The Messy City Podcast

Patrick Tuohey is the Policy Director and co-founder of a think tank called the Better Cities Project. While his own views are politically right of center, the organization is non partisan and aims to give cities advice on the basics of good governance. He’s also an unabashed lover of cities, which is something not common in “Urbanist” circles. We have a wide-ranging discussion, though largely foc...

Rodney Dangerfield once famously said, “golf courses and cemeteries are the biggest wastes of prime real estate.” We won’t touch cemeteries in this episode, but we do talk about golf courses. Monte Anderson joins me as we discuss different ways of looking at so-called “obsolete” properties. As a teaser: Monte shares with me what I think is one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve heard about how to wo...

We often don’t realize that the “way things are” is just a reflection of some radical change that happened in a previous era. While I’m a firm believer that aspects of human nature haven’t really changed much through the millennia, it is true that we’ve shaped, reshaped, and reshaped our societies over and over again. And the most visible evidence of that change is our cities and towns. Today’s di...

Rik Adamski is a man of many hats. But first and foremost, he’s someone that cares deeply about the people side of urban planning. So often, planners, architects and developers get mired in the technical side of building community. And of course, we have to, because there’s a lot that requires our attention. But in this episode, Rik reminds us that planning is really about people, and about helpin...

From the earliest days of my interest in urban planning, I became very interested in the overlap between design and culture. By that I mean, how cities shape human interaction, and how human interaction shapes cities. Why are some places successful when others aren’t, even when they have similar design and planning features? Why do some communities seem so tight and together, when others do not? I...

I had the pleasure of meeting Charles Brewer right when he was starting to get interested in becoming a real estate developer. This was after a very successful short career in the dot-com world, as he was a founder of Mindspring. When he exited, he became interested in New Urbanism, and decided to shift his career toward the building of new, walkable communities. Twenty-plus years later, we get a...

It’s truly a rare thing in life to run across people that are uber-talented, thoughtful, and just fantastic human beings. Dhiru Thadani is one of those rare people. An architect, urban designer, author, teacher, and prolific sketch artist, Dhiru has been involved in the New Urbanism movement since the earliest days. He’s written multiple books about the famous new town of Seaside , Florida, and we...

The world of architecture is full of megalomanicas, wanna-be stars, and also a whole lot of good people just grinding out beautiful work outside the spotlight. One thing I enjoy with my little platform is shining a light on some of the people that do that beautiful work, and rarely get national attention. Don Powers, of Union Studio in Providence, Rhode Island, has one of those firms. Union Studio...

Austin Tunnell is one of the shining stars of a new generation of designer/builders for creative smaller projects, and he also happens to work in the world of mass masonry construction. In this episode, we talk about his journey from accountant to mason and beyond, with his really cool company called Building Culture . Austin now lives and works in the Oklahoma City area, and he’s aggressively exp...

It’s not often you run across people in the development world that have deep knowledge in both the smallest scales of projects and the biggest. The industry, like many, is very bifurcated. People who do small projects tend to keep doing small projects. People who work on really large projects tend to keep doing that for their careers. Joe Perry , who works as his day job as the Vice President of D...

“Just do it. Do it as quickly as you can.” That’s the advice of architect Doug Moss, who came to doing small-scale development projects after working for three decades as an architect. Doug left small-town Texas to pursue a career in New York, and boomeranged back several years ago to pursue his dreams as a developer. Now living in Austin, Doug has a healthy side gig doing small projects in Taylor...

Allen County, Kansas is not a place most people will be familiar with, but the story is one you’ve probably heard before. Located in southeast Kansas, an hour and a half from the nearest major city, it features much that’s typical of rural America. Iola, the county seat, is a city of 5,300 people. It has a classic town square and lies at the junction of a couple of state highways. The beautiful Fl...

Jesse Russell and Ryan Andrews fit the profile of successful small developers. That is, they had no experience at all before trying it, almost no money, but have a ton of passion and creativity. Jesse and Ryan discuss how they came from the worlds of tv show production and finance to create a small development business in beautiful Bend, Oregon. They now focus primarily on cottage-style housing an...

Mayor David Holt , far younger than me, has an impressive resume for any big-city Mayor. He’s been elected overwhelmingly twice, and his city is clearly on the rise. If you’re not familiar with what’s going on in Oklahoma, this is a chance at some insight. Moving out of a dark period in the city’s history in the early 1990s, Oklahoma City took it upon itself to pursue a dramatic makeover. Every ci...

It’s an intriguing irony that we live in the managerial age, with more managers than ever, and yet so much in our society is so poorly managed. But what can be done? Is it just an inevitable fact of modern life? In this episode, I break down my experience using the design charrette process in planning and architecture. And, I discuss the lessons learned from years of creating these very successful...

If you’ve traveled much to countries outside of the US, you frequently see a type of building that sits right up on the street, but has a landscaped courtyard space behind it. Instead of the ubiquitous American form of street-front yard-building-back yard, this type of building lacks a front yard in exchange for park-like spaces in the interior. As architects, we call these a variety of names, fro...

In the urbanism and planning world, we talk a lot about Missing Middle Housing . Rightfully so, since it’s a critical element that helps a community succeed and provide the total range of housing options. And, it’s historically what we used to build a LOT of, before the advent of zoning and modern development codes. Hal Shapiro of Real Property Group in Overland Park, KS, talks with us about his u...

Stop what you’re doing, and listen to this episode. Trust me, it’s worth it. I came across Joe Jimenez by way of Coach Carson , who has interviewed him twice . Joe lives in Kalispell, Montana, and now owns a business called Switchback Suites . Joe and I discuss his interest in the FIRE movement, (FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early) and how he eventually translated that into his own world....

Before this episode, I knew nothing about Mineral Wells, TX. Now, i’m interested to visit. Mineral Wells is a small, historic resort town west of Fort Worth. It’s the sister city of Hot Springs, Arkansas. And our guest’s family has been on the forefront to save it from recent decline. For me, this, what Macy Nix Alexander relates to me is how people who truly love their place can be the change tha...

Eric Kronberg, of Kronberg Urbanists + Architects , is a wealth of knowledge for people wanting to truly understand the realities of new construction in cities. First off, it’s Kronberg with a long o, not as I initially pronounced it. Apologies to Eric. Eric and I talk about his work in missing middle housing, working in development in Atlanta, and the opportunities and perils of doing infill new...

So-called “urbanists” tend to travel to foreign lands and come back with the obvious takeaways: foreign cities good, American cities bad. I get that. I understand the impulse. I’ve done it myself, so who am I to judge? But let’s suppose for a minute we put that impulse on pause, and ask, what can we learn that can be applied quickly and inexpensively to American cities? If we look past the charm o...

Monte Anderson of Neighborhood Evolution and Options Real Estate in Duncanville, Texas joins me to talk about extremely practical matters: making money in real estate. That is, as a small developer, how is it actually done? What are the pros and cons of different approaches, such as buying and holding vs selling? We start this by discussing a YouTube video from The Real Estate God. Yes, that’s the...

Truth is, I wish we talked a lot more about making cities as kid-friendly as possible. The topic is often overlooked. That’s why it was fascinating to see Derek Thompson’s article, “The Urban Family Exodus Is a Warning For Progressives” get so much traction. He clearly touched a nerve. Today, I give my take in this solo podcast. As a father, as someone that loves cities, and someone that is in fac...

We travel to the beautiful Pacific Northwest this week to talk with architect Cary Westerbeck. Cary lives and works in Bothell, Washington, a northern suburb of Seattle. He traces his path from being a bicycle mechanic to architect, developer and even Planning Commission member. One of the really cool things about this episode is hearing Cary take me step by step through his process to build the F...

Abby Newsham and I have some fun with a joint podcast this week, as we host Jim Heid. Jim runs the Small Scale Developer Forum , and has a new book called “ Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders, and Great Communities. ” He spent some time in Kansas City while preparing to host his next forum here in October. Registration is open now ! Jim is a wealth of great info...