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- [00:03]
Michelle
Hey, excuse me. This is Michelle, the Strong Towns events pathfinder. I just want to make a quick invitation. One of the most powerful ways to bring the Strong Towns approach to your place is to literally bring a Strongtown staffer to your place. We've got three speakers, including Chuck, who are ready and waiting to deliver a custom tailored talk in your town. We've done this in hundreds of places and we've seen how it ignites excitement wherever we go. So go to strongtowns.org speaking and let us know how we can help your town become a strong town. I'll be looking for you.
- [00:47]
Abby Newsham
This is Abby and you are listening to Upzoned. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of Upzone to show where we take a big story from the news each week that touches the Strong Towns conversation. And we Upzone it, we talk about it in depth. I'm Abby Newsham, an urban planner in Kansas City, and today I am joined by Edward Erfert, who is the director of Community Action at Strong Towns. Thanks for joining me Edward.
- [01:26]
Edward Erfert
Great. I'm glad to be here today.
- [01:29]
Abby Newsham
I'm glad to have you. We're going to be talking about an article that you've been following a little bit. It is published in the Guardian, written by Nick Robbins early titled Elon Musk's company SpaceX employees vote to Create Starbase. In this piece we learned that residents, mostly SpaceX employees in Boca Chica, Texas, have voted overwhelmingly to turn their unincorpor community into a new official city called Starbase. This new municipality is tightly controlled by SpaceX leadership, with a SpaceX VP elected unopposed as their mayor and most residents either working for the company or somehow connected to it. Starbase gives Elon Musk Co. More localized control over land use, especially for things like rocket launches and related logistics, but also raising some concerns about public access to land and kind of the reemergence of the company town model that echoes the industrial era in the United States. So the article touches on some of the local pushback that they've been getting from environmental groups and indigenous communities that are worried about some of the beach access and broader implications for public space in this area. I think I want to start by just kind of touching on this notion of the company town because Strong Towns highlights the dangers of mono industry places. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about what vulnerabilities kind of arise when a town is entirely tied to a single employer, not just economically, but also politically and socially too. How does Starbase, I guess, compare to historical company Towns. And what lessons have we learned from those models in the past?
- [03:38]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, I mean I'm somebody that lives in West Virginia, so I'm learning a lot about company towns in the history of West Virginia. All these mining towns that came about and in those early days, those company towns, everything was controlled by the, the company, like the mining company, the railroad company. So part of you would pay rent, but you would pay rent to the company that you worked for. The head of the house, you had rights to the house as an employee for the company. But if you got sick or injured, you no longer could rent that house. And even when they talk about going to the company store, you probably heard those old country songs. Yeah, Appalachia, that was this idea that the companies would pay you in their own company dollars. So if you wanted flour or groceries, you weren't given green bills, you were given whatever the company credit was to go buy something at the store that the main company had gotten to supply. So the whole supply chain was all within that company. That's a really fragile system. I know there's lots of labor laws and different pieces that have been done to change that. I have seen this type of kind of company or employer based housing in some of the food processing facilities around the country, some of the agriculture, large agriculture areas where they, you know, build up a big housing piece and bring stuff in that, that can be really fragile and that, you know, the company goes bad, you switch jobs, you're locked in it for life. I think very few of us recognize that type of, I mean very few people I know are saying, I'm going to go get a job and work my entire career with one company so that, that stops that mobility. So that, that is, that is a fear. That is something to be think about from a dangerous standpoint. I think we've also seen all of those weird sci fi movies, you know, the, the idealized whatever software company in the perfect town only to find out that it isn't that perfect. But you're locked into it because of, you're, think about everybody you're going to work with. You also are now going home. You're, you're walking across the street and your private backyard is not that private because you've got your co workers on either side of you enjoying Saturday barbecue like you are.
- [06:22]
Abby Newsham
So yeah, yeah, there's definitely, I think two questions here. One is about individual autonomy. So uh, what happens like you said, if, if you get fired or if you want to take on a different job, I mean when you, it's One thing to tie your health insurance to your employer, which is what many people do in this country. But tying, you know, where you live, your sense of community, everything to an employer seems kind of scary to me, especially when in this day and age when people are wanting to have more autonomy and not necessarily be tied to a job for the rest of their life. So there's a question of that and then there's the other one is societal resilience. So can a town actually sustain itself in the long term when it is tied to one company? And what are kind of the implications of that? Maybe there are models where that's worked out and maybe if this company eventually evolves or moves or change changes in some way, the town will persist. But I don't know. There's this, there's also kind of this, this thing in my mind about kind of true local control. Like is Starbase really a form? I think they've pitched it as this form of local control, being able to bring people together and have some, some ability to plan for the future of this place. But I kind of wonder if it also undermines the idea of like kind of democratic or community driven governance, which is what I think strong towns would advocate for. You know, how do we balance that idea of localism with concerns about corporate dominance in civic life?
- [08:17]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, I mean, when I look at this, this is not organic. This is, this is really not a place that when you think about like traditional settlement that you would go to, this is literally at the edge of the United States. It's on a, it's on a border, it's on a waterway. It's in an area that really very difficult place that we. It wouldn't be the easiest or first place I would go to build a new town. When I look at the, this type of layout and I think about what they're doing here, this is not much different to some of the master plan communities folks are doing. This is the model that you might see, you know, the edge of Phoenix, you know, again, same sort of. I don't know why you're building there, because we have to have mechanisms to go and do things. And we're reliant again on whatever big factory or new job creator or new golf course that's come in to support that community. But I do, as I look at the development application, because I've seen these, and you've probably seen these too, like the annexation agreements and minor boundary adjustments. When you look at this one, they strategically picked all the places that they had, like all the Rocket stuff, you know, all the launch pads, all the roads to get to fueling and launch locations. And then they've laid out some neighborhoods, I'm going to say their neighborhoods, they're kind of a grid of streets that they have control of. So, you know, building for future employees of this area, it's not, it's not a nice neat circle or square. It's like tracing what they had control of over this area. There's not a lot of ability to grow out from that unless they go through another annexation. So I find that a little peculiar. And clearly they're like, this is people thinking about this and not planners, not like urban designers where we want nice neat boundaries or we, we wouldn't just pick a weird property line like Swiss Cheese. We would kind of say, okay, well let's kind of go and pick up to the edge of some sort of natural boundary or let's go all the way and pick up the beach in this. None of that is included but the pattern and I think we'll find more as they start to incorporate and because very little is out about this because this is all privately developed at this point, but most of the infrastructure is owned by the Starbase. It's owned by a private entity. And what I find really interesting here, the thing that is like my big takeaway because this is kind of like what Disney would do or did for celebration, they realized that there is a way to benefit through incorporation as an operating city when dealing with the built environment. And they've strategically. All the privately owned roads now are now being handed over to this new development corporation, AKA City of Starbase. The management of the city is now no longer with the rocket scientists. It's with the managers of the rocket scientists that are now becoming managers of the built environment. When I think about incorporation, there are new ways to generate revenue. All the things that we may have pause on that cities do to keep themselves afloat, they now can do that when as a private development, they couldn't before. Which I think is going to be a fascinating thing to watch.
- [12:29]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, it is very fascinating and it's a good point to bring up that this is a private company that has kind of built all this public infrastructure, the roads, utilities and services. And there is a question about long term stewardship. I mean, I wonder how their current kind of privatized models will now translate into. I'm guessing it will, it will be truly public because this is going to become a municipality. And so what are the implications of kind of changing from being a private Master planned community to a true town and municipality. And I guess going, like, they're going to have to deal with all of the same issues that other municipalities deal with at the local level.
- [13:25]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. I mean, like, not just maintenance, just like somebody wants to put a pool in their backyard.
- [13:30]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Like zoning. Are they going to have zoning?
- [13:34]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. And when I think about it, like, most folks when they do a development like this, they just say, look, we're going to do a pud. We're going to create our own development rules of how we're going to get this stuff approved. And then from that point, we're going to create a homeowner's association document. It'll be whatever, a thousand pages. And we're going to hire a company to deal with all the complaints and make sure all the grass gets mowed. Their approach. And like, these are. I'm going to assume these are really smart people. You don't just become like a vice president of an operation successfully taking, like, trying to get people to Mars. Like, you don't just come out of that with no knowledge of management. So when you come into it, they made the business decision that it is easier to create a charter for a city than it is to create HOA documents.
- [14:29]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. I mean, that's interesting. And I wonder if part of this has to do with the ability to bond for infrastructure. Like, I wonder what led to them wanting to incorporate this area.
- [14:45]
Edward Erfert
Well, one of the articles I read, it had to do with, I think, two pieces. One, it had to do with the Boca Chica Boulevard. Like, whenever they want to launch a rocket, they have to close down a public road. Is it four, that has to be closed. So imagine anybody out there that has gone and tried to do a farmer's market on a Sunday morning on a city street. Like, that's the form you have to fill out. And if the clerk isn't available or you fill it out wrong, or too many people show up to city hall, it doesn't, like, it's not going to happen. And meanwhile, the farmer's market, maybe you can move to the sidewalks or to a vacant parking lot next door. You have a limited window of when you can launch a rocket. So, like, that's a risk. The other piece is when I think about the amount of building that's occurring here and the specialty to it, all of the process that they have to go through today, through the county for permitting. So this is not like a county. It's probably like most municipal governments, there's not enough staff to do it they've kind of in their ways of doing things. Your rocket launch pad on a deadline is behind the six deck and house permits that are in the system. You're already paying probably for the specialty inspectors for this. So like from a business model, what if it was in house? What if you had control of the management of those types of permits? So what I had read it had to do with the road closing and then just the capacity to be able to have their own destiny with whatever zoning approval, development approval, and then ultimately the building review of these. So yeah, move it in house. If I think about the revenue structure for cities, there are ways for them to. There are ways from the recapture revenue that our cities can do. I've looked at taxidermic financing in lots of places. Tax increment financing is the collection of the growth of property value off of a property over a certain time frame. Many of those, and I don't know how Texas is, I should look this up. But in a lot of places that tax is off of all the property tax that goes off of it. So sometimes it involves the schools, sometimes it involves the county and then also involves the city and all have to agree to it. Sometimes the school is separated out and all the different various pieces. But there are some places I know in Florida where you have county and city taxes collected that both contribute to taxing, rent finance. If you're an incorporated city, one of the mathematical tricks of TIF is, is that you can request the TIF on both the county and city revenue. So if you are in this friction fight with a county government and you're a city and you're like, well, the county doing everything outside our city, they're just taking off of our economic engine. A TIF is a good way to capture that and use it within a specific area which is being generated. So I, I would think that all of the stuff here on this site would be quite valuable. And that may be another tool in addition to the bonding tools and other redevelopment tools that are available in these places.
- [18:35]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, I, I have to think that there's some benefit of having a municipality rather than it just being kind of a big private development. But your point about the fact that it looks like there's a state route that runs like Boca Chica Boulevard is Texas Route 4. So I'm assuming that they have to deal with Department of Transportation when they need to do something here. And there's kind of one way in, one way out through that route to this town and then later through Boca Chica State park all the way to the beach. So something that's been brought up kind of along those lines is some of the pushback local groups have been expressing over access to Boca Chica Beach. This kind of brings up a core strongtown's value about public space and public space remaining truly public. And it seems like there's a lot at stake here when public spaces, maybe they remain technically public but are effectively privatized, even if they're technically open and accessible to the public, that the operations here of the company is going to be a barrier for people being able to use these spaces. So I wonder what. What ultimately happens with these spaces if they stay public? State parks?
- [20:09]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. I mean, this is a lot like Cape Canaveral. You're dealing with that now. Cape Canaveral, because it was NASA and a federal agency, they just created all of the land around it as a giant federal park, but it's in a military base. So, like, you can't get into it because of the environmental concerns, and you can't get into it because of the governmental security concerns. This is a really tough site because there is no way to get to that beach and that seashore by land except through Starbase. There's no way to get around it. You have to go south into Mexico and then cross back into the border, which is not realistic. And to the north, there's a waterway that breaks it. So it is. And I think it comes down to, you know, a lot of these really hard decisions about that land. Yeah. Trying to get people out there in a safe way, especially with all the activities of rockets going off and fueling these things. But I would even think, you know, the. The funny story is if you ever go out to Cape Canaveral and you. You go and you do the tour there and you realize the history when early in American space flight, when rockets were being launched, they. Every time they launched a rocket, it was an experiment to see what would happen when the first of the rockets went off. The noise and the compression impression of the firing of the rockets were so great, it blew out all of the windows of all the homes and businesses in Cocoa Beach. So, like the. And so that point, they started moving people back and doing different things. This is like they're building a town around these launch pads. So not only is it just the beach, but just within the community. Like, I don't know. I mean, we need to see what happens on, like, launch day. Does everybody have to, like, stay home? Is school closed? Button up. We launch the rocket and then, okay, everybody can go outside now. So.
- [22:32]
Abby Newsham
Right. No kidding. Like forget the fights about zoning and fence colors and all those other things that people get frustrated with their neighbors about. But yeah, the noise of a rocket launch. Would you want to live next to that? I don't know.
- [22:50]
Edward Erfert
And you know there's going to be the person that says I had no idea this was gonna.
- [22:53]
Abby Newsham
I had no idea. Yeah, they're gonna show up to the city council meeting and say they had.
- [22:59]
Edward Erfert
No idea there's a Star Base Explorer.
- [23:01]
Abby Newsham
I don't know what.
- [23:04]
Edward Erfert
Sir, don't you. What's that shirt you have on? Oh, that's my SpaceX shirt. I'm not representing my company.
- [23:12]
Abby Newsham
I mean seriously, I wonder about that because I just wonder if, if the, the SpaceX leadership that's running this town is ready for like the realities of local government and.
- [23:28]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, I mean how many you go and run through those planning things. I mean think about all the wonderful public hearings we've all been to.
- [23:37]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. I hope they live stream these public.
- [23:39]
Edward Erfert
Hearing because like as a, as a government agency now like an entity of government, they can rewrite lots of planning rules and they can make a lot of stuff by. Right. But there's still, I'm sure in Texas there's still thresholds of public notice that have to occur.
- [24:01]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. By the state. State requirements. Yeah.
- [24:04]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. And then you have to have like. I mean I, I watch all of the kind of SpaceX and the Tesla and you know all these corporations, they're very efficient. You know, they figured out how to do these things. They're really, really smart people but they're dealing with people in the field they're passionate about. Never gotten in front of somebody's front yard. So like just imagining all the awful things that happened, you know the, in a public hearing they have now created that environment for this to happen and.
- [24:45]
Abby Newsham
Well, and I wonder what that looks like when your boss's boss's boss is the mayor of the town. What kinds of incentives does that create or disincentives to participate in a public hearing? Maybe if you're an employer or employee of the company and that's technically your employer, like the leadership, the city council, the mayor. That creates some interesting power dynamics there. I'm trying to picture what it would be like for me to live in a little community with all of my co workers.
- [25:23]
Edward Erfert
Well, think about this like for the, for a small town and this is like a tiny communities. Yeah, it's a couple hundred people right now. I mean like and to have that type of voting of 97 or whatever it is, or almost 100 voted in favor of this. It's just like unheard of. But think about it like these are not going to be full time city managers and, and clerks and city council members. This is like part time positions because they're not going to generate enough revenue off a property tax. So they're still going to have SpaceX full time jobs. Okay. SpaceX comes in and they want to go and put a new facility up. And we've got to go through whatever process we've established. If everybody recuses themselves like you know, because they have some sort of stake in it or they have stock, a stock option in this or they've created the patent for these things.
- [26:23]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. How do you vote on these things if everyone has a conflict of interest?
- [26:28]
Edward Erfert
I almost wonder in every. Every once in a while I come across a zoning code where somebody got really upset about the prolonged process of approval and there's this type of clauses that are like if the application isn't reviewed or.
- [26:45]
Abby Newsham
Yes.
- [26:45]
Edward Erfert
I was just thinking it's like by default is approved.
- [26:49]
Abby Newsham
Yes. So maybe they'll just have to not vote on it until it's just automatically approved over what is it like six months? I don't know.
- [26:58]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. Like the town's approved by default. So where they're at now in the process is they've gone and done the vote. They quickly went to the court judge that went and signed off on it. It's now off to the legislature to tell them that this has happened and they now have to write their charter. This is going to be. And I can't find because there's, you know, in our world it's not that big of people that do that type of work that write zoning codes and master plans. I can't find anything. I even went and checked. Is it Gork the or Grok the. The AI that is. That is funded through X. Like just to see like hey, who's doing this? Like if somebody's. Is somebody that we know in that circle. Is there some plan with a name on it? Did somebody tweet about it?
- [27:47]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Like it's DPZ coming in and doing a. Yeah. A town plan.
- [27:54]
Edward Erfert
Is it like Victor Cole or. Or even some of the big conglomerates that do this stuff?
- [28:01]
Abby Newsham
Yeah.
- [28:02]
Edward Erfert
Or anything. Like nothing. It's like nothing.
- [28:05]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Who's their consultant?
- [28:08]
Edward Erfert
Yeah. Or even. There must be some sort of advisory board. You know what? Like these are folks that are there. So.
- [28:15]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Right. Like these aren't dummies. They they definitely have, you know, people advising them on these things. And so part of me wonders if the actual like, town part of this is more so a second house for executives because they're maybe at work, like working a lot, and they have a second house where they can just sleep there and then go back to work. I kind of wonder if people actually bring their families to this area. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind for me is just like environmental concerns in terms of air quality and exposure to rockets and some of the activities that they're doing. I don't have kids, but if I did, I don't think I would want them to live close to that. So. But I don't know, maybe it will be a truly, like, mix of residential and industrial uses in this area and everything will work out perfectly.
- [29:18]
Edward Erfert
It. Well, yeah, I mean, this is like, this is not the way, the textbook way that planners in America would do planning, right? We wouldn't put rocket fuel next to residential neighborhoods. We wouldn't put the town square next to a rocket manufacturing plant. All these things are generally separated out here. I mean, you'd have to really be kind of geeked out on this stuff for this to be your place to live. So there's probably some grace in that piece to it. But like, and I keep looking at Google Earth and trying to find photographs of this. They're trying all different types of housing pieces. When I think about a place like this, there are a couple of different life cycles of folks that will need to be here at this location. You've got really specialized contractors. So I don't know if you've ever been around when they build like a factory, it's usually three, like a three to four month cycle of really specialized contractors that come in. The specialized welders, steel workers, the pipe and fitting folks, then whatever specialty equipment that comes in, that group comes in and not only install it, but stay there and make sure it all works when you press the button. So I'm sure there's thousands of employees that are here building that stuff. So they're going to come for a time and rotate out. Then you've got the people that are setting this stuff up that are part of the teams. And this is like where the first humans that are going to leave the Earth to go to Mars are supposed to leave from. So imagine building up that whole program of education and testing and figuring out how to launch this stuff and recapture it and refuel it and shipping logistics and all of that. All those different people have some sort of vested interest in coming here. And the issues we're seeing in every cities with housing today, they're going to have to face as a city as well. Not only as a company, but as a city.
- [31:41]
Abby Newsham
Well, looking at the housing, I mean you can barely see stuff from Google Street View right now. You can see some stuff from just looking on Google Maps. But there is a lot of different types of housing. It looks like there's, there's houses of various sizes that are like conventional, you know, foundation sticks construction. But then you have like air streamers you like arranged in a courtyard and.
- [32:12]
Edward Erfert
Little like Katrina cottages. Manufactured home things.
- [32:16]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, so. So they're definitely leaning into affordable housing in a sense by building all of these like kind of manufactured housing units and arranging them in a way that is kind of village. Like it's kind of interesting. They, they even have a, a pub it looks like. Although it says that it's private, if you look at it, it's a private club. So I don't think you can just go there unless you're an employee. But yeah, it's, it's an interesting little neighborhood that they're developing here and it looks like they're not necessarily requiring like fully conventional housing. A lot of it looks like it's manufactured.
- [33:05]
Edward Erfert
It really looks like they have gone along the design coast like on the, the Florida Panhandle and they've hit all the, all the kind of newer miss communities and all the popup type developments and they've looked at all of these different things because this is what that they've a little bit everything, everything that would be in our magazines today that people be writing about temporary or housing options. They're, they're trying it all and these are data people. So I'm just, It'll be so interesting what sticks with them to expand out. Like it's a. Because they do. They have every, the thing I don't see here that's probably in some of their plans is the multi family or like the apartment blocks.
- [33:59]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, yeah. That's really the only thing. All of it looks like it's like single unit, but. Yeah. Ranging from mobile Airstream camper to mobile home to like fully conventional house as they migrate into.
- [34:18]
Edward Erfert
From a private company where they can make decisions in the boardroom and not have to have public hearings and they're not subject to FOIA requests and all of the things that local government has to do. It'll be interesting what type of innovation they give up in that process and what type of speed they give up because I mean, I guess if they own their own utility, that really helps. But all, all the other things of a, all the workings of a city, the things that you don't think about until you get into city government, like making sure the roads are clear, making sure you have access with fire and police department.
- [35:06]
Abby Newsham
Right? Yeah. And it's, I mean, at the end of the day it is, it's governance by committee. So it's. Running a municipality is different than running a business. I know we talk about some of the similarities at strong towns, but there are some distinct differences for how decisions get made. And maybe with this round of leadership, they're all on the same page and things work out really well for a while. But, you know, leadership turns over, staff turns over. I guess we haven't even talked about how staff, if they'll have municipal staff or, I don't know, maybe it'll all be on call. But there's a lot of questions that I'm interested in following to see how this ultimately works.
- [35:55]
Edward Erfert
I hope somebody that listens to you, Abby, is out there and they hear this podcast and they're like, oh yeah, I'm the one that does the zoning app.
- [36:03]
Abby Newsham
Or yeah, like I'm their on call planner.
- [36:07]
Edward Erfert
I can't talk to you about it, but guess what's on my desk? Like what? I've enjoyed the last two weeks.
- [36:12]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Because the planner will know everything that's going on. So.
- [36:19]
Edward Erfert
And if SpaceX is listening, I hope they know that this is the work you do. And they should, they should give you a call because.
- [36:26]
Abby Newsham
Oh, that would be cool.
- [36:28]
Edward Erfert
Because like, here's, here's what's really, it's really exciting when something new like this starts. And this is like a really extreme example because you have this kind of this really high tech company, it's doing things that nobody thought was possible. I mean, they shot a Tesla sports car into space, we're catching rockets with chopsticks, all of these types of things, not to mention all of the other science and technology products that are coming out of all this research. This is fascinating. This is what my parents and grandparents must have been thinking in the 60s and 70s, watching all those rocket launches to the moon. Like this is this new realm of things happening and they're getting into something that like, we're both geeky about. Like town building.
- [37:24]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, town building, totally.
- [37:26]
Edward Erfert
And like what, what is the innovation? Because it's not building a town. We've seen religious organizations do it. The Mormons are probably the best town planners. They've done More town planning across the US Than anybody else. They've created lots and lots of places. We've seen that with colonization right along the East Coast. We've seen this with westward expansion.
- [37:56]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Railroad towns. Yeah.
- [38:00]
Edward Erfert
So this is that, like next level. And they're bringing a really competent boardroom, innovative thought process. You know, when you study the stuff that's happening in SpaceX, their innovation aligns with some of the things that we talk about at Strong Towns, about taking small bets that failure is an option. Like when the first rockets blew up, you didn't hear about Elon Musk coming in and firing everybody. It was coming out of that software mentality, okay, we broke it or do we break it? What can we learn from that? Let's try it again with changing some variables instead of starting over. All of that, like taking that into local government, I think is going to be a fascinating thing to watch and hopefully in the near future there's like a really good book or somebody speaking about this. It's in the trenches that.
- [38:53]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. That can write about this and document it. Yeah. The question is, are they ready to get emails about neighbors not cutting their grass and picking up their dog poop? You know, all those little things that cities. Yeah, that, that people who run cities deal with constituents.
- [39:16]
Edward Erfert
Yeah, they're going to have constituents and then they're going to have the people, like even more so the neighbors outside the community that are going to want their say in this, all the decisions they make.
- [39:27]
Abby Newsham
Yeah, fascinating. All right, well, we'll leave it there because I'm running out of time. But before we finish, let's do the down zone, which is part of the show where we share anything that we've been up to these days. I'll put you on the spot. What is your down zone?
- [39:46]
Edward Erfert
So at Strong Towns, we're doing something really cool right now. We are reaching out to incremental developers all across North America. We are working on our second housing toolkit to help cities become housing ready. We want to know the things that incremental developers that they've seen from their cities that have made their projects possible, and also the things that cities do not so well that make it difficult. So I'm going through right now with a bunch of focus groups, meeting with incredible folks from all over North America sharing their stories. They have. There are a lot more hero stories coming out of City hall than I think most people want to admit. And so learning all of that, I hope to share that shortly. Keep your eyes and ears open for that coming from Strong towns through our housing ready work. So that's really exciting for me.
- [40:41]
Abby Newsham
That's very exciting stuff. And it reminds me that I think I owe you guys some names from Kansas City. There's some cool stuff happening here and some great people doing great projects. So looking forward to seeing that. For me, I guess I'll share that. I'm going to Washington, D.C. for the first time in a couple of weeks to attend nacto, which is the national association of City Transportation Officials. I've never been to NACTO before, so I'm kind of excited about it. I was looking at some of the schedule items that they have, and they have like a lot of bike tours and opportunities to actually go out and see dc, which I'm excited about because sometimes you go to conferences and you don't end up actually seeing much of the city unless you're very, very intentional about it. So excited to, to actually get to go see D.C. and I know I'll only be there for a few days, so it won't be nearly enough time to like, take in everything and really experience the whole city, but it'll be a fun first trip.
- [41:55]
Edward Erfert
It is a fun city. It's up the road for me. So I'm happy to share some spots.
- [42:01]
Abby Newsham
Please do. Yes, please do. And I guess anyone that's listening to this, if anyone happens to be going an acto, find me on, I don't know, LinkedIn or something. It'd be great to link up with people. I, again, I've never gone to nacto. It's not exactly my, my key area of focus, transportation. But it's something that I'm interested in and I'm super lucky to get to go.
- [42:27]
Edward Erfert
That's great. You have a lot of fun. There's a lot of great people working in that realm. And I, I love all their books. I, I read through them. They got incredible graphics and they help people really understand how they can make their streets within their cities much better. Within the rules, within what is. They're just calibrating it slightly differently.
- [42:52]
Abby Newsham
Yeah. Just in, like, my past planning work, I'm always going to the NACTO website. Their graphics are kind of an inspiration for me when I do, like, urban design illustrations. And they just have really great guideline books. So all of those resources they have online are pretty incredible. So. Yeah. Big fan. Well, all right. Well, thank you, Edward, so much for joining me today. I know it was kind of last minute, but it's great that we were able to put this together and talk about something fun.
- [43:25]
Edward Erfert
I know. And we didn't even get to the aliens, so.
- [43:28]
Abby Newsham
I know, I know. Next time. We'll talk about aliens next time.
- [43:34]
Edward Erfert
All right, Abby. It's always a lot of fun talking to you and being on the upzone.
- [43:38]
Abby Newsham
Awesome. Well, we'll see you next time. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode of upzoned. Thanks, Edward.
- [43:56]
Chuck
Tonight. Hey, everybody, this is Chuck. About a year ago, escaping the housing trap came out and you all made it a national bestseller. I'm very, very thank thankful. I've been out on the road ever since, chatting with places, talking with people about how they make their cities stronger. And a lot of people have asked me, chuck, this is really great, but it's so overwhelming. Can you break it down even further? Strong Towns has released a toolkit. It's the first in a series of three toolkits, but this one deals with regulatory reform. What are the changes that cities can make today to get housing going? We call it the housing Ready City. So if you go to strongtowns.org housingready you can download the toolkit, you can take a quiz if your city is housing ready. If you meet the six criteria in the toolkit. If you're able to do these six things, we're going to put you on a map. We're going to celebrate you. We're going to send people to your city. We're going to send cap, you know, we're going to tell people, hey, this is the housing ready city. Like, go move to this place. Go invest in this place. Go be a developer in this place. This place is ready for housing development. Housing. Strongdowns.org housingready is the website. Go download the kit. By the way, it's free. Thank you members for helping us get this thing out.