July 31, 2025 • 51 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Jeff Siegler about Urbanism, density, and revitalizing downtowns and suburbs. Jeff Siegler is an author, speaker, elected official, and consultant concerned with the powerful role place plays in our lives. He is the founder of the civic pride consulting firm, Revitalize, or Die, and co-founder of the organization Proud Places. After obtaining his Master’s in Urban Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University, Jeff went to work on Main Street first as a downtown manager, and later as the Ohio Main Street State Coordinator.
Jeff Siegel is a municipal commissioner and author of "Your City is Sick". He discusses the impact of the built environment on health, emphasizing how cities have become "sick" due to car-centric urban planning. He highlights how cities have been retrofitted around cars, leading to negative consequences for physical and social health, as well as environmental damage. Jeff suggests that cities need to shift focus from car dependency to creating healthier, more sustainable urban spaces.
Jeff Siegel is a municipal commissioner and author of "Your City is Sick". He discusses the impact of the built environment on health, emphasizing how cities have become "sick" due to car-centric urban planning. He highlights how cities have been retrofitted around cars, leading to negative consequences for physical and social health, as well as environmental damage. Jeff suggests that cities need to shift focus from car dependency to creating healthier, more sustainable urban spaces.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio How.
I'm endlessly fascinating curious about the world around us, about business,
about politics, about the arts, about culture, developments, socialists, and
the people. Most importantly, about the people that are shaping
our future. Every night I get the opportunity to have conversations,
to dive into conversations with thought leaders, with change makers, entrepreneurs,
(00:39):
politicians and everyday heroes who unpack the ideas and stories
that I think matter to all of us. What's the
future of our economy, what's the future of our country?
How do we build stronger communities? What can we learn
from music, theater, sports, politics, the arts? How does Paula
(01:00):
see shape our real lives? What does leadership look like?
Real leadership in today's environment? If it's interesting and relevant
and topical and we're talking about it, you'll hear about
it here at six o'clock on the Brian Crimbye Radio Hour.
I want to have real conversations, in depth conversations. These
are ideas we're sharing. This is the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
(01:22):
Thanks for joining me, and tonight I've got a really
interesting conversation with a change maker from the United States,
from Pennsylvania and Ohio, who is talking about urbanism and how,
particularly in suburbs and medium sized towns, we need to
be thinking about density, walkability, and urbanism and not be
(01:44):
afraid of it. Yes, we've got suburbs. Yes, people want
single family homes. Yes, some people love those. But the towns,
the cities, the communities and neighborhoods that we in poll
after poll people say they love the most those towns
that are walkable, that have got main streets, that have
got places where people can meet. They're beautiful, they've got
(02:07):
green space, they've got town squares, they've got great restaurants,
coffee shops, maybe a bar or two. They're alive, they're vibrant.
For that, you need some density, or that you need
some walkability, roads, parking, spread out, suburban sprawl doesn't equal
(02:31):
that kind of community. And we talked about how we
can create the governance structures, how we can create the
rulds and regulations, how we create the zoning, how we
can create the support to support that kind of community
that he says, and I think we all know that's
the kind of communities that people love. Streets filled or
Credit Floris Village leaside the beaches. We've got those those
(02:57):
communities in Toronto that people know and love and they
go to, They flock to for Saturday shopping strolls, for
evening walkabouts. We need to think about the idea of
a third place, the place where you go that's not worked,
it's not home, where you can meet your friends, where
you can stroll and bump into people, where you can
go get an ice cream cone or a coffee, where
(03:17):
you can pick up some vegetables and fruits. The mall
doesn't do it, the shopping center doesn't do it. The
strip center certainly doesn't do it. We got to think
about how we create those vibrant downtowns again, and we're
going to talk about that tonight. And so I commend
this next conversation to you. This week, I've had a
(03:39):
great series of conversations. On Monday, we talked about intergenerational
inequity with Eric Lombard, who is a young guy that's
really working to create the ymbiism to offset the nimbiism
that he sees in the Greater Toronto area, and make
sure that people my age are aware that people his
age can't afford homes and that it's not right. It
(04:00):
is not ethical for us to rob our young people
of the opportunity for home ownership. On Tuesday, I have
a really interesting conversation with John Lawrence about six plexes,
about affordability, about transit, about tunnels, about infrastructure in the
Greater Toronto area and how we can build it. On Wednesday,
an interesting conversation about Alberta separation, and I talk about
(04:22):
a bunch of the things that we need to do
to make sure that Alberta doesn't separate and that they
feel included and part of Canada. And on Friday, I've
got two young ladies talking about women, about feminism, about
the strength of being a divine feminine according to one guest,
(04:43):
and the other one about female empowerment, women empowerment. It's
a good week. These are the kind of conversations I
like to have. And on several occasions on Monday, on Wednesday,
and on Thursday, I get an opportunity to tell you
what I think. These rants that I get to have
where I'm expressing my own points of view or some
(05:03):
of the most enjoyable parts of my job where I
get to interview really interesting people and then my radio
station encourages me to give you my point of view.
So hopefully you enjoy listening. Thanks for joining me. We're
going to take a break and come back and talk
about urban vitality and how we build it. Stay with us.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Back into.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Stream US live at SAGA nine six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio WI.
I've got Jeff Siegel with us tonight. He is from
the United States. He's a municipal commissioner. He's author of
a really interesting book called Your City Is Sick. He's
a speaker, he's a consultant. He's a founder of Revitalize
or Die, advocating for proud places. And you call yourself
a guy fury of urbanism. What's that?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Well, one, it's Jeff Sigler, And that's just kind of
being a tongue in cheek. But I found some some
humor in that. But basically, you know, what what I
realized is that that we've understood, uh, we've we've kind
of caught onto this glamor of food, and people are
really fascinated by food, and that's been a great thing.
(06:26):
It's been a great thing for individuals. It's been good
for for health in general, that we're eating better, and
you know, celebrity chefs have helped bring that about. So
somewhat tongue in cheek, uh, just the idea that I
think that we should celebrate urbanism in the built environment.
We should be as sort of obsessed with that as
we are food, because the built environment has a much
bigger impact on our individual health than, uh than even
(06:50):
the food we eat.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Our built environment has more of an impact on health
than the food. Seriously, you say that that that our cities,
our towns are sick, and you say, let's start with
a little tough love. Your town isn't special, not when
it comes to its problems. Why are our cities in
our towns, the municipalities sick.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
I think that that what happened was a big part
of it. Well, there's kind of two parts, but one
is the car. As we moved towards the retrofitting our
cities entirely around this one invention, it's been extremely detrimental.
I mean, it's harmed our physical health. It's it's uh,
you know, pulled us further apart. It's ruined our social health. Uh,
(07:29):
it's wrecked the environment, and it's just had all these
sort of negative consequences in our lives just because we
we we thought it would bring all this convenience and
and in fact it's done quite the opposite. It's it's
made everything much worse. And I think you couple the
you know, adoption of the car it's sort of mass
policy then, you know, particularly then our sort of fascination,
(07:53):
at least here in the United States with with Wall
Street and growth and the idea that you know, if
Wall Street grows, the country does better. But it's been
a real loser for towns. It's every town that you
know is home to more national chains is being blood dry.
You know, they're just being the extraction industry of national
chains is really strangling them, and so they have so
(08:13):
few resources left. So a lot of these places, you know,
one hundred years ago, we're healthy, sustainable, nice places to live,
and very few of them are anymore because of those
the dual impact of those policy decisions.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
You wrote a really interesting paragraph, like lots of your
posts are really quite interested. But let me quote just one.
Too many towns chase the illusion of uniqueness. They commissioned
hypertailored reports expecting silver bullets. They pay extra to hear
their own problems dressed up in fresh funds. But if
your downtown is empty, your storefronts are crumbling, and your
residents are disengaged, well, the solutions are elusive. They're just
(08:49):
on glamorous. And then you go through a bunch of basics.
One of them is increase local ownership. What have you
got against national chains? Why is local so much better?
Speaker 4 (09:01):
They're in the extraction industry. You know that's they're there
for your money, and your town needs that money.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
It's that has been the one of the greatest contributors
to death and sort of the collapse of small towns
is all these national chains that come in from outside.
They have to you know, they have to take out
more than they put in, and that's just the economics
of it. Their business model means that your town has
to lose, and the more of them that you have,
the more your town loses. So, you know, these communities
(09:28):
are getting poorer as these national chains come in to bleed.
The last remnants off of them, so we need you know,
I look at it this way. The best way I
think to look at it is if you go through
the list of departments in a Walmart, you think about clothing, groceries, shoes,
sporting goods.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Et cetera.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Those were all those were all the local business fifty
years ago or one hundred years ago. I mean it's
fifty small businesses under one roof. And that's a that's
a huge impact on a community to where all of
a sudden you would have had a lot of local
people highly invested doing work that gives the meaning, making
them proud having that money, you know, go back in
the community.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It all heads to Benton Bill, Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Now, so you sound like Meg Ryan in that book
I've Got in that movie I've Got Bail versus Tom Hanks,
the guy that was bringing in the big category killer bookstore.
Is that Meg Ryan?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's correct. I am the Meg Ryan of the built
environment of urbanism.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So what what what what are you gonna do? Are
you gonna you're gonna prohibit all the category killers from
coming in? You got all the big box You're gonna
you're gonna say no Starbucks on mice main strat my
my my, my main and my main drag no gap. Uh.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
My take is this, Look, that's that's capitalism. That's the
system we have, and I'm not arguing against that. What
I would say is that community should should be considerate
about how they want to grow, whether that's the type
of businesses that they want, whether or not that's beneficial
to them or not, because I think we do have
the ability to say no thanks, and it's not that
that you even have to ban them. I think it's
(10:56):
stop contributing, stop building more sprowl, stop you know, running
new roads out to the edge of town. You know,
you you can put some design controls in place about
what gets built, and so if you know, I think
that it's that above all, we should try to foster
some density in walkable places instead of continuing to build
these endless expansions on the edge of town that just
(11:16):
end up choking the community. So communities have more say,
it's literally incumbent upon a community to have some standards
and you know, dictate what they will set in terms
of what they think is best for them, what's positive.
And that means that you don't necessarily have to accept
all those businesses, or at least you can put some
regulations and codes in place to make it more difficult,
(11:38):
or if they're going to come in, at least control
what they look like. At least can have some control
over those things, you know. It's it's it's sort of
like inviting a thief into your home and then pointing
out where all the good stuff is, Like these aren't
these businesses aren't here for for positive reasons. At least
put some controls in place so that you can have
a little say in what they do when they come
to when they come to extract all your wealth.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Often they can pay higher rents than the local people can,
and so therefore the landlords want them because they they
they make more money for them.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
It's true. But and it's all very suburban.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
I mean, this is this stuff all goes in new development,
and so it's having some controls about how far you
decide to grow, what your zoning looks like, and make
some decisions about do you want more sprawl in the
edge of town or do you want to try to
foster a town that's very dense, that's that's walkable. Because
big chains don't tend to go in those dense, walkable areas, their.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Business model doesn't suit it.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
So it's kind of a win win if you if
you try to stick to having that more dense downtown,
that traditional development type of pattern that that we're all
used to, that our grandparents all had, then you can
do a lot to discourage that sort of growth.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Your second point was exactly this improve appearance is make
your town look like someone gives it. Damn tell them
about that.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Appearances mean everything. You know, we all are drawn to beauty.
We're all a john to quality aesthetics. I mean, it's
inherent in every decision we make, whether that's finding a.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Partner or buying a car or our home.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
You know, we constantly navigate the world through through aesthetics,
and towns that aren't attractive suffer. You know, the residents
have low self esteem when even more so. Sorry, it
is a factor in self esteem. You know, if it's
like if you when you look in the mirror and
your you know, in your new shirt, your new haircut,
you feel good about yourself that day. And if your
(13:26):
town looks nice, if it's attractive, you feel good about
your town. Yet if it's run down, you know, if
it's full of blight. If it's full of parking lots
and empty buildings, a community self esteem changes. They become apathetic,
residents become apathetic, and they talk poorly about their.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Town and it's really hard to overcome.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
But even more importantly, and I think this is really fascinating,
is that there's almost a it's not almost. There's there's
a landscape to mental health. There's a landscape to crime
and to addiction. There's a reason why there's certain landscapes.
There's certain streets or blocks that you see and think, wow,
I don't feel say.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
If we better get out of here. You're you're literally.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Recognizing that those conditions are places where we're antisocial behavior
takes place. You know that were It's not only are
people that want to commit anti social behavior drawn to
those things, but those places actually foster that sort of behavior.
So when things are run down, when you let building deteriorate,
when you only build you know, parking decks and vinyl sprawl, Uh,
(14:23):
you're you're an essence encouraging more crime, You're encouraging more
mental health issues, you're encouraging addiction issues.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So what are you talking about, like a beautification plan,
a lot of flowers, a lot of a lot of
shops that open up onto the street. Uh. You know
you posted a picture about about restaurants on and laneways.
You posted a picture about, uh, about dresses out on
on on street corners. Is that what you're all about?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think that that matters.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It matters a ton, you know, what we going back
to the food analogy. You know, we finally understood that
what we put in our mouths affects our health. I
think what we're starting to realize is that what we
put into our eyes.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Affects our health.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
That what we see, what we surround ourselves with, matters,
and it's important to have quality aesthetics. It's important. Like
when we feel better, we make better decisions, we're healthier,
we're kinder.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So it really matters a ton that it matters.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
You know, it's of great consequence that these places look
and feel right and it's not. And here's the really
cool thing is that it's actually not that subjective. I
think that what we were starting to see is that
quality aesthetics are more objective, that it's more of a
science than an art, and you can kind of study
these things, you know, certain you know, like human scale.
(15:39):
You know, we're all more comfortable around three story buildings
than we are one story or ten story. Natural materials
are always more comfortable. There's a reason why, you know,
natural materials age properly where where unnatural sort of artificial
materials age poorly are Our brain can tell. There's just
certain landscapes that really that's why we all kind of
find the same place as beautiful. That's why you know,
(16:00):
everybody finds mainStreet attractive. Prepare us attractive, because it's it's
far more objective than we get it credit for us.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
And when you build.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Places with these certain you know, to a certain size,
using certain materials, and you know, follow some of these
basic rules, that they end up being far more attractive,
and that benefits us a tremendous amount.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I mean, just the same as when you walk into.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
A beautiful restaurant, an amazing hotel, lobby or or church
and maybe you know, you might get a sense of
all maybe you feel all of a sudden much more
dignified or sophisticated.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
That's what our spaces should do. That's how they should
make us.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Feel, because that's a really positive benefit to us when
we feel that way.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You say, civic pride grows where a beauty is planet.
It's a great summer of what you believe. We're gonna
take a break for some messages and come back in
just two minutes with Jeff. We're gonna chat about parking,
We're gonna chat about building code, We're gonna chat about
how you actually revitalize the city. Stay with us, everyone
back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
No Radio, No Problem is live on SAGA ninety sixty
Am dot C.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Wellcome back everyone to the Brian Primi Radio. I've got
Jeff Sigler with me tonight. He's an interesting guy about
building cities, and he's got a bunch of different organizations
he's part of. He's the founder of something called Revitalizer Die.
It's a community empowerment organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was
the director of Revitalization for Heritage Ohio. He was the
(17:36):
meeting moratorium manager for International Doers Association. He is with
the Ohio State University as an adjuct faculty member. He
is the executive director of the Main Street Lancaster Special
Improvement District, Project manager for Miller and Associates, et cetera,
et cetera. So You've got really quite a long history.
You're an author and you're speaker, really quite an impressive background,
(17:59):
and it's a pleasure to have you with us. What's
the book you've written?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Your City is the name of the book came out
maybe two years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Now, And if people want to read it, where can
they get it?
Speaker 4 (18:09):
If you go to my website Revitalize or Die, you
can find a link to the book right there, and
you can go to the publisher, or it's on Amazon
as well, but I would, I would. It's always healthier
too to go through the publisher and not use Amazon
if you can.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I appreciate that you made an interesting post about parking
and it sounded like a Taylor Swift song. You said,
parking's the problem? Why is parking the problem?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And as you.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Know, I think back to it that Einstein said you
can't simultaneously prevent and prepare for war, and I feel
that way about parking. You can't simultaneously build for pedestrians,
build for people, build for humans, and accommodate these these
huge machines. And you know, great cities, great places don't
accommodate machines. First, they accommodate the humans. They are great
(18:56):
spaces for people. And so the more space we seed
over to to you know this public like our car
storage to public car storage, the worst place has become
the you know, they're they're they're ugly, they're dangerous, and
and uh, a colleague Anceustment that explained to me once
that in doing some research that the human body reacts
(19:17):
to cars the same as its predators. You know, even
a parked car, like we treat it's it's this huge, scary, dangerous,
fast machine that can kill us. So they they may
make us feel very threatened subconsciously. And so cars tend
to repel people, and and cities are meant to be
for people.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So you talk about parking, you don't talk about roads
or highways. Do you feel the same way about roads
and highways and freeways?
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Uh, you know, I guess my opinion is that that
cars dominate enough of our landscape that it should be
okay to set aside some area which should be the
center of town. There should be some areas where we
can get by without having to.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Be afraid for our lives. So you know, I'm.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not trying to
ban old cars to get rid of cars are shame,
you know, shame owners. But what we've done is we've
built in a pattern we've britten away for the last
fifty to seventy years, which almost requires everyone to own
a car.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
And I think that's the mistake.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
You know, if you can't survive without owning this machine
that costs an average ten thousand dollars a year, if
you can't get to work, if you can't get groceries
without being you know, owning this ten thousand dollars machine.
And then if you're a family of two or three,
all of a sudden, we're talking twenty thirty thousand other
that's a massive failure on the part of city leaders,
of government to build places that require that where it
(20:41):
pulls people apart, where it's dangerous thirty thousand and forty
thousand that US traffic deaths year, Kids can't play outside anymore.
You know, it's just that it's enough, you know, I
think we need spaces in our cities where that we
can that can be are free or car light, where
people can exist one day again, you know, somewhat freely
(21:02):
and without the sphere. So you know, they have a
lot they've they've taken over everything. I think it's okay
to expect that. You know, if we could just get
a small part of our communities carved out where we
can have an existence that it doesn't revolve around avoiding them.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You see that if downtowns are having struggling economies, they
don't have a parking problem, they have an attraction problem.
You said that, here's the proof. Cities that add parking
never see a revitalization boom. After new parking goes in,
another excuse pops up and more parking is suddenly needed.
Events with big crowds, people always find a way walk, bike, uber, shuttle, whatever.
(21:38):
They show up because there's something worth.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Showing up for.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
You really believe that. Lots of people they always say,
you need parking, you need parking, you need parking for
big events. If you know the parking, we won't let
you have the big event.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
That that is true, that is what they say. But
it's been my experience.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
That that we find a way to go. You know,
with great restaurants people I've never talked, you know, people
that you see a great restaurant and very often there's
not enough parking. And yet those restaurants who just don't
complain are a great store. I think that the French
Quarter down in New Orleans, which is an incredible district,
there's no parking.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
There, or in Old Town Montreal.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I don't recall seeing much parking there, yet it seems busy,
you know, people, it's parking isn't a draw, it's kind
of a utility. And and I think, I'll think of
my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates here. They even if they had
more seating, I don't think it's really going to prove
their batting average.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
You know, they're there.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
They can't draw enough people to the game because the
product's not great. Now, if the product's great, that that's
a different conversation. But but parking doesn't attract anybody, and
it tends to be an excuse for why things aren't better.
But great restaurants, great districts, great shops, huge events, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Where we'll we'll we'll figure out a way. You know,
we'll figure out a way. And if you think about it,
the great places don't have enough parking. That's the point.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You know, they don't have hardly any parking. That's how
they became great in the first place. And those are
the places where we like to go and spend our time.
Those are the places with the highest visitor right, you know,
with the most tourists. Those are the places where the
highest real estate values because they make us feel incredible
to be in those spaces. We're attracted those spaces because
how they make us feel.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
The third suggestion that you had in your list of
things to do to create a vibrant downtown was create
social opportunities. Build the kinds of spaces and experiences that
bring people together. In our world today, where we've got
social media that you can go on Zoom, you can
go on Facebook, and go on Instagram, and go on Twitter,
you can go on so many different things and talk
to people from around the world. Where you know, you
(23:45):
can get music through Spotify, through YouTube, you've got streaming,
You've got you know, innumerable number of cable TV. Why
do you need places where people can socially interact?
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Community exists by design, you know, it's required. Space and
community is not something that exists. You know, you can
there's communities online, but a sense of community doesn't exist online.
That's something that has to occur face to face, and
that's what we require. You know, we're extremely isolated these days,
(24:21):
and I think that's contributed to a lot of mental
health issues, to a lot of addiction issues, that there's
an isolation crisis because we don't spend enough time together.
Yet we're built to spend time together. We as humans,
we're we evolved to be with one another in person
and have those human interactions and it's tremendously beneficial for us.
And that's what whole society together. And I think that
(24:41):
when we're out in public space with one another, we're kinder,
we're better, we're better to one another, but we're certainly
better to ourselves. It makes us all healthier, and you know,
it prooves politics. Like people need to be together in
public space in person, I think, to experience their own humanity.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So uh we we really.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
We we we need those places to experience our humanity.
And it's it's it has to be in public. You know,
those things don't occur the same in private. It's not
like a Walmart parking. A lot is where people experience
since the community. It's usually on a sidewalk, it's usually
in a great plaza. And we need those spaces.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
How do you build them?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
What?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
What? What are there?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
What?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Are the attributes of them? You know, I think a
lot of people want to build the town square. I
want to build that beautiful place that brings people together
just naturally. What are the attributes and and can you
build it? Does it have to happen organically?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
You can build it.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I mean it's you know, typically they happen organically, but
they certainly can be built. And there are certain you know,
there has to be seating. There has to be plenty
of seating in places where people can move those seats around.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I think they're a shade.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Generally, there should be a water feature is great, you know,
something with kind of an ambient noise. Vegetation has always beneficial,
and a place where people can eat and drink and
just stay, you know. I think of it as not
as a place to go do something, but as a
place to go do nothing.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Great public spaces where you see people doing nothing, you.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Know, reading, napping, chatting, hanging out, but just kind of being.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And I think that's that's ideal, and I love it
when they're that way and when they operate that way.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
But the other great thing about it is that the
economic benefit of public space is incredible. In essence, the
land around that public space is the most valuable. The
retail around it is the most valuable. Residential around it,
Like when you do it right, everybody wants to be
near that, So it really pays for itself in short
order by if you create quality public space.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I was with a developer in Dallas a little while
ago who told me that it's not grocery stores that
are or department stores that are the anchor anymore, it's
green space. What do you think of that?
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I do. I think that that we
I wouldn't argue just brings. I think space to be
outdoors with one another. You know, I sometimes see cities
go overboard with like parks, and that's fine, but we don't.
You know, a great city isn't designed to define necessarily
(27:15):
by you know, baseball diamonds and soccer fields. I think
it's I'd go beyond green space and say, like great
public space, places where we can hang out and be
with one another. And in parks, I mean, I certainly
will never argue that parts are important. The matter a
great deal, but more than parks, we need places where
people can just show up and gather, and not every
(27:35):
park is that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Not every not every park does it. A lot of
parks are just.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
For youth sports, and I don't think that that's necessarily
a solution. We've we've kind of become overly obsessed with
youth sports in some ways and forget that adults need
places to hang out together too.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
There was this concept at one point in time of
the third place that people needed to you know, not
only have a place where they go to work and
a home, but they need that third place and that
in Britain it was you know, the local pub that
in Italy it was the corner coffee, uh, you know,
a place where you go for a cappuccino and espresso.
In in can the United States, where's that third place?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I think we struggle with it. I think that we
don't have it.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And I mean there's, yeah, there's bars, but I don't
know that our our typical bar does a great job
of replicating that there are something those I love those,
but I don't think we really have those are you know?
I mean we have coffee shops and those matter, but
it's not sort of a you know, just as much
people treat their coffee as as you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
This drive through thing. You know, we're.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
We do have some third spaces, but not nearly enough
and I don't think we inhabit them enough. And something
that that this idea sticks with me a lot lately
is like what I see when in Europe is that
people are very thoughtful about how they spend their time.
But we're really obsessed about how we save our time,
you know, we we we don't we don't think about
(29:09):
how to spend it, you know, how do we spend
this time in the quality manner has that is that
sitting down and having a coffee for a long time
with with friends or just in a great public space
of that having a three hour meal, you know, in
a piazza, Like I think there's a lot more intentionality
about how they spend time, and we just all we
do is think about how can we save more? How
can we save more? And you know, we we save a.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Lot of time, you know, you know.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Rushing around in our cars and doing things that are convenient,
but but rarely do we really do we spend it wisely?
And I think that is also kind of a part
of it's cultural but also part of the you know,
the drive through uh have a breakup of our built environment.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
So Robert Putnam wrote the book Bullying Alone and argued
that you know, you know, a generation ago, we would
have all gone to a bowling alley together, or to
a to a you know, a men's club, or a
social organization or a church or something. And that he
would comment that these third places are where you meet
your friends. You know that you can't be that friends
(30:08):
with the people that you work with, and you need
some counterpoint to just your family and your and your spouse,
and and and he really bemoaned the fact that we
didn't have that third place. Do you think that's a
problem in in North America that we don't have a
third place? Or or is it okay just driving to
the local Starbucks or McDonald's or or wherever it is
we're going.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
It is a problem.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
It is a huge problem because I think it diminishes
our well being. I think it harms our health both
individually but also communally. I think it's a life worse
lived when we don't spend enough time with other people.
You know, there's there's It really reduces people's health and
happiness and overall well being to not spend more time
(30:53):
with people, and and but you know, and I think
it's just it's something that that's gotten so foreign to
us that, you know, just it's become because we practice
it less. I think it's harder for everybody to do now.
I saw somebody the other day. I can't remember her,
but I loved what he was saying. He was saying,
you know, he made the point that the two of
the two of the worst things to happen to the
(31:15):
young generation right now, where one was COVID and two
that anti drinking movement. He said, because these were you know,
they pulled people further apart and made it harder for
people to get to know one another and socialize and
meet partners, meet friends. And how you know how inherent
that is to the human experience, and how damaging it
is that those things there's less and less opportunities just
to go places and meet people, and and that that
(31:38):
makes us worse off.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I had a third. I think social media, where you know, teenagers,
young adults, did they spend so much time on social media?
They don't have enough time to interact with their friends
in real you know, face to face personal.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Life, right, speaking of time poorly spent of not spending
time wisely enough. It's it's such a waste of time.
And you know, on one hand, it's still socializing, but
it's not. It is nothing like being in person with
people having adventures and you know, really experiencing life. It's
sort of life filtered through a screen. And you're right,
that's had a huge impact, and you know, it's it's
(32:11):
always amazing to go to other cities in great public
space and see people not on their devices but just
hanging out and being and enjoying one another.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
We're going to take a break for some messages. We're
going to come back in just two minutes with Jeff
Ben We're going to talk about another interesting post and
article that he wrote about about how important it is
What's on the first floor, which I found kind of interesting.
To stay with us, everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am DoD C A.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crommey Radio A. We're
chatting tonight with Jeff Sigler. He is an author of
a book called Your City Is Sick. Sounds U like
an interesting read. He's a speaker, he's a consultant, he's
a municipal councilor, and he's kind to us from Pennsylvania,
where he is all about revitalization of downtown's. And you
made this really interesting post that I had to read
twice because it was kind of intriguing and I wasn't
(33:14):
sure about it to start with. You said that what
you allow on your first floors in a city is
really critical. Tell me why you think that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think that it's important because that's where sort of
vibrancy takes place. You know, that's if you.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Think about walking down a great street, you're compelled forward.
You know, bad streets, you're you're quick to turn around
and go back where you came from. But on a
great street, you're you're compelled forward.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
You're always looking.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
You know what's next, What what thing of interest to
a thing of beauty am I going to see?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
And so you know, on.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Streets where the windows or let's say tinted or you know, covered,
or that it's empty or you don't there's a lack
of vibrancy, people aren't drawn to that, and we inherently are.
I mean, we kind of subconsciously avoid those places because.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
There's not enough going on.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
It's like It's like when you see a busy when
you see a busy restaurant, you're like, what's going on
in there? I think I want to go in and sit.
There's something good is happening. There's there's an energy you're
obviously the food is good and great storefronts, busy storefronts, restaurants, whatever,
it compels you, it invites you in.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
You're you might drive.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Past or walk past and say, who whoa, I'm going
back because something is happening there. On the other hand,
when you can't see in places, I think it's as humans,
we kind of tend to think.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Well, if I don't know what's going on, I'm going
to assume the worst.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Uh. You know, when you like it's like bars with
little black windows or whatever, we tend to think like
that might be a shady bar because they're hiding something. Well,
anytime that we feel like we can't see something, we
kind of jump to the conclusion that something good isn't happening, uh,
and so we tend to stay away. So is important
that that the storefronts get it right, that businesses get
(35:03):
it right, that they're you know, open and inviting, that
you can see in and simultaneously, there's this other thing
that we do. It's like when you can see in
a place, you're much more likely to bridge that gap
there is. There's a small barrier that we have of
going from the street, you know, the public space into
the private space. And the more we minimize that barrier,
(35:24):
the more you know, doors open windows that you can
see or that photo that you mentioned and the dress
out on the side of dresses out in the sidewalk
that I've posted, that's such a good example of that
store had come outside. So the the you know, the
gap to make that to go from outside into the
store is just diminished. And stores tend to do much
better when when they help make that transition easier. So
(35:46):
a great city of great downtown sort of commercial district
is going to have really vibrant, active, attractive storefronts and
they're all going to do much better because we can't
stay away from such things like we're drawn to them
and always will be.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, you're interesting. You write about what people will
paint pictures of in regards to six lane roads, actually
call it strodes, which I found interesting. Souls parking lots
and strip malls aren't just boring they're psychologically distressing. No
one paints a picture outside the Costco, No one frames
a selfie at the intersection of Root Aid and Nope Street.
(36:20):
These places feel bad because they are bad.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Yeah, you know, you don't see people taking Instagram photos
at the Dollar General. You know, like those places are
ugly and we know it. And why we allow them
to get built, I don't understand. But you know, because
they have such like it's they have such an outside
impact on our well being as individuals and as a.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Community that we should never let those be built.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yet we keep doing it, and we should demand and
do better of our places like there ares. We actually
should have a say in what gets built in our communities.
That's I wouldn't think that, you know, my neighbors shouldn't
be able to come over and tell me how to
decorate my living room. Yeah, we let out of town
developers and the national chains tell us what we should
expect in terms of the build environment. That it should
(37:08):
be cheap, that it should be quickly built, that it
should be you know, inferior materials, and that it's going
to be disposable because it can't be repaired and will
fall down in a few years, and it's like, but
but that's where we have to live, that's what we
have to look at, that's what our children are raised around. Like,
I don't think that that's sufficient, as as individuals or
as a community that we continue to build those places
(37:28):
that that in essence are making us worse off.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So I've heard from some people in Toronto that often
regulations get in the way of actually building nice streets.
And they comment about how, you know, fire truck fire
Department regulations in regards to the width to the street
make the streets too broad and don't encourage you know,
enjoyable streets to walk down and and and and and
(37:54):
they're too wide, they don't allow sociability, et cetera. That
garbage requirements demand too much space on the first floor
that are put aside to allow trucks to move in
and move out, and loading areas, et cetera. So that
there's a whole bunch of things that municipal rules and
guidelines in force that actually make building the types of towns,
(38:14):
the type of downtowns that you want to build even
more difficult.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Yeah, it's absolutely true.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
You know, we codified so many of these things that
you know, during the sprawl boom of let's say the
you know, sixties, seventies and eighties, we put a lot
of legislation in place and zoning and codes in essence,
outlaw building the places that we love the most, and
so now it's hard to build them. You know, you
have minimum parking requirements, you have exactly like designing cities
(38:41):
around the fire engines about you know about we should
design or fire engines around our cities and not the
way other way around. But that's that's how we think,
and it really has led us to only build places
that make our cities worse. You know, we're only building
places that make us less healthy, that are less attractive,
less less resilient, that are really geared towards sort of
(39:01):
more suburbia and this color of culture. So yeah, it
really is now baked into so many municipal codes and it's, uh,
it's unfortunate. Those things have to be pulled out, they
have to be rescinded that. You know, I think about
the fire engine thing this way, and I've been thinking
about this a lot lately. But in essence, like you know,
in North America, we've become so risk averse that we've
(39:23):
actually aired on the other side, that like nothing's fun,
nothing's good, there's you know, we we like we're so
afraid of any risk that now everything kind of sucks
and is a mundane is mundane and boring, Like we
have to be able to tolerate a little risk to lead happy,
fun lives. And if you know, if we're so afraid
of stepping out of our house that that God forbid,
(39:44):
you know, every tragedy befalls us, that that we you know,
we stopped leaving, like that's then when we swung the
pendulument too far, and now we're suffering in other ways.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
And I think we've done that.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I think that I think that risk aversion and you know,
the religgitiousness of our society has has kind of swung
the pendulums that where like kids can't play outside, nobody
like nobody does anything anymore so that nobody gets sued,
and it's actually having such a detrimental effect.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
You made another interesting post about historic preservation, and you
said that you started out really believing in historic preservation,
but now that you're worried that it's gone from we
should save this building too. We must save it because
we could never build something as good as that today.
Why can't we build buildings today that are beautiful like
the buildings that we want to save.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
We can.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
And it's not to say I'm not a preservationist anymore,
but something that I think I became ingrained in my
understanding by being around preservations for a long time was
that we can't build with beauty today. And I think
that's such a mistake.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Should we save great buildings, absolutely, you know, And I
get why they say that in essence, because typically we
don't build pretty buildings anymore. We don't build quality buildings anymore,
so it is important to save those. But to say
we can't, I think is a mistake and gives us
a past not to do it. So I think it's
a really important distinction to say that, yes, that we
(41:06):
can't build great buildings, and we must, we just currently aren't.
But we can't, you know, continue to make excuses. We
shouldn't say that we can't do this thing. We really
have to exist that we can, and it's really amazing
to see.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
When they do happen.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
There's a project down in Charleston, South Carolina called cat
Fill Street where it's a new construction, but it fits in,
it blends in, it looks great, it looks historic. There's
a cash I've seen some amazing new buildings in Paris and.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
New York City. Gosh, and I think it's Romania.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
And there's an incredible photo that I've seen a few times.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
It's set in.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Germany, and I forget the city, but boy, you would
think it was all two hundred years old, and most
of it's twenty years old.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
So we chose not to one because you know, yeah,
it might.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Be expensive, or two, maybe we've maybe we can't build
this way because of current building codes, but we certainly can.
It's not like we don't have the money to build. Well,
we have plenty of money in our countries and too,
it's not like we don't have that technology. It's just
that I don't think there seems to be the will
to And what a shame because we're all drawn to
(42:20):
those places and they certainly have a return on investment.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
I got to tell you, you know, Jeff, you wrote
another post that I found really interesting. It said, want
to get people fired up, mention the word density or
worse urbanism, and then you go on and you say
want to reverse the damage of a downtown that is dying,
and you say start here. Density is not the enemy,
(42:43):
Walkability is not a threat. Urbanism is not a dirty word.
So I want to ask you if you are presenting
to a city meeting of a whole bunch of people
in a suburb, maybe a suburb votside of Toronto, maybe
called Sosaga, and they were scared of density, They're scared
(43:04):
of walkability. They wanted their cars, they wanted their parking,
they wanted their broad streets, and they were they don't
like the idea of, you know, an urban environment in
their suburbs. What would you tell them.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
I would say that your grandparents and your great grandparents
and and there's going on back to the beginning of
civilization lived in dense, walkable places.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
That this is not some sort of progressive agenda to
capture you or trap anybody that.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
That that this is a very traditional way to build,
and that it is healthy. And then it allows us to, uh,
it's actually convenient.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Its fosters more local businesses, it allows more social interaction,
It allows us to get more physical health throughout our day.
It really it has all these tremendous benefits and they
and I go back to health. You know, I think
the best way to always talk about cities is through health.
You know, we've used a lot of the wrong terms.
We've talked about growth too much, and growth is a
(44:09):
sort of stupid concept, like we should look to improve,
not get bigger. You know, getting better is aspirational, getting
bigger isn't. And you know, more money doesn't necessarily make
anything better. But I think health is the best lens
to talk about it, which is you know, fiscal health.
We can talk about mental health, social health. You know,
there's a lot of different ways to look at it.
(44:31):
In essence, when we should be building places that improve
our health, and density certainly improves our health.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Again, it it's beneficial.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
We don't have to own as many cars, cities don't
have to store as many cars. Parking decks are incredibly expensive,
ours are expensive. Ob city is incredibly expensive. Heart disease
is expensive.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
You know, all these things that are really factors of suburbia.
So I think that there's a real.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
Health component, But there's also a joy to building with density,
there's and it's an improvement to our lifestyle. It's not
shaming anybody, it's nothing wrong with wanting that, but there
should be alternatives too, And because that's all we're building,
that's the only type of place we're building anymore, and
we do need other options because people should have the
(45:18):
opportunity to live someplace where where they can have a
rich social life, where they can enjoy a little beauty.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
And you know, I do this a lot. I run
into this a lot.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
In my work where I'm working in it's more small
rural communities, and it's kind of become an identity, you know,
the car, the truck, the rural nature has become a
bit of an identity. But I try to point out again,
like this is nothing to do with with your love
of farming or trucks or nature or outdoors. That's simultaneously.
(45:46):
You need to have a place where people like apartments
are necessary. Not everybody needs a single family home. People
are in different states of their lives. We need multi
family housing, we need local shops. These are things that
are all really important to a community because not everybody
is the age where they need a big yard in
a single family home. So when you build in a
way that suits everybody, you end up with spaces that
(46:08):
are a lot more hospital where we can all be
a community because the community is of all ages.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
So, you know, in North America, because of you know, highways, car,
suburban sprawl, et cetera, we've got these suburbs with with
big broad you know, boulevards roads. We've got the strip malls,
we've got the regional malls, et cetera. Have you seen
a suburb that has actually done what you've been arguing
well or right or best, that has built a urban
(46:38):
dense environment that's walkable, that's beautiful, that's got the main street,
that's got the shops, that's got the public spaces, et cetera.
What's what's your what's your model?
Speaker 4 (46:48):
I actually have not, And it's not to say that
those aren't going on. I've heard ale I've heard rumor
that the places have been experiencing this experimenting with those ideas,
but I just haven't seen it yet. And so I'm
kind of fascinated to see that and see what it's like.
So I don't know, I would be fascinated to kind
(47:10):
of look and see how it's going and if it's possible.
What I have seen glimpses of and I look forward
to seeing them firsthand, is that there are some new
developments where that have really incorporated these traditional principles. In Gosh,
I just got an email this week of they're building
kind of a new city outside of Sacramento of eight
thousand units, but it seems to be very traditional, like
(47:32):
a very traditional sort of town center, and I'm fascinated
to see what's.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Going on there.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
I know that there's a community that just opened up
called cul de Sac and in Phoenix that is car
free and it's sold out, which is crazy because you
wouldn't think that in Phoenix, So I do.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
It is very.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Encouraging to see that there are new developments taking place
that are looking a little more traditional and a little
less car oriented.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Are there downtowns that have been dead or dying that
revitalize themselves.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
I have been fortunate enough to experience some of those,
to see those.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Kent Ohio.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
Uh most of these are going to be from Ohio
because that's where I worked the longest.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
But uh yeah, kent Ohio, Delaware, Ohio.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
These are communities where the downtown, you know, one period
was not healthy, was not was not a Newark, Ohio.
It was just another one that These were places that
the downtown was kind of a source of shame, a
source of apathy that that did draw it, you know,
anti social behavior that was a but of the jokes.
And yeah, through through some sort of transformation, through a
(48:39):
lot of investments in public the public realm and improved
building department and then which tends to foster a ton
of private investment, they've transformed and they've become a source of.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Pride for the community and a huge economic hub.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
So it's been amazing to get to see that firsthand
in some communities.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Chris, thanks so much for join us. Really appreciate it.
Remind everyone the name of your book and where they
can get it.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Yes, your city is sick and the revitalizer Die is
the name of my website, the name of a consulting firm,
and said, yeah, Revitalizerdie dot com. You can go there
and I've got hundreds of blogs posted there. You can
find the book UH, and you can also reach out.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
To me if I'm always willing to UH to do work.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
I do a lot of public speaking around the around
the country and have done a little bit up in
Canada so and do a lot of consulting with communities
on these issues. So you can reach me there as well.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Really appreciate you joining us tonight. And I think you've
got a lot of, you know, really good points. And
I think that you know, downtown revitalization, uh, you know
what we got to do in regards to uh ensuring
that we've got that that main street, that retail block,
that first floor that is inviting and vibrant. I think
the parking comments that you made, I think the building
rules and regulations comments that you've made. I think that
(49:58):
the third place that we need to have, that place
where we can go, that public square that you know,
the public house that you know, that place where we
can feel comfortable meeting our friends and chatting and talking
and having a drink, having a coffee, whatever. And I
think the idea of beauty. I think that we've forgotten
how important beauty is in our in our downtown cores,
in our urban environments, in our in our local walking streets,
(50:21):
so walkability, dense density and uh and an urban environment
where we can go bump into people and meet people
and and and and have a conversation I think is
so vitally important to our life. And so I really
appreciate what you've read sort of what you've written so
that I've read and and what you've said today.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Thanks so much, absolutely, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, Thank you for joining.
I remind you I'm on every night at six o'clock
on nine to sixty am. You can stream online at
Triple W nine sixty am dot C, even from from Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and on my Podcasts and video go up on my
website Brian Kraby dot com aswers the radio show goes
to air. I also post on social media, on YouTube,
(51:05):
on LinkedIn, and on lots of different podcast service so
there's lots of different places to get me Mike. My
vehicle to get it out is dense. I guess that's
that's the word for the day, dance. Thanks good night, everybody.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
No radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
six am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio How.
I'm endlessly fascinating curious about the world around us, about business,
about politics, about the arts, about culture, developments, socialists, and
the people. Most importantly, about the people that are shaping
our future. Every night I get the opportunity to have conversations,
to dive into conversations with thought leaders, with change makers, entrepreneurs,
(00:39):
politicians and everyday heroes who unpack the ideas and stories
that I think matter to all of us. What's the
future of our economy, what's the future of our country?
How do we build stronger communities? What can we learn
from music, theater, sports, politics, the arts? How does Paula
(01:00):
see shape our real lives? What does leadership look like?
Real leadership in today's environment? If it's interesting and relevant
and topical and we're talking about it, you'll hear about
it here at six o'clock on the Brian Crimbye Radio Hour.
I want to have real conversations, in depth conversations. These
are ideas we're sharing. This is the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
(01:22):
Thanks for joining me, and tonight I've got a really
interesting conversation with a change maker from the United States,
from Pennsylvania and Ohio, who is talking about urbanism and how,
particularly in suburbs and medium sized towns, we need to
be thinking about density, walkability, and urbanism and not be
(01:44):
afraid of it. Yes, we've got suburbs. Yes, people want
single family homes. Yes, some people love those. But the towns,
the cities, the communities and neighborhoods that we in poll
after poll people say they love the most those towns
that are walkable, that have got main streets, that have
got places where people can meet. They're beautiful, they've got
(02:07):
green space, they've got town squares, they've got great restaurants,
coffee shops, maybe a bar or two. They're alive, they're vibrant.
For that, you need some density, or that you need
some walkability, roads, parking, spread out, suburban sprawl doesn't equal
(02:31):
that kind of community. And we talked about how we
can create the governance structures, how we can create the
rulds and regulations, how we create the zoning, how we
can create the support to support that kind of community
that he says, and I think we all know that's
the kind of communities that people love. Streets filled or
Credit Floris Village leaside the beaches. We've got those those
(02:57):
communities in Toronto that people know and love and they
go to, They flock to for Saturday shopping strolls, for
evening walkabouts. We need to think about the idea of
a third place, the place where you go that's not worked,
it's not home, where you can meet your friends, where
you can stroll and bump into people, where you can
go get an ice cream cone or a coffee, where
(03:17):
you can pick up some vegetables and fruits. The mall
doesn't do it, the shopping center doesn't do it. The
strip center certainly doesn't do it. We got to think
about how we create those vibrant downtowns again, and we're
going to talk about that tonight. And so I commend
this next conversation to you. This week, I've had a
(03:39):
great series of conversations. On Monday, we talked about intergenerational
inequity with Eric Lombard, who is a young guy that's
really working to create the ymbiism to offset the nimbiism
that he sees in the Greater Toronto area, and make
sure that people my age are aware that people his
age can't afford homes and that it's not right. It
(04:00):
is not ethical for us to rob our young people
of the opportunity for home ownership. On Tuesday, I have
a really interesting conversation with John Lawrence about six plexes,
about affordability, about transit, about tunnels, about infrastructure in the
Greater Toronto area and how we can build it. On Wednesday,
an interesting conversation about Alberta separation, and I talk about
(04:22):
a bunch of the things that we need to do
to make sure that Alberta doesn't separate and that they
feel included and part of Canada. And on Friday, I've
got two young ladies talking about women, about feminism, about
the strength of being a divine feminine according to one guest,
(04:43):
and the other one about female empowerment, women empowerment. It's
a good week. These are the kind of conversations I
like to have. And on several occasions on Monday, on Wednesday,
and on Thursday, I get an opportunity to tell you
what I think. These rants that I get to have
where I'm expressing my own points of view or some
(05:03):
of the most enjoyable parts of my job where I
get to interview really interesting people and then my radio
station encourages me to give you my point of view.
So hopefully you enjoy listening. Thanks for joining me. We're
going to take a break and come back and talk
about urban vitality and how we build it. Stay with us.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Back into.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Stream US live at SAGA nine six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio WI.
I've got Jeff Siegel with us tonight. He is from
the United States. He's a municipal commissioner. He's author of
a really interesting book called Your City Is Sick. He's
a speaker, he's a consultant. He's a founder of Revitalize
or Die, advocating for proud places. And you call yourself
a guy fury of urbanism. What's that?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Well, one, it's Jeff Sigler, And that's just kind of
being a tongue in cheek. But I found some some
humor in that. But basically, you know, what what I
realized is that that we've understood, uh, we've we've kind
of caught onto this glamor of food, and people are
really fascinated by food, and that's been a great thing.
(06:26):
It's been a great thing for individuals. It's been good
for for health in general, that we're eating better, and
you know, celebrity chefs have helped bring that about. So
somewhat tongue in cheek, uh, just the idea that I
think that we should celebrate urbanism in the built environment.
We should be as sort of obsessed with that as
we are food, because the built environment has a much
bigger impact on our individual health than, uh than even
(06:50):
the food we eat.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Our built environment has more of an impact on health
than the food. Seriously, you say that that that our cities,
our towns are sick, and you say, let's start with
a little tough love. Your town isn't special, not when
it comes to its problems. Why are our cities in
our towns, the municipalities sick.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
I think that that what happened was a big part
of it. Well, there's kind of two parts, but one
is the car. As we moved towards the retrofitting our
cities entirely around this one invention, it's been extremely detrimental.
I mean, it's harmed our physical health. It's it's uh,
you know, pulled us further apart. It's ruined our social health. Uh,
(07:29):
it's wrecked the environment, and it's just had all these
sort of negative consequences in our lives just because we
we we thought it would bring all this convenience and
and in fact it's done quite the opposite. It's it's
made everything much worse. And I think you couple the
you know, adoption of the car it's sort of mass
policy then, you know, particularly then our sort of fascination,
(07:53):
at least here in the United States with with Wall
Street and growth and the idea that you know, if
Wall Street grows, the country does better. But it's been
a real loser for towns. It's every town that you
know is home to more national chains is being blood dry.
You know, they're just being the extraction industry of national
chains is really strangling them, and so they have so
(08:13):
few resources left. So a lot of these places, you know,
one hundred years ago, we're healthy, sustainable, nice places to live,
and very few of them are anymore because of those
the dual impact of those policy decisions.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
You wrote a really interesting paragraph, like lots of your
posts are really quite interested. But let me quote just one.
Too many towns chase the illusion of uniqueness. They commissioned
hypertailored reports expecting silver bullets. They pay extra to hear
their own problems dressed up in fresh funds. But if
your downtown is empty, your storefronts are crumbling, and your
residents are disengaged, well, the solutions are elusive. They're just
(08:49):
on glamorous. And then you go through a bunch of basics.
One of them is increase local ownership. What have you
got against national chains? Why is local so much better?
Speaker 4 (09:01):
They're in the extraction industry. You know that's they're there
for your money, and your town needs that money.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
It's that has been the one of the greatest contributors
to death and sort of the collapse of small towns
is all these national chains that come in from outside.
They have to you know, they have to take out
more than they put in, and that's just the economics
of it. Their business model means that your town has
to lose, and the more of them that you have,
the more your town loses. So, you know, these communities
(09:28):
are getting poorer as these national chains come in to bleed.
The last remnants off of them, so we need you know,
I look at it this way. The best way I
think to look at it is if you go through
the list of departments in a Walmart, you think about clothing, groceries, shoes,
sporting goods.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Et cetera.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Those were all those were all the local business fifty
years ago or one hundred years ago. I mean it's
fifty small businesses under one roof. And that's a that's
a huge impact on a community to where all of
a sudden you would have had a lot of local
people highly invested doing work that gives the meaning, making
them proud having that money, you know, go back in
the community.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It all heads to Benton Bill, Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Now, so you sound like Meg Ryan in that book
I've Got in that movie I've Got Bail versus Tom Hanks,
the guy that was bringing in the big category killer bookstore.
Is that Meg Ryan?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's correct. I am the Meg Ryan of the built
environment of urbanism.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So what what what what are you gonna do? Are
you gonna you're gonna prohibit all the category killers from
coming in? You got all the big box You're gonna
you're gonna say no Starbucks on mice main strat my
my my, my main and my main drag no gap. Uh.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
My take is this, Look, that's that's capitalism. That's the
system we have, and I'm not arguing against that. What
I would say is that community should should be considerate
about how they want to grow, whether that's the type
of businesses that they want, whether or not that's beneficial
to them or not, because I think we do have
the ability to say no thanks, and it's not that
that you even have to ban them. I think it's
(10:56):
stop contributing, stop building more sprowl, stop you know, running
new roads out to the edge of town. You know,
you you can put some design controls in place about
what gets built, and so if you know, I think
that it's that above all, we should try to foster
some density in walkable places instead of continuing to build
these endless expansions on the edge of town that just
(11:16):
end up choking the community. So communities have more say,
it's literally incumbent upon a community to have some standards
and you know, dictate what they will set in terms
of what they think is best for them, what's positive.
And that means that you don't necessarily have to accept
all those businesses, or at least you can put some
regulations and codes in place to make it more difficult,
(11:38):
or if they're going to come in, at least control
what they look like. At least can have some control
over those things, you know. It's it's it's sort of
like inviting a thief into your home and then pointing
out where all the good stuff is, Like these aren't
these businesses aren't here for for positive reasons. At least
put some controls in place so that you can have
a little say in what they do when they come
to when they come to extract all your wealth.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Often they can pay higher rents than the local people can,
and so therefore the landlords want them because they they
they make more money for them.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
It's true. But and it's all very suburban.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
I mean, this is this stuff all goes in new development,
and so it's having some controls about how far you
decide to grow, what your zoning looks like, and make
some decisions about do you want more sprawl in the
edge of town or do you want to try to
foster a town that's very dense, that's that's walkable. Because
big chains don't tend to go in those dense, walkable areas, their.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Business model doesn't suit it.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
So it's kind of a win win if you if
you try to stick to having that more dense downtown,
that traditional development type of pattern that that we're all
used to, that our grandparents all had, then you can
do a lot to discourage that sort of growth.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Your second point was exactly this improve appearance is make
your town look like someone gives it. Damn tell them
about that.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Appearances mean everything. You know, we all are drawn to beauty.
We're all a john to quality aesthetics. I mean, it's
inherent in every decision we make, whether that's finding a.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Partner or buying a car or our home.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
You know, we constantly navigate the world through through aesthetics,
and towns that aren't attractive suffer. You know, the residents
have low self esteem when even more so. Sorry, it
is a factor in self esteem. You know, if it's
like if you when you look in the mirror and
your you know, in your new shirt, your new haircut,
you feel good about yourself that day. And if your
(13:26):
town looks nice, if it's attractive, you feel good about
your town. Yet if it's run down, you know, if
it's full of blight. If it's full of parking lots
and empty buildings, a community self esteem changes. They become apathetic,
residents become apathetic, and they talk poorly about their.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Town and it's really hard to overcome.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
But even more importantly, and I think this is really fascinating,
is that there's almost a it's not almost. There's there's
a landscape to mental health. There's a landscape to crime
and to addiction. There's a reason why there's certain landscapes.
There's certain streets or blocks that you see and think, wow,
I don't feel say.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
If we better get out of here. You're you're literally.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Recognizing that those conditions are places where we're antisocial behavior
takes place. You know that were It's not only are
people that want to commit anti social behavior drawn to
those things, but those places actually foster that sort of behavior.
So when things are run down, when you let building deteriorate,
when you only build you know, parking decks and vinyl sprawl, Uh,
(14:23):
you're you're an essence encouraging more crime, You're encouraging more
mental health issues, you're encouraging addiction issues.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So what are you talking about, like a beautification plan,
a lot of flowers, a lot of a lot of
shops that open up onto the street. Uh. You know
you posted a picture about about restaurants on and laneways.
You posted a picture about, uh, about dresses out on
on on street corners. Is that what you're all about?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think that that matters.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It matters a ton, you know, what we going back
to the food analogy. You know, we finally understood that
what we put in our mouths affects our health. I
think what we're starting to realize is that what we
put into our eyes.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Affects our health.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
That what we see, what we surround ourselves with, matters,
and it's important to have quality aesthetics. It's important. Like
when we feel better, we make better decisions, we're healthier,
we're kinder.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So it really matters a ton that it matters.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
You know, it's of great consequence that these places look
and feel right and it's not. And here's the really
cool thing is that it's actually not that subjective. I
think that what we were starting to see is that
quality aesthetics are more objective, that it's more of a
science than an art, and you can kind of study
these things, you know, certain you know, like human scale.
(15:39):
You know, we're all more comfortable around three story buildings
than we are one story or ten story. Natural materials
are always more comfortable. There's a reason why, you know,
natural materials age properly where where unnatural sort of artificial
materials age poorly are Our brain can tell. There's just
certain landscapes that really that's why we all kind of
find the same place as beautiful. That's why you know,
(16:00):
everybody finds mainStreet attractive. Prepare us attractive, because it's it's
far more objective than we get it credit for us.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
And when you build.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Places with these certain you know, to a certain size,
using certain materials, and you know, follow some of these
basic rules, that they end up being far more attractive,
and that benefits us a tremendous amount.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I mean, just the same as when you walk into.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
A beautiful restaurant, an amazing hotel, lobby or or church
and maybe you know, you might get a sense of
all maybe you feel all of a sudden much more
dignified or sophisticated.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
That's what our spaces should do. That's how they should
make us.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Feel, because that's a really positive benefit to us when
we feel that way.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You say, civic pride grows where a beauty is planet.
It's a great summer of what you believe. We're gonna
take a break for some messages and come back in
just two minutes with Jeff. We're gonna chat about parking,
We're gonna chat about building code, We're gonna chat about
how you actually revitalize the city. Stay with us, everyone
back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
No Radio, No Problem is live on SAGA ninety sixty
Am dot C.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Wellcome back everyone to the Brian Primi Radio. I've got
Jeff Sigler with me tonight. He's an interesting guy about
building cities, and he's got a bunch of different organizations
he's part of. He's the founder of something called Revitalizer Die.
It's a community empowerment organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was
the director of Revitalization for Heritage Ohio. He was the
(17:36):
meeting moratorium manager for International Doers Association. He is with
the Ohio State University as an adjuct faculty member. He
is the executive director of the Main Street Lancaster Special
Improvement District, Project manager for Miller and Associates, et cetera,
et cetera. So You've got really quite a long history.
You're an author and you're speaker, really quite an impressive background,
(17:59):
and it's a pleasure to have you with us. What's
the book you've written?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Your City is the name of the book came out
maybe two years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Now, And if people want to read it, where can
they get it?
Speaker 4 (18:09):
If you go to my website Revitalize or Die, you
can find a link to the book right there, and
you can go to the publisher, or it's on Amazon
as well, but I would, I would. It's always healthier
too to go through the publisher and not use Amazon
if you can.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I appreciate that you made an interesting post about parking
and it sounded like a Taylor Swift song. You said,
parking's the problem? Why is parking the problem?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And as you.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Know, I think back to it that Einstein said you
can't simultaneously prevent and prepare for war, and I feel
that way about parking. You can't simultaneously build for pedestrians,
build for people, build for humans, and accommodate these these
huge machines. And you know, great cities, great places don't
accommodate machines. First, they accommodate the humans. They are great
(18:56):
spaces for people. And so the more space we seed
over to to you know this public like our car
storage to public car storage, the worst place has become
the you know, they're they're they're ugly, they're dangerous, and
and uh, a colleague Anceustment that explained to me once
that in doing some research that the human body reacts
(19:17):
to cars the same as its predators. You know, even
a parked car, like we treat it's it's this huge, scary, dangerous,
fast machine that can kill us. So they they may
make us feel very threatened subconsciously. And so cars tend
to repel people, and and cities are meant to be
for people.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So you talk about parking, you don't talk about roads
or highways. Do you feel the same way about roads
and highways and freeways?
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Uh, you know, I guess my opinion is that that
cars dominate enough of our landscape that it should be
okay to set aside some area which should be the
center of town. There should be some areas where we
can get by without having to.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Be afraid for our lives. So you know, I'm.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not trying to
ban old cars to get rid of cars are shame,
you know, shame owners. But what we've done is we've
built in a pattern we've britten away for the last
fifty to seventy years, which almost requires everyone to own
a car.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
And I think that's the mistake.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
You know, if you can't survive without owning this machine
that costs an average ten thousand dollars a year, if
you can't get to work, if you can't get groceries
without being you know, owning this ten thousand dollars machine.
And then if you're a family of two or three,
all of a sudden, we're talking twenty thirty thousand other
that's a massive failure on the part of city leaders,
of government to build places that require that where it
(20:41):
pulls people apart, where it's dangerous thirty thousand and forty
thousand that US traffic deaths year, Kids can't play outside anymore.
You know, it's just that it's enough, you know, I
think we need spaces in our cities where that we
can that can be are free or car light, where
people can exist one day again, you know, somewhat freely
(21:02):
and without the sphere. So you know, they have a
lot they've they've taken over everything. I think it's okay
to expect that. You know, if we could just get
a small part of our communities carved out where we
can have an existence that it doesn't revolve around avoiding them.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You see that if downtowns are having struggling economies, they
don't have a parking problem, they have an attraction problem.
You said that, here's the proof. Cities that add parking
never see a revitalization boom. After new parking goes in,
another excuse pops up and more parking is suddenly needed.
Events with big crowds, people always find a way walk, bike, uber, shuttle, whatever.
(21:38):
They show up because there's something worth.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Showing up for.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
You really believe that. Lots of people they always say,
you need parking, you need parking, you need parking for
big events. If you know the parking, we won't let
you have the big event.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
That that is true, that is what they say. But
it's been my experience.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
That that we find a way to go. You know,
with great restaurants people I've never talked, you know, people
that you see a great restaurant and very often there's
not enough parking. And yet those restaurants who just don't
complain are a great store. I think that the French
Quarter down in New Orleans, which is an incredible district,
there's no parking.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
There, or in Old Town Montreal.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I don't recall seeing much parking there, yet it seems busy,
you know, people, it's parking isn't a draw, it's kind
of a utility. And and I think, I'll think of
my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates here. They even if they had
more seating, I don't think it's really going to prove
their batting average.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
You know, they're there.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
They can't draw enough people to the game because the
product's not great. Now, if the product's great, that that's
a different conversation. But but parking doesn't attract anybody, and
it tends to be an excuse for why things aren't better.
But great restaurants, great districts, great shops, huge events, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Where we'll we'll we'll figure out a way. You know,
we'll figure out a way. And if you think about it,
the great places don't have enough parking. That's the point.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You know, they don't have hardly any parking. That's how
they became great in the first place. And those are
the places where we like to go and spend our time.
Those are the places with the highest visitor right, you know,
with the most tourists. Those are the places where the
highest real estate values because they make us feel incredible
to be in those spaces. We're attracted those spaces because
how they make us feel.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
The third suggestion that you had in your list of
things to do to create a vibrant downtown was create
social opportunities. Build the kinds of spaces and experiences that
bring people together. In our world today, where we've got
social media that you can go on Zoom, you can
go on Facebook, and go on Instagram, and go on Twitter,
you can go on so many different things and talk
to people from around the world. Where you know, you
(23:45):
can get music through Spotify, through YouTube, you've got streaming,
You've got you know, innumerable number of cable TV. Why
do you need places where people can socially interact?
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Community exists by design, you know, it's required. Space and
community is not something that exists. You know, you can
there's communities online, but a sense of community doesn't exist online.
That's something that has to occur face to face, and
that's what we require. You know, we're extremely isolated these days,
(24:21):
and I think that's contributed to a lot of mental
health issues, to a lot of addiction issues, that there's
an isolation crisis because we don't spend enough time together.
Yet we're built to spend time together. We as humans,
we're we evolved to be with one another in person
and have those human interactions and it's tremendously beneficial for us.
And that's what whole society together. And I think that
(24:41):
when we're out in public space with one another, we're kinder,
we're better, we're better to one another, but we're certainly
better to ourselves. It makes us all healthier, and you know,
it prooves politics. Like people need to be together in
public space in person, I think, to experience their own humanity.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So uh we we really.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
We we we need those places to experience our humanity.
And it's it's it has to be in public. You know,
those things don't occur the same in private. It's not
like a Walmart parking. A lot is where people experience
since the community. It's usually on a sidewalk, it's usually
in a great plaza. And we need those spaces.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
How do you build them?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
What?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
What? What are there?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
What?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Are the attributes of them? You know, I think a
lot of people want to build the town square. I
want to build that beautiful place that brings people together
just naturally. What are the attributes and and can you
build it? Does it have to happen organically?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
You can build it.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I mean it's you know, typically they happen organically, but
they certainly can be built. And there are certain you know,
there has to be seating. There has to be plenty
of seating in places where people can move those seats around.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I think they're a shade.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Generally, there should be a water feature is great, you know,
something with kind of an ambient noise. Vegetation has always beneficial,
and a place where people can eat and drink and
just stay, you know. I think of it as not
as a place to go do something, but as a
place to go do nothing.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Great public spaces where you see people doing nothing, you.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Know, reading, napping, chatting, hanging out, but just kind of being.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And I think that's that's ideal, and I love it
when they're that way and when they operate that way.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
But the other great thing about it is that the
economic benefit of public space is incredible. In essence, the
land around that public space is the most valuable. The
retail around it is the most valuable. Residential around it,
Like when you do it right, everybody wants to be
near that, So it really pays for itself in short
order by if you create quality public space.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I was with a developer in Dallas a little while
ago who told me that it's not grocery stores that
are or department stores that are the anchor anymore, it's
green space. What do you think of that?
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I do. I think that that we
I wouldn't argue just brings. I think space to be
outdoors with one another. You know, I sometimes see cities
go overboard with like parks, and that's fine, but we don't.
You know, a great city isn't designed to define necessarily
(27:15):
by you know, baseball diamonds and soccer fields. I think
it's I'd go beyond green space and say, like great
public space, places where we can hang out and be
with one another. And in parks, I mean, I certainly
will never argue that parts are important. The matter a
great deal, but more than parks, we need places where
people can just show up and gather, and not every
(27:35):
park is that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Not every not every park does it. A lot of
parks are just.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
For youth sports, and I don't think that that's necessarily
a solution. We've we've kind of become overly obsessed with
youth sports in some ways and forget that adults need
places to hang out together too.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
There was this concept at one point in time of
the third place that people needed to you know, not
only have a place where they go to work and
a home, but they need that third place and that
in Britain it was you know, the local pub that
in Italy it was the corner coffee, uh, you know,
a place where you go for a cappuccino and espresso.
In in can the United States, where's that third place?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I think we struggle with it. I think that we
don't have it.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And I mean there's, yeah, there's bars, but I don't
know that our our typical bar does a great job
of replicating that there are something those I love those,
but I don't think we really have those are you know?
I mean we have coffee shops and those matter, but
it's not sort of a you know, just as much
people treat their coffee as as you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
This drive through thing. You know, we're.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
We do have some third spaces, but not nearly enough
and I don't think we inhabit them enough. And something
that that this idea sticks with me a lot lately
is like what I see when in Europe is that
people are very thoughtful about how they spend their time.
But we're really obsessed about how we save our time,
you know, we we we don't we don't think about
(29:09):
how to spend it, you know, how do we spend
this time in the quality manner has that is that
sitting down and having a coffee for a long time
with with friends or just in a great public space
of that having a three hour meal, you know, in
a piazza, Like I think there's a lot more intentionality
about how they spend time, and we just all we
do is think about how can we save more? How
can we save more? And you know, we we save a.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Lot of time, you know, you know.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Rushing around in our cars and doing things that are convenient,
but but rarely do we really do we spend it wisely?
And I think that is also kind of a part
of it's cultural but also part of the you know,
the drive through uh have a breakup of our built environment.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
So Robert Putnam wrote the book Bullying Alone and argued
that you know, you know, a generation ago, we would
have all gone to a bowling alley together, or to
a to a you know, a men's club, or a
social organization or a church or something. And that he
would comment that these third places are where you meet
your friends. You know that you can't be that friends
(30:08):
with the people that you work with, and you need
some counterpoint to just your family and your and your spouse,
and and and he really bemoaned the fact that we
didn't have that third place. Do you think that's a
problem in in North America that we don't have a
third place? Or or is it okay just driving to
the local Starbucks or McDonald's or or wherever it is
we're going.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
It is a problem.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
It is a huge problem because I think it diminishes
our well being. I think it harms our health both
individually but also communally. I think it's a life worse
lived when we don't spend enough time with other people.
You know, there's there's It really reduces people's health and
happiness and overall well being to not spend more time
(30:53):
with people, and and but you know, and I think
it's just it's something that that's gotten so foreign to
us that, you know, just it's become because we practice
it less. I think it's harder for everybody to do now.
I saw somebody the other day. I can't remember her,
but I loved what he was saying. He was saying,
you know, he made the point that the two of
the two of the worst things to happen to the
(31:15):
young generation right now, where one was COVID and two
that anti drinking movement. He said, because these were you know,
they pulled people further apart and made it harder for
people to get to know one another and socialize and
meet partners, meet friends. And how you know how inherent
that is to the human experience, and how damaging it
is that those things there's less and less opportunities just
to go places and meet people, and and that that
(31:38):
makes us worse off.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I had a third. I think social media, where you know, teenagers,
young adults, did they spend so much time on social media?
They don't have enough time to interact with their friends
in real you know, face to face personal.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Life, right, speaking of time poorly spent of not spending
time wisely enough. It's it's such a waste of time.
And you know, on one hand, it's still socializing, but
it's not. It is nothing like being in person with
people having adventures and you know, really experiencing life. It's
sort of life filtered through a screen. And you're right,
that's had a huge impact, and you know, it's it's
(32:11):
always amazing to go to other cities in great public
space and see people not on their devices but just
hanging out and being and enjoying one another.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
We're going to take a break for some messages. We're
going to come back in just two minutes with Jeff
Ben We're going to talk about another interesting post and
article that he wrote about about how important it is
What's on the first floor, which I found kind of interesting.
To stay with us, everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
sixty am DoD C A.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crommey Radio A. We're
chatting tonight with Jeff Sigler. He is an author of
a book called Your City Is Sick. Sounds U like
an interesting read. He's a speaker, he's a consultant, he's
a municipal councilor, and he's kind to us from Pennsylvania,
where he is all about revitalization of downtown's. And you
made this really interesting post that I had to read
twice because it was kind of intriguing and I wasn't
(33:14):
sure about it to start with. You said that what
you allow on your first floors in a city is
really critical. Tell me why you think that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think that it's important because that's where sort of
vibrancy takes place. You know, that's if you.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Think about walking down a great street, you're compelled forward.
You know, bad streets, you're you're quick to turn around
and go back where you came from. But on a
great street, you're you're compelled forward.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
You're always looking.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
You know what's next, What what thing of interest to
a thing of beauty am I going to see?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
And so you know, on.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Streets where the windows or let's say tinted or you know, covered,
or that it's empty or you don't there's a lack
of vibrancy, people aren't drawn to that, and we inherently are.
I mean, we kind of subconsciously avoid those places because.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
There's not enough going on.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
It's like It's like when you see a busy when
you see a busy restaurant, you're like, what's going on
in there? I think I want to go in and sit.
There's something good is happening. There's there's an energy you're
obviously the food is good and great storefronts, busy storefronts, restaurants, whatever,
it compels you, it invites you in.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
You're you might drive.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Past or walk past and say, who whoa, I'm going
back because something is happening there. On the other hand,
when you can't see in places, I think it's as humans,
we kind of tend to think.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Well, if I don't know what's going on, I'm going
to assume the worst.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Uh. You know, when you like it's like bars with
little black windows or whatever, we tend to think like
that might be a shady bar because they're hiding something. Well,
anytime that we feel like we can't see something, we
kind of jump to the conclusion that something good isn't happening, uh,
and so we tend to stay away. So is important
that that the storefronts get it right, that businesses get
(35:03):
it right, that they're you know, open and inviting, that
you can see in and simultaneously, there's this other thing
that we do. It's like when you can see in
a place, you're much more likely to bridge that gap
there is. There's a small barrier that we have of
going from the street, you know, the public space into
the private space. And the more we minimize that barrier,
(35:24):
the more you know, doors open windows that you can
see or that photo that you mentioned and the dress
out on the side of dresses out in the sidewalk
that I've posted, that's such a good example of that
store had come outside. So the the you know, the
gap to make that to go from outside into the
store is just diminished. And stores tend to do much
better when when they help make that transition easier. So
(35:46):
a great city of great downtown sort of commercial district
is going to have really vibrant, active, attractive storefronts and
they're all going to do much better because we can't
stay away from such things like we're drawn to them
and always will be.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, you're interesting. You write about what people will
paint pictures of in regards to six lane roads, actually
call it strodes, which I found interesting. Souls parking lots
and strip malls aren't just boring they're psychologically distressing. No
one paints a picture outside the Costco, No one frames
a selfie at the intersection of Root Aid and Nope Street.
(36:20):
These places feel bad because they are bad.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Yeah, you know, you don't see people taking Instagram photos
at the Dollar General. You know, like those places are
ugly and we know it. And why we allow them
to get built, I don't understand. But you know, because
they have such like it's they have such an outside
impact on our well being as individuals and as a.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Community that we should never let those be built.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yet we keep doing it, and we should demand and
do better of our places like there ares. We actually
should have a say in what gets built in our communities.
That's I wouldn't think that, you know, my neighbors shouldn't
be able to come over and tell me how to
decorate my living room. Yeah, we let out of town
developers and the national chains tell us what we should
expect in terms of the build environment. That it should
(37:08):
be cheap, that it should be quickly built, that it
should be you know, inferior materials, and that it's going
to be disposable because it can't be repaired and will
fall down in a few years, and it's like, but
but that's where we have to live, that's what we
have to look at, that's what our children are raised around. Like,
I don't think that that's sufficient, as as individuals or
as a community that we continue to build those places
(37:28):
that that in essence are making us worse off.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So I've heard from some people in Toronto that often
regulations get in the way of actually building nice streets.
And they comment about how, you know, fire truck fire
Department regulations in regards to the width to the street
make the streets too broad and don't encourage you know,
enjoyable streets to walk down and and and and and
(37:54):
they're too wide, they don't allow sociability, et cetera. That
garbage requirements demand too much space on the first floor
that are put aside to allow trucks to move in
and move out, and loading areas, et cetera. So that
there's a whole bunch of things that municipal rules and
guidelines in force that actually make building the types of towns,
(38:14):
the type of downtowns that you want to build even
more difficult.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Yeah, it's absolutely true.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
You know, we codified so many of these things that
you know, during the sprawl boom of let's say the
you know, sixties, seventies and eighties, we put a lot
of legislation in place and zoning and codes in essence,
outlaw building the places that we love the most, and
so now it's hard to build them. You know, you
have minimum parking requirements, you have exactly like designing cities
(38:41):
around the fire engines about you know about we should
design or fire engines around our cities and not the
way other way around. But that's that's how we think,
and it really has led us to only build places
that make our cities worse. You know, we're only building
places that make us less healthy, that are less attractive,
less less resilient, that are really geared towards sort of
(39:01):
more suburbia and this color of culture. So yeah, it
really is now baked into so many municipal codes and it's, uh,
it's unfortunate. Those things have to be pulled out, they
have to be rescinded that. You know, I think about
the fire engine thing this way, and I've been thinking
about this a lot lately. But in essence, like you know,
in North America, we've become so risk averse that we've
(39:23):
actually aired on the other side, that like nothing's fun,
nothing's good, there's you know, we we like we're so
afraid of any risk that now everything kind of sucks
and is a mundane is mundane and boring, Like we
have to be able to tolerate a little risk to lead happy,
fun lives. And if you know, if we're so afraid
of stepping out of our house that that God forbid,
(39:44):
you know, every tragedy befalls us, that that we you know,
we stopped leaving, like that's then when we swung the
pendulument too far, and now we're suffering in other ways.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
And I think we've done that.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I think that I think that risk aversion and you know,
the religgitiousness of our society has has kind of swung
the pendulums that where like kids can't play outside, nobody
like nobody does anything anymore so that nobody gets sued,
and it's actually having such a detrimental effect.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
You made another interesting post about historic preservation, and you
said that you started out really believing in historic preservation,
but now that you're worried that it's gone from we
should save this building too. We must save it because
we could never build something as good as that today.
Why can't we build buildings today that are beautiful like
the buildings that we want to save.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
We can.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
And it's not to say I'm not a preservationist anymore,
but something that I think I became ingrained in my
understanding by being around preservations for a long time was
that we can't build with beauty today. And I think
that's such a mistake.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Should we save great buildings, absolutely, you know, And I
get why they say that in essence, because typically we
don't build pretty buildings anymore. We don't build quality buildings anymore,
so it is important to save those. But to say
we can't, I think is a mistake and gives us
a past not to do it. So I think it's
a really important distinction to say that, yes, that we
(41:06):
can't build great buildings, and we must, we just currently aren't.
But we can't, you know, continue to make excuses. We
shouldn't say that we can't do this thing. We really
have to exist that we can, and it's really amazing
to see.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
When they do happen.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
There's a project down in Charleston, South Carolina called cat
Fill Street where it's a new construction, but it fits in,
it blends in, it looks great, it looks historic. There's
a cash I've seen some amazing new buildings in Paris and.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
New York City. Gosh, and I think it's Romania.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
And there's an incredible photo that I've seen a few times.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
It's set in.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Germany, and I forget the city, but boy, you would
think it was all two hundred years old, and most
of it's twenty years old.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
So we chose not to one because you know, yeah,
it might.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Be expensive, or two, maybe we've maybe we can't build
this way because of current building codes, but we certainly can.
It's not like we don't have the money to build. Well,
we have plenty of money in our countries and too,
it's not like we don't have that technology. It's just
that I don't think there seems to be the will
to And what a shame because we're all drawn to
(42:20):
those places and they certainly have a return on investment.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
I got to tell you, you know, Jeff, you wrote
another post that I found really interesting. It said, want
to get people fired up, mention the word density or
worse urbanism, and then you go on and you say
want to reverse the damage of a downtown that is dying,
and you say start here. Density is not the enemy,
(42:43):
Walkability is not a threat. Urbanism is not a dirty word.
So I want to ask you if you are presenting
to a city meeting of a whole bunch of people
in a suburb, maybe a suburb votside of Toronto, maybe
called Sosaga, and they were scared of density, They're scared
(43:04):
of walkability. They wanted their cars, they wanted their parking,
they wanted their broad streets, and they were they don't
like the idea of, you know, an urban environment in
their suburbs. What would you tell them.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
I would say that your grandparents and your great grandparents
and and there's going on back to the beginning of
civilization lived in dense, walkable places.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
That this is not some sort of progressive agenda to
capture you or trap anybody that.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
That that this is a very traditional way to build,
and that it is healthy. And then it allows us to, uh,
it's actually convenient.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Its fosters more local businesses, it allows more social interaction,
It allows us to get more physical health throughout our day.
It really it has all these tremendous benefits and they
and I go back to health. You know, I think
the best way to always talk about cities is through health.
You know, we've used a lot of the wrong terms.
We've talked about growth too much, and growth is a
(44:09):
sort of stupid concept, like we should look to improve,
not get bigger. You know, getting better is aspirational, getting
bigger isn't. And you know, more money doesn't necessarily make
anything better. But I think health is the best lens
to talk about it, which is you know, fiscal health.
We can talk about mental health, social health. You know,
there's a lot of different ways to look at it.
(44:31):
In essence, when we should be building places that improve
our health, and density certainly improves our health.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Again, it it's beneficial.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
We don't have to own as many cars, cities don't
have to store as many cars. Parking decks are incredibly expensive,
ours are expensive. Ob city is incredibly expensive. Heart disease
is expensive.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
You know, all these things that are really factors of suburbia.
So I think that there's a real.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
Health component, But there's also a joy to building with density,
there's and it's an improvement to our lifestyle. It's not
shaming anybody, it's nothing wrong with wanting that, but there
should be alternatives too, And because that's all we're building,
that's the only type of place we're building anymore, and
we do need other options because people should have the
(45:18):
opportunity to live someplace where where they can have a
rich social life, where they can enjoy a little beauty.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
And you know, I do this a lot. I run
into this a lot.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
In my work where I'm working in it's more small
rural communities, and it's kind of become an identity, you know,
the car, the truck, the rural nature has become a
bit of an identity. But I try to point out again,
like this is nothing to do with with your love
of farming or trucks or nature or outdoors. That's simultaneously.
(45:46):
You need to have a place where people like apartments
are necessary. Not everybody needs a single family home. People
are in different states of their lives. We need multi
family housing, we need local shops. These are things that
are all really important to a community because not everybody
is the age where they need a big yard in
a single family home. So when you build in a
way that suits everybody, you end up with spaces that
(46:08):
are a lot more hospital where we can all be
a community because the community is of all ages.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
So, you know, in North America, because of you know, highways, car,
suburban sprawl, et cetera, we've got these suburbs with with
big broad you know, boulevards roads. We've got the strip malls,
we've got the regional malls, et cetera. Have you seen
a suburb that has actually done what you've been arguing
well or right or best, that has built a urban
(46:38):
dense environment that's walkable, that's beautiful, that's got the main street,
that's got the shops, that's got the public spaces, et cetera.
What's what's your what's your model?
Speaker 4 (46:48):
I actually have not, And it's not to say that
those aren't going on. I've heard ale I've heard rumor
that the places have been experiencing this experimenting with those ideas,
but I just haven't seen it yet. And so I'm
kind of fascinated to see that and see what it's like.
So I don't know, I would be fascinated to kind
(47:10):
of look and see how it's going and if it's possible.
What I have seen glimpses of and I look forward
to seeing them firsthand, is that there are some new
developments where that have really incorporated these traditional principles. In Gosh,
I just got an email this week of they're building
kind of a new city outside of Sacramento of eight
thousand units, but it seems to be very traditional, like
(47:32):
a very traditional sort of town center, and I'm fascinated
to see what's.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Going on there.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
I know that there's a community that just opened up
called cul de Sac and in Phoenix that is car
free and it's sold out, which is crazy because you
wouldn't think that in Phoenix, So I do.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
It is very.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Encouraging to see that there are new developments taking place
that are looking a little more traditional and a little
less car oriented.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Are there downtowns that have been dead or dying that
revitalize themselves.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
I have been fortunate enough to experience some of those,
to see those.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Kent Ohio.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
Uh most of these are going to be from Ohio
because that's where I worked the longest.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
But uh yeah, kent Ohio, Delaware, Ohio.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
These are communities where the downtown, you know, one period
was not healthy, was not was not a Newark, Ohio.
It was just another one that These were places that
the downtown was kind of a source of shame, a
source of apathy that that did draw it, you know,
anti social behavior that was a but of the jokes.
And yeah, through through some sort of transformation, through a
(48:39):
lot of investments in public the public realm and improved
building department and then which tends to foster a ton
of private investment, they've transformed and they've become a source of.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Pride for the community and a huge economic hub.
Speaker 4 (48:51):
So it's been amazing to get to see that firsthand
in some communities.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Chris, thanks so much for join us. Really appreciate it.
Remind everyone the name of your book and where they
can get it.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Yes, your city is sick and the revitalizer Die is
the name of my website, the name of a consulting firm,
and said, yeah, Revitalizerdie dot com. You can go there
and I've got hundreds of blogs posted there. You can
find the book UH, and you can also reach out.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
To me if I'm always willing to UH to do work.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
I do a lot of public speaking around the around
the country and have done a little bit up in
Canada so and do a lot of consulting with communities
on these issues. So you can reach me there as well.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Really appreciate you joining us tonight. And I think you've
got a lot of, you know, really good points. And
I think that you know, downtown revitalization, uh, you know
what we got to do in regards to uh ensuring
that we've got that that main street, that retail block,
that first floor that is inviting and vibrant. I think
the parking comments that you made, I think the building
rules and regulations comments that you've made. I think that
(49:58):
the third place that we need to have, that place
where we can go, that public square that you know,
the public house that you know, that place where we
can feel comfortable meeting our friends and chatting and talking
and having a drink, having a coffee, whatever. And I
think the idea of beauty. I think that we've forgotten
how important beauty is in our in our downtown cores,
in our urban environments, in our in our local walking streets,
(50:21):
so walkability, dense density and uh and an urban environment
where we can go bump into people and meet people
and and and and have a conversation I think is
so vitally important to our life. And so I really
appreciate what you've read sort of what you've written so
that I've read and and what you've said today.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Thanks so much, absolutely, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, Thank you for joining.
I remind you I'm on every night at six o'clock
on nine to sixty am. You can stream online at
Triple W nine sixty am dot C, even from from Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and on my Podcasts and video go up on my
website Brian Kraby dot com aswers the radio show goes
to air. I also post on social media, on YouTube,
(51:05):
on LinkedIn, and on lots of different podcast service so
there's lots of different places to get me Mike. My
vehicle to get it out is dense. I guess that's
that's the word for the day, dance. Thanks good night, everybody.
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