0:01

Hey everybody, this is Chuck Morone with Strong Towns. Welcome

0:04

back to the Strong Towns podcast. Today we're going

0:06

to do something a little bit different.

0:09

I've been out on book tour and

0:11

not had as much time in the office in

0:13

the studio. And I've also

0:16

been doing a lot of interviews and a

0:18

lot of chats with other people. Today we

0:20

want to share with you one of those

0:22

conversations. This one on the

0:24

Messy City podcast. There's a

0:26

friend of mine named Kevin Klinkenberg. He's actually

0:28

been on the Strong Towns podcast in the

0:30

past. Brilliant guy,

0:32

lives in Kansas City now and

0:35

runs this podcast called the Messy

0:37

City podcast. You can find

0:39

it on Substack. I'm going to tell

0:41

you, you should be a subscriber to it. It's really

0:44

good. He has had along a lot

0:46

of my good friends. Kevin

0:48

is one of these

0:50

guys that I met through CNU and have known

0:53

now for a long time and just really thoroughly

0:55

enjoyed chatting with. You will see that come out

0:57

in this conversation. But this

0:59

is one of those places where I'm the one being interviewed.

1:01

So this will be a little bit different, a little bit

1:03

of a mix up. I got

1:05

some more stuff coming in future weeks

1:08

and I hope to see you out on the road. Escaping

1:11

the housing trap is out now. If you don't have

1:13

a copy, you can go to any local bookstore and

1:15

pick one up. You can pick one

1:17

up at all the usual online locations. And

1:20

let me tell you something. The book

1:22

actually became, it made it onto the

1:24

best seller list. So

1:27

Escaping the Housing Trap is now a national

1:29

best seller. I am,

1:32

and this is kind of weird for me

1:34

to say, but I am now a best

1:36

selling author. You

1:38

don't get to say that unless you actually

1:41

make one of these lists and never done

1:43

that before, but now I have. So

1:45

thank you to everybody who went out and bought the book. You

1:49

really, really helped propel this in a, in

1:51

a great way. We're seeing the momentum, hundreds

1:54

of people showing up at every event. Sales

1:57

are doing really well. Lots of

1:59

people are asking. to this book. Lots of people are

2:01

asking for this conversation. This

2:04

has really, really been very successful.

2:06

And thank you everybody for your book.

2:08

So here I am with my

2:11

friend Kevin from the Missy City Podcast.

2:13

Check it out on Substack and subscribe. Kevin

2:15

is great because we love all of you.

2:17

And see you next week. Welcome

2:26

back to the Missy City Podcast. This

2:28

is Kevin Klinkenberg. I'm

2:31

delighted today to have my friend Chuck

2:33

Marone on the show. Mr. Strongtowns,

2:36

Chuck, it is so good to see you

2:38

and I'm really excited to talk with

2:40

you today. Hey, I'm really

2:42

happy to be here. And here's the amazing

2:44

thing. I listen to your podcast. You

2:47

have a great voice for this. I

2:50

have this horrible voice that

2:53

people have grown used to. But when you

2:55

turn on, you're like, hey, this is the

2:57

Missy City Podcast. I'm like, yeah, man,

2:59

you should be chewing way more of

3:01

this. Well, at least you

3:03

didn't say that I have a great face for radio. Well,

3:07

you and I both. Oh,

3:10

man. Well, it's fun. I'm still very

3:12

much an amateur at the podcasting gig.

3:14

And it's been

3:16

fun to learn and experiment with it. You've

3:18

been doing it for quite a while. And

3:20

so I really

3:23

appreciate the opportunity to talk

3:25

with you on this show. And

3:27

we've got a couple of

3:29

fun topics and a couple of things that I

3:31

think will get more serious and interesting as we

3:33

go. And we'll just get through whatever we can

3:35

get through. That's great. We've

3:38

been having all my friends on. I

3:40

tried to do that. Yeah, here's Howard. I'm like,

3:43

wait a sec. That

3:45

was a blast. And you had Seth Zarinod

3:47

recently. I'm like, yeah, really cool.

3:49

So yeah, it's been fun. You know, I know

3:51

you. And

3:54

I know, you know,

3:56

some of the ways that you think about things. And

3:58

I really am. I

4:00

love chatting with you. I'm hearing you

4:02

have these phone conversations that we sometimes

4:04

get to heaven. Percent sure you have

4:06

them with other people is just as

4:08

a delight for me. So for murder

4:10

that's very great. Very flattering to hear

4:12

it you know is one of the

4:14

fun things you probably experiences to one

4:16

of the fundings about having a podcast

4:18

as you get to choose who you

4:20

want to talk to and there's a

4:22

lot of people that we know and

4:24

we've all known for a long time

4:26

that I get to learn so much

4:28

more about. And for

4:30

me that's been one of the most

4:32

enjoyable aspects of this is just getting

4:35

to really know people's backstories a lot

4:37

more. So that that's

4:39

that's that's been a great pleasure. Yeah,

4:41

yeah, well. you you know everything about

4:43

me, so we don't need to talk

4:45

about this. We know a lot about

4:47

it. A lot about shots. Chuck. Fortunately,

4:49

I shares his backstory a lot. or

4:51

although I'm sure there's tons we could

4:53

get into I'd I'd rather save the

4:55

time for some other topics. But yeah,

4:57

out of the interesting part. You

5:01

do have an awful lot going on right

5:03

now in this moment. In a want to

5:05

talk about a couple of things one. Is

5:08

you have a book or a

5:10

new book? The Strong escaping the housing

5:12

trap. The Strong Towns responses. is your

5:15

third spot, right? Yeah, yeah, that number

5:17

three. Amp. Tell

5:19

me a little bit about why.

5:22

Why an engineer ah wanted to

5:25

write a book about housing for

5:27

them? Well, The. The

5:29

reality the story is that I.

5:32

In the early days of writing the Strong

5:34

Towns blog. Was thinking about a

5:36

book the entire time. I mean, I started

5:38

reading this three days a week, a blog

5:40

back in two thousand and eight and to

5:42

me, it was building up to a book.

5:45

I had a couple. Young

5:47

publishing companies and agents contact me and

5:50

when I gave them my book proposal

5:52

it was just blow it was. It

5:54

was linked in two thousand and word

5:56

book like a didn't make sense. It

5:59

was only. when I got hooked up with Wiley Publishing,

6:02

where we step back and we said, okay, this

6:04

is actually multiple books, put this together in the

6:06

compilation of what you think it should be. And

6:08

I said, well, I think I should write the

6:10

book on finance first. I think I

6:13

should write the book on transportation. Second, third

6:15

would be housing. And then there's a couple others

6:17

that are coming. And

6:19

so we kind of agreed to a

6:21

five book series that would

6:24

kind of encapsulate the strong towns conversation.

6:28

Housing happened to be the third. And the

6:30

crazy thing about it is I didn't plan

6:32

to release it in the middle

6:34

of a housing crisis where everybody's

6:36

talking about housing and housing's like on the

6:38

lips of, you know, every

6:40

political debate and every public policy conversation.

6:43

It just so fortuitously happened that

6:45

we're dropping our ideas in

6:47

the middle of this kind of housing, you

6:50

know, policy feeding frenzy right now. Yeah.

6:53

I mean, that's an interesting aspect of that. I

6:55

know obviously there's a long timeline to write a

6:58

book anyway, to write it, get it

7:00

published, edited and all that sort of stuff. So

7:02

what, I'm curious, like what has changed

7:05

in your mind from the point when you

7:08

first started thinking about writing this book to

7:10

actually getting it out today? It's

7:15

so Daniel Hergis and I co-wrote this and I

7:17

know you had him on a couple of weeks

7:19

ago, it was a really good conversation. The

7:22

two of us, I think encapsulate

7:24

in our thinking the trap that

7:26

we were trying to illuminate because

7:30

we both went through the same graduate school program

7:33

and we both

7:35

maybe took different things away from it.

7:38

He was really focused on housing and kind

7:40

of the mechanics of

7:43

zoning and, you know,

7:45

how the government has intervened in the

7:47

housing market and all

7:49

the kind of things that I would just put like

7:51

under an urbanist label. And

7:54

for me, I was

7:56

really fascinated with the financial side of the

7:58

whole thing. That was. the thing

8:00

to me that when I

8:02

was in grad school, I didn't think the housing people

8:04

made any sense, quite frankly. You

8:06

have to take some of that. And I was like, this is

8:08

really dumb. I don't get it. And I

8:11

think I didn't get it because as an engineer,

8:14

I was more plugged into the finance

8:16

side. I spent a number

8:18

of years just reading

8:21

every book on finance that I could. I

8:23

actually watched for two years straight,

8:25

I had CNBC out in my office,

8:27

not because I think CNBC is a

8:29

good channel or has

8:31

revealing things, but because the lingo

8:33

that they use, the finance lingo that they use,

8:35

I didn't understand. So when they

8:38

said MBS, what is an MBS? It's a mortgage

8:40

backed security. When they were talking about interest

8:42

rate spreads and swaps, I'm like, what the heck

8:44

is that? Once I learned

8:47

that language, to me,

8:49

the fascinating thing about housing was how it

8:51

really is at its core downstream

8:54

of the financial conversation that's going

8:56

on in this country. So

8:58

Daniel and I really tried to merge those

9:00

two together, first in a set

9:03

of insights that two of us could agree on,

9:05

and then in a narrative of the book that we

9:07

could publish and share with the world. So

9:11

without giving away too much of the

9:13

book, obviously, we want people to go

9:15

buy the book. Yeah,

9:17

yeah. And I think you

9:19

can pre-order it right now. It's not

9:21

like it's a murder mystery. I'll

9:24

tell people the core insights, but there's a

9:26

lot of depth there beyond that. But

9:28

maybe how about just tease out a couple of the

9:31

key insights that you think are critical to

9:33

share related to what

9:35

the housing trap actually is? Well,

9:38

the housing trap is the situation we've gotten

9:40

ourselves in, where housing as

9:42

a financial product needs to go up

9:44

in value. So the price of your

9:47

house needs to go up for the

9:49

economy to churn. But

9:51

housing as shelter, when the price goes

9:53

up, Everything

9:55

falls apart. Lots of people can't get into a

9:57

house. If they get into a house, they're... The

10:00

you know very financially strained are

10:02

once they're in a house is

10:04

hop the stuff to move to

10:06

another job. So these two things

10:08

compete against each other. And.

10:11

They're both. Necessity is I'm in,

10:13

shelter is and masses hierarchy of

10:15

needs. and we've literally structured our

10:17

entire economy to mortgage backed securities

10:19

that your house, bundled with a

10:21

bunch of other houses sit as

10:23

the bank reserves for every bank

10:25

and the country. Housing

10:27

prices can't go down. The. Have

10:30

to go up financially. Housing

10:32

prices can't go up. they must actually com

10:34

town for us to be able to function

10:36

as a society and that that is the

10:39

trapped because both of those things are true

10:41

at the same time. Yeah,

10:43

yeah, it's a I think that probably

10:45

the word of the decade has been

10:47

financial Ized know and it seems like

10:50

we've We've used to discuss a lot

10:52

of the foundation of the economic system

10:54

we have today, and it's certainly affects

10:57

housing and all forms a real state.

11:00

You. Will, Daniel and I reached this

11:02

understanding quite awhile ago. Anyway, before

11:04

we start working on the book,

11:07

That. If you if you look

11:09

at the market for housing today. It

11:12

represents the market of financial products. So

11:14

when you see a developers are building

11:17

single family homes on the edge of

11:19

Kansas City. What? You're

11:21

seeing is the manifestation of

11:23

a financial instruments. The.

11:25

The mortgage. Bundled.

11:28

With other mortgages securitized, sold off as

11:30

a mortgage backed security, there's a lot

11:32

of liquidity. There's a lot of money

11:34

and capital put into that products because

11:36

it's a really good financial product. When

11:39

you see the five over one's

11:41

been built though, the one story

11:43

of concrete with five stories over

11:46

of of would construction whether it

11:48

is an apartment building or a

11:50

condo was a high end condo

11:52

or of the you know mid

11:54

level condo. Whatever it is those

11:56

also our financial products. Those are

11:58

really easy to bundle. The similar structures

12:00

from all over the country. Yeah,

12:03

securitize, sold off, bought up by pension funds, put

12:05

on the books or banks. All this stuff. What?

12:08

You don't see his. You

12:10

don't see. The the single

12:12

family home converted a duplex you don't

12:14

see, or the single family home where

12:17

we take the fourth bedroom that nobody's

12:19

using and put it make it an

12:21

accessory apartment. You don't see the backyard

12:24

cottage. You don't see the small four

12:26

hundred six hundred square foot starter home

12:28

because there's no financial products for those

12:31

things. But. Those are the

12:33

products that if they were available in

12:35

the local market, would actually anchor the

12:37

market at a lower price point and

12:39

keep the rest of it from going

12:41

crazy. And so the

12:43

conclusion that we've come to is that we

12:45

just need a policy to build, not. More

12:48

single family homes and not more

12:50

five over ones and more apartment

12:52

buildings. We really need policies to

12:54

build lots of the starter stuff.

12:57

And. The cool thing about it is that

12:59

cities can do that on their own. They

13:01

don't need federal grants and approvals, they don't

13:03

need state support and finance, The actually have

13:06

the capacity to really shift their my local

13:08

housing market, make it more local responsive, and

13:10

they can do it all on their own.

13:12

They just have to do it with intention.

13:15

Yeah I think one of the

13:17

things that you've you've talked about

13:19

a written a lot about to

13:21

is the notion of how are

13:23

after the financial crisis or two

13:26

thousand and eight two thousand and

13:28

ten or so that the housing

13:30

recovery in many ways has been

13:32

kind of reince leading about of

13:34

a him. I'm fascinated by this

13:36

because I'm obviously I'm not an

13:38

economist or although I play one

13:40

on Tv and it's it. It

13:42

certainly seems like this the signs

13:44

of stress that we've. Seen in

13:46

the banking system even the

13:48

last but say year year

13:51

and a half is putting

13:53

a ton of pressure on

13:56

or the local community banks

13:58

am continuing to. Centralize the

14:00

banking system into larger and larger banks

14:02

including like the for banks that are

14:04

essentially protected by the federal government, so

14:06

that it in essence it kind of

14:09

seems like we haven't really the and

14:11

a federal level. We're almost doubling down

14:13

on this approach that has given us

14:15

these these large products that we don't

14:17

really like. There's

14:19

no doubt that our strategy

14:21

when housing. Starts. To

14:23

level off or go down as in

14:26

like two thousand, Seven, two thousand and

14:28

eight. When housing went down in price,

14:30

our strategy is to pump more money

14:32

into the top of the financial funnel

14:34

in order to keep housing going in

14:37

the other direction. And or to keep

14:39

housing from from falling. And So yeah.

14:41

you had this weird thing where every

14:43

economist looks back at. Two thousand

14:45

and one to two thousand and eight and

14:48

when you say housing what they'll fill in

14:50

the blank with bubble this ah yes it

14:52

was as in bubble and easy. Okay well

14:54

in two thousand and Eight is sorry to

14:56

go down a little bit and then ah

14:58

two thousand and ten and hit bottom minutes

15:00

or to go back up and is way

15:02

way higher than it it was is today

15:04

than it was in Two thousand and Eight

15:07

That was a bubble. What is this an

15:09

issue with as a housing recovery right? Like

15:11

we recovered to a bubble and and beyond.

15:14

That. This is. Either.

15:17

I think we don't know. All

15:20

of the. Things. That we

15:22

will know after the next reset. Your.

15:25

Warren Buffett has the same as you

15:27

don't know who's swimming naked to the

15:29

tide goes out and the financial side

15:31

has not gone out yet, so we

15:33

really don't know where the bodies are

15:35

buried. But if you listen to financial

15:37

news, you'll hear a lot of fretting

15:39

over regional banks, commercial real estate. A

15:41

lot of people when they hear commercial

15:43

real estate think Walmart or strip mall

15:46

or bar, franchise, restaurant or what have

15:48

You does. A certainly part of commercial

15:50

real states but also part commercial real

15:52

estate. His apartment buildings. You.

15:54

know multifamily multifamily buildings is a big

15:57

part of commercial real estate and those

15:59

are finance with at

16:02

least partially with short-term financial products at

16:04

local banks that have to be rolled

16:06

over and there

16:09

is a huge incentive to extend

16:11

and pretend that they'll

16:13

someday be rented out at

16:15

high margins, at high prices. And

16:18

that works when interest rates are low

16:20

or very stable. But when interest rates

16:22

rise, those financial products

16:25

actually decrease in value, those bonds do.

16:28

Banks are less willing to

16:30

or less able to

16:33

really pretend that in the

16:35

100-unit apartment, the

16:38

50 units or 40 units that aren't rented

16:40

will someday be rented at this really high

16:42

rate. The bank can

16:45

only pretend so much until

16:47

the grim reaper of finance comes for

16:49

them. And it kind of feels

16:51

like for regional commercial banks, that's going to

16:53

be the shakeout that will make a

16:56

lot of cascading things in

16:59

the apartment market be

17:02

very, very different six months, 12 months from now.

17:05

Yeah, if I were to maybe tie

17:07

together a couple of different things. One

17:09

of your recent podcasts where

17:11

you talked about this is an election year and

17:13

you kind of went through this, which is great.

17:16

I really enjoyed it. And

17:18

I have long enjoyed

17:21

the way that you have talked

17:23

about politics and the sort of

17:25

reframing of the top down versus

17:27

bottom up instead of like left

17:30

right all the time. I

17:32

think that's incredibly helpful to think about.

17:35

But you mentioned you kind of talked a

17:37

little about the old Tip O'Neill phrase and

17:39

all politics is local and

17:42

how that shifted to all politics is national

17:44

today. And I can't help but

17:46

think about that in relation to like

17:48

this real estate discussion and financing where

17:51

real estate used to be hyper local and

17:54

it feels more and more like

17:56

all real estate is national in

17:58

that. respect in terms

18:00

of how we plan, design, and

18:03

finance whatever is being built. I

18:05

think that's a brilliant insight. Um,

18:08

to me, the question is

18:10

like, what, what is the price

18:12

of the house sensitive to, and

18:15

a lot of us think that it

18:17

should be sensitive to the buyer's ability

18:19

to pay, right? It you're,

18:21

you have a product in the marketplace. There's

18:23

someone coming to buy it. If that person

18:25

can't afford it, the market will have to

18:27

adjust and figure out, you know, is it

18:30

smaller units? Is it smaller rooms? Is it

18:32

less appointment? Like what is it that will

18:34

make that unit affordable to

18:36

the person buying it? But

18:38

our market is completely insensitive to the

18:41

ability of people to pay. What

18:43

it is more sensitive to is the

18:45

macroeconomic funding stream. If we

18:47

can lower interest rates, if

18:50

we can print money at the fed and

18:52

buy mortgage-backed securities, if we can create massive

18:54

amounts of liquidity, if we can funnel this

18:56

liquidity to hedge funds and others that will

18:59

invest in single family homes

19:01

as rental products or in commercial

19:03

back real estate, uh, what

19:06

we can do is we can really drive up

19:08

the price. And so I think

19:10

from a consumer standpoint, you

19:13

have to ask like, what is the product here? We

19:16

think that the product is us buying

19:18

a house where the consumer, the house

19:20

is the product. But the reality is,

19:22

is that that transaction is incidental to

19:24

creating what the real product is, which

19:27

is a mortgage or a commercial real

19:29

estate certificate, something that can be bundled,

19:31

uh, can be securitized and sold off. That

19:34

is what the market is sensitive to,

19:36

not to your iniability to pay. We

19:38

are in all sense, not

19:40

the consumer. We are the product.

19:43

Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah,

19:46

I think, I think that's right. And, uh, um,

19:49

well, I, I suppose this, uh, topic since

19:51

the book is fresh or will be freshly

19:53

out will be a big, uh, center of

19:55

discussion at the strong towns national gathering coming

19:57

up in a couple of weeks. Yeah,

20:01

no doubt. I mean, I know that I'm scheduled

20:03

to do a little bit of housing discussion there.

20:07

You know, the National Gathering is really, we

20:10

don't call it a conference, we don't call

20:12

it, we call it a gathering, because it

20:15

really is Strongtown's advocates from all over. I

20:18

would say all over the country, but it's all over

20:20

North America, and we've got people coming from around the

20:22

world for this thing. It

20:25

really is a chance for people to see and learn

20:28

what other people

20:30

are doing bottom up to build Strongtown's. And

20:32

housing is certainly part of that and will

20:34

be part of the discussion. But

20:36

a big, big emphasis of the

20:38

gathering is just to... There's

20:41

a phrase that I used last year that I'll probably

20:43

talk about this year again, is just like, you're not

20:46

alone. Being an advocate

20:48

in a city can feel, you can feel very alone,

20:50

like you're the, you know, the man or the woman

20:52

against the machine. And the reality

20:54

is, is that when people join together in a

20:56

neighborhood, when they start to gather more people together

20:58

with them, there's so much that can

21:00

be done from the bottom up. It's

21:03

really empowering to get

21:05

these local heroes in a room, let

21:08

them see each other, let them talk to each

21:10

other, let them hear each other's stories. I feel

21:13

like that's the most powerful part of the

21:15

gathering, really. Yeah, yeah. Well,

21:17

I certainly enjoyed it last year, and then the

21:19

first one you had a few years ago in

21:21

Tulsa. And this,

21:24

this one's coming up in Cincinnati,

21:26

May 14th and 15th. Yeah,

21:28

it precedes the Congress for the New Urbanism.

21:31

And both are well, well worth attending. So

21:33

I hope, hope folks who are listening can

21:36

get out. And if you get a chance

21:38

to attend, that's great. If you can't look

21:41

at it for next year, it's really, it's

21:43

really a cool way to meet people who

21:45

are interested in the same things. I was

21:47

really fascinated, Chuck, last year in

21:49

Charlotte at the... I talked

21:52

about this with a number of our CNU friends,

21:54

the difference in the dynamic between the Strong Towns

21:56

crowd and the CNU crowd. Seeing

21:58

that back to back. was really fascinating

22:02

and it's completely

22:04

and utterly anecdotal and

22:06

just judging you know by what I saw

22:09

but I felt like there

22:11

was a lot of energy in the

22:13

strong towns room and strong

22:15

town side of things and

22:17

generally speaking a younger crowd

22:21

and less you know like

22:23

the senior crowd long has been focused on

22:26

the design and building professions architecture

22:28

engineering planning and the

22:30

strong town which is great you know it's fine

22:32

we need we have to do that but the

22:34

strong towns crowd was really different was much more

22:36

diverse in terms of the backgrounds of the people

22:38

that were there. So

22:42

you and I are I'm gonna say I'm

22:44

a little older than you right I'm 50

22:46

this year. I'm 54 my friend.

22:49

Okay okay well all

22:51

right I assumed I was a little older than you

22:53

you just look younger that's what it is. I

22:56

just kept my hair color longer that's all. You

23:00

and I have been hanging out together at

23:02

the CNU for many years and I remember

23:05

when I first started going this

23:08

was the place of super high energy right

23:10

like I would go I would

23:12

meet all these thinkers and all these people

23:14

doing stuff and we would like debate things

23:16

in the hallway and there was all these

23:18

like side things going on. Remember in Salt

23:20

Lake City when we did the first debates

23:22

yeah this is like crazy wild party of

23:25

and I say party I don't drink there

23:27

was no like this is a party of like

23:29

intellect like it was just like electric in the

23:31

air. I have been searching

23:37

for that the last few years I've been like

23:39

where's that like I want I want to be

23:41

in the room with that energy and

23:44

I showed up at our gathering

23:46

last year with high expectations

23:48

but really you know knowing

23:51

having been on the road and met with

23:53

people knowing that our movement had a lot

23:56

of this bottom-up energy a lot

23:58

of you know know, just

24:00

very different people from people who are

24:03

doing retail and like I sell flowers and

24:05

I, you know, have a bakery to

24:08

people who are I'm not building homes, I'm doing this

24:10

stuff. I'm on a planning commission. I'm a mayor of

24:12

a city. There

24:15

really is a, when

24:17

you say diverse, it's a it's

24:19

a it's a crazy group of bottom

24:21

up people, all who self identify

24:23

as like, I love my place, I want it to be

24:25

better. I walked into that

24:27

room, the opening last year

24:29

and I'm like this energy is out

24:32

of this world. It's amazing. I'll

24:35

give you a little like under the hood. I'm

24:39

I wanted last year, like let's get some music.

24:41

There should be a party like we're having a

24:43

party here. Like everyone's coming together. Let's get some

24:45

music. And when I got there, and like I

24:48

had a thing where my daughter was graduating, like

24:50

that was the week of her graduation from high

24:52

school. And I could I flew in at the

24:54

last minute and I had to fly out right

24:56

away. So it was just like, the

24:58

timing didn't work well for me. But

25:01

I got there. And like we didn't have the music

25:03

because like logistically, it wasn't going to work and the

25:05

sound system wasn't going to work and all that. And

25:08

I kind of was like a little disappointed. I'm like, Oh,

25:10

I don't I don't I kind of want the vibe to

25:12

be up here. I walked in

25:15

the room and the vibe was up here. And I'm

25:17

like, if we would have music like they would have

25:19

blown the roof off this place would have been a

25:21

little too crazy. Because people were amped, they were excited.

25:24

I have been reassured that this year there will

25:26

be music. So we'll see what happens in

25:30

Cincinnati if we can get

25:32

things even more excitement. Yeah,

25:37

well, I look forward to that. I mean,

25:39

I think like you I have, you

25:41

know, it used to be like the CNU,

25:43

we would come back from a CNU and the

25:45

adrenaline rush was so crazy that for like

25:47

a month afterwards, all you could do

25:49

was think about the stuff that you heard and talked

25:51

about. And you're like, we've got to do X, Y

25:53

and Z now. And, you know,

25:56

I honestly haven't felt that rush in

25:58

along in quite a while. C

26:00

and you part of that might just be

26:02

that I'm getting older and It's

26:05

harder for me to feel that and things

26:07

you know things change but

26:10

there's there's definitely you

26:12

know, I love the excitement of the debate

26:15

and the discussions and And

26:17

seeing a lot of younger people there. I

26:20

think is really cool. So kudos to you

26:22

guys and thank you continues thank

26:24

you, it definitely will we're committed to it and

26:27

You know, I mean this thing's going

26:29

off here in a couple weeks and

26:31

we're almost full so I mean

26:33

we've sold hundreds

26:35

of tickets People flying in from

26:38

all over it will be it will

26:40

be it will be really cool All

26:42

right. Well, let's shift and talk about something a little

26:44

more Light-hearted perhaps but I

26:46

want to talk first. Let's talk about baseball

26:49

Something that both of us share an interest in

26:53

both American League Central Division fans

26:57

of different teams and You

27:01

know obviously there's a rivalry but yeah there honestly

27:04

there isn't really much of a rivalry because both

27:06

teams are never good at the Same time who

27:09

do you like legitimately consider your top

27:11

rival? Well, I think for

27:13

years the weird thing is it was like

27:15

the Cardinals, right? But they're not even but

27:17

they're National League, right? They're not

27:19

even in your division, right? So when

27:22

interleague play started, I think

27:24

that became a really really big deal and

27:26

those games were enormous in both cities Yeah,

27:29

yeah tapered off a lot and it's

27:31

probably you know, the Cardinals have been such

27:33

a great organization for so long They probably

27:36

kind of laugh about it the amongst themselves

27:40

So anymore, I don't know, you know

27:42

when I was growing up It

27:44

was the Yankees. It was the Royals and

27:46

Yankees Because in

27:48

the 70s the Royals had those

27:51

great teams That

27:53

won the division every year 76 77

27:55

78 and then went to the

27:57

playoffs and just like lost to the 80

27:59

Yankees every year and

28:02

finally turned around in 1980 and won it and world

28:04

with the World Series but

28:07

so for years there actually was a pretty fierce

28:09

rivalry between the Royals and the Yankees but that

28:11

was again not in

28:13

the same division so it was a little odd. We

28:16

share this in common because the the twins I

28:19

think we I mean we did have the record of all

28:22

sports for most consecutive

28:24

playoff losses and losing

28:26

consecutively in baseball games is hard

28:28

to do because even

28:31

you know even coming in with mismatched

28:33

teams you've got a like 40% chance

28:35

of winning statistically any game. The

28:38

idea I think we lost 17 or 18 in a row postseason

28:40

and almost all of those were to the

28:43

Yankees and so we had a deep I

28:46

mean I told my daughter growing up

28:48

you know she's two years old and I said

28:51

in this family we don't hate anybody but we

28:53

do hate the Yankees. That's

28:58

it acceptable but for me in the division

29:00

it's the White Sox like I I'm not

29:02

a fan of Cleveland I I don't

29:05

really care about Detroit all that much I

29:07

gotta say Kansas City does not

29:09

like I don't get you know

29:11

foaming at the mouth when we're playing Kansas City but

29:14

when we play Chicago the White Sox I

29:16

like go ahead and hit every

29:18

ever the batter I don't care I

29:21

don't like those guys. Yeah

29:24

and the White Sox they just have every misfortune

29:27

I mean come on I think ever since they

29:29

told tore down old Comiskey it's been like a

29:31

curse on that team yeah so

29:33

so speaking of

29:36

go ahead let me let me tell this

29:38

story real quick because this will solidify Chicago

29:41

for me I took

29:43

Chloe my oldest she came

29:45

I was speaking in Chicago once and she she's

29:48

probably like five or six young

29:50

kid we rode the train the Amtrak to Chicago

29:52

and we were just there for a couple days

29:54

I spoke at this conference the

29:56

White Sox were playing a game and so we

29:58

went to the game like baseball, you know,

30:00

dad and daughter go in the game. We showed

30:02

up, she wanted to wear her twins jersey because,

30:05

you know, the twins weren't playing. It was the

30:07

White Sox versus some other team. I don't even

30:09

remember. We walked in to sit

30:12

down, little girl with a cute little

30:14

pink twins jersey on people started booing

30:16

her and yelling at her. Like literally

30:18

like she started crying. She felt bad.

30:20

I'm like, these people don't deserve

30:22

this kid. This is the White Sox. I

30:25

hate you guys. I'm sorry. I

30:27

came to your dumb stadium with my

30:29

beautiful daughter. Get lost. It

30:34

is their punishment for build it, tearing down a

30:36

nice stadium, building a hurry. Yeah. Having

30:38

a lousy honor. Yeah. Yeah.

30:40

I mean, it was probably the worst new

30:43

baseball stadium built in that entire

30:45

era. So speaking of

30:47

new stadiums, one of the things I

30:49

just want to chat with you about and get your perspective on is

30:52

we are having a big

30:54

debate here locally regarding baseball

30:56

stadiums because the the

30:59

Royals ownership, which is a new ownership group,

31:01

they bought the team, I guess, three years

31:03

ago, local people

31:06

led by John Sherman. They

31:09

want to build a new park. They want to

31:12

leave Kauffman Stadium and build a new park in

31:14

the downtown area. And which

31:17

in theory, you know, I'm I and

31:19

many other people are like, great, let's

31:21

do it. Sounds awesome. But,

31:25

you know, obviously, we're having this kind

31:27

of age old debate about

31:29

how to finance and

31:31

build a stadium and

31:34

in a smaller market like Kansas

31:36

City that comes with, you

31:39

know, fairly, very fairly large public

31:41

subsidy one way or another. And

31:44

the projects themselves just balloon in size,

31:46

you know, incredibly. And we're talking instead

31:49

of a baseball stadium that might be,

31:51

I don't know, let's say six hundred

31:53

million dollars. Now it's a stadium

31:55

in a district that's two billion. And

31:58

The public is expected. Turn her

32:00

underrated significant share of that so.

32:04

There's you know we have this week.

32:06

There's been this knowledge within our world

32:09

for years that a lot of us

32:11

the economics of this are just kinda

32:13

silly. but how the how the hell

32:15

does cities escape this. Discussion.

32:18

In this trap because I'm completely

32:20

mystified as how we ever get

32:22

out of the situation where we

32:24

are subsidizing. Major. League franchises.

32:29

I I have some weird thoughts on

32:31

this. Please. Show ends I yeah

32:33

I don't think that I think that

32:35

people who are going to hear this and

32:37

I probably is gonna make like everybody

32:39

everybody angry because I do have a

32:41

very strange thoughts on this so. Let's.

32:45

Go out to the edge of Kansas City. Where.

32:48

The. Deo T. And

32:50

the city are actively

32:53

building interchanges. Because.

32:55

They want to get more development. What

32:58

I find frustrating about that. When

33:01

you go build an interchange. And

33:03

you've got on ramps and off ramps

33:05

on the highway. You're You're in a

33:07

sense robin that highway capacity. right?

33:10

Because. In interchange creates friction and

33:12

slows down traffic and all that. In.

33:15

Order to get the development on the

33:17

side of the highway, the frontage roads,

33:19

the interchange at all the. Big.

33:21

Box stores and all the stuff that will go there

33:24

and then the housing subdivision that will go jason to

33:26

that. The act

33:28

of building a interchange makes multimillionaires out

33:30

of a bunch of random was out

33:32

in the middle of nowhere. It it

33:34

might be the guy who like inherited

33:36

it from someone who inherited it your

33:39

summer from inherited it like and that's

33:41

probably the most palatable would generally happens

33:43

at someone by bought it from him

33:45

a decade ago and like a land

33:47

speculator just sat on it and and

33:49

work with the deal t to get

33:51

it developed. but either way it's a

33:53

massive cash. Transfer from

33:56

the public to. Private.

33:59

property owners And I have always

34:01

said, if we're going to do that, we

34:03

should do one of two things as a public.

34:06

We should go out and buy up all

34:08

that land around where the interchange is going

34:10

to be. I'm thinking like a mile in

34:12

each direction. We

34:15

should buy that ahead of

34:17

time at pre-interchange rates. We

34:20

should build the interchange, and then the interchange makes

34:22

the land more valuable. We

34:24

should then sell the land back to the

34:27

market at that higher rate and use that

34:29

amount to pay for the interchange. That

34:32

or a more conventional way to do it would

34:34

be to do a special assessment, which cities do all

34:36

the time when they're out building sewer and water. They

34:39

special assess the whole thing. I'm

34:42

cognizant of the fact that the Colosseum

34:44

in ancient Rome was not

34:46

built in order to get ancient Rome. Like

34:48

ancient Rome was what it was, and then

34:50

wealthy patrons came in and said, I want

34:52

everybody to think I'm awesome, so I'm going

34:54

to build this Colosseum and deck it all

34:56

out and do all that. I

34:59

feel like our stadiums are in a sense the

35:02

same thing. If I

35:04

were sitting, working

35:06

with some very rich people to try to

35:09

build what is in a sense a monument

35:11

to them and their plaything,

35:13

this Major League Baseball team, I

35:16

would want to use the tools

35:18

of either imminent domain and development,

35:20

or I would want to use

35:23

the tools of special assessment to

35:25

recoup my part of the investment. Because

35:28

if I'm going to build a

35:30

baseball stadium, I want it

35:33

to be Wrigley Field in terms of the intensity

35:35

of the development around it and

35:37

what that actually means to the land

35:39

values in its vicinity. If

35:41

I'm going to build, I can't remember what the

35:43

Atlanta one is called. I hate

35:46

that state. The Cobb

35:48

Field or something like that. It's Truist. Is

35:51

it Truist Park? Truist? Yeah. It's

35:53

a junk park. It might be a nice place, but

35:56

I don't like anything about its development. Target

36:01

Field, which is like one of my, I

36:04

think Target Field is my favorite park

36:06

and I'm biased obviously of Minnesota Target

36:08

Field. But

36:11

I think it's a great park. I think the

36:13

way they financed it is really backward. And

36:16

the development around it has

36:18

trailed the park by

36:20

10 to 15 years because

36:22

we didn't have the right

36:25

kind of financial – I'm going to use

36:28

the word incentives, but I don't mean giveaways.

36:30

I mean incentives by – like now

36:33

you've got a $10 million

36:35

special assessment in this land. You

36:38

better build something that has $100 million on it or

36:40

you're going to pay a high tax rate year after

36:42

year after year. You've got to make

36:44

use of this property. We didn't have everybody's

36:46

incentives aligned when we made the big public

36:49

investment. And so we didn't get the private

36:51

investment out of it that we should have

36:53

got. I

36:55

could buy into stadiums if

36:58

we actually had that mindset

37:00

because then the public is

37:02

not only going to recoup their

37:04

investment ultimately, but you're

37:06

going to get a really nice product at

37:08

the end. Yeah, I think that's

37:10

a really interesting way to think about it. And

37:14

unfortunately I don't think we don't really

37:16

have public officials – Is there

37:19

something for it? Oh yeah, we don't have to come

37:21

to court. I mean

37:23

Chuck says imminent domain, everything within a

37:25

mile. I mean that's

37:27

crazy, but

37:30

if you were responsible with your finances, you

37:32

would do a special assessment. Yeah, yeah.

37:36

I mean I think there's a lot of logic

37:38

to that. And maybe you don't even recover all

37:41

of the public investment, but you

37:43

could recover a substantial portion of it. Who

37:45

knows? I think you

37:47

recover some of it upfront, right? You

37:50

can have your upfront and then you'll

37:52

have the after effect of basically

37:54

having the incentives aligned where people will then develop,

37:56

and then you will collect the rest of it

37:58

in terms of long-term tasks. I mean, I've

38:02

watched Kansas City. Joe, our friend,

38:04

Joe Minicosi did some analysis of

38:06

tax increment financing deals that Kansas

38:08

City's done that would make your

38:11

stomach churn. I mean, just giving

38:13

away tens of millions of dollars

38:15

to the most ludicrous kind of things that will

38:17

never cash flow. I've watched Kansas

38:19

City build monstrosity things out on

38:21

the edge of town and call it growth

38:23

and call it public investment when the city's

38:25

guaranteed to lose money on every single one

38:27

of these things. You don't even need more

38:29

than a napkin analysis to figure that out.

38:33

It makes me sad. If

38:36

Kansas City were to become more sophisticated

38:38

about the public purse, I

38:40

think they could build a stadium responsibly,

38:43

but they can't do it without,

38:46

in a sense, demanding that everyone who's going to

38:48

get rich on it contributes

38:51

proportionately to what is being

38:53

built. Yeah. Yeah. I

38:56

like that. It's sort of a third

38:58

way thought pattern about it

39:00

because as I tried

39:03

to talk to people locally about it here, unfortunately

39:05

with the reality of sports and

39:07

sports economics today, like the city

39:09

the size of Kansas City, you're

39:11

just not going to build a

39:13

new facility without public investment in

39:16

it. It's just not going to happen or

39:18

you're going to lose the teams. That

39:20

sucks, but that's where we are. Didn't

39:23

New York have public subsidy on their ZO2? I

39:27

think they might have. I know in San Francisco

39:29

when the Giants built their new stadium, they built

39:31

it all themselves. I

39:34

can't remember some of the new football. I

39:36

know the 49ers. The 49ers got a huge

39:38

subsidy on theirs. Yeah. I'm

39:42

with you because you

39:45

and I are both told that we're mid-market

39:47

teams. You've

39:50

suffered the trauma. No, I

39:52

was going to say you've suffered the trauma of having a

39:54

football team lead, but that was St. Louis that had the

39:56

football team lead. That wasn't Kansas City. You

39:59

guys have the glory. Football Team: We.

40:01

Do we had? We had a baseball team

40:03

leave but that was before Osborne to okay

40:05

so dame that trauma is there is god

40:07

Yeah but we did it. We lost in

40:09

in be a team and in a Nhl

40:11

team in my lifetime. So really what What

40:13

was your and be a team? I don't

40:15

remember that it was kinda City Kings they

40:18

went to Sacramento Sacramento. No kidding. Yeah in

40:20

the I did not know that their partner.

40:24

At one point we were the small city

40:26

in the country that had all four major

40:28

sports leagues we've been told that that Minnesota

40:31

can't support for because we're too small for

40:33

that And as always the he knows. I

40:35

feel like it's one of those things where

40:37

each team can kind of threatened to leave

40:40

be as their the where the fourth one

40:42

that can be supported with our topic stadium.

40:46

Yeah. Here's

40:48

here's. So. He

40:51

you have your you have a background

40:53

in architecture. Here's

40:55

what I struggle with with stadiums. I.

40:59

Sealed like. It.

41:01

And I'll say this even about my beloved

41:03

target field. We. Don't

41:05

build stadiums. That.

41:08

Will. Be. Around

41:10

to be excavated. In. The

41:12

future. Like the the Roman Colosseum we can

41:14

look at and we can you know see

41:16

this grandeur and like it's been there are

41:19

thousands of years. We.

41:21

Don't build anything that isn't in

41:23

a sense. Ah, it might have

41:25

a nice fancy facade and that might be nice.

41:27

and we've you some decorative brick to make it's

41:29

you know look good. But the reality is his

41:32

act like we just built up a plastic band

41:34

box. With. Them good veneer on

41:36

it that looks cool and I like the dimensions.

41:39

But. These aren't like massive

41:41

public investments met to endure.

41:44

Beyond really a generation right? I mean

41:46

of I am I misunderstanding something about

41:49

are we building things well that he

41:51

there was an era where they were.

41:54

Built. differently i think it's probably

41:56

more commonly the case now i'm

41:58

i mean even Kaufman Stadium

42:00

is a pretty incredible structure

42:03

in and of itself. There

42:07

were a lot of impressive structures though built

42:09

in that era in the 60s now that

42:11

basically are all gone. They're all torn down

42:14

and replaced. It seems more like,

42:17

they're thought of more like a

42:19

consumer product now. That

42:22

is like you build these stadiums and

42:24

they're wildly expensive and they're huge, but

42:27

essentially they're built to last maybe

42:29

two generations. And

42:32

then we're looking to either completely overhaul

42:34

it or replace them. I

42:37

realized that the Metrodome, which the

42:41

Metrodome was a special case product

42:43

where we built the dumbest stadium

42:45

at the end of the dumb

42:47

stadium era. I think the

42:49

year after we built the Metrodome or two

42:51

years later Camden Yards was built and

42:54

everyone had buyer's remorse right away. But

42:57

you're talking about a stadium that at

43:00

the 18 year mark, they said

43:02

needs to come down and we're going to contract

43:04

this team and actually have fewer baseball teams because

43:06

of this bad stadium. We

43:08

got Target Field in 2008 or

43:11

2009 somewhere in there. I

43:14

think somewhere in that range. The

43:17

Metrodome era lasted 24, 25 years. I

43:22

remember that the roof caved in

43:24

on it and

43:26

no one was sad really to see it go

43:28

because it was really like a plastic box. It

43:33

seemed to me like it's a consumer

43:35

good. Like it's just designed. And

43:39

I wonder if because

43:43

Wrigley Field, you

43:46

could tear that down and rebuild it in place.

43:50

I don't know what it would take to do that.

43:53

I mean, people would flip out if you did that.

43:56

They're going to maintain it until it can't be

43:58

maintained anymore. But there's

44:00

really no question of where the Chicago

44:02

Cubs will play. And

44:05

I don't think that's because it's iconic as much as

44:07

it is embedded in

44:09

this ecosystem around it. Yeah. Yeah.

44:13

Yeah. I'm sorry, Kevin. To

44:15

me, the key to having a good

44:17

public stadium investment would be that

44:20

you have to actually grow

44:22

the ecosystem around it. So there's some

44:24

codependency. So that thing actually

44:26

like could never leave again. Yeah.

44:29

As our friend, Philip Best would say,

44:31

he wrote a great, great little book

44:34

called City Baseball Magic, which

44:36

actually was a study of what the White

44:38

Sox should have done when they replaced Comiskey

44:40

Park. But he talked about

44:43

it. The Best Ballparks are

44:45

neighborhood ballparks with an emphasis on

44:48

the neighborhood park. So

44:51

Chuck, one fun little bit of

44:53

baseball park trivia for you. One

44:57

of the very first projects I worked on as a young

44:59

architect right out of college was

45:02

at the Metrodome. You remember

45:05

at one point they put in like

45:07

these big vertical screens to block off

45:09

parts of the seats. Yeah,

45:11

the baggy. Yeah. To block off

45:13

part of the seats to make it look more

45:15

full for different events. I did that. Man,

45:19

I hated you then. Because

45:21

it was a ridiculous project. It

45:24

was so weird because what it was, the Metrodome

45:27

was built like a football stadium. And

45:30

then they overlaid this baseball stadium

45:32

within it. And

45:35

I had season tickets for a while. My brother and

45:37

I, when I was in grad school, I got them.

45:40

We went up, the twins had been historically bad

45:43

for many years. And they were

45:45

selling season tickets at an event. And my brother

45:47

and I said, well, let's go look at them.

45:49

If we can get front row seats, we'll do

45:51

it. We got front row seats down

45:54

by the tunnel where they come out for the football

45:56

game. So it was like by the bullpen. It

45:58

wasn't... I wasn't

46:00

by the dugout or anything. It was like maybe like

46:03

what would be in the corner today? But front

46:05

row is front row. I mean, they were really

46:07

cool. Like we were right there. You could yell

46:09

at the right fielder and talk to the guys

46:11

in the bullpen. It was awesome. The

46:14

problem was you were facing the 50

46:16

yard line, which was like center field.

46:18

So if you wanted to watch the game, you had

46:20

to like crane your head over the left to actually

46:23

see the game going on. When

46:25

those banners went up, I

46:28

think the, what you tell me, I feel

46:30

like the thing was to try to make

46:32

it feel less empty because

46:34

you took out like 20,000 seats by

46:38

putting up this big curtain to say,

46:40

hey, it's not as empty. And it's

46:42

a little more intimate. Yeah,

46:46

it didn't work. It was a funny deal. Just

46:51

the sort of projects you give a young architect to work

46:53

on. So did you, you came

46:55

up to the metronome and like, what

46:58

was your level of involvement with that? The funny thing

47:00

on that, I was just the kid in the office

47:02

doing the drawing work. So I didn't actually go get

47:04

to do a site visit for any part of it.

47:07

But when I was a little kid growing up in

47:09

Albert Lee, I mean, we went to

47:11

the metronome a lot. I have a lot of great memories of

47:13

going to games at the metronome. Now, hang on a sec. You're

47:16

not Minnesotan, are you? No,

47:19

not really. We lived

47:21

in Albert Lee. I

47:23

mean, I like you, I like you. And

47:25

you have some positive characteristics about you. I

47:27

didn't wanna automatically attribute them to being Minnesotan,

47:30

but now things are falling into place. We

47:32

lived in Albert Lee for eight years. Okay,

47:35

so you got a little of the vibe.

47:37

Yeah, yeah, totally. And when I

47:39

was a elementary school

47:41

kid and junior high, so those

47:44

are great years and great memories.

47:47

My parents, I think my parents really

47:50

were happy to get out. They thought

47:52

it was way too cold. And they

47:54

weren't too fond of that. You

47:56

didn't think it was too cold though, did you? Well, I

47:59

was a kid, I didn't. and you know. Yeah,

48:01

bring it on. Last

48:04

thing I just wanna kinda touch on a little bit

48:06

because it's a fun topic is you've been, you've

48:08

shared a lot in many podcasts about your love for

48:11

Disney World and your

48:13

enjoyment of Disney World. And

48:16

I just wanna touch on this a little bit. And I

48:18

was probably like, you know, thinking way too deeply about

48:20

all this stuff, but we took our kids there, I guess

48:22

it was about a year and a half ago. I

48:25

have actually no experience with Disneyland

48:28

in California, just Disney World in Florida.

48:31

And of course we had a

48:33

fantastic time. It was

48:35

absolutely magical for the kids, for the

48:38

age they were. And

48:40

you know, everything about it was really,

48:42

really nice. And

48:44

I just wanna talk a little bit about it

48:46

because it's fascinating to think about because if you

48:49

could think about like the unstrong towns, it

48:51

would be like Disney, Walt Disney World. If

48:55

you think about the most incredible, or at least this

48:57

was the thought I had at the time. If you thought

48:59

about something that was like the most top

49:02

down large enterprise you could conceive of,

49:04

it's Disney World. And we both

49:07

really, really enjoy it and find a lot

49:09

to admire in it. I wonder if

49:11

you could maybe expand on that

49:13

a little bit or talk about it. Well,

49:18

let's start with this. I

49:20

think the thing that I have

49:22

always loved from the time

49:24

that I was, I think

49:26

13 was the first time that my family went

49:29

up until today is that it is

49:32

some of the best designed urban spaces

49:34

in America. If

49:36

you want to experience, you

49:38

know, you and I hang out with a

49:40

crowd where there's actually a debate over, do

49:43

you like your urbanism gritty or do you

49:45

like it fake? And

49:47

like there's a whole strain of people who like,

49:49

if I can't smell urine in the street, it's

49:52

not a real city. And I'm from

49:55

a small town. I

49:57

actually like things nice. So the idea is,

50:00

of going to Disney World and riding

50:02

transit and how it'd be like beautiful

50:04

and comfortable and fun. The idea of

50:06

like not having a car and like

50:08

going to places and walking around and

50:10

yeah, there's a lot of other people

50:12

there but it's so well designed and

50:14

proportioned and the the

50:17

hyper attention on the

50:19

human experience, not

50:21

just standing how you stand in line

50:24

and weight but how you actually get

50:26

the transition from one place to another

50:28

to another. You know like the

50:30

sight lines that you have and the smells,

50:33

like all of this, the music, as

50:35

someone who is an auditory person, the

50:38

idea that you would walk between different

50:40

places and the music would not clash

50:43

with each other as you would go from one

50:45

place to another but actually blend. I

50:47

tried to explain this to my wife decades ago and I didn't

50:50

do a very good job. I said it's

50:52

comforting to me because it's so

50:54

well designed. I

50:58

used to take my, when I ran my

51:00

own planning and engineering firm, I

51:03

used to take my team down to just

51:06

show them here's what good urban

51:08

design looks like and like let me, let look at

51:10

the way these buildings are proportioned and laid out, look

51:12

at where they've done with the lighting, look at this.

51:15

It wasn't like we were going to come

51:17

back to Brainerd, Minnesota and build Disney World

51:20

but my gosh, you look at the lights

51:22

we put in the park, they're just like

51:24

ugly street lights because oh we need light

51:27

here. The attention to detail is

51:29

so deep and thorough and

51:33

the stories are just legend of like you know, they

51:35

would put a tree in a spot and Walt would

51:37

come and he'd look at it and be like oh

51:40

geez, I should be three feet over this

51:42

way. And be like why should it be three feet over,

51:44

well look at it, like here's where it blocks this view

51:46

and that like this and that and then he'd walk away

51:48

and they go we had to move the tree three feet

51:50

because now I'll never be able to walk by this and

51:52

see it that way again. Our

51:55

cities could

51:57

spend way less money and be

52:00

vastly more beautiful if

52:02

we had just a tiny bit

52:04

of the understanding of urban design

52:06

that like the base Imagineer

52:08

has. And

52:11

I think that is the thing that, you

52:14

know, it is Disney

52:16

World is not meant

52:19

to endure. It is, I

52:21

mean, they

52:23

call it a stage, you're on stage when you're

52:25

there at the park. It is, you

52:28

know, like a stage in a theatrical

52:30

production. It's false fronts. It's like

52:32

not, not like super high quality construction. It's

52:34

meant to be ripped down and rebuilt after

52:36

a certain amount of time. But

52:39

your city is made to endure. I mean,

52:41

you want your city to be around 100 years from now, 200 years

52:43

from now, and we none

52:45

of us build thinking that while this neighborhood

52:47

is going to be disposable. If

52:51

we grasped 10% of what

52:56

the Disney Corporation grasp about building

52:58

great places, it

53:00

would be a revolution in this country

53:02

of urban design. Yeah, I

53:04

think one of the things that that struck

53:07

me or maybe it just occurred to me differently

53:09

this time, as well

53:11

is since I'm in

53:13

professionally now I'm running this place

53:15

management organization here in

53:17

the city. And so I

53:20

have gotten a whole lot

53:22

more exposure and day to day work

53:24

with just management of public space. And,

53:28

you know, how difficult that is,

53:30

and just the challenges. I

53:33

started to look at a little bit through that lens. And

53:36

I think when when I

53:38

started to do that, I'm just completely and

53:40

utterly impressed with the management

53:42

of everything that Disney does, from

53:44

beginning to end from the entire experience

53:47

from when you arrive through the process

53:49

of going through security, oh my god,

53:51

the 1000s and 1000s of people that

53:54

go through security per hour. And it's

53:56

just this utterly seamless experience that you're

53:58

just like, why? Why can't the airport be

54:01

like this? All

54:05

the aspects of it really makes

54:07

you say this is what I think

54:09

a lot of us are really hoping. This

54:12

is how we wish our places were

54:14

managed on a daily basis, including the

54:16

cleanliness of it. I

54:18

know it's a fake world. It's a theme park. I

54:22

think that's part of it. It seems to me like that's part of

54:24

the attraction. Yeah. I

54:26

actually think we

54:29

can discount it and say it's a fake world. I totally

54:31

get it. But I

54:33

also feel like what they've

54:36

recognized that we all could

54:38

easily recognize is that

54:40

a huge part of creating value is

54:43

the experience. We

54:45

were having a chat here internally today

54:48

about an article that one of our

54:50

writers is working on about transit and

54:52

just how a lot of

54:55

the wayfaring is being taken out in New

54:57

York and in other places because

54:59

it was old and it just didn't

55:01

get replaced. You can go to

55:03

a place like Vancouver where they've got new parts of

55:06

the system and those parts have great wayfaring and great

55:08

signage. The reason

55:10

is because the way

55:14

we finance transit focuses

55:16

on massive one-time

55:18

investments. But it

55:21

doesn't really look at long-term the user experience

55:23

and how do we improve that, how we

55:25

put money towards that, and how do we

55:27

make that fun. We would rather have double

55:29

the size of the transit system and have

55:31

it be really crappy for everybody than to

55:33

have half the transit system and have it

55:36

be marvelous for everyone who uses it. That

55:39

is really a byproduct of

55:41

our macro economy. Progo grow, build,

55:43

build, build more, more, more. Money

55:46

builds a lot but they

55:49

never build anything without having a

55:52

strategy for how it will be

55:54

exquisitely maintained, for how it

55:56

will really be... conformed

56:00

and contorted to match

56:03

the experience. They're

56:06

always willing to check their assumptions,

56:08

check their understandings based on how

56:10

people use stuff. And

56:13

I think that we could learn a lot from that.

56:17

The four step process that we use at Strong

56:19

Towns, the idea that you humbly

56:21

observe where people struggle and you ask

56:24

yourself what's the next smallest investment and then you do

56:26

that and you repeat the process. Part

56:30

of that comes from really

56:32

Walt Disney himself. Now

56:34

this may be a apocryphal insight, but

56:41

there's a story about Walt that

56:43

feels like it's genuine. He

56:46

had an apartment at Disneyland and

56:49

he would go down in the morning and walk around

56:51

in his bathrobe watching

56:54

people get the park ready. And

56:56

one day he's out walking around and

56:58

they're putting up a fence. And

57:01

he's like, why are you putting up a fence there?

57:03

And he's like, well, people keep cutting across the grass.

57:05

We don't have to stay on the sidewalk. And

57:08

his answer was, well, you've got it wrong. Rip

57:11

out the sidewalk and put it here where people

57:13

are walking. They're showing you where to go. Anyone

57:18

who's been at one big bucks store and trying to

57:20

drive to the next big bucks store and recognizes that

57:22

they have to drive half a mile up the highway

57:25

and then do a weird U-turn and come back and

57:27

use it right in, right out and do all this.

57:30

Anybody who's tried to cross a street and recognize that

57:32

they have to walk half a mile to a street

57:34

light to cross and then come back appreciates

57:37

the idea that Walt

57:40

has, which is observe where

57:42

people are struggling, observe where this is hard

57:44

and just make it easier for them. To

57:47

me, this is a genius insight, but

57:49

it shouldn't be a hard one for

57:51

us to do. Yeah, and

57:54

I think the other thing is, the

57:57

other observation that I think ties into all that is, You

58:00

see with Disney World, or at least

58:02

what I saw with it, is we're

58:04

in this weird time and place in our

58:07

culture where there's

58:10

just not a lot of feeling that we're doing a

58:12

lot of things really well. And

58:15

even at the big corporate

58:18

level, very

58:20

large corporations, you know, it seems like there's

58:23

more bad news than good when it comes

58:25

to all that. And here

58:27

you have this massive corporation, the

58:30

Disney corporation is absolutely massive and owns so

58:32

many things. And they own

58:34

this enormous complex of Walt

58:36

Disney World. And

58:38

I think when you go there, it's like

58:40

it kind of, I can

58:43

understand like how my parents

58:45

would have thought about that

58:47

era, that America does big

58:49

things really well, because Disney

58:52

World epitomizes somebody, an

58:54

organization doing big things

58:56

really, really well, down

58:59

to the smallest detail like you described.

59:03

Well, the Walt Disney

59:05

embodies, for better and

59:08

for worse, I mean, I think there's obviously two

59:10

sides to this, the immediate

59:12

post-war mentality. I mean,

59:14

Disneyland itself is a hubristic

59:17

undertaking to

59:19

transform an orange

59:21

grove out in the middle of nowhere

59:23

into this dreamland where you

59:25

can take your kids, you can

59:28

take your grandparents, everybody can go and have

59:30

this wonderful time. His vision

59:32

came about because he was sitting at

59:34

like an old carnival, watching

59:37

his kids go on rides that were

59:39

dirty and not well taken care of

59:41

and grounds that weren't very fun. And

59:44

it's like, as an adult, you're kind

59:46

of ostracized from participating, let's build this

59:48

dream world. I

59:53

think it is in many ways the best

59:55

of that era because he

59:57

did have a Dream

59:59

and a vision. And that was very. Ah,

1:00:03

I'm. I'm not going to use i want

1:00:05

to use the word inclusive but I think

1:00:07

that is probably wrong a our current context.

1:00:10

But. He. He. He would have said

1:00:12

you know a place for everybody to com.

1:00:16

He was also criticized for being too expensive like

1:00:18

it is today. so like there was the you

1:00:20

know there's limits to what is expensive and is

1:00:22

very expensive. But I

1:00:24

think is also the worst. Of. What

1:00:26

we did Because it is

1:00:28

this idea that you can

1:00:30

create perfection. All

1:00:33

at Be like it is is possible

1:00:35

to build to a finished state and

1:00:37

have it be done right. And when

1:00:39

it comes to magical make believe places

1:00:41

I think that that's probably right because

1:00:43

they don't have a mindset that it

1:00:45

will always be there. they are always

1:00:47

redoing and refit seen things and all

1:00:49

that. But. Week when we take

1:00:51

that mentality and we bring it into our neighborhoods

1:00:53

in our cities were like when we can build

1:00:55

this with a doozy will tell you where we

1:00:57

got, build it perfect the first time and and

1:00:59

walk away. Sure, We'll get twenty

1:01:01

years where it's the nice neighborhood and

1:01:03

a good place and then it will become

1:01:06

a downward spiral like every place else.

1:01:08

and I. I. Do that we

1:01:10

have not. To. Eat It

1:01:12

It is almost become a place that

1:01:14

allows us to believe. In.

1:01:16

The wrong things. Like. With.

1:01:19

To. Me I feel like if I see if my mare went

1:01:21

to Disney world. He would

1:01:23

come back. not with the mentality of

1:01:26

we need obsessive maintenance and to humbly

1:01:28

observe where people are struggling and to

1:01:30

respond to the human condition and have

1:01:32

great urban design. He would come back

1:01:35

and say wow we can build big

1:01:37

stuff really quickly and have it be

1:01:39

awesome and I like that's the wrong

1:01:41

take away. Buddy up there, it's interfere

1:01:43

man if he does. Spousal on of

1:01:46

is a contradiction. So yeah yeah, I

1:01:48

feel it's probably a good place to

1:01:50

leave. it circulates. I should also mention

1:01:52

a case. You didn't know that Walt Disney

1:01:54

is from small towns? Hurry he is. No

1:01:57

I. I definitely knew that I'd been Want

1:01:59

it's it's more. Full name is Bethany. Remarks on.

1:02:01

Our saline. Marshall. Lean I've

1:02:03

seen a like a Minnesotan now lot

1:02:05

everything in Missouri constraints of society has

1:02:07

also Missouri. So I should say that

1:02:10

in a do people say actually say

1:02:12

that Missouri if you are not in

1:02:14

Kansas City or St. Louis it's pronounced

1:02:16

Missouri. Suicide. In our

1:02:18

that, you know, I spent a summer at

1:02:20

Fort Leonard Wood, which was one of the

1:02:22

most miserable summers in my life, yeah, so

1:02:25

I. I. Clay. If

1:02:27

you're Minnesota, we have this beautiful glacial

1:02:29

Outlaws send me like the engineering geek.

1:02:31

We have this nice glacial outlaw. so

1:02:33

when it rains, the water drains into

1:02:36

the ground. Food know I'm in Kansas

1:02:38

City or I'm sorry. I'm in Fort

1:02:40

Leonard Wood in Missouri and I have

1:02:42

a tent that I'm sleeping And because

1:02:44

I'm a soldier and it rains and

1:02:47

guess what happens to the water in

1:02:49

Missouri in it just. Runs.

1:02:51

Into. The. Lowest area and floods

1:02:53

it yeah which have to be my

1:02:55

tent and you just get much everywhere

1:02:58

it's while my gosh it's horrible, just

1:03:00

wretched. but yeah. but yet considering the

1:03:02

story just briefly Walt Disney then as

1:03:04

a young man went to Can't Sit

1:03:06

Here and got his start in journalism,

1:03:08

his professional career in Kansas City. And

1:03:11

he worked at a place called The Last Agrarian

1:03:13

Studios which a friend of mine here a developers

1:03:15

trying to restore and they're trying to make it

1:03:17

into an attraction but oh nice yeah should be

1:03:19

a cool thing when it when it gets done.

1:03:22

That where he did the first because

1:03:24

there was a first aeration before Mickey

1:03:26

Mouse. Mickey Mouse was the the second

1:03:28

prototype after he had a falling out

1:03:31

with his business partner. Yes, Yeah.

1:03:33

you're there is some in urban

1:03:35

legend that the first one was

1:03:37

here at the last green studios

1:03:39

but i think certificates as go

1:03:41

with that and we will claim

1:03:43

it but okay i scott hotly

1:03:45

debated athletics or chuck thanks so

1:03:47

much for doing this for again

1:03:49

on the book are coming out

1:03:51

is escaping the housing trap the

1:03:54

strong towns response and then be

1:03:56

strong towns national gathering is coming

1:03:58

up may fourteenth and fifteenth Cincinnati.

1:04:01

So I can't wait to

1:04:03

see you there and see our

1:04:05

other good friends and look

1:04:08

forward to a great week in

1:04:10

a city that I've been looking forward to spending more time in.

1:04:13

Thank you my friend and I'm happy

1:04:16

to introduce a whole bunch more people to your

1:04:18

podcast. If you're not listening,

1:04:21

if this is your first time listening and

1:04:23

you're listening because of me, put this on

1:04:25

your rotation because this is a very good

1:04:27

podcast and Kevin has a lot of my

1:04:29

friends and our mutual friends and a lot

1:04:31

of other interesting people. We

1:04:33

talk about more than just Disney

1:04:35

and Kansas City. Yeah, absolutely. Alright.

1:04:38

Yeah. Well thanks. I appreciate that.

1:04:40

Absolutely. Alright, take care.