(15:03):
they're hard physical surfaces, but they really can change. And
that's where I find inspiring about thinking about those moments
in our history and what we can make and do.
We'll be right back. One of the things that interests
(15:25):
me is that shows the malleability of cities, but also
the importance of basic functions being modified and improved, is
how cities respond to things that they hadn't imagined happening.
For example, Stephen Johnson's book The Ghost Map is about
the discovery of the real cause of the cholera outbreaking London,
(15:48):
and it led to a total rework of you know,
how the water came to the city and how it
was purified. And one of the things that I was
hoping would come when I was going through your book
I was hope it would come out of is that
people would copy things that work that they hadn't thought
about and adapted to their own cultural tastes. And environment. Yeah,
(16:11):
well it does happen. So there's like a the book
is sort of laid out, you know, where we sort
of get granular and then we get like bigger and
bigger views you know, from the world, and it ends
with this section on urbanism that is all about the
conversation between sort of top down forces who shaped the
world and bottom up forces that affect the city, and
(16:34):
that conversation that happens between you know, people who give
like urban interventions or design solutions like you mentioned, like
local ones, and then like I think of really like
mindful government or bigger entity like notices those things, takes
those ideas adapts them because there's certain types of things
that we have built our society on that only government
(16:56):
can do, you know, bridges and highways and those are
amazing things. I think I take sort of almost spiritual
solace in these things. Like I look at the Golden
gate Bridge and I just think it is the greatest
structure that was ever created, and it represents all these
people getting together to do a thing where a bunch
of people recognized, you know, it would be really good
(17:18):
for all these people over here to be able to
get to this side over here and then we're going
to spend you know, like ten years making that happen
and also create something like gorgeous in the process, and
that collective enterprise his government, and it's meaningful to me.
But there are things that are great to do in
(17:38):
a place in a moment, solve a problem, affect a
change that is just as sort of inspiring and powerful,
and I love those things. I mean, some of them
are like you know, they can be interventions. Like there
was a sort of a prankster basically like who noticed
on he drove in l A. He knows all he's
(18:00):
missed an exit on the five because it wasn't labeled properly,
and so like he literally made a fake highway sign,
went up at six am with his friends, made it
as real as possible, bolted it up, and it had
this sign that was there to like mark an exit
(18:22):
that he thought was undermarked so he would always miss it.
And it was so convincing that it stayed up for
like a decade because nobody noticed it was a fake,
you know, and it was this like I do not
recommend anyone doing this. It was super dangerous. But the
point is is, like there's always these little moments to
improve and do something to make the world better that
(18:44):
are worth sort of working on. And they don't have
to be something like the Golden gate Bridge. They don't
have to be an entire sewer system that requires buy
in from every community down the line and you know,
hundreds of millions of dollars, like you really can't affect
change in these smaller areas to just make a little
bit better, like little pocket parks, little like you know,
(19:05):
seed bombs or something that that people like take in
an empty lot. They'll take flowering plants and just like
throw them in and just like make something that's what
makes the city. First. I agree with that. I got
several things I want to ask you, but I would
like to start with design and native public safety. The
very first specific example I believe in your book If
(19:27):
my Memory services about steel poles that are really two
poles where you you have to build something that will
either hold the building up or hold a sign up
or hold of whatever up, and you have to dig
down deep, so you have to have a long story
pole to hold the weight. But instead safety designers actually
(19:53):
made them double poles, and they bolted them together somewhere
near ground level with screws that guaranteed or both enough
flexibility so that if a car ran into them or
something else hard hit them, they would actually break. Yeah,
so how did that come about? How did engineers think
(20:13):
about that? How many people had to die before they
figured it out? Well, I'm sure weigh too many. But
you know, breakaway posts. You're talking about a poll that
is an environment like right next to where cars are
speeding past. I mean, it has to do two different
jobs simultaneously. It has to be robust enough to hold
up this heavy thing that is the sign or or
(20:33):
the wires, and it has to just do the complete
opposite thing, like it has to completely try to get
out of the way as fast and as easily as
possible if somebody runs into it. So, yeah, you're right.
They have these connector plates and breakaway bolts. Sometimes even
those connector plates are angled so that if you hit
them at the right angle, not only does the poll
like fall over, it kind of like vaults over the
(20:57):
vehicle and doesn't hit it at all. And then you know,
like if you need to replace it, the base post
is still there, it hasn't been damaged. You just bolt
on a new one and then you also have that
aspect of safety, like you can return to normal faster.
I do not know how many people had to run
into a post for this to change, or all the
(21:18):
people that were involved. I mean, I'm sure that there
were hundreds of different engineers involved, but they're like it
is one of those invisible design elements that is that
you would never notice, like unless you're really paying attention
to post and you notice the throw breakaway plate. It
is not there to be honored or paid attention to.
It is actually not even there to be used. Hopefully,
(21:41):
it is there just in case to make the world
a little bit better place, a little bit safer placed.
And what what I like to do in the show
and in the book is have people notice those things
so that they are aware of all the design decisions
(22:04):
that are made around them to make their life a
little bit better, because it is really easy to not
see these things and really think that you're on your
own in the world. But you're not. You know, there's
a bunch of people that thought about a problem that
you've never even thought about and solved it before you
even had to encounter it. And it makes the world
(22:27):
more clearly reflect that we are like interconnected group of
people that are trying to create a place where we
can all live and thrive. And those breakaway bolts are
a great example of this. Like most people never notice them,
most people never encounter them. They are everywhere, and they're
just they're just in case so that you're safer, that
(22:47):
you are more important than this sign is. And I
love those examples. I find those examples like super inspiring.
And those design solutions are everywhere if you just know
how to look for them. It's fascinating. I was gonna
ask you about another sort of related thing to me.
To me, it's related, and that's how design happens in
the first place, and why some people and some societies
(23:12):
thought about things that others didn't, even if they had
common levels of income and capacity. About half my lifetime ago,
I don't know, thirty five fourty years ago, a woman
that I knew well when we were very young, and
she came from a town even smaller than Hope, Arkansas
and my native state. I went to New York, became
(23:35):
interested in um, you know, the origins of humanity, and
went to Africa to study with the Lakies with Richard
Lakey Any she wrote a book called The Hominid Game,
and then it was about all the people that were
digging up our ancestors history, and she got very interested
in the design of prehistoric civilizations. So she did another
(23:59):
book which I went back while I was getting ready
for this, and I looked at it again I had
looked at it in so many years, called The Sand
Dollar and the Sladder Rule. Her name was Delta Willis,
and this book is about how patterns of nature are
reflected in human construction m and have always been. So
(24:21):
I thought I would ask you about that. How much
do you believe in general that a lot of the
things we do basically evolved from what we perceived to
be happening in nature. Well, I don't know I have
a good answer for this. Maybe it's a stupid question. No,
I don't think it's a stupid question at all. It's
(24:43):
just sort of it's like hard to answer because I'm
sure you know that through stew of things that gives
us thought and solutions has to be what's around us,
you know, um, nothing sort of like spontaneously generates. And
so what I find kind of inspiring about humanity is
when we go beyond our empirical senses to study and evolve.
(25:08):
I think that when we when we're looking for ideas,
you should always look for nature to like how it
was solved, how it was solved well, and and try
to harness it and then go crazy on like everything
else that you could possibly do that has nothing to
do with with nature. But I do find it like
one of the things that but that's most inspiring. And
I find that a lot of good design is the cyclical,
(25:29):
non extractive part of nature, the sustainable you know, like
that's what we mean by sustainable. It's like kind of
behaves like the Earth is like sustainable, and that that
I hope people always stick to when it comes to
like designing things. They should mimic an ecosystem, and ecosystem
is a really perfectly balanced thing. In cities who that
(25:52):
work well function as ecosystems. I mean they have to
have these tall, like firm, big structures that sort of
form the basis of things, you know, so that we
can gather in big places and they have anchors so
they and then we have like slightly more ephemeral bits
of architecture that serve our needs for periods of time.
(26:13):
When a mode of transportation is in fashion and then
changes those have to be more flexible, have to be
torn down. But those bones are really important, you know,
Like when I think about a city I love. I
love Pittsburgh as as a city. I mean, one of
the things that sustained it as a place was that
you know, Carnegie like built all these palaces two things,
and when the city was gutted because of the decline
(26:35):
in the steel industry, those things were still there. Those
civic institution were still there, so that art could come
in and technology could come in. But those bones were
there that were like the trees in a forest, and
that sort of conceiving of the built environment as a
complex ecosystem and mimicing nature in these ways, it really
(26:55):
behooves us because it makes it more resilient for when
there is change. But you have to think of the
long game when you're creating these things, and so I
think there's tons of inspiration to come from nature and
openness and the sort of like the way that all
these different pieces interact, and highly designed systems sometimes can
be super efficient, but when they're you know, when there's
(27:16):
a flaw, there's a real problem. Like one of the
one of my examples is like, you know, like an iPhone,
is this a marvelous thing that I love. I love
to use it, I love to mess with it. Is
the way I play most music or listen to people's voices.
But when that thing doesn't work, it's called breaking. It's bricks.
There's no way into it, there's nothing to do with it.
You have to take it to someone to fix it.
(27:37):
Like I grew up listening, there was a real to
real in my household. If something broke on that real
to real, you have a little bit of a chance
to do something about it. It is like open designed.
It is like allows you to do stuff to it.
And I like those open systems, and and nature is
more mimics those open systems. The same thing is true
of your car, you know, yeah, exactly. I grew up
(27:58):
in the in the our business. Indirectly. My stepfather had
a little Buig dealership in the town of where I
was born, which had six thousand people. And uh, I
remember there was a fire in a dealership of Henry J.
Kaiser's old Kaisers about thirty miles away, and he took
(28:19):
I don't know, six or seven of them and had
him repaired him as best he could in his own
garage with his mechanics, and the prize was we got
to keep one of the Henry Jay's all cut down
and hollowed out. But I drove it in high school
and it had it had hydraulic breaks, so whenever there
was the slightest gash in the air tube, they maintained
(28:42):
the pressure. I'd had to go down shifted in the
first degree and run up the first gear and run
up on the curb. But the point is, you know,
I felt one with that car because I felt like
I could fix it. Just like if I had to
change the all myself, I could do that. If I
had to change the tire, I could do that. I
could figure out how to make the engine work again.
(29:04):
And I think that, I think for all the wonders
of technology, I wish we wouldn't be taken so far
from being able to do things with our own two
hands in mind, because I think it, at least for me,
it made me more aware of the design of the car,
the internal desire, the mechanics, and you know, I think
(29:27):
about that. But the point is, I think that when
I read your book, I kept thinking about you know,
we Americans and maybe people all over the world, and
maybe because of the social media or polarization or whatever,
are losing the ability to think large and small. Yeah,
(29:48):
you know, we just want to give us something we
can to jest in six seconds or eight and say
we think this that. The other thing and the beauty
of your book to me was you had these apparently
small things that made a big difference because they were
part of a whole that would be visible if we
were looking. That's right. So what what have you concluded
(30:11):
about that are as a species? Are we losing the
predisposition to look to be aware? Well, I mean I
think that not being aware of all things all the
time is it a brain coping mechanism? We have like
eleven million stimuli like coming at us at all time.
So the things that don't change, we don't notice them.
(30:33):
It's forgivable, you know what I mean, Like our brains
are meant to filter some of that stuff out. We're
to the change, you know, and so there's no problem
with people not noticing things. I do think that what
I like about you know, these examples of ants and
us and why we're resilient is because there are those
(30:54):
people and things and entities that do think long term
that solve problems that are they're not really just altruistic.
They're not just doing it completely selflessly. We're trying to
create this thing together and it requires thought and design
and differentiation. Like as much as I like the idea
of you fixing your own break, you know, when you
(31:14):
were a kid in your car, it kind of was like,
there's also a beauty in other people doing it better,
and you just kind of like trusting in that, and
that it becomes like how we build a society, and
so the world is made up of It has to
be an ecosystem of things we know in control and
(31:36):
and there's like individual like agency and liberty and things
like this, and then you have to like fall into
the warm embrace of a designed world that people have
thought of and their expertise is present and maybe you
don't understand it, and hopefully we're engaged enough in a
(31:56):
civic society that you trust those things. And I think
that that's super inspiring. Like I love the things that
we create together collectively, and cities are inspiring, Like machines
that are just they're super efficient. They you know, like
if we're talking about your own like carbon footprint. Living
in a city is better living on your own in
(32:18):
these ways. And there's all these things that I think
that if you take the time to notice the small
details of how your life is made better by somebody
thinking through a problem you probably don't even you know,
know you need to have solved. But also just like
then go just look at the Brooklyn Bridge, you know,
I can just go like wow, that thing is amazing.
(32:39):
I mean, like when so like in the eighty nine
grade out here in the Bay Area, part of the
Bay Bridge collapsed and then they they rebuilt the Eastern
Span and it was about to open when I when
I lived here, I didn't live here during the eighty nine,
but I lived here after. So when the new span
was opening up, they were going to have a big
day kind of like when the opening Brooklyn Bridge, but
(33:00):
people gonna walk across it, you know, like celebrate it.
And there was all these sort of problems they need
to fix with the Eastern Span, and so they didn't
have that day where everyone walks across the bitch. And
I just think that was a huge like missed opportunity
of this like collective like enjoyment of these things that
we can make together when a structural engineer who knows
way more than new about the tensile strength of steel,
(33:22):
and you know, like a city planner and a government
body and the willing taxpayers that put money into this,
and we should all just walk across this thing and
marvel and it's like amazing thing, you know, like we
now can get from that side to that side, you know,
like you know, millions of times a day. And I
(33:44):
love that. First of all, you got ahead of me,
and in a positive way. But I was going to
acknowledge that I was so grateful I didn't have to
be a mechanic. And that also that I being able
to trust people in small and direct ways, in in
(34:04):
ways that you understand, which is if you notice more
like the things in your book, it's easy to do. Yeah,
it might lay the foundation of restoring some trust in
a larger sense. And being able to forget things is
very important. And I think knowing that design the world
like helps you in that way. Not that you don't
(34:28):
need to know how to do it or need to
know how it works, but you need to know someone
thought about it. You know. It's not like being a parent.
You know, like, like you don't need your kid to
know all this I've done for you all the time.
That's the water they swim in is that you love
them and take care of them, you know. And so
them not recognizing the water isn't a fault on their part.
(34:50):
They shouldn't recognize the water. They should just like swim
in it, you know. And a well designed world that
is about care and mutual benefit and all that sort
of stuff is like that and super I mean, it's
why I do the things I do. And you can't
read this book of yours about all these genius little
(35:12):
things and some of the things that don't work without
believing that we actually are highly interdependent. We need each other,
and we're all better off if we just keep trying
to get better and devise. And sometimes the answer is
not a mega solution that affects the whole world. Sometimes
it's a low cost, high impact, active genius that can
(35:36):
echo across national borders even But that's what I got
out of reading your book. I thought, you know this, Oh,
that's that's so heartening, because that's what I feel when
we do these stories, that it really is an optimistic
view to sort of examine these things and realize our
interdependence and uh yeah, I'm so, I'm so Pleately if
(35:59):
we don't, we don't often like talk about it directly,
like we hope you get it through the castalto of
the of the show in the book and so well,
given the political polarization in the world in America, it's
probably better that you don't talk about it directly. People
come to it almost by osmosis. I think that more
and more this idea of us being dependent on each other,
(36:20):
and that a world in which we're completely on our
own that some people like love to imagine for themselves
politically is a terrible world that we don't want at all,
and that these physical manifestations of us working together in
the form of cities, in the form of roads. You know,
(36:42):
people should recognize how much they depend on each other,
even when they feel like they're completely alone. And it
all requires like an idea that we have design systems
and expertise and a faith in those systems, and that
no one person has to do everything that only works
because we all work together on it. And the built
world is all is all that no one person can
(37:04):
build a building, no company can build a bridge. It
takes a government, you know, and the government is our
is the manifestation of our collective care for each other.
And I don't think that's anything to shy away from.
I think that's something to celebrate, to exalt in. And
it manifests, like you said, in in the biggest things,
and it manifests in the smallest things, like little tiny
(37:27):
things and little regulations. And there's all types of silly,
dumb side effects of regulations, of people having good thoughts
about things that have bad effects. I mean, like we
have a whole section on like weird architectural features that
have to do with taxes, you know, like there's always
a time they're trying to figure out how to tax people,
you know, for governments to run and basically monarchies to
(37:47):
run at this point, so they would tax like this,
how many bricks you had in your house. They would
tax how many windows you had in your house. And
so then people would board up windows, and they attack
how many bricks you had, so people made bigger bricks,
you know, like and then they would tax, like in Paris,
they tax like how high your roof was, you know,
like how many stories you had, and so but they
decided that it wasn't taxed past a certain line, which
(38:08):
created that manswered roof, that sort of manswered roof for
the dormer, which is like the Paris roof that that's
created because of taxes, you know what you mean, Like
and it's like a dumb side effect of trying to
solve a problem and then in the end you made
this beautiful roof line that we think of. It's quintessentially,
you know, like Parisian, you know, and and so like
(38:29):
it's not that we don't make mistakes when we collectively
decided to solve problems and there there's top down things
and ways to get around it. That's what the world
is made of, is that sort of conversation between well
intentioned things and well intened things that work, well intended
things that fail, dumb things that we find ways to
work around. Because people are great at avoiding taxes, they
(38:49):
will do anything, like they have to find all kinds
of ways. And you can date the period of taxation
of a building because of the size of the brick
in England, Like that's a that's an amazing asing thing
to like notice and recognize and realize that that was
part folly and also part just good story that made
something like interesting happen. And it's not that we collectively
(39:10):
figure stuff out. We don't. We're a mess, you you
know what I mean. And but that all that stuff
is what makes design and that's why it's fun to
look at because it's all just stories in the end,
and it's a fascinating world if you just know to
look at it more. After this, if you were the
(39:38):
czar of the infrastructure bill that had just passed the Congress,
that is, you've had this kind of money based on
your now many years of experience looking at all these
systems and all these things that worked helpful lot of
people are that created some problems. What do you think
the priorities should be on what we should be doing now?
(40:02):
First of all, the natural lifespan of concrete is, you know,
like about a hundred years. It just so happens that
we're entering into this era where all those beautiful things
of w p A built are about to reach their
natural lifespan and they require just maintenance. Like I I
(40:22):
think that one of the ways that design reporting or
design thinking gets things wrong is that you can come
up with some great solution and solve a problem and
then it's done. But that's not how the world works.
The world is much more mundane and it has much
(40:43):
more to do with maintenance than solutions necessarily. And so
the first thing I would do is assess all the
things that we have. Is like, we have these reinforced
concrete structures that have rebar that are rusting and things
falling apart, and we should just do what I would
consider to be, you know, or most people consider to
be the boring work of just making the things that
(41:05):
we have last another hundred years. I know that's not
you know, like super exciting, but I feel like that
we should begin to, like, instead of just the genius
problem solvers and solutions of great little design innovations, we
should start recognizing that maintenance is a reason why we're here,
maintenance and care of the things we have, because the
(41:28):
greenest building is a building that's already built, and to
recognizing that that we just have to spend money on
things and and make them last longer. And the other
part of it that I would spend on it is
I would do kind of the w P a thing
of like going this thing that we're making is not
(41:49):
only going to be functional and important. It's gonna be beautiful,
and you're gonna be proud to be an American when
you see it, and not shy away from it because us,
I don't know, because it seems like a boondoggle or
it seems like too expensive or something. Just like, really
lean into you know what. We make those things because
we do them together. And that's what America is. That
(42:12):
we are an idea and that to me is like
how I would present it as much as make it. Yeah,
that's how I would do it. Before we go, First
of all, thank you for that. I think I believe
that most people, in spite of all this polarization and
fighting and name calling in the world today, if you
(42:35):
scratch nearly any of us deep enough, there's still a
person down there somewhere, you know, and we have basic
human instincts. And I think the one thing about you know,
reading your book and saying all these zillion things that
you noticed, I think people do notice more than they
know or even are aware of. But there's so much
(42:58):
that they don't know, and there's so busy they have
to worry about how they're gonna, you know, bring in
and you help them to understand that, and so I
think that what you said is right. I think anything
that increases our self confidence and our self awareness will
increase our willingness to cooperate and increase our ability to
(43:21):
begin with the end in mind. I find that this
is social infrastructure, I guess. But it's like all these
things that you talk about, the things that were done
well and things that weren't. Most everybody that built whatever
they were building, they tried to do a good job
of what they did. That's the conclusion I reached. And
(43:41):
sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong. I mean,
once in a while you have a thing like this
Miami deal where the parking decks weren't maintained all that.
And I think that your maintenance argument is very good,
maybe just because I've reached the age when it's all maintenance,
you know, I think, I think, Maden, this is the
(44:04):
greatest thing since slice bread. But but you have given
all your listeners and your readers are great gift because
I honestly believe that knowing things bill's confidence, and you
have to have a certain amount of self confidence before
(44:26):
you can entertain trust and cooperation. We need more social
capital in America. And ironically we might be able to
best build it through physical capital. I agree. I agree.
That's easy to rally around something that's a big physical
object because you know it was made sincerely and that's
(44:47):
a great thing to recognize. Yeah, it's one of the
great things. Like infrastructure bills are like the ones that
get past right, and it's because people recognize that building
things together is you know, what makes us a human yep.
And it's valuable not only to people who are who
(45:09):
need other things like to improve their income or there
access to healthcare or whatever. It helps some move around
for it, but it's valuable for people who need to
succeed at what they're doing now, who are aspirational and
who are working. And I feel good about it. Yeah.
I hope I get to see you when I'm out
(45:31):
in California. I would love that. Let me know. I
love that. I have some zany friends out there that
we would love to have you at dinner that I
could grill you would sit on me. Well, it's a deal,
you gotta do. I'll pay for the meal if you'll
be grilled. That sounds delightful. Thank you so much, Thank you.
(45:58):
Why am I telling you this? Is a product action
of My Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation, and at Will Medium.
Our executive producers are Craigmanascian and Will Manadi. Our production
team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sarah Harowitz, and Jake Young,
with production support from Liz Rafferee and Josh Farnham. Original
music by Watt White. Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson,
(46:22):
on hell Orina, Corey Gansley, Kevin thurm Oscar Flores, and
all our dedicated staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi,
I'm Dr Mike Kempill, Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program,
one of a kind partnership between the presidential centers of
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and
(46:46):
Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton often says that the key
to great leadership is in finding our common humanity, something
that's needed now more than ever. That's why each year
we bring together a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from
doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans,
all of whom have a passion for making the world
(47:09):
a better place. We create a culture of collaboration that
transcends partisan divides and ideological differences in service of a
greater good. Today, presidential leadership scholars across the country are
working together and actively applying the lessons learned in our
program to help tackle today's most pressing challenges. You can
learn more about this work and see how you can
(47:31):
get involved by visiting www dot Clinton Foundation dot org.
Slash podcast
One of the most important non political political books I've
read in the last decade or more is The Social
Conquest of Earth by the great biologist E. O. Wilson,
who passed away last year at the age of ninety two.
In it, Wilson argues that the most successful species that
have ever inhabited our planet are ants, termites, bees, and people,
(00:27):
because they, out of all those species that have ever existed,
have been able to repeatedly avoid opportunities to destroy themselves
or be destroyed by others. And the one thing they
all have in common is that they all have very
high levels of cooperation. But of all species, Wilson says,
(00:49):
humans are the greatest co operators because their consciousness enables
them to evolve in advance, and their conscience pulls them
back from off destructive behavior before it's too late. So
why am I telling you this? Because in an age
that seems so dominated by a conflict, it's important that
(01:10):
we step back and remind ourselves of our amazing capacity
to work together. There's perhaps no greater example of that
than the modern city. From the smallest details to the
large scale infrastructure, every piece of the city was thought about,
design and built by someone to make one large living
(01:31):
thing we could all inhabit together. When it all works well,
it enables our society to work well too. My guest
today spends his career chronicling these bits of human ingenuity
that we so often take for granted, things like the
utility codes, the curb cuts, the traffic signals, and much more.
(01:54):
Roman Mars is the host of The Invisible Podcast and
co author of The Invisible City. His work challenges all
of us to look up, look around, and think about
the how and the whua of design. Roman, thanks so
much for being here. Oh my pleasure, Miss President, Thank
(02:15):
you so much, and thanks for writing that book. It
was It's really really good. I had so much fun
with it. I appreciate it. My colleague Kirk Colestead and
I put it together as we were doing the show,
and it was probably one of the hardest things that
we've ever done, but it was it was really gratifying
in the end. I appreciate you reading it. Was there
(02:36):
one specific thing that kind of got you started on
this whole idea of invisible and how you came to
focus on it. Well, I was in radio for a
long time. I just love the way explaining things on
the radio. I love the way people talk on you know,
public radio in particular. And I also was as a
person who like went on architecture tours and so I
(02:59):
have no training. I was trained to be a scientist actually.
And there was one building there was the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
UM has a boat tour in Chicago that talks about
the architecture. It's it's amazing, like I recommended to everybody.
I've been on it like five or six times, like
I really do love it. And they told this story
of the Montgomery Ward complex that's that's along the river,
(03:23):
and Montgomery Ward is, you know, kind of long gone
as a as a company, but there's this one the
headquarters building was this kind of generic UM rectangular modernist building,
but it had these four concrete post on the corner.
And I had passed this building all the time. I'd
never cared much for it. And then the architecture the
(03:45):
curator on the on the boat, the docent said that, well,
the reason why that building is the way it is
is that the Montgomery Ward company sort of pride itself
on it's a galitarian hierarchy, and they wanted to build
their headquarters so that there were no vps fighting over
who got the corner office, and so they've made a
building with no possibility of a corner office at all.
(04:07):
And I just love that story and made me love
this building that I thought was boring. It made no
impression on me, but then it made me love it.
And then I realized, well, if you can tell a
story like that that's independent of the aesthetics and the
sort of like image of the building, then I could
tell stories about architecture on the radio. And that's where
I sort of got the idea that that we could
(04:28):
do this. All the thought that goes into things that
most people don't think about is really tantalizing to the brain.
They go, oh, yeah, I guess I have always noticed that,
and then it begins to build on something. And then
they begin to read plaques and they noticed the sidewalk
markings of like what the utility lines are underneath the street,
And it makes the world just a little bit more
(04:51):
delightful once you begin to sort of key into those
those little markers. I want to talk a little bit
about radio as a medium, and then i'll come back
to what you said. But I remember in two after
I had lost in the Reagan landslide in and become
the youngest ex governor in the history of America. And
(05:13):
I was thinking about running again. And that's all the
polls show that I had a chance to win, but
we had never had a governor elected, defeated and elected again.
And I read a book by a New York media
guy named Tony Schwartz. He had this theory that if
done well, radio would be more compelling than television because
(05:35):
it had more power over the imagination. Yeah, and I'll
never forget I talked to him. I bet for two
hours about it one night, and for the next several
years I invested a lot of time, money, and effort
in radio communications and trying to imagine what would trigger
(05:56):
an open mind. He also said, you know, if you
if somebody has been against you're on the other side
of something, it's harder for them to look at you
than it is to listen to you. So he said,
you know, if somebody just kind of comes along, they
talked and the same halfway decent, you know, and you're
not losing face by listening, even if you've been calling
(06:16):
them names for years. I love that Tony Schwartz is
super fascinating as a human. I'm so like envious that
you got to meet him. I love the sound of
people's voices. I'm sort of hook line sinker, like for radio.
All the time there's people talk about having radio voices,
and I love all voices. I love the tone of
people's voices. I love what it conveys. This is something
(06:38):
about storytelling in this way that has always sort of
made my brain light up. I don't know what it is.
You've done all these episodes about things that we've all
seen but not seen, things that are obscure or at
least rare, like the only street light with green on
the top instead of the bottom, and so accuse. But
(07:02):
of all the things you've written about, and I again,
if for any of our listeners who have not listened
to your podcasts or read your book about the Invisible World,
what are two or three of your favorite stories and sights,
things that you just were interested in and you got
involved in them, and it's surprised to what you learned. Well,
(07:25):
one of the first things I did a story about
that I thought about a lot. We're actually municipal and
city and state flags. I really love flags. I really
love graphic design, and I worked in Chicago at a
radio station. They're called w b e Z. And when
(07:46):
you're in Chicago, all of a sudden, you notice that
there's the flag of Chicago because it is everywhere, and
if you really go to almost any other city, you
never see the flag of a city as much as
you see the city of Chicago flag. And and I
didn't even know cities had flags before I moved to Chicago.
And then I began to sort of look at them
and realized that like basically every city over fifty thou
(08:09):
people has a flag. They're just not really well designed
and they're kind of an afterthought and no one notices them.
And so I began to really like think about the
design of flags and what you can do with them.
And and that was the one that really sort of
like kind of took off. I even did a Ted
talk about city flags um at a certain point and UM,
and it was a really kind of crazy moment where
(08:32):
you know, TED conference starts, all these extremely important people
like yourself presenting, I'm about to do my little flag talk,
and I felt so sort of silly, but it really
resonated with people because my contention was was that the
reason why Chicago's flag was was so used. It was
because it was so it was so beautiful and so
well done. And if people don't know it, it's it
(08:53):
has a white field, it has two horizontal blue stripes
and four six pointed red stars across the center. And
you will see it like on cops uniforms, you will
see it on municipal building but you also see it
on like punk rockers tattoos. Like everyone has claimed it.
And it wasn't just that you know, people love Chicago
who lived there and therefore love the flag. I also
(09:15):
think that people loved Chicago more because the flag was
so cool and the power of that type of graphic
design to unify people, for like somebody who represented the
city to use it, for someone protesting the city to
use it. These municipal symbols that weren't owned by anyone,
that we're owned by all of us, was really like
(09:35):
inspiring to me. And so then UM, I think other
ones you know, like I think that you know that
one of the first stories I ever did was about
the Transamerica Perramid. I'm located in the Bay Area, I
um see it every day out my window. Um is
very striking. And one of the things that I had learned,
(09:59):
which was kind of like the impetus for the whole show,
was that the local chapter of the American Institute of
Architects truly opposed this building when it was built. Like
they thought it was it was sort of a height
of modernism, so like the pyramid to make the pyramid shape,
the top two feet of the building is kind of
empty glass, like it has no real purpose, and modernism
(10:21):
is all about, you know, like unadorned like functional forms,
like no no extra anything. And it was like offensive
to modernists that there would be this like two ft
of air that did nothing except for complete shape of
a pyramid. And they posed it and they talked im
poorly about it. But you know, like in the sort
of many decades since it become you know, this thing
(10:43):
that everyone loved and it's identified with with San Francisco,
it wasn't so much like whether or not the building
was beautiful or ugly, or worked or didn't work, or
violated this principle whatever. What I'm interested in is what
are the values of the things that we build, and
what does it say about and how does it change
over time? The effective things it's the human activity that
(11:05):
centers around these objects that is really what the show
is about. In my interest, I've read an interesting fiction
actually about San Francisco more than a years ago and
about the earthquake and what happened during the earthquake, what
happened after the earthquake. Is there anything that stands out
to you about how after the earthquake building standards or
(11:29):
neighborhood organizations were changed in a way that made life
at least somewhat more secure. Yeah, I mean, you know,
the founding and most cities can be pretty haphazard. You know,
they begin people plot outland. There usually isn't a grand
design and grand plan, and then disasters like the Chicago
(11:50):
fire and the Nineteam of six earthquake give people a
chance to like really start with a plan now that
they've seen that the city is there and in his
robust and there's a need for it. You know, Sees
like Chicago and Paris who went through like really strong,
sort of heavy handed design, have a certain style. And
(12:10):
what I think is interesting about cities is when you
have these moments of evolution and what we grab onto
and what we build off of them really reflects the
moment in time and then you sort of go from there.
And when I was, I mean not not to sort
of equate these disasters necess early, but like I was
(12:34):
really struck. The book came out right when the beginning
of COVID shutdown started, and all of a sudden, this
sort of like ingenuity of like the built space like
sort of cropped up over night so that people could
still function. So they're like plexiglass like showed up in
front of you know, bodega cash registers and and like
(12:54):
little markings on the floor to tell us where to stand,
and sidewalks became you know, play is for us to
sit and congregate when they used to just be the
domain or you know, even into the roads that used
to just be the domain of roads. Like no one
took away a road from anybody. But but like all
of a sudden, you could form a cafe and people
accepted that. And the thing that I love about thinking
(13:16):
about cities is that when you're in them, there's a
habit of thinking these this thing is the way it is.
It was this way when I was born into this
world and noticed it, and it's very hard to change.
But they've always been these evolving entities that reflected our values.
(13:37):
And I like noticing that because I think that that's important.
Two considering change in a place, Like if you don't
think a thing is fixed and it is a way
that it's supposed to be, then all of a sudden,
the possibilities of what you can do with a road
(13:58):
opens up, because like roads started for like millennia, they
were like multipurpose, multimodal, like people walked across them, vendors
would sit on them, cars would be on them, horses
would be on them, trolley lines would be on them,
and all of a sudden, for about a hundred years,
we just gave away roads to just cars cards meant roads.
And then we went through this period of crisis with COVID,
(14:19):
where all of a sudden we were like, well, maybe
a car is and the most important thing in this
spot right now, maybe a cafe sitting area is the
most important thing. And it kind of dislaunches us to
think about the possibilities that these built structures that seem
so permanent, so fixed, are really malleable reflections of our values,
and they can always be re examined and they can
(14:41):
always have input, you know, and and change because of them,
and theose moments of crisis kind of shock us into
thinking of of how we can change something for the
better when for most of our lives, most of our existence,
these seems like completely attractable and placable, unchangeable forces because
(15:03):
they're hard physical surfaces, but they really can change. And
that's where I find inspiring about thinking about those moments
in our history and what we can make and do.
We'll be right back. One of the things that interests
(15:25):
me is that shows the malleability of cities, but also
the importance of basic functions being modified and improved, is
how cities respond to things that they hadn't imagined happening.
For example, Stephen Johnson's book The Ghost Map is about
the discovery of the real cause of the cholera outbreaking London,
(15:48):
and it led to a total rework of you know,
how the water came to the city and how it
was purified. And one of the things that I was
hoping would come when I was going through your book
I was hope it would come out of is that
people would copy things that work that they hadn't thought
about and adapted to their own cultural tastes. And environment. Yeah,
(16:11):
well it does happen. So there's like a the book
is sort of laid out, you know, where we sort
of get granular and then we get like bigger and
bigger views you know, from the world, and it ends
with this section on urbanism that is all about the
conversation between sort of top down forces who shaped the
world and bottom up forces that affect the city, and
(16:34):
that conversation that happens between you know, people who give
like urban interventions or design solutions like you mentioned, like
local ones, and then like I think of really like
mindful government or bigger entity like notices those things, takes
those ideas adapts them because there's certain types of things
that we have built our society on that only government
(16:56):
can do, you know, bridges and highways and those are
amazing things. I think I take sort of almost spiritual
solace in these things. Like I look at the Golden
gate Bridge and I just think it is the greatest
structure that was ever created, and it represents all these
people getting together to do a thing where a bunch
of people recognized, you know, it would be really good
(17:18):
for all these people over here to be able to
get to this side over here and then we're going
to spend you know, like ten years making that happen
and also create something like gorgeous in the process, and
that collective enterprise his government, and it's meaningful to me.
But there are things that are great to do in
(17:38):
a place in a moment, solve a problem, affect a
change that is just as sort of inspiring and powerful,
and I love those things. I mean, some of them
are like you know, they can be interventions. Like there
was a sort of a prankster basically like who noticed
on he drove in l A. He knows all he's
(18:00):
missed an exit on the five because it wasn't labeled properly,
and so like he literally made a fake highway sign,
went up at six am with his friends, made it
as real as possible, bolted it up, and it had
this sign that was there to like mark an exit
(18:22):
that he thought was undermarked so he would always miss it.
And it was so convincing that it stayed up for
like a decade because nobody noticed it was a fake,
you know, and it was this like I do not
recommend anyone doing this. It was super dangerous. But the
point is is, like there's always these little moments to
improve and do something to make the world better that
(18:44):
are worth sort of working on. And they don't have
to be something like the Golden gate Bridge. They don't
have to be an entire sewer system that requires buy
in from every community down the line and you know,
hundreds of millions of dollars, like you really can't affect
change in these smaller areas to just make a little
bit better, like little pocket parks, little like you know,
(19:05):
seed bombs or something that that people like take in
an empty lot. They'll take flowering plants and just like
throw them in and just like make something that's what
makes the city. First. I agree with that. I got
several things I want to ask you, but I would
like to start with design and native public safety. The
very first specific example I believe in your book If
(19:27):
my Memory services about steel poles that are really two
poles where you you have to build something that will
either hold the building up or hold a sign up
or hold of whatever up, and you have to dig
down deep, so you have to have a long story
pole to hold the weight. But instead safety designers actually
(19:53):
made them double poles, and they bolted them together somewhere
near ground level with screws that guaranteed or both enough
flexibility so that if a car ran into them or
something else hard hit them, they would actually break. Yeah,
so how did that come about? How did engineers think
(20:13):
about that? How many people had to die before they
figured it out? Well, I'm sure weigh too many. But
you know, breakaway posts. You're talking about a poll that
is an environment like right next to where cars are
speeding past. I mean, it has to do two different
jobs simultaneously. It has to be robust enough to hold
up this heavy thing that is the sign or or
(20:33):
the wires, and it has to just do the complete
opposite thing, like it has to completely try to get
out of the way as fast and as easily as
possible if somebody runs into it. So, yeah, you're right.
They have these connector plates and breakaway bolts. Sometimes even
those connector plates are angled so that if you hit
them at the right angle, not only does the poll
like fall over, it kind of like vaults over the
(20:57):
vehicle and doesn't hit it at all. And then you know,
like if you need to replace it, the base post
is still there, it hasn't been damaged. You just bolt
on a new one and then you also have that
aspect of safety, like you can return to normal faster.
I do not know how many people had to run
into a post for this to change, or all the
(21:18):
people that were involved. I mean, I'm sure that there
were hundreds of different engineers involved, but they're like it
is one of those invisible design elements that is that
you would never notice, like unless you're really paying attention
to post and you notice the throw breakaway plate. It
is not there to be honored or paid attention to.
It is actually not even there to be used. Hopefully,
(21:41):
it is there just in case to make the world
a little bit better place, a little bit safer placed.
And what what I like to do in the show
and in the book is have people notice those things
so that they are aware of all the design decisions
(22:04):
that are made around them to make their life a
little bit better, because it is really easy to not
see these things and really think that you're on your
own in the world. But you're not. You know, there's
a bunch of people that thought about a problem that
you've never even thought about and solved it before you
even had to encounter it. And it makes the world
(22:27):
more clearly reflect that we are like interconnected group of
people that are trying to create a place where we
can all live and thrive. And those breakaway bolts are
a great example of this. Like most people never notice them,
most people never encounter them. They are everywhere, and they're
just they're just in case so that you're safer, that
(22:47):
you are more important than this sign is. And I
love those examples. I find those examples like super inspiring.
And those design solutions are everywhere if you just know
how to look for them. It's fascinating. I was gonna
ask you about another sort of related thing to me.
To me, it's related, and that's how design happens in
the first place, and why some people and some societies
(23:12):
thought about things that others didn't, even if they had
common levels of income and capacity. About half my lifetime ago,
I don't know, thirty five fourty years ago, a woman
that I knew well when we were very young, and
she came from a town even smaller than Hope, Arkansas
and my native state. I went to New York, became
(23:35):
interested in um, you know, the origins of humanity, and
went to Africa to study with the Lakies with Richard
Lakey Any she wrote a book called The Hominid Game,
and then it was about all the people that were
digging up our ancestors history, and she got very interested
in the design of prehistoric civilizations. So she did another
(23:59):
book which I went back while I was getting ready
for this, and I looked at it again I had
looked at it in so many years, called The Sand
Dollar and the Sladder Rule. Her name was Delta Willis,
and this book is about how patterns of nature are
reflected in human construction m and have always been. So
(24:21):
I thought I would ask you about that. How much
do you believe in general that a lot of the
things we do basically evolved from what we perceived to
be happening in nature. Well, I don't know I have
a good answer for this. Maybe it's a stupid question. No,
I don't think it's a stupid question at all. It's
(24:43):
just sort of it's like hard to answer because I'm
sure you know that through stew of things that gives
us thought and solutions has to be what's around us,
you know, um, nothing sort of like spontaneously generates. And
so what I find kind of inspiring about humanity is
when we go beyond our empirical senses to study and evolve.
(25:08):
I think that when we when we're looking for ideas,
you should always look for nature to like how it
was solved, how it was solved well, and and try
to harness it and then go crazy on like everything
else that you could possibly do that has nothing to
do with with nature. But I do find it like
one of the things that but that's most inspiring. And
I find that a lot of good design is the cyclical,
(25:29):
non extractive part of nature, the sustainable you know, like
that's what we mean by sustainable. It's like kind of
behaves like the Earth is like sustainable, and that that
I hope people always stick to when it comes to
like designing things. They should mimic an ecosystem, and ecosystem
is a really perfectly balanced thing. In cities who that
(25:52):
work well function as ecosystems. I mean they have to
have these tall, like firm, big structures that sort of
form the basis of things, you know, so that we
can gather in big places and they have anchors so
they and then we have like slightly more ephemeral bits
of architecture that serve our needs for periods of time.
(26:13):
When a mode of transportation is in fashion and then
changes those have to be more flexible, have to be
torn down. But those bones are really important, you know,
Like when I think about a city I love. I
love Pittsburgh as as a city. I mean, one of
the things that sustained it as a place was that
you know, Carnegie like built all these palaces two things,
and when the city was gutted because of the decline
(26:35):
in the steel industry, those things were still there. Those
civic institution were still there, so that art could come
in and technology could come in. But those bones were
there that were like the trees in a forest, and
that sort of conceiving of the built environment as a
complex ecosystem and mimicing nature in these ways, it really
(26:55):
behooves us because it makes it more resilient for when
there is change. But you have to think of the
long game when you're creating these things, and so I
think there's tons of inspiration to come from nature and
openness and the sort of like the way that all
these different pieces interact, and highly designed systems sometimes can
be super efficient, but when they're you know, when there's
(27:16):
a flaw, there's a real problem. Like one of the
one of my examples is like, you know, like an iPhone,
is this a marvelous thing that I love. I love
to use it, I love to mess with it. Is
the way I play most music or listen to people's voices.
But when that thing doesn't work, it's called breaking. It's bricks.
There's no way into it, there's nothing to do with it.
You have to take it to someone to fix it.
(27:37):
Like I grew up listening, there was a real to
real in my household. If something broke on that real
to real, you have a little bit of a chance
to do something about it. It is like open designed.
It is like allows you to do stuff to it.
And I like those open systems, and and nature is
more mimics those open systems. The same thing is true
of your car, you know, yeah, exactly. I grew up
(27:58):
in the in the our business. Indirectly. My stepfather had
a little Buig dealership in the town of where I
was born, which had six thousand people. And uh, I
remember there was a fire in a dealership of Henry J.
Kaiser's old Kaisers about thirty miles away, and he took
(28:19):
I don't know, six or seven of them and had
him repaired him as best he could in his own
garage with his mechanics, and the prize was we got
to keep one of the Henry Jay's all cut down
and hollowed out. But I drove it in high school
and it had it had hydraulic breaks, so whenever there
was the slightest gash in the air tube, they maintained
(28:42):
the pressure. I'd had to go down shifted in the
first degree and run up the first gear and run
up on the curb. But the point is, you know,
I felt one with that car because I felt like
I could fix it. Just like if I had to
change the all myself, I could do that. If I
had to change the tire, I could do that. I
could figure out how to make the engine work again.
(29:04):
And I think that, I think for all the wonders
of technology, I wish we wouldn't be taken so far
from being able to do things with our own two
hands in mind, because I think it, at least for me,
it made me more aware of the design of the car,
the internal desire, the mechanics, and you know, I think
(29:27):
about that. But the point is, I think that when
I read your book, I kept thinking about you know,
we Americans and maybe people all over the world, and
maybe because of the social media or polarization or whatever,
are losing the ability to think large and small. Yeah,
(29:48):
you know, we just want to give us something we
can to jest in six seconds or eight and say
we think this that. The other thing and the beauty
of your book to me was you had these apparently
small things that made a big difference because they were
part of a whole that would be visible if we
were looking. That's right. So what what have you concluded
(30:11):
about that are as a species? Are we losing the
predisposition to look to be aware? Well, I mean I
think that not being aware of all things all the
time is it a brain coping mechanism? We have like
eleven million stimuli like coming at us at all time.
So the things that don't change, we don't notice them.
(30:33):
It's forgivable, you know what I mean, Like our brains
are meant to filter some of that stuff out. We're
to the change, you know, and so there's no problem
with people not noticing things. I do think that what
I like about you know, these examples of ants and
us and why we're resilient is because there are those
(30:54):
people and things and entities that do think long term
that solve problems that are they're not really just altruistic.
They're not just doing it completely selflessly. We're trying to
create this thing together and it requires thought and design
and differentiation. Like as much as I like the idea
of you fixing your own break, you know, when you
(31:14):
were a kid in your car, it kind of was like,
there's also a beauty in other people doing it better,
and you just kind of like trusting in that, and
that it becomes like how we build a society, and
so the world is made up of It has to
be an ecosystem of things we know in control and
(31:36):
and there's like individual like agency and liberty and things
like this, and then you have to like fall into
the warm embrace of a designed world that people have
thought of and their expertise is present and maybe you
don't understand it, and hopefully we're engaged enough in a
(31:56):
civic society that you trust those things. And I think
that that's super inspiring. Like I love the things that
we create together collectively, and cities are inspiring, Like machines
that are just they're super efficient. They you know, like
if we're talking about your own like carbon footprint. Living
in a city is better living on your own in
(32:18):
these ways. And there's all these things that I think
that if you take the time to notice the small
details of how your life is made better by somebody
thinking through a problem you probably don't even you know,
know you need to have solved. But also just like
then go just look at the Brooklyn Bridge, you know,
I can just go like wow, that thing is amazing.
(32:39):
I mean, like when so like in the eighty nine
grade out here in the Bay Area, part of the
Bay Bridge collapsed and then they they rebuilt the Eastern
Span and it was about to open when I when
I lived here, I didn't live here during the eighty nine,
but I lived here after. So when the new span
was opening up, they were going to have a big
day kind of like when the opening Brooklyn Bridge, but
(33:00):
people gonna walk across it, you know, like celebrate it.
And there was all these sort of problems they need
to fix with the Eastern Span, and so they didn't
have that day where everyone walks across the bitch. And
I just think that was a huge like missed opportunity
of this like collective like enjoyment of these things that
we can make together when a structural engineer who knows
way more than new about the tensile strength of steel,
(33:22):
and you know, like a city planner and a government
body and the willing taxpayers that put money into this,
and we should all just walk across this thing and
marvel and it's like amazing thing, you know, like we
now can get from that side to that side, you know,
like you know, millions of times a day. And I
(33:44):
love that. First of all, you got ahead of me,
and in a positive way. But I was going to
acknowledge that I was so grateful I didn't have to
be a mechanic. And that also that I being able
to trust people in small and direct ways, in in
(34:04):
ways that you understand, which is if you notice more
like the things in your book, it's easy to do. Yeah,
it might lay the foundation of restoring some trust in
a larger sense. And being able to forget things is
very important. And I think knowing that design the world
like helps you in that way. Not that you don't
(34:28):
need to know how to do it or need to
know how it works, but you need to know someone
thought about it. You know. It's not like being a parent.
You know, like, like you don't need your kid to
know all this I've done for you all the time.
That's the water they swim in is that you love
them and take care of them, you know. And so
them not recognizing the water isn't a fault on their part.
(34:50):
They shouldn't recognize the water. They should just like swim
in it, you know. And a well designed world that
is about care and mutual benefit and all that sort
of stuff is like that and super I mean, it's
why I do the things I do. And you can't
read this book of yours about all these genius little
(35:12):
things and some of the things that don't work without
believing that we actually are highly interdependent. We need each other,
and we're all better off if we just keep trying
to get better and devise. And sometimes the answer is
not a mega solution that affects the whole world. Sometimes
it's a low cost, high impact, active genius that can
(35:36):
echo across national borders even But that's what I got
out of reading your book. I thought, you know this, Oh,
that's that's so heartening, because that's what I feel when
we do these stories, that it really is an optimistic
view to sort of examine these things and realize our
interdependence and uh yeah, I'm so, I'm so Pleately if
(35:59):
we don't, we don't often like talk about it directly,
like we hope you get it through the castalto of
the of the show in the book and so well,
given the political polarization in the world in America, it's
probably better that you don't talk about it directly. People
come to it almost by osmosis. I think that more
and more this idea of us being dependent on each other,
(36:20):
and that a world in which we're completely on our
own that some people like love to imagine for themselves
politically is a terrible world that we don't want at all,
and that these physical manifestations of us working together in
the form of cities, in the form of roads. You know,
(36:42):
people should recognize how much they depend on each other,
even when they feel like they're completely alone. And it
all requires like an idea that we have design systems
and expertise and a faith in those systems, and that
no one person has to do everything that only works
because we all work together on it. And the built
world is all is all that no one person can
(37:04):
build a building, no company can build a bridge. It
takes a government, you know, and the government is our
is the manifestation of our collective care for each other.
And I don't think that's anything to shy away from.
I think that's something to celebrate, to exalt in. And
it manifests, like you said, in in the biggest things,
and it manifests in the smallest things, like little tiny
(37:27):
things and little regulations. And there's all types of silly,
dumb side effects of regulations, of people having good thoughts
about things that have bad effects. I mean, like we
have a whole section on like weird architectural features that
have to do with taxes, you know, like there's always
a time they're trying to figure out how to tax people,
you know, for governments to run and basically monarchies to
(37:47):
run at this point, so they would tax like this,
how many bricks you had in your house. They would
tax how many windows you had in your house. And
so then people would board up windows, and they attack
how many bricks you had, so people made bigger bricks,
you know, like and then they would tax, like in Paris,
they tax like how high your roof was, you know,
like how many stories you had, and so but they
decided that it wasn't taxed past a certain line, which
(38:08):
created that manswered roof, that sort of manswered roof for
the dormer, which is like the Paris roof that that's
created because of taxes, you know what you mean, Like
and it's like a dumb side effect of trying to
solve a problem and then in the end you made
this beautiful roof line that we think of. It's quintessentially,
you know, like Parisian, you know, and and so like
(38:29):
it's not that we don't make mistakes when we collectively
decided to solve problems and there there's top down things
and ways to get around it. That's what the world
is made of, is that sort of conversation between well
intentioned things and well intened things that work, well intended
things that fail, dumb things that we find ways to
work around. Because people are great at avoiding taxes, they
(38:49):
will do anything, like they have to find all kinds
of ways. And you can date the period of taxation
of a building because of the size of the brick
in England, Like that's a that's an amazing asing thing
to like notice and recognize and realize that that was
part folly and also part just good story that made
something like interesting happen. And it's not that we collectively
(39:10):
figure stuff out. We don't. We're a mess, you you
know what I mean. And but that all that stuff
is what makes design and that's why it's fun to
look at because it's all just stories in the end,
and it's a fascinating world if you just know to
look at it more. After this, if you were the
(39:38):
czar of the infrastructure bill that had just passed the Congress,
that is, you've had this kind of money based on
your now many years of experience looking at all these
systems and all these things that worked helpful lot of
people are that created some problems. What do you think
the priorities should be on what we should be doing now?
(40:02):
First of all, the natural lifespan of concrete is, you know,
like about a hundred years. It just so happens that
we're entering into this era where all those beautiful things
of w p A built are about to reach their
natural lifespan and they require just maintenance. Like I I
(40:22):
think that one of the ways that design reporting or
design thinking gets things wrong is that you can come
up with some great solution and solve a problem and
then it's done. But that's not how the world works.
The world is much more mundane and it has much
(40:43):
more to do with maintenance than solutions necessarily. And so
the first thing I would do is assess all the
things that we have. Is like, we have these reinforced
concrete structures that have rebar that are rusting and things
falling apart, and we should just do what I would
consider to be, you know, or most people consider to
be the boring work of just making the things that
(41:05):
we have last another hundred years. I know that's not
you know, like super exciting, but I feel like that
we should begin to, like, instead of just the genius
problem solvers and solutions of great little design innovations, we
should start recognizing that maintenance is a reason why we're here,
maintenance and care of the things we have, because the
(41:28):
greenest building is a building that's already built, and to
recognizing that that we just have to spend money on
things and and make them last longer. And the other
part of it that I would spend on it is
I would do kind of the w P a thing
of like going this thing that we're making is not
(41:49):
only going to be functional and important. It's gonna be beautiful,
and you're gonna be proud to be an American when
you see it, and not shy away from it because us,
I don't know, because it seems like a boondoggle or
it seems like too expensive or something. Just like, really
lean into you know what. We make those things because
we do them together. And that's what America is. That
(42:12):
we are an idea and that to me is like
how I would present it as much as make it. Yeah,
that's how I would do it. Before we go, First
of all, thank you for that. I think I believe
that most people, in spite of all this polarization and
fighting and name calling in the world today, if you
(42:35):
scratch nearly any of us deep enough, there's still a
person down there somewhere, you know, and we have basic
human instincts. And I think the one thing about you know,
reading your book and saying all these zillion things that
you noticed, I think people do notice more than they
know or even are aware of. But there's so much
(42:58):
that they don't know, and there's so busy they have
to worry about how they're gonna, you know, bring in
and you help them to understand that, and so I
think that what you said is right. I think anything
that increases our self confidence and our self awareness will
increase our willingness to cooperate and increase our ability to
(43:21):
begin with the end in mind. I find that this
is social infrastructure, I guess. But it's like all these
things that you talk about, the things that were done
well and things that weren't. Most everybody that built whatever
they were building, they tried to do a good job
of what they did. That's the conclusion I reached. And
(43:41):
sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong. I mean,
once in a while you have a thing like this
Miami deal where the parking decks weren't maintained all that.
And I think that your maintenance argument is very good,
maybe just because I've reached the age when it's all maintenance,
you know, I think, I think, Maden, this is the
(44:04):
greatest thing since slice bread. But but you have given
all your listeners and your readers are great gift because
I honestly believe that knowing things bill's confidence, and you
have to have a certain amount of self confidence before
(44:26):
you can entertain trust and cooperation. We need more social
capital in America. And ironically we might be able to
best build it through physical capital. I agree. I agree.
That's easy to rally around something that's a big physical
object because you know it was made sincerely and that's
(44:47):
a great thing to recognize. Yeah, it's one of the
great things. Like infrastructure bills are like the ones that
get past right, and it's because people recognize that building
things together is you know, what makes us a human yep.
And it's valuable not only to people who are who
(45:09):
need other things like to improve their income or there
access to healthcare or whatever. It helps some move around
for it, but it's valuable for people who need to
succeed at what they're doing now, who are aspirational and
who are working. And I feel good about it. Yeah.
I hope I get to see you when I'm out
(45:31):
in California. I would love that. Let me know. I
love that. I have some zany friends out there that
we would love to have you at dinner that I
could grill you would sit on me. Well, it's a deal,
you gotta do. I'll pay for the meal if you'll
be grilled. That sounds delightful. Thank you so much, Thank you.
(45:58):
Why am I telling you this? Is a product action
of My Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation, and at Will Medium.
Our executive producers are Craigmanascian and Will Manadi. Our production
team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sarah Harowitz, and Jake Young,
with production support from Liz Rafferee and Josh Farnham. Original
music by Watt White. Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson,
(46:22):
on hell Orina, Corey Gansley, Kevin thurm Oscar Flores, and
all our dedicated staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi,
I'm Dr Mike Kempill, Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program,
one of a kind partnership between the presidential centers of
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and
(46:46):
Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton often says that the key
to great leadership is in finding our common humanity, something
that's needed now more than ever. That's why each year
we bring together a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from
doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans,
all of whom have a passion for making the world
(47:09):
a better place. We create a culture of collaboration that
transcends partisan divides and ideological differences in service of a
greater good. Today, presidential leadership scholars across the country are
working together and actively applying the lessons learned in our
program to help tackle today's most pressing challenges. You can
learn more about this work and see how you can
(47:31):
get involved by visiting www dot Clinton Foundation dot org.
Slash podcast
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
This is Gavin Newsom
I’m Gavin Newsom. And, it’s time to have a conversation. It’s time to have honest discussions with people that agree AND disagree with us. It's time to answer the hard questions and be open to criticism, and debate without demeaning or dehumanizing one other. I will be doing just that on my new podcast – inviting people on who I deeply disagree with to talk about the most pressing issues of the day and inviting listeners from around the country to join the conversation. THIS is Gavin Newsom.