Go Cultivate!

We’ve reached the end of Go Cultivate! Season 3! To wrap us up, Kevin details the impacts that the suburban experiment has had on our country and asks the question: what does ‘quality of life’ really mean, and does an auto-centric lifestyle support these outcomes? After defining actionable steps to take in order to address the challenges posed by the suburban development pattern, Kevin emphasizes...

In this episode we are sitting down with Matt Meals, the newest addition to Verdunity’s engineering team. He and Kevin discuss Matt’s journey to Verdunity, and his perspective on how land use fiscal analysis gives cities the education they need to plan for communities to take root, as well as how it empowers citizens to take active roles in shaping the future of their communities. Throughout the i...

In this episode, AJ interviews Dr. Kaye Monk-Morgan and Shaun Rojas of the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) where Kaye is the President and CEO, and Shaun is the Senior Director of Civic Engagement. Their discussion emphasizes the importance of building a culture of civic leadership and engaging with community members to address their concerns and build stronger, healthier, and more prosperous commu...

Time to roll out some new Meet the Verdooners episodes to introduce y'all to the newest members of our team! In this episode, Kevin sits down with Maddie Bonney, our new Planner, and they discuss her personal motivations for pursuing a career in planning, including her desire to improve quality of life and promote self-sustaining economic development. She explains how her values align with Verduni...

Moving communities beyond status quo is hard. Entrenched practices in zoning, transportation planning, and road design have created places that are unsafe, unhealthy, and inequitable for many, while others who have benefitted from these systems staunchly defend them. In this episode, “Plangineers” Andy Boenau and Kevin Shepherd discuss how their careers evolved from engineering to planning to advo...

There are a number of bills working their way through this year’s session of the Texas Legislature that will impact cities’ ability to guide development in a manner that ensures fiscal sustainability and affordability. Proposed bills address topics like: annexation/deannexation; prohibiting cities from requiring development value and infrastructure costs as a factor in development approvals; reduc...

Rural communities are a focus for us here at Verdunity. In this episode, AJ interviews Julianna Dodson, Deputy Executive Director, and Radically Rural Director for the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship. Prior to her work with Hannah Grimes, she was primarily in the financial services industry (which according to her is a lot more vibrant and dynamic than one might imagine!) but has also ta...

William Fulton is one of America’s most established thought leaders in urban planning. From 2014 to 2022, he served as Director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Prior to moving to Houston, he served as Mayor of Ventura, CA and Director of Planning and Development for San Diego. He’s the author of multiple papers and books, including his most recent book Place and Prosperit...

Whether you're a long time follower of our Go Cultivate! podcast or just started listening, we'd love some feedback. This annual survey guides our team in creating content you actually want! As a thank you, all submissions will be entered into a drawing to win a $50 Amazon gift card - winner will be announced in our May 2nd podcast episode!   Link: verdunity.com/2023survey   

Melissa Milton-Pung is a Policy Research Labs program manager at the Michigan Municipal League. As a Federally-qualified architectural historian, her expertise is in place-based economic development initiatives, historic rehabilitation, and heritage tourism. She holds a BA in Public History from Western Michigan University and a Master of Historic Preservation from the University of Kentucky Colle...

Fiscal policy, municipal finance, thoughtful budgeting, and infrastructure maintenance. If you ever wanted to know where and why your city's money gets spent, you'll want to hear this. Mark Funkhouser, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, with decades of experience in municipal finance, and Liz Farmer, a writer, thinker, and consultant on policy and budgeting, are two of the most knowledgeable p...

We’re kicking off 2023 with an interview with Mara Mintzer, a co-founder and the Executive Director of Growing Up Boulder, an initiative to engage with city children and youth and offer them opportunities to affect change within their community. In 2017, Mara hosted a TEDx talk on including young people in city planning—which has amassed nearly 2 million views—and she recently co-authored the book...

Kevin Shepherd, the founder and CEO of Verdunity is here to talk about where the company has been, where it might be going in the future, and what gifts your city-focused friends might enjoy. Spoiler alert: he loves books. Kevin is an engineer, but as is usually pretty obvious, not your typical engineer, and its interesting to hear from him some of the struggles he has faced trying to communicate...

Episode 5 of “Meet the Verdooners” introduces us to AJ Fawver, who leads Verdunity’s Community Consulting Program. In this episode we learn what initially brought AJ into the planning world and what element of community building she is most concerned about. AJ is a firm believer that we serve communities best when we remember that people are at the center of everything we do, and she greatly admir...

Tim Wright's work spans the gamut from missing middle housing to incremental development and infrastructure right-sizing. He has been an engineer on the kinds of projects that can transform a place into a more sustainable, connected community. Hailing from the great state of Louisiana (Shreveport to be exact) and proudly lacking on sleep (as he's a brand new dad), Tim is an integral part of the te...

Mari Austin is Verdunity's Process and Communications Coordinator. Her work is too varied to adequately explain in a podcast blurb – but it ranges from process improvement to multimedia production (including this very podcast), to fostering a positive and forward-looking company culture here in-house. Mari comes from outside the world of municipal planning and engineering, and thus brings a unique...

Episode 2 of "Meet the Verdooners is back with Karina Castillo, a planner here at Verdunity. If you are a young planner, ready to go out and change the world, there is some interesting backstory you might enjoy from Karina. There are some real gems of knowledge here when it comes to trying to get good work done – who really makes the big decisions in your community, and are those the same people w...

We are heading into this holiday season with a little series of episodes called "Meet the Verdooners. You'll get to hear from each of our team members and get a little background on them and what makes them tick. This first episode introduces Marshall Hines, our Creative Director and the person responsible for helping us communicate this message of fiscal responsibility in the most compelling and...

Ryan Short is the CEO of CivicBrand, a firm that blends together branding, communications, and direct engagement with communities. As we think about the kinds of places we want our cities to grow into and be in the future, it's important to directly connect with members of the community to help identify and then take ownership of a place. CivicBrand is right at the place where those things converg...

How sustainable is any system which requires the agreement and buy-in of those with the deepest pockets and largest portfolios to be successful? Can many small players create the same value in a place that the big guys do? This week's guests will tell you that the former simply isn't sustainable, and not only is the latter, but it also creates more lasting value for the community. Monte Anderson a...

Kent Cagle has been a city manager in Texas for over 20 years, and has worked in local government in Texas for nearly 35. He has worked in cities that are growing rapidly, and ones that are built out and having to determine how they can balance a budget with limited resources. He is the current city manager in Killeen, Texas and oversaw the city's recent Comprehensive Planning effort. Kent shares...

If just about anyone tells you that they totally understand zoning codes, they are probably lying to you. Well, unless they are today's guest. Sara Bronin is a Mexican-American architect, attorney, and policymaker specializing in property, land use, historic preservation, and climate change.  She's a professor of planning and law at Cornell University, and she was recently nominated by President B...

Incremental improvement is a key element to the success of any place. The biggest projects, developments, and infrastructure also come with the biggest collection of dangers and places that something can go wrong. Starting from the bottom and working to solve an immediate need in the most effective way possible can also solve big problems over time, we just need to embrace that way of thinking. Ke...

Jason Duff is the Founder of Small Nation which encompasses a group of companies, leaders, and investors who develop places, spaces, and dreams for small towns and small-town entrepreneurs across the county.  Jason and his team at Small Nation have completely revitalized the town of Bellefontaine, Ohio.  In 10 short years, they have turned a dying town around and helped make it a Best-in-State des...

Andrew Kleine is the author of "City On the Line" and is working tirelessly toward a future in which municipal budgeting produces the results that leaders are looking for. Shayne Kavanagh, the Senior Manager of Research for the Government Finance Officers Association, has spent his career looking at how government policy interacts with the fiscal health of the places in which he works. To some, mu...