April 15, 2025 • 24 mins
Urban Lab, a Kansas City-based urbanist group, hopes to inspire city leaders to reimagine streets, developments, and public spaces. Founded by architect Matt Hasek, this grassroots organization has grown organically by creating compelling visual representations that help people see how urban spaces could be different.
• Kansas City has more highway miles per capita than nearly anywhere else in the United States
• The city once had 350 miles of streetcar, now reduced to just 2.2 miles of streetcar
• Urban Lab creates detailed visualizations of specific Kansas City locations rather than generic urban spaces
• Their work includes reimagining the historic Plaza area, the Grand Boulevard corridor, and proposals for highway removal
• One of their designs is currently being implemented by the city, with 80-85% of their model likely to be realized
• Urban Lab's process focuses on both building on existing momentum and introducing new concepts to spark conversation
• Their visualizations target both the general public and city officials who can implement change
You can learn more about Urban Lab here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
This week on Transit Tangents, we speak with Urban
Lab, a Kansas City-based groupadvocating for better urban
spaces through impressive designwork and visualizations of city
streets, developments and awhole lot more.
We'll also talk about plans toremove a highway development
along the city'ssoon-to-be-extended streetcar
line and find out what's instore for the future of Urban
Lab.
Hey everybody and welcome tothis episode of Transit Tangents
(00:40):
.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are fortunate to
have two special guests with us.
We've been here in Kansas Cityfor the last few days.
We've gotten a chance to chatwith both of these guys quite a
bit.
We were super excited to have areally fun happy hour event
when we first got into town andthese guys made sure that we
actually had people to talk towhen we got there.
So first off, if you guys wantto introduce yourselves as well
(01:02):
as Urban Lab, which is the groupthat you started, and you all
have created a small army offolks kind of working to do all
sorts of great work here inKansas City.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sure, yeah, I'm Matt Hasek.
I'm the one that founded UrbanLab, and if you want to
introduce yourself, anthony Hugo.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I do communications and public outreach for Urban
Lab.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, and Urban Lab really is just like a small
grassroots group that we starteda few years ago.
That's really sort of likegeneral urbanism within Kansas
City, but primarily what wefocus on is looking at solutions
.
So it's one thing to talk aboutall the problems that you find
in like urbanism spaces, butwhat we really do is look at
doing graphic visualizations ofhow we can fix those spaces.
(01:45):
So anything from looking athistorical analysis of Kansas
City to doing like road equityprojects.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
For folks not from Kansas City.
Can you guys just give us arough overview of, like what is
the current state of kind ofurbanism in Kansas City?
Is there a lot of the old and,like you know, we've gotten to
see some of this over the lastfew?
Is there a lot of the old and,like you know, we've gotten to
see some of this over the lastfew days?
But is some of the old historiccharm still existing in a lot
of areas?
Has a lot of it been torn down?
Is there kind of a Yimbymovement happening?
(02:15):
What is the current state ofthings here in KC?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I would say in terms of, like old charm, most of the
charm is still here.
A lot that um is focused onlike the, the north south
corridor between like rivermarket to plaza and then even
south of that, and then a littlebit of that and still intact.
Uh, east of downtown um, a lotof the the stuff that was ripped
out is more so just directlyeast of the downtown itself, the
east village with paseo westarea.
(02:39):
A lot of that was affected byurban renewal and so all of that
has been sort of industrializedsince its sort of inception in
the early 1800s or the late1800s, early 1900s.
But outside of that most of thehistoric charm is still in
Kansas City.
I don't know if you haveanything.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I think speaking to urbanism as a whole
and the YIMBY kind of movementacross the nation and in Kansas
City, it very much reflects thehistory of Kansas City and
austerity.
We kind of have an uphillbattle here because we have more
highway miles per capita than,I think, anywhere else in the
United.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
States at this point.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's rough.
We went from having 350 milesof streetcar and 700 miles of
interurban rail to 2.2 miles ofstreetcar.
So we're getting back to it.
But it's just kind of shapingthe conversation and the ideas
around what Kansas City used tobe and what it can be that we're
really trying to push with ourgroup and get back to kind of a
(03:38):
traditional format.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Cool.
I'm glad you mentioned thestreetcar.
We have the new streetcar here,the KC streetcar that we think
it started in 2016.
We got a chance to ride it thisweek.
We're going to get a chance totalk to the streetcar authority
as well.
Have you seen more interest inurbanism and in development in
KC?
Focusing on public transit,focusing on even preserving
(04:02):
these spaces and turning theminto new and useful places?
Have you seen that interestgrow with the introduction of
the streetcar?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's been really catalyzing forpeople to kind of rally behind
the idea of what transportationin Kansas City could be again,
because my entire time growingup all I knew was driving
downtown going to this onespecific place and then at the
end of the day you leave and youdon't really explore anything.
But with the streetcar thatattitude's completely changed.
(04:31):
I mean there's people who aregrowing up in their formative
years who are experiencingKansas City in completely
different ways, and I thinkthat's been huge to get people
to take a little bit more pridein where they're at.
There always was kind of thisattitude of you know, it's just
(04:52):
Kansas City, we're just in theMidwest.
Nobody really had this conceptof what the sense of place
should be and I think thestreetcar has done, you know, a
huge heavy lifting aspect therewith respect to how people view
the city again and showingpeople like what it could be
Exactly yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, I think the streetcar always has had a
special place in kansas city'sculture.
Like you even look at like thefinal days of kansas city's
streetcar running back in the50s, like they, they filmed the
entire route, that final routethat it ran right, and so there
were restaurants that were namedafter it, uh, and what it
always been had been kind of alocal legend.
But to have that reintroductionof the streetcar, it kind of fit
(05:24):
right back into the culture ofKansas City and almost kind of
like in a new way too.
It's interesting to kind of siton the streetcar and listen to
conversations of people becauseyou do get unlike the bus system
where it's typically likeregular commuters that are
riding it you do get everybody,a little bit of everybody that's
riding it.
You know both tourists and sortof local commuters as well,
(05:45):
specifically within the shortroute that it runs currently.
But like you listen to theconversations that take place on
there and sometimes you'll hearpeople say like this is my
first time ever riding publictransit, or kids running around
the vehicle while it's movingbecause it's the first time
they've ever been in a vehiclewhere they don't have to wear
seatbelts.
It's a lot of people's firstintroduction to public transit
(06:06):
and really opens them up to whatpublic transit can be when they
spend most of their lives herein Kansas city, where there's a
little bit of a transitdeficiency in the overall Metro.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Right, uh, kind of getting back to urban labs.
So you all do some reallyinteresting things in regards to
.
You know, a lot of advocacy incities is okay.
We want to try to like shiftdirections on this and they'll
kind of like find projects thatare already in motion to support
or, you know, kind of find waysto complain about something and
(06:33):
, but not necessarily, offer upthe full solution, and what you
all do with all of the designprinciples are really
interesting.
So can you kind of walk methrough your process of how are
you kind of identifying projectsand, uh, kind of like let folks
who aren't familiar with urbanlab know, like what, what your
process is.
You're going through and you'reyou're actually creating these
full proposals.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I think the process is really interesting, yeah, and
I wouldn't necessarily say fullproposals, more so, a lot of
the times it's just getting anidea out there, right.
So there are a couple of ways.
Sometimes we gravitate towardsideas that are already in motion
.
So, for example, we did aproject where the plaza, which
is sort of a historic commercialarea here in Kansas City, there
was a lot of momentum to try topedestrianize it, right, you
(07:14):
look at polls on Twitter at thetime and you ask, like, if there
was one street that you couldpedestrianize, what would it be?
And it'd be JC Nichols Roadright, which runs right through
the plaza.
There was a lot of momentum tothat, and so we kind of jumped
off the momentum that wasalready there and created a
visualization to show what thatlooked like.
And it was the firstvisualization that had been put
out there, which is why it gotso much momentum.
But sometimes we just put ideasout there that you know we have
(07:37):
floating in our head and then,because we put that
visualization of how the spacecould be different, then people
start talking about it afterthat, and so that's where a lot
of the excitement can be, youknow, being able to get public
conversation started with that,in terms of like some of the
posts that we put out, there's acouple audiences that we really
go kind of gravitate towards.
The first one is sort ofgeneral public, you know, people
(08:00):
who aren't too much in theurbanism space and really, again
, try to get ideas out there,try to get them talking about
these things.
But sometimes we are alsotargeting sort of the city
officials, people who have likeactual power in the city and say
, like you know, trying to getthem to uh actually get uh
momentum going, so they're theones that really can get these
projects going and so sometimeswe target specifically them so
(08:22):
that we can get uh that momentumactually uh solidified and
concrete.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So yeah, no, I.
I think it's like such a usefultool to be able to just point
to something like again uh, for,for folks watching we'll
include some visuals, but forfolks just listening the plaza
area Chris and I got to go checkit out yesterday.
You'll correct me on thehistory here if I get it wrong,
but it was in the 1920s.
It was initially built and itwas generally considered to be
(08:48):
the first suburban shoppingcenter in the US really where
folks would be in a lot of casesdriving out to it.
They have a lot of casesdriving out to it.
Um, they have a lot of kind ofhidden parking garages
throughout in a similar to likea Texas donut style.
Uh, you know, hiding it,wrapping the parking garage with
buildings around it and whatnot.
Um, and yeah, it's reallyinteresting that you know you're
(09:09):
in Kansas city and all of asudden it feels like you're in
Spain.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, Very much like we were joking, like somebody
went to Seville and they cameback and said oh, I missed this
walkable town that I was in, whydon't we introduce the car to
it?
And that's literally the storyright?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I mean, didn't some of the, the, the person who,
like they, went to Seville andsaw it right and it came back?
Yeah, right, um, but it's, it'sa.
It's an interesting part of ashopping mall kind of vibe to it
, but it can be.
It has a potential.
It already is, in some regards,a really nice urban space, but
(09:42):
it has the potential to reallytake it to the next level with
this proposal.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
yeah, um, yeah I think I think it's a really good
use case.
I love the fact that you'reusing visuals to sort of, um,
get people thinking and inspirethem.
Um, because people are very youknow, they're very visual.
You want to see what the spaceis going to look like and really
try to inspire.
Have you had any other examplesof spaces where you've made
these visualizations and itreally sort of took off or
people you know started to talkabout this?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
bring it up in conversation, well so actually,
there's one project that I'vegot in mind maybe not so much
one that we publicized so much,but this was more of an
experimental one and it so faris actually being uh pretty
successful where we we had, uh,there's a corridor that's
already under, under uh sort ofthe magnifying glass by the city
that they want to resurface theroad and then restripe it so
that they can add, you know,more uh crosswalks to it and and
(10:28):
, uh, potentially like amobility lane or a bike lane to
it.
Um, and so what we did was wemodeled up the entire corridor
in SketchUp and then basicallyjust did what we thought should
be the remarkings for the roadmarkings on that corridor, and
they hadn't even designed it atthat point, yet we were way
ahead of what their schedule was.
We presented the model to them,we presented the model to some
(10:50):
community members.
Community members some of thebusiness owners loved it because
it's much safer than what'scurrently working on that road
right now, and so, from what Iunderstand is that the city is
just currently using it as abasis of design.
They're telling their engineersto match it, and potentially we
could see 80 to 85% of thatmodel actually be realized.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Now, that's amazing and it's great to hear too, that
it's like you all are very muchfocused on all aspects of this
in terms of like the roadnetworks, the buildings, the
like housing density, all ofthese things, because they all
do tie so much hand in hand.
And when we started this show ayear ago, like we were mostly
like, oh, we're going to talkabout like transportation,
(11:30):
basically just in general, we'regoing to talk about buses and
trains, and now we talk aboutlike housing and like the urban
spaces and like you know, uh,all sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's also closely tied together.
You can't talk about housingwithout public transportation.
You can't have good publictransportation without the
housing component.
So it's also so interconnected.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
We talked about this a little bit the other night.
I'm curious uh, you can sharean abbreviated version if you
want Just what was kind of theimpetus for you starting Urban
Lab.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah.
So I graduated architectureschool.
I kind of focused on doinggraphic representations of my
projects in architecture butdidn't really have much of an
outlet for it outside of work,right.
And so I had been kind ofgradually becoming more and more
interested into urbanism andthought, well, maybe I can show
how these urban spaces could bedifferent.
At the time I lived inSpringfield, Missouri, and so I
tried doing sort of thesegraphic representations of how
(12:26):
to reimagine Springfield urbanspaces.
It was not well received At thetime.
I decided I'd try for KansasCity.
It was much more well-receivedin Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think people the hunger for change here in terms
of urbanism is much greater thanit was in Springfield and why
it was much more successful hererather than in Springfield.
I can personally attest becauseI had joined Urban Lab kind of
just accidentally.
I had seen a post that Matt hadput together and said, oh my
gosh, I've been talking aboutthis exact concept but I could
never quite articulate.
You know why I felt this wayabout this specific project.
And he was like well, I mean,if you want to meet up with us,
we get coffee.
And I said absolutely yeah,we'll do that.
(13:05):
And you know, from there itjust kind of snowballed into
different people being like, hey, I have this idea.
Did you guys meet up?
And we've gradually grownpretty organically through that
with people who have differentideas, different outlooks and
how they can shape the citygoing forward, and it's been a
huge success so far.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, how he described it is very much just
how the group built.
It started with myself and thenpeople started reaching out to
me on social media, which iswhere I was posting these
visualizations, and then morepeople started reaching out,
more people started reaching outand then eventually it just
became a group very organically.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
That's really awesome .
We make a joke.
This kind of made me think ofthis.
We make a joke a couple oftimes throughout this podcast
that, oh, if only we couldchange this one thing, like if I
get like city skylines, like Iwant to, like, you know,
redesign the street or whatever,you're essentially doing that
in real life, like you wereshowing people in a almost like
city skylines-esque fashion whatcan be a space and real change
can come of that.
So if you've listened to us andlaughed at us, say, just city
(14:03):
skylines, that you can do it.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, no no, no, I think that's a really good point
.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think the other thing too, like because there's
a lot of local pride in KansasCity like it's one thing to show
how, just like a genericintersection, for example, you
know city.
It's one thing to show how justa generic intersection, for
example, in terms of road equity, it's one thing to show how a
generic road intersection can bedesigned differently with bike
lanes and crosswalks and whatnot.
But I think when people areable to identify that and say,
hey, I've been there, I'vedriven through there, I've
walked through there, thisintersection sucks, and then
(14:28):
they see how that can bedirectly applied to their life,
essentially in a realintersection.
That's where I think a lot ofthe local excitement comes, and
why it's been so successful isbecause people are familiar with
what we're doing.
It's not just general urbanismthat can be applied anywhere in
the United States, it'sspecifically to Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, we've done a specific corridor overlay for
the Grand Boulevard corridor,which is one of the most
significant streets in theentire city.
It's used for parades andthings like that.
It's got a very historic tie toit and it's pretty desolate
right now.
I mean, there's parts of itthat have some dense development
but a lot of it's parking lotsor single-rise light
(15:07):
industrial-type buildings,storage units, and we've done an
overlay with the visualizationsacross the entire corridor,
kind of from an existing planand how it could be better.
And when people see it they'relike, oh my gosh, this is
fantastic.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Why wouldn't we do that?
I can't believe we haven't donethat already.
This makes so much sense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
It gets people to kind of push, whether it be
their city council members oreven the city manager or mayor,
be like, hey, can we getsomething moving on this?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
something moving on this Because this visualization
shows me exactly where Irecognize these spaces and how
they could be better.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
I don't know that this wasinitially your proposal, but I'm
sure you all are familiar withit.
There was an interesting.
You mentioned the amount ofhighway miles in the Kansas City
area.
There have been proposals thatI've seen floating around the
internet as they do, about thelike North loop removal area of
(15:56):
essentially it's a proposedhighway removal.
I'm curious if y'all can kindof fill us in on that.
We had the chance the first daywe were here.
We actually like walked overthe highway there in that
section and it's just likeimagining what was torn down to
put so many of these highways in, as it is the case in basically
every city in the United States.
Can you walk us through whatthat proposal is and if you know
(16:16):
I mean if you all are involvedin it or who is involved in it?
I'm just curious to learn moreabout it.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, I wish I could say that we're the ones driving
it, but that's actually like awhole group, a whole other group
.
But we're completely supportiveof that project.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, the North Loop Neighbors, that's the group
who's kind of headed up.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
What was the name of it?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
North Loop Neighbors.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
A little context to that segment of highway.
So if you're not familiar withKansas City highways, there's a
downtown loop, as it's called,right and it's because there's
literally a ring of highway thatkind of constrained the
downtown and so the northsegment of that was the first
segment of highway that wasbuilt in and so, like you can
actually like you were talkingabout what got torn down,
there's pictures of essentiallywhat looks like a whole just
(16:54):
dirt line running through thedowntown at that time because it
was the first highway likeurban highway that was getting
built and they referred to it asthe Kansas City Blitz because
you know, all these vets thatwere coming back from World War
II said this looks just likeEurope, you know, and that
there's a lot of destroyedbuildings.
That just kind of happened veryquickly to build this highway
so that because it's such it'sthe oldest segment of highway,
(17:15):
it's also one of the most poorlydesigned.
There's too many on-ramps andoff-ramps.
It doesn't work for driversvery well, it doesn't facilitate
traffic very well.
So there's been a look to try toremove that segment because it
has kind of the most bang forthe buck in that river market
which is just north of it, verysuccessful Downtown just south
of it, also very successful,north of it, very successful,
(17:35):
downtown just south of it, alsovery successful.
Connect these two verysuccessful neighborhoods
together and you know it justmakes too much sense, right?
It doesn't work for drivers, itdoesn't work for pedestrians,
it doesn't work for development.
So they're kind of doing thecommon sense solution of just
remove the north loop.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, we've walked around that neighborhood and it
does feel very disconnected andit would be nice to see it
connected back to the city youtouched on, you know, sort of
the Kansas City Blitz we got tocall out Segregation by Design's
Instagram.
If you want to see images ofKansas City, they have an
amazing collection of sort ofbefore and after pictures of
development in Kansas City,specifically around the highways
(18:07):
, and a lot of that is in thisarea?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Absolutely, we'll also make sure that the group
that you mentioned that is kindof behind this is linked in the
description for folks if you'reinterested in learning more
about that project.
I'm curious if street, becauseit's still being kind of
developed.
But you know we gave them themodel of that corridor.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And so that's one that's still currently being
underway, and my understandingis that should be coming to
fruition here in the next yearand a half or so.
So we'll see what comes of it,but I'm pretty excited to see
that.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
We have the Paseo West model that we've kind of
been working on, say a westmodel that we've kind of been
working on it's it's more of alonger term uh idea because
we've we've done kind of animagining of the midtown
marketplace area, which iscurrently a big box store uh and
a costco facility and a giantuh service parking lot right
adjacent to the new streetcarline, uh, walking distance to a
(19:11):
streetcar stop, and we'veimagined that as a kind of an
infill neighborhood long term.
So we're doing that as a kindof an infill neighborhood
long-term, so we're doing thatwith some other desolate areas
around town that have kind ofbeen forgotten or relegated to
certain uses that aren'tamendable to residential or
commercial, and kind of showingwhat could be with the right
policies in place or the rightvision.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, I want to clarify a little bit on the
project, Because that's more ofa long-term project that we're
working on right now, where thiswould be an example of one
where we're trying to generateexcitement for it, where there's
currently nothing right now.
So the neighborhood directlyEast of downtown, like the
actual core of downtown, was ahistorically residential
neighborhood.
Largely African-Americanresided there.
But because it wasAfrican-American, there's a lot
(19:54):
of African-American populationthere.
It was targeted for urbanrenewal and so the neighborhood
got effectively systematicallydemolished and then rezoned for
light industrial and so it wentfrom being a residential
neighborhood to now just beingstaging and light factory work.
That's over there.
But it's some of the highestvalue land, or could be some of
the highest value land in themetro, because it's so close to
(20:15):
downtown.
It could be very transitaccessible and then again, great
views of the skyline,potentially accessible to
downtown, but right now it'sjust mostly asphalt.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Three corridors in that area as well have been
studied, at least from a highlevel view by the streetcar for
different expansions, at leastfrom a high-level view by the
streetcar for differentexpansions.
So the long-term possibilitiesthere are pretty substantial.
With the transit accessibilitythat could exist and being as
close to downtown as it is, itwould not be hard to revitalize
into a fairly thriving area.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, so looking at that as reintroducing that as a
residential neighborhood thatcan be directly accessible to
downtown.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
I have one more, but if you go for it, if you've got
anything, I have a closing one,so if you want to go ahead?
Yeah, it's kind of the same, Iguess, but I was going to say go
for it, let's see if they werethe same.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
For anybody else in their cities.
If they want to start somethingsimilar to an Urban Labs, what
advice would you give themSpecifically?
You know, how do you find otherpeople who are interested in
the same topics and once, onceyou do find those people, how do
you then engage with the cityand with the community and
getting them excited for thethings that you're excited about
?
This was we were on the samepage.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's also my question.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I think the first step, and specifically because
we kind of took a very nicheroute I'm not familiar with many
other cities that have started,you know, doing this because
it's such a specific skill setbeing able to model buildings
using like SketchUp or Rhino andthen being able to use
Photoshop to kind of tidy thatup so that it's very
professionally put together.
So if anybody out there thathas architectural experience or
(21:45):
just experience modeling ingeneral and is pretty good with
Photoshop, can do what we'redoing essentially, so just have
the creative mind to do that andjust not be afraid to put it
out there.
You don't have to have a groupto start it, because what
happened with myself, forexample, is that I put these
images out by myself and thenpeople just started coming to me
(22:06):
because they found itinteresting enough.
I think the other part to thattoo is because if you're able to
do it, where again people areable to identify certain things
within their cities, they getexcited for it and they start
reaching out from there.
So I would say the step one isjust start doing something you
know, start putting out you knowsort of your own visualizations
that this is something thatyou're interested in doing in
terms of, like working with thecity.
I think you have to build thatreputation first before the city
(22:27):
starts, like taking an eye toit, and then, once you go from
there, you, you, you, you know.
It helps to have thatcommunication behind those
scenes, cause sometimes, youknow, learning about the local
politics is kind of its own.
Its because sometimes, you know, learning about the local
politics is kind of its ownbeast.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Can of worms, to say the least.
But I mean I have no formallike architecture, design or
transportation experience.
I was in the Army and spenttime in Europe and that's kind
of where I got a feel forurbanism and different urban
forms.
And I came to Urban Lab, just,you know, organically, and had a
(23:03):
knack for talking to people andthat's kind of been how I've
helped out.
So you don't have to have aspecific background within
architecture, design ortransportation or any of those
specific fields to be able tocontribute to the conversation
and kind of move the ballforward.
You just have to leveragewhatever skill set you might
have and if you really getresearching things, then you can
explore the history ofdifferent places and pull
examples from your area and belike, hey, this is what we used
(23:24):
to have, why can't we have itagain?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I totally relate to that Cause, that's I don't have
a formal background or educationin it.
I just like was interested init, passionate about it.
I do video type works.
It was like I have equipment tobe able to do stuff.
Chris had mentioned it andChris does have some formal
experience doing some of it.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
A little bit of transference, but not to this
extent.
Yeah, not to this extent.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But it's been an interesting journey.
Well, I guess if there'sanything else you guys want to
add, feel free.
If we covered enough ground youthink we're good.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
I mean, we could go on and talk about this for hours
.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So maybe we'll wrap it up For folks who are
interested.
How can folks find Urban Laband like, where can they follow
you all?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, we're on most social media, so you can find us
on Instagram, twitter, our mainones, but we're also on
LinkedIn, facebook, and then ourwebsite is wwwurbanlaborg, I
believe, right.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, we'll make sure links to all that are in the
description for folks who areinterested.
If you haven't liked this videoalready or left a comment,
please consider doing so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also support the showdirectly on Patreon to help get
us to more places like KansasCity.
This has been an awesome trip.
This is probably the mostextensive time we've spent in a
city.
Usually we're kind of in a rushdoing it because it's like a
mix of work and not being ableto spend a bunch of money on
(24:34):
hotels and flights and all thatsort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So thank you all for the warm welcome here.
Thank you everybody forwatching and enjoy the rest of
your Transit Tangents Tuesday.
This week on Transit Tangents, we speak with Urban
Lab, a Kansas City-based groupadvocating for better urban
spaces through impressive designwork and visualizations of city
streets, developments and awhole lot more.
We'll also talk about plans toremove a highway development
along the city'ssoon-to-be-extended streetcar
line and find out what's instore for the future of Urban
Lab.
Hey everybody and welcome tothis episode of Transit Tangents
(00:40):
.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are fortunate to
have two special guests with us.
We've been here in Kansas Cityfor the last few days.
We've gotten a chance to chatwith both of these guys quite a
bit.
We were super excited to have areally fun happy hour event
when we first got into town andthese guys made sure that we
actually had people to talk towhen we got there.
So first off, if you guys wantto introduce yourselves as well
(01:02):
as Urban Lab, which is the groupthat you started, and you all
have created a small army offolks kind of working to do all
sorts of great work here inKansas City.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sure, yeah, I'm Matt Hasek.
I'm the one that founded UrbanLab, and if you want to
introduce yourself, anthony Hugo.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I do communications and public outreach for Urban
Lab.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, and Urban Lab really is just like a small
grassroots group that we starteda few years ago.
That's really sort of likegeneral urbanism within Kansas
City, but primarily what wefocus on is looking at solutions
.
So it's one thing to talk aboutall the problems that you find
in like urbanism spaces, butwhat we really do is look at
doing graphic visualizations ofhow we can fix those spaces.
(01:45):
So anything from looking athistorical analysis of Kansas
City to doing like road equityprojects.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
For folks not from Kansas City.
Can you guys just give us arough overview of, like what is
the current state of kind ofurbanism in Kansas City?
Is there a lot of the old and,like you know, we've gotten to
see some of this over the lastfew?
Is there a lot of the old and,like you know, we've gotten to
see some of this over the lastfew days?
But is some of the old historiccharm still existing in a lot
of areas?
Has a lot of it been torn down?
Is there kind of a Yimbymovement happening?
(02:15):
What is the current state ofthings here in KC?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I would say in terms of, like old charm, most of the
charm is still here.
A lot that um is focused onlike the, the north south
corridor between like rivermarket to plaza and then even
south of that, and then a littlebit of that and still intact.
Uh, east of downtown um, a lotof the the stuff that was ripped
out is more so just directlyeast of the downtown itself, the
east village with paseo westarea.
(02:39):
A lot of that was affected byurban renewal and so all of that
has been sort of industrializedsince its sort of inception in
the early 1800s or the late1800s, early 1900s.
But outside of that most of thehistoric charm is still in
Kansas City.
I don't know if you haveanything.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I think speaking to urbanism as a whole
and the YIMBY kind of movementacross the nation and in Kansas
City, it very much reflects thehistory of Kansas City and
austerity.
We kind of have an uphillbattle here because we have more
highway miles per capita than,I think, anywhere else in the
United.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
States at this point.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's rough.
We went from having 350 milesof streetcar and 700 miles of
interurban rail to 2.2 miles ofstreetcar.
So we're getting back to it.
But it's just kind of shapingthe conversation and the ideas
around what Kansas City used tobe and what it can be that we're
really trying to push with ourgroup and get back to kind of a
(03:38):
traditional format.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Cool.
I'm glad you mentioned thestreetcar.
We have the new streetcar here,the KC streetcar that we think
it started in 2016.
We got a chance to ride it thisweek.
We're going to get a chance totalk to the streetcar authority
as well.
Have you seen more interest inurbanism and in development in
KC?
Focusing on public transit,focusing on even preserving
(04:02):
these spaces and turning theminto new and useful places?
Have you seen that interestgrow with the introduction of
the streetcar?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's been really catalyzing forpeople to kind of rally behind
the idea of what transportationin Kansas City could be again,
because my entire time growingup all I knew was driving
downtown going to this onespecific place and then at the
end of the day you leave and youdon't really explore anything.
But with the streetcar thatattitude's completely changed.
(04:31):
I mean there's people who aregrowing up in their formative
years who are experiencingKansas City in completely
different ways, and I thinkthat's been huge to get people
to take a little bit more pridein where they're at.
There always was kind of thisattitude of you know, it's just
(04:52):
Kansas City, we're just in theMidwest.
Nobody really had this conceptof what the sense of place
should be and I think thestreetcar has done, you know, a
huge heavy lifting aspect therewith respect to how people view
the city again and showingpeople like what it could be
Exactly yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, I think the streetcar always has had a
special place in kansas city'sculture.
Like you even look at like thefinal days of kansas city's
streetcar running back in the50s, like they, they filmed the
entire route, that final routethat it ran right, and so there
were restaurants that were namedafter it, uh, and what it
always been had been kind of alocal legend.
But to have that reintroductionof the streetcar, it kind of fit
(05:24):
right back into the culture ofKansas City and almost kind of
like in a new way too.
It's interesting to kind of siton the streetcar and listen to
conversations of people becauseyou do get unlike the bus system
where it's typically likeregular commuters that are
riding it you do get everybody,a little bit of everybody that's
riding it.
You know both tourists and sortof local commuters as well,
(05:45):
specifically within the shortroute that it runs currently.
But like you listen to theconversations that take place on
there and sometimes you'll hearpeople say like this is my
first time ever riding publictransit, or kids running around
the vehicle while it's movingbecause it's the first time
they've ever been in a vehiclewhere they don't have to wear
seatbelts.
It's a lot of people's firstintroduction to public transit
(06:06):
and really opens them up to whatpublic transit can be when they
spend most of their lives herein Kansas city, where there's a
little bit of a transitdeficiency in the overall Metro.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Right, uh, kind of getting back to urban labs.
So you all do some reallyinteresting things in regards to
.
You know, a lot of advocacy incities is okay.
We want to try to like shiftdirections on this and they'll
kind of like find projects thatare already in motion to support
or, you know, kind of find waysto complain about something and
(06:33):
, but not necessarily, offer upthe full solution, and what you
all do with all of the designprinciples are really
interesting.
So can you kind of walk methrough your process of how are
you kind of identifying projectsand, uh, kind of like let folks
who aren't familiar with urbanlab know, like what, what your
process is.
You're going through and you'reyou're actually creating these
full proposals.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I think the process is really interesting, yeah, and
I wouldn't necessarily say fullproposals, more so, a lot of
the times it's just getting anidea out there, right.
So there are a couple of ways.
Sometimes we gravitate towardsideas that are already in motion
.
So, for example, we did aproject where the plaza, which
is sort of a historic commercialarea here in Kansas City, there
was a lot of momentum to try topedestrianize it, right, you
(07:14):
look at polls on Twitter at thetime and you ask, like, if there
was one street that you couldpedestrianize, what would it be?
And it'd be JC Nichols Roadright, which runs right through
the plaza.
There was a lot of momentum tothat, and so we kind of jumped
off the momentum that wasalready there and created a
visualization to show what thatlooked like.
And it was the firstvisualization that had been put
out there, which is why it gotso much momentum.
But sometimes we just put ideasout there that you know we have
(07:37):
floating in our head and then,because we put that
visualization of how the spacecould be different, then people
start talking about it afterthat, and so that's where a lot
of the excitement can be, youknow, being able to get public
conversation started with that,in terms of like some of the
posts that we put out, there's acouple audiences that we really
go kind of gravitate towards.
The first one is sort ofgeneral public, you know, people
(08:00):
who aren't too much in theurbanism space and really, again
, try to get ideas out there,try to get them talking about
these things.
But sometimes we are alsotargeting sort of the city
officials, people who have likeactual power in the city and say
, like you know, trying to getthem to uh actually get uh
momentum going, so they're theones that really can get these
projects going and so sometimeswe target specifically them so
(08:22):
that we can get uh that momentumactually uh solidified and
concrete.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So yeah, no, I.
I think it's like such a usefultool to be able to just point
to something like again uh, for,for folks watching we'll
include some visuals, but forfolks just listening the plaza
area Chris and I got to go checkit out yesterday.
You'll correct me on thehistory here if I get it wrong,
but it was in the 1920s.
It was initially built and itwas generally considered to be
(08:48):
the first suburban shoppingcenter in the US really where
folks would be in a lot of casesdriving out to it.
They have a lot of casesdriving out to it.
Um, they have a lot of kind ofhidden parking garages
throughout in a similar to likea Texas donut style.
Uh, you know, hiding it,wrapping the parking garage with
buildings around it and whatnot.
Um, and yeah, it's reallyinteresting that you know you're
(09:09):
in Kansas city and all of asudden it feels like you're in
Spain.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, Very much like we were joking, like somebody
went to Seville and they cameback and said oh, I missed this
walkable town that I was in, whydon't we introduce the car to
it?
And that's literally the storyright?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I mean, didn't some of the, the, the person who,
like they, went to Seville andsaw it right and it came back?
Yeah, right, um, but it's, it'sa.
It's an interesting part of ashopping mall kind of vibe to it
, but it can be.
It has a potential.
It already is, in some regards,a really nice urban space, but
(09:42):
it has the potential to reallytake it to the next level with
this proposal.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
yeah, um, yeah I think I think it's a really good
use case.
I love the fact that you'reusing visuals to sort of, um,
get people thinking and inspirethem.
Um, because people are very youknow, they're very visual.
You want to see what the spaceis going to look like and really
try to inspire.
Have you had any other examplesof spaces where you've made
these visualizations and itreally sort of took off or
people you know started to talkabout this?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
bring it up in conversation, well so actually,
there's one project that I'vegot in mind maybe not so much
one that we publicized so much,but this was more of an
experimental one and it so faris actually being uh pretty
successful where we we had, uh,there's a corridor that's
already under, under uh sort ofthe magnifying glass by the city
that they want to resurface theroad and then restripe it so
that they can add, you know,more uh crosswalks to it and and
(10:28):
, uh, potentially like amobility lane or a bike lane to
it.
Um, and so what we did was wemodeled up the entire corridor
in SketchUp and then basicallyjust did what we thought should
be the remarkings for the roadmarkings on that corridor, and
they hadn't even designed it atthat point, yet we were way
ahead of what their schedule was.
We presented the model to them,we presented the model to some
(10:50):
community members.
Community members some of thebusiness owners loved it because
it's much safer than what'scurrently working on that road
right now, and so, from what Iunderstand is that the city is
just currently using it as abasis of design.
They're telling their engineersto match it, and potentially we
could see 80 to 85% of thatmodel actually be realized.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Now, that's amazing and it's great to hear too, that
it's like you all are very muchfocused on all aspects of this
in terms of like the roadnetworks, the buildings, the
like housing density, all ofthese things, because they all
do tie so much hand in hand.
And when we started this show ayear ago, like we were mostly
like, oh, we're going to talkabout like transportation,
(11:30):
basically just in general, we'regoing to talk about buses and
trains, and now we talk aboutlike housing and like the urban
spaces and like you know, uh,all sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's also closely tied together.
You can't talk about housingwithout public transportation.
You can't have good publictransportation without the
housing component.
So it's also so interconnected.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
We talked about this a little bit the other night.
I'm curious uh, you can sharean abbreviated version if you
want Just what was kind of theimpetus for you starting Urban
Lab.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah.
So I graduated architectureschool.
I kind of focused on doinggraphic representations of my
projects in architecture butdidn't really have much of an
outlet for it outside of work,right.
And so I had been kind ofgradually becoming more and more
interested into urbanism andthought, well, maybe I can show
how these urban spaces could bedifferent.
At the time I lived inSpringfield, Missouri, and so I
tried doing sort of thesegraphic representations of how
(12:26):
to reimagine Springfield urbanspaces.
It was not well received At thetime.
I decided I'd try for KansasCity.
It was much more well-receivedin Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think people the hunger for change here in terms
of urbanism is much greater thanit was in Springfield and why
it was much more successful hererather than in Springfield.
I can personally attest becauseI had joined Urban Lab kind of
just accidentally.
I had seen a post that Matt hadput together and said, oh my
gosh, I've been talking aboutthis exact concept but I could
never quite articulate.
You know why I felt this wayabout this specific project.
And he was like well, I mean,if you want to meet up with us,
we get coffee.
And I said absolutely yeah,we'll do that.
(13:05):
And you know, from there itjust kind of snowballed into
different people being like, hey, I have this idea.
Did you guys meet up?
And we've gradually grownpretty organically through that
with people who have differentideas, different outlooks and
how they can shape the citygoing forward, and it's been a
huge success so far.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, how he described it is very much just
how the group built.
It started with myself and thenpeople started reaching out to
me on social media, which iswhere I was posting these
visualizations, and then morepeople started reaching out,
more people started reaching outand then eventually it just
became a group very organically.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
That's really awesome .
We make a joke.
This kind of made me think ofthis.
We make a joke a couple oftimes throughout this podcast
that, oh, if only we couldchange this one thing, like if I
get like city skylines, like Iwant to, like, you know,
redesign the street or whatever,you're essentially doing that
in real life, like you wereshowing people in a almost like
city skylines-esque fashion whatcan be a space and real change
can come of that.
So if you've listened to us andlaughed at us, say, just city
(14:03):
skylines, that you can do it.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, no no, no, I think that's a really good point
.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think the other thing too, like because there's
a lot of local pride in KansasCity like it's one thing to show
how, just like a genericintersection, for example, you
know city.
It's one thing to show how justa generic intersection, for
example, in terms of road equity, it's one thing to show how a
generic road intersection can bedesigned differently with bike
lanes and crosswalks and whatnot.
But I think when people areable to identify that and say,
hey, I've been there, I'vedriven through there, I've
walked through there, thisintersection sucks, and then
(14:28):
they see how that can bedirectly applied to their life,
essentially in a realintersection.
That's where I think a lot ofthe local excitement comes, and
why it's been so successful isbecause people are familiar with
what we're doing.
It's not just general urbanismthat can be applied anywhere in
the United States, it'sspecifically to Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, we've done a specific corridor overlay for
the Grand Boulevard corridor,which is one of the most
significant streets in theentire city.
It's used for parades andthings like that.
It's got a very historic tie toit and it's pretty desolate
right now.
I mean, there's parts of itthat have some dense development
but a lot of it's parking lotsor single-rise light
(15:07):
industrial-type buildings,storage units, and we've done an
overlay with the visualizationsacross the entire corridor,
kind of from an existing planand how it could be better.
And when people see it they'relike, oh my gosh, this is
fantastic.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Why wouldn't we do that?
I can't believe we haven't donethat already.
This makes so much sense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
It gets people to kind of push, whether it be
their city council members oreven the city manager or mayor,
be like, hey, can we getsomething moving on this?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
something moving on this Because this visualization
shows me exactly where Irecognize these spaces and how
they could be better.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
I don't know that this wasinitially your proposal, but I'm
sure you all are familiar withit.
There was an interesting.
You mentioned the amount ofhighway miles in the Kansas City
area.
There have been proposals thatI've seen floating around the
internet as they do, about thelike North loop removal area of
(15:56):
essentially it's a proposedhighway removal.
I'm curious if y'all can kindof fill us in on that.
We had the chance the first daywe were here.
We actually like walked overthe highway there in that
section and it's just likeimagining what was torn down to
put so many of these highways in, as it is the case in basically
every city in the United States.
Can you walk us through whatthat proposal is and if you know
(16:16):
I mean if you all are involvedin it or who is involved in it?
I'm just curious to learn moreabout it.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, I wish I could say that we're the ones driving
it, but that's actually like awhole group, a whole other group
.
But we're completely supportiveof that project.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, the North Loop Neighbors, that's the group
who's kind of headed up.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
What was the name of it?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
North Loop Neighbors.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
A little context to that segment of highway.
So if you're not familiar withKansas City highways, there's a
downtown loop, as it's called,right and it's because there's
literally a ring of highway thatkind of constrained the
downtown and so the northsegment of that was the first
segment of highway that wasbuilt in and so, like you can
actually like you were talkingabout what got torn down,
there's pictures of essentiallywhat looks like a whole just
(16:54):
dirt line running through thedowntown at that time because it
was the first highway likeurban highway that was getting
built and they referred to it asthe Kansas City Blitz because
you know, all these vets thatwere coming back from World War
II said this looks just likeEurope, you know, and that
there's a lot of destroyedbuildings.
That just kind of happened veryquickly to build this highway
so that because it's such it'sthe oldest segment of highway,
(17:15):
it's also one of the most poorlydesigned.
There's too many on-ramps andoff-ramps.
It doesn't work for driversvery well, it doesn't facilitate
traffic very well.
So there's been a look to try toremove that segment because it
has kind of the most bang forthe buck in that river market
which is just north of it, verysuccessful Downtown just south
of it, also very successful,north of it, very successful,
(17:35):
downtown just south of it, alsovery successful.
Connect these two verysuccessful neighborhoods
together and you know it justmakes too much sense, right?
It doesn't work for drivers, itdoesn't work for pedestrians,
it doesn't work for development.
So they're kind of doing thecommon sense solution of just
remove the north loop.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah, we've walked around that neighborhood and it
does feel very disconnected andit would be nice to see it
connected back to the city youtouched on, you know, sort of
the Kansas City Blitz we got tocall out Segregation by Design's
Instagram.
If you want to see images ofKansas City, they have an
amazing collection of sort ofbefore and after pictures of
development in Kansas City,specifically around the highways
(18:07):
, and a lot of that is in thisarea?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Absolutely, we'll also make sure that the group
that you mentioned that is kindof behind this is linked in the
description for folks if you'reinterested in learning more
about that project.
I'm curious if street, becauseit's still being kind of
developed.
But you know we gave them themodel of that corridor.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And so that's one that's still currently being
underway, and my understandingis that should be coming to
fruition here in the next yearand a half or so.
So we'll see what comes of it,but I'm pretty excited to see
that.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
We have the Paseo West model that we've kind of
been working on, say a westmodel that we've kind of been
working on it's it's more of alonger term uh idea because
we've we've done kind of animagining of the midtown
marketplace area, which iscurrently a big box store uh and
a costco facility and a giantuh service parking lot right
adjacent to the new streetcarline, uh, walking distance to a
(19:11):
streetcar stop, and we'veimagined that as a kind of an
infill neighborhood long term.
So we're doing that as a kindof an infill neighborhood
long-term, so we're doing thatwith some other desolate areas
around town that have kind ofbeen forgotten or relegated to
certain uses that aren'tamendable to residential or
commercial, and kind of showingwhat could be with the right
policies in place or the rightvision.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, I want to clarify a little bit on the
project, Because that's more ofa long-term project that we're
working on right now, where thiswould be an example of one
where we're trying to generateexcitement for it, where there's
currently nothing right now.
So the neighborhood directlyEast of downtown, like the
actual core of downtown, was ahistorically residential
neighborhood.
Largely African-Americanresided there.
But because it wasAfrican-American, there's a lot
(19:54):
of African-American populationthere.
It was targeted for urbanrenewal and so the neighborhood
got effectively systematicallydemolished and then rezoned for
light industrial and so it wentfrom being a residential
neighborhood to now just beingstaging and light factory work.
That's over there.
But it's some of the highestvalue land, or could be some of
the highest value land in themetro, because it's so close to
(20:15):
downtown.
It could be very transitaccessible and then again, great
views of the skyline,potentially accessible to
downtown, but right now it'sjust mostly asphalt.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Three corridors in that area as well have been
studied, at least from a highlevel view by the streetcar for
different expansions, at leastfrom a high-level view by the
streetcar for differentexpansions.
So the long-term possibilitiesthere are pretty substantial.
With the transit accessibilitythat could exist and being as
close to downtown as it is, itwould not be hard to revitalize
into a fairly thriving area.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, so looking at that as reintroducing that as a
residential neighborhood thatcan be directly accessible to
downtown.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
I have one more, but if you go for it, if you've got
anything, I have a closing one,so if you want to go ahead?
Yeah, it's kind of the same, Iguess, but I was going to say go
for it, let's see if they werethe same.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
For anybody else in their cities.
If they want to start somethingsimilar to an Urban Labs, what
advice would you give themSpecifically?
You know, how do you find otherpeople who are interested in
the same topics and once, onceyou do find those people, how do
you then engage with the cityand with the community and
getting them excited for thethings that you're excited about
?
This was we were on the samepage.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's also my question.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I think the first step, and specifically because
we kind of took a very nicheroute I'm not familiar with many
other cities that have started,you know, doing this because
it's such a specific skill setbeing able to model buildings
using like SketchUp or Rhino andthen being able to use
Photoshop to kind of tidy thatup so that it's very
professionally put together.
So if anybody out there thathas architectural experience or
(21:45):
just experience modeling ingeneral and is pretty good with
Photoshop, can do what we'redoing essentially, so just have
the creative mind to do that andjust not be afraid to put it
out there.
You don't have to have a groupto start it, because what
happened with myself, forexample, is that I put these
images out by myself and thenpeople just started coming to me
(22:06):
because they found itinteresting enough.
I think the other part to thattoo is because if you're able to
do it, where again people areable to identify certain things
within their cities, they getexcited for it and they start
reaching out from there.
So I would say the step one isjust start doing something you
know, start putting out you knowsort of your own visualizations
that this is something thatyou're interested in doing in
terms of, like working with thecity.
I think you have to build thatreputation first before the city
(22:27):
starts, like taking an eye toit, and then, once you go from
there, you, you, you, you know.
It helps to have thatcommunication behind those
scenes, cause sometimes, youknow, learning about the local
politics is kind of its own.
Its because sometimes, you know, learning about the local
politics is kind of its ownbeast.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Can of worms, to say the least.
But I mean I have no formallike architecture, design or
transportation experience.
I was in the Army and spenttime in Europe and that's kind
of where I got a feel forurbanism and different urban
forms.
And I came to Urban Lab, just,you know, organically, and had a
(23:03):
knack for talking to people andthat's kind of been how I've
helped out.
So you don't have to have aspecific background within
architecture, design ortransportation or any of those
specific fields to be able tocontribute to the conversation
and kind of move the ballforward.
You just have to leveragewhatever skill set you might
have and if you really getresearching things, then you can
explore the history ofdifferent places and pull
examples from your area and belike, hey, this is what we used
(23:24):
to have, why can't we have itagain?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I totally relate to that Cause, that's I don't have
a formal background or educationin it.
I just like was interested init, passionate about it.
I do video type works.
It was like I have equipment tobe able to do stuff.
Chris had mentioned it andChris does have some formal
experience doing some of it.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
A little bit of transference, but not to this
extent.
Yeah, not to this extent.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But it's been an interesting journey.
Well, I guess if there'sanything else you guys want to
add, feel free.
If we covered enough ground youthink we're good.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
I mean, we could go on and talk about this for hours
.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So maybe we'll wrap it up For folks who are
interested.
How can folks find Urban Laband like, where can they follow
you all?
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, we're on most social media, so you can find us
on Instagram, twitter, our mainones, but we're also on
LinkedIn, facebook, and then ourwebsite is wwwurbanlaborg, I
believe, right.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, we'll make sure links to all that are in the
description for folks who areinterested.
If you haven't liked this videoalready or left a comment,
please consider doing so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also support the showdirectly on Patreon to help get
us to more places like KansasCity.
This has been an awesome trip.
This is probably the mostextensive time we've spent in a
city.
Usually we're kind of in a rushdoing it because it's like a
mix of work and not being ableto spend a bunch of money on
(24:34):
hotels and flights and all thatsort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So thank you all for the warm welcome here.
Thank you everybody forwatching and enjoy the rest of
your Transit Tangents Tuesday.
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