Four Degrees to the Streets

Hey yall! Welcome back to the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! This episode is about Institutions, as both structured and tangible organizations like universities and churches and as societal and human practices like capitalism and marriage. Queen Tone Podcast x The Streets Are Planning Podcast x Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast collab to discuss how most urban spaces and communities are sh...

Environmental and civil engineer, professional hair braider, public health scholar, and triple HBCU alumna, Nemmi Cole, PhD joins the show to discuss outdoor air quality, warehouses, and respiratory health in California’s Inland Empire on the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast. From 1980 to 2021 the number of warehouses and industrial buildings in the Inland Empire grew to 1 Billion Square Feet (...

Welcome back to The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! In this episode, our new-good friend, Roderick D. Hall joins the show! Roderick, is an urban planner, Los Angeles-transplant from rural North Carolina via the University of Oregon, housing advocate, former double-major in Political Science and Philosophy, and Marvel fan. Roderick is the Section Director for American Planning Association Los...

Priorities, politics, and pockets, the real PPP. If you want to know what the government cares about, check how they spend their money. In this first episode of Season Six of The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast we discuss how the federal government spends its $1,589,000,000,000 ($1.6 Trillion) dollar budget & how that spending directly relates to the political and social issues of 2026 suc...

The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast is celebrating its 5 year anniversary! Celebrate with us with a re-play of one of our favorite episodes from season two. A panel discussion with four Black women, working in four different sectors of the built environment, in four different cities, all with the same singular approach: improving the quality of life through urban planning. Your host is joined...

Don’t Sell Your Gramma’s House is a plea. A plea to first assess all of your options before selling property owned in a neighborhood experiencing gentrification. Gentrification is the process of a neighborhood's economic and social make up or character changing. The economic changes often include: significantly higher rents, property tax increases, store closings of small businesses, store opening...

A special collaboration episode with Black Women Healing Podcast and the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! Jasmine, host of the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast, joins Myra and Donika, hosts of the  Black Women Healing Podcast  to talk about city planning and mental health. You can watch this episode on YouTube  here .  Jasmine (New Jersey suburbs), Myra (Inglewood, Calif...

Donovan X. Ramsey, author of When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era joins the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast to explore the relationship between the crack era and urban planning.  The crack epidemic, more commonly known as the crack era, was the decade between 1985-1995 of high crack-cocaine use and distribution in U.S. cities and urban areas. The period birthed t...

“Tell me your zip code, and I’ll tell you your life expectancy” famously stated by Dr. Anthony Iton of University of California - Berkeley to describe the dynamic relationship between race, class, neighborhood design, and public health. This episode is about just Environmental Justice - defined in community organizing as “the right of all people to live, work, and play in a clean and healthy envir...

Think of your favorite debate show like First Take or Inside the NBA on TNT and replace sports with urban planning. That is what you can expect in this episode.  The host, Jasmine, sits down with one of her best friends and fellow urban planner, Jonathan Braun, to discuss the housing affordability crisis, equitable access to public transportation, commonly ignored problems with electric vehic...

If you had to describe the first three months of 2025 in one word, what would you say? For me, the first quarter of 2025 was bananas!! This episode is the 1st of quarterly bonus episodes summarizing all things city planning that happened in the previous 90 days. In addition to our regularly scheduled programming, our monthly episodes, these four times a year quarterly episodes take a broader view...

The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast interviews Desiree “Dee” Powell about the Black Planner Collective, Do Right By The Streets Urban Planning, South Dallas Food Park, Implementing vs. Planning for community development, and her takes on urban planning issues and trends. Dee, as she is affectionately known to her thousands of social media followers, is founder of Do Right By the Streets Urban...

New York City is the largest city in the United States, greater than the next largest (Los Angeles) by roughly 5 million people, it is also the 13th largest city in the world. The New York Metropolitan area or the Tri-State area (NJ, NY, CT) contain 7% of the U.S population and contribute 12% to the national GDP (gross domestic product). The region is home to millions of people and jobs, cultural...

The United States government spends more than $600 billion on goods and services sourced from third-party suppliers. As the largest consumer in the world, the U.S government issues thousands of contracts to companies. With that opportunity comes the responsibility to distribute contract dollars equitably, across a wide range of business classifications and avoid providing an advantage to one type...

In 2019 Minneapolis, Minnesota became the 1st city to eliminate single-family zoning. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul region continues to be a leader in urban planning and economic development practices. Yet the region, like others across the U.S, continues to struggle with poverty, unemployment, and housing affordability issues. Join us in a conversation with Minneapolis native and experienced planner...

Heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are the leading causes of death in the United States. Across the country it is easier for a family to get a variety of fast junk food than it is to get fresh vegetables and protiens. Food deserts are defined by the USDA (Department of Agriculture) as a low income community more than 1 mile from a grocery store or supermarket, there are 45 million America...

Thank you to all of our listeners for a great season 4! In this bonus episode, Nimo and Jas recap the season, memorable moments, special guests, and our accomplishments over the last four years. We’ve reached over 10,000 total downloads, 27 countries, and over 6,000 unique listeners. The Podcast will be back with new episodes for season 5 in Fall 2024. News for next season: Nimo will be taking a b...

It's difficult to argue Tyler Perry's influence in the entertainment industry and Black media. Twenty-four feature films, 20 stage plays, 17 television shows, and two New York Times bestselling books. In this episode, Nimo and Jas uncover the impact of Tyler Perry Studios (TPS) and the physical footprint implications in Atlanta. TPS opened its 330 acres in 2019 after purchasing land that was the f...

Nina Simone sang, "To be young, gifted, and Black." For today's episode, we'll add one more: to be young, gifted, Black, and a planner! Nimo and Jas sat down with Kamau As-Salaam, the Assistant Director of Planning and Zoning for Henry County, Georgia, part of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, where the population is expected to increase by 1.8 million by 2050 . Kamau participated in and facilitated...

You may remember our first in-person episode, “Where The Money Reside,” from Season 1. In it, we explained the budgeting process in local governments and briefly mentioned examples of how cities can incorporate equity into the budget process. Today, we’re following up with a deeper dive into budget equity as a tool to address historic and present inequalities throughout programs and plans that lea...

Happy Black History Month! This week, we have a special guest, Ross Murph, aka MORFBOSS, a professional genealogist born in New York with Southern roots. He uses his research to uplift people and uncover overlooked parts of history. Ross shares examples from Los Angeles, CA, and Washington, DC, to tell the history of Black and Latino land loss. According to the American Bar Association, as an...

The podcast often discusses how human activity and policies impact the natural and built environment. In today’s episode, Nimo and Jas share vital tools and resources to help you understand the environmental condition of your community and how to use the tools to make decisions in your personal life. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, is the source for most of the tools bel...

The Beyoncé Renaissance World Tour was more than ticket sales, metallic outfits, horses in outer space, and a showcase of a timeless album. In this special in-person episode , Nimo and Jas discuss the tour's impact on urban planning and local economies. The Renaissance World Tour influenced ten countries, with 56 shows in total. As the highest-grossing tour for any female artist and the highest ev...

How old were you when you discovered urban planning? Maybe it was listening to our podcast, attending a community meeting for a proposed development change, or a class you took in school. In today’s episode, Nimo and Jas interview Mr. Kevin Miles, a dynamic teacher and DEI facilitator based in Dallas, Texas. By using the Urban Land Institute’s UrbanPlan curriculum, press play to hear how he cultiv...

Happy New Year! In this special joint episode, the Four Degrees to the Streets and Urban Planning is Not Boring podcasts come together to discuss Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Hosts Nimo, Jas, Sam, and Nat use their expertise and experience living in TODs as a backdrop to give a coast-to-coast perspective on this complex subject. Press play to hear: TOD defined as a mixed-use community that...