good traffic.

Rachel Cohen Booth — senior correspondent at Vox — is in good traffic this week for a grab-bag episode, starting with her forthcoming book titled You're Not Powerless: The Crisis of Agency and How We Reclaim It Together , and what changes when we stop waiting for the perfect policy to arrive. Rachel's reporting on family and social policy is where a lot of housing, child care, and health c...

Jonathan Berk — founder of Re:Main — is in good traffic this week from Salem, Massachusetts for a survey of Delayed by Design , a new report published by Boston Indicators. The work looks at how discretionary permitting keeps stalling middle housing in Massachusetts, even on sites where zoning already allows it. Re:Main partners with municipalities, property owners, small developers, and aligned c...

John Dean Davis — Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at The Ohio State University's Knowlton School of Architecture — is in good traffic this week for a peek at Reconstruction-era America and the landscapes it built. Prof. Davis' new book, Reconstructors: Land, Work, and Engineering After the Civil War , posits that Reconstruction wasn't a mere political realignment, but a m...

James Nozar — President of Development at Kettler — is in good traffic this week from Tampa, Florida. We talk the development and design process behind a stretch of former industrial and surface parking lots becoming Water Street: a $4 billion waterfront neighborhood, and what that same playbook looks like applied to a second Tampa district: Gas Worx. We also touch on: Jeff Vinik and Bill Gates' C...

The monday commute — an early morning, sub-15-minute quick hit — made for your walk, bike, bus, or even drive into the office. Trialing this format fall '27. This week, some calibration. Why do we focus good traffic conversations on American precedents, cities, and progress, when there are typically stronger examples of the built environment found elsewhere around the globe?

Ben Donsky — Principal at Agora Partners — is in good traffic this week from Staten Island, New York to discuss placemaking as a process, not a product. Agora Partners guides real estate developers, foundations, and government agencies through the planning, activation, and long-term operation of public space projects nationwide — including Klyde Warren Park in Dallas and Providence’s District Park...

Back from a July break full of walking, observing, and listening in Portland, Oregon. Avid pedestrian, burgeoning transit user, performing arts educator, actor (and Brad's fiancé) Aly Marchant is back on the show, too, reflecting on the practice of triangulation — understanding movement as not just A to B or A to C, but also the relationships between points B and C — and how doing this in your...

Amy Tomasso — Policy + Partnerships at Ivory Innovations — is in good traffic this week from Salt Lake City for a walkthrough of the Ivory Prize: a $1.5 million annual award celebrating housing innovation across policy, finance, construction, and design. Ivory Innovations operates as a nonprofit foundation connected to Utah's largest homebuilder, meaning that their awards fund housing solution...

Bobby Fijan — founder of The American Housing Corporation — is in good traffic this week for a conversation on rowhomes as the ideal American family housing typology, why density and family-friendliness aren't contradictory, and how to communicate housing solutions to folks in the States. We also touch on: Philadelphia's multi-generational neighborhoods. Brooklyn Heights, Highland Park, an...

In Portland for the summer and reflecting once more on the most underrated piece of bike infrastructure: parking. While we rightfully obsess over bike lanes and protected paths, we ignore the fact that transportation sits parked 95% of the time. This quick-hit episode breaks down what makes a good rack, why installation matters, and why bike parking is actually a gateway to widening bike culture....

Alkarim Devani — developer and founder of mddl — is in good traffic this week for a conversation on how Canada's housing realities compare/contrast with that of the U.S., and how we can better prepare developers to address our continental crisis. Timeline: 00:00 Alkarim Devani is in good traffic. 02:47 Canada's housing crisis. 04:36 Cities not sharing solutions with each other. 05:14 The c...

Avani Adhikari — head of insights at GatherGov — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about mapping America's data center development pipeline, what happens when you analyze millions of hours of municipal meeting recordings, and the most controversial topics in local government. As cities hear proposals they don't fully understand and residents voice opposition to infrastructure they've...

Paul Stout — urbanist creator and landscape designer — is back in good traffic this week for a conversation about making urbanism foundational, why the most successful design work often goes unnoticed, and what it takes to translate complex spatial ideas into social media messages that resonate. After a content hiatus and returning with videos that've caught fire, Paul reflects on how the standard...

Caitlin Taylor — architect, farmer, and founder of Midcourse Design & Development — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about the missing middle of America's food system, and why architects need to understand farming, supply chains, and retail, en route to rebuilding regional infrastructure. We also touch on: Why architects rarely work on food infrastructure. The lived experience o...

Tahra Hoops — director of economic analysis at the Chamber of Progress and writer of The Rebuild — is back in good traffic this week for a conversation about financial nihilism, what happens when an entire generation stops believing homeownership is possible, and why the definition of "starter home" desperately needs an update. As Gen-Z watches record spending on concerts and short-term...

Ben Wolf — cinematographer and director of the documentary Changing Lanes — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about using a Brooklyn bike lane project as a lens for understanding democracy, infrastructure, and why America feels politically stuck. As the documentary begins its theatrical release in Los Angeles and prepares to stream on major platforms, Ben reflects on what local stori...

Back stateside after a week in Scandinavia, and ready to share some field notes! Rather than just repeating what urbanists already know about Nordic bike infrastructure and cafe culture, we'll walk through the specific design choices that make these cities work, the surprising ways they differ from each other, and the sobering reality that even the best examples aren't perfect. For America...

Rachel Booth — U.S. social policy writer at Vox — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about what happens when cities bet on millennials but forget they eventually have kids, why upzoning alone won't solve the family-sized housing shortage, and how to tell complex urban stories to audiences who need them most. As someone who has covered housing and homelessness for 15 years and is n...

Forth Bagley — Principal Architect at KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox) — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about designing at scale, threading the needle between progressive design and commercial realities, and why tall buildings owe a responsibility to the cities they define. As an architect involved in transforming places from Covent Garden, to Changi Airport, to Hudson Yards, to Central Ho...

Dominic Leonardo — the urban planner and creator behind CityGlowUp — is back in good traffic this week for a conversation about the hidden costs of hosting major sporting events, why cities keep building stadiums they can't afford, and what a leaked 2013 Super Bowl bid book reveals about the NFL's demands. As cities across the country bond for billions to build new facilities hoping for ec...

Diana Lind — urbanist, author, and writer of The New Urban Order newsletter — is back in good traffic this week for a wide-ranging conversation about municipal public land, the loneliness epidemic, and why threading the needle between instant reactions and thoughtful responses matters more than ever. Diana's newsletter has become essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of urbanism&#3...

Juan Pablo Garnham — Communications and Policy Engagement Manager at the ⁠ Princeton Eviction Lab ⁠ — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about the hidden scale of America's eviction crisis and why the data didn't exist until recently. Before 2018, there was no way to answer a simple question: how many evictions happen in the United States each year? The lab, founded by Matthew...

As much of the northern U.S. shivers through subzero wind chills, this episode argues that waiting for ideal conditions is exactly what keeps most people from ever establishing durable mobility habits at all. We touch on the psychology of habit formation, explaining why starting a walking routine during perfect weather in May or September sets you up for abandonment when conditions change. If you...

WE'RE BACK from our December break. At the end of '25, Kemp Gregory — CEO and co-founder of Renewal — joined good traffic for a conversation about energy infrastructure, the hidden potential of idle oil wells, and why the future of renewable energy storage might already be in the ground. As cities debate electric cars, housing development, and transit expansion, energy remains the crucial...

Who doesn't love a Halloween post-mortem on the week of Thanksgiving? Aly is back, and we dig into the rise of trunk-or-treat events, what gets lost when Halloween moves from sidewalks to parking lots, and how this one holiday reveals so much about walkability, safety, protectionism, and kids’ independence in American car-dependent neighborhoods. Timeline: 00:00 Aly's back. 00:56 What trun...