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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This is Abby and you are listening to Upzoned. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of Upzoned show where we take a big story from the news each week that touches the strong town's conversation. And we upzone it, we talk about it in depth. And my name's Abby Newsham. I'm a planner in Kansas City, and today I am joined by my friend, Chuck Marone.
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B
Hello.
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A
Welcome to.
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B
Haven't seen you for 48 hours.
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A
I know. So Chuck was in Kansas City just a couple days ago and you had a great turnout to your talk, so congratulations.
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B
You know what, do you know what's even better than that, though? How many people either lining up to get books signed or coming up to me afterwards saying, I listen to Upzoned Up Zone is one of those podcasts that I can't miss. Oh, no, I'm telling you, a high, a really high percentage of people told me that. And I'm like, I just thought that was really cool because, you know, this is not a Kansas City based podcast, but you're in Kansas City. Kansas City comes up plenty. And then, you know, we have people on from our friend groups and acquaintance groups and those happen to be a lot of Kansas City people from time to time. So it was, it was, was cool because I, I hear it every now and then, but I heard it a lot this week.
- [01:36]
A
Well, yeah, it's a little bit of a biased crowd because it is a Kansas City crowd. But I, I really enjoyed talking with some folks that I'd never met before who said that they listened to this show and we had good conversation. It's great to hear people in your region that are in, like, cities that you don't really go to, like, you know, within the suburbs and towns in the region that came to your talk and are doing things for their communities that I was not aware of. It's just really cool to see how many people are tapping into this message and these conversations and content and getting something from it. So I appreciated that.
- [02:21]
B
It is, it was a lot of fun. It was a very affirming trip. Especially, you know, I told the story as afterwards to a smaller group. How, you know, my, my first trip to Kansas City ended up to be such an antagonizing thing.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Because I made a couple comments and then it got picked up locally and became this, you know, like, literally antagonistic thing. I've had such good interactions with Kansas City since then and I just really, really love it. So we're having a lot of fun.
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A
Well, and I think they said back then Kansas City was a lot more. What did they say? Self conscious or insecure?
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B
Yeah, insecure. But this would be like 12 years ago. I was insecure too. So maybe we were both. Maybe we both matured.
- [03:09]
A
Well, I appreciate that. Self awareness. That's great. All right, well, we're going to talk about an article today that is surely to upset some people because we got a rage bait title right here by Bloomberg. So we're going to talk about the question raised, which is should we let public transit die? Very much a rage bait article title. So by the end of 2026, if nothing changes, a lot of US cities are going to see big chunks of their public transit systems disappear. For decades, transit has basically survived on a mix of fair revenue and government funding and it's never been really profitable, no more than road construction is. But as the article points out, it has provided really two major benefits that have been the argument of why the investment is worthwhile. The first is that in den cities there's just not enough space to have everyone drive a car. The system really only works if lots of people move around in ways that use space efficiently. It's a basic and unavoidable reality that cities run out of space if everyone drives and no technology necessarily changes that fact. The second is that every community has people who can't drive, don't want to drive, and probably shouldn't be driving, and plenty of others would benefit financially if they didn't need to own as many cars. So. So these two reasons, which is kind of comes down to space and personal autonomy, are why transit has been funded according to the article, for the past 50 years or so. But now, after, you know, COVID 19 emergency federal dollars that had been keeping transit agencies afloat are now drying up and fare revenues are also drying up because ridership has not bounced back to pre pandemic levels. Another, another important point is that the cost of service has continued to climb due to hiring costs crisis. And really transit agencies are now competing with delivery companies and drivers for drivers and mechanics. And the only real way to fix that is to pay more to attract workers. So I think that this ultimately all gets to this question, at least for me, of are we willing to fund these things ourselves if revenue is drying up and not coming from the federal or state government to save us?
- [05:56]
B
I was reading this article and I didn't recognize till I got to the I was reading. I'm like this is really smart. Like I think this is a really smart framing and I think These are thoughtful questions. And then I got to the end and I realized that Walker had written it. So I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Like now I get it. So I'm a guy and I think I get a pass on talking about the Roman Empire for a minute. To me, I feel like this question is a lot about like the British at the fall of the Roman Empire, right? You're sitting there in your town in, in England and, you know, you have people who talk about how, you know, a century or two earlier, there was no running water, there was no hot baths, there was no security. It was just this tribal wasteland. And now the Romans have come. And yes, the Romans have brought with them a certain amount of oppression and demands and, you know, what have you. But they also have brought roads. They also have brought the warm water. They've also brought security. They've also, you know, go on and on and on. Remember the Monty Python thing? What have the Romans ever done for us?
- [07:12]
A
You know, you.
- [07:13]
B
Yeah, you get that. Okay. And then, because this is the far reaches of the empire, when Rome starts to fall apart, they take the troops out and they take the administrators out and they leave and they walk away from the vast frontier. And what happens in the frontier, Everything falls apart. It doesn't fall apart because they don't want it to keep running. They don't. It doesn't fall apart because people there don't care or they wouldn't prefer to have warm baths over, you know, not, you know, it's not like they don't want these things. It's just that they don't have the capacity to provide them themselves. And so what you have is a situation where, you know, under one set of conditions, this thing that we would never have done before and otherwise wouldn't do is possible. And then those conditions go away and now it's not possible anymore. I feel like that is the conversation about the insane transit systems that we've built. Let's be clear. We've built an insane auto based transportation system. It is one that I think is going to be about half the size it is now in the next generation. I think that the next generation of engineers and planners and traffic analysts and what have you, are going to preside over a system decline or a system decrease, a subtraction of the system, as opposed to what the prior two generations have done, which is system expansion. I think we have reached the peak of the transportation empire and is now receding. The thing that you see receding first is the most fragile Part, and that's this kind of alternative overlay of transit that we have built on the base of this dysfunctional autobase system. And I tell people, like, I don't know how to solve that problem. Like, I don't know how to fix that. It's like, how do you. How do you sustain the unsustainable? You could say, well, you know, the federal government should be more generous. This should. This is a moral issue. It should happen. We should be committed to transit. Like, all those things are really nice slogans, but it doesn't change the fact that, you know, the Democrat plan in, in the federal government's gonna borrow 3 trillion this year, and the Republican plan is going to borrow 2.5 trillion this year. No matter what you do, the federal government's running out of money. He goes, well, Chuck, just print the money. And I'm like, okay, I think if you go down that route, you're not serious. You're not talking, you're not having a serious conversation. We are seeing the end of the suburban experiment at strongdowns. We've been talking about this for a decade and a half how, like, this is not financially viable, it's not going to be maintained. And you're watching in these transit systems, the most vulnerable part fall apart first. I think we have to recognize it as that and as transit advocates. And I think we should have transit. I think we should have transit in every city. I think it's like a great wealth accelerator, but not the way we are currently building it or operating it. Does that make sense, Abby?
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A
It does make sense. I keep going back to kind of comparing this system of transit to our system of roads because as the article points out, roadways are also not profitable. And it's a system of transportation that we've built out across our regions. And I think part of the reason why the transit system is much more vulnerable is because, well, number one, it's a lot of vulnerable people use transit, and those are people that have less political power than people who are driving. But I think the other thing is that transit systems require a lot of people to work within an agency and run the system. You need drivers, you need mechanics. It's a system with kind of a consolidated way of operating it. And within a roadway system, all of the costs of essentially like quote, unquote, operations are decentralized to the users. So, like, we're paying for our own car maintenance, we're driving ourselves. And it's just this, the system of actually funding these things in a transit system, it's easy to kind of point to and make cuts around because it's just a vulnerable system in and of itself. But it's not necessarily any less efficient than all of our roadway systems, which are attached to parcels that create revenue generation for our cities that are never going to pay for all of this infrastructure that we've built across our regions. But I think. I think the good thing about, you know, looking at a transit system is that it can change more, more readily than you can just change and retrofit roadway systems. We can't really necessarily unbuild all these roads that we've built across our metros. You know, to your point in your book, like you've talked about how we're really going to have to triage if it comes down to it, what we take care of and what we don't. But transit systems can retrofit and they can change. And I don't think that funding, I mean, it seems like it's going to need to come from a regional source. Like we are going to have to pay for these systems ourselves and have smaller, more retrofitted systems of transit if we are going to even dream of having functional systems. And I guess, you know, to this whole point, I'm really just talking about bus systems. If you've built out rail and other kind of heavy systems, those are, you know, those are like roads. You can't just change them that readily.
- [13:41]
B
Let's come back to a discussion about vulnerable people in the system because I feel like there's some really important insights there. Before we do that, I'd like to talk about the thing you just brought up about the kind of the fixed costs versus the malleable costs as a way to get your mind wrapped around this. Think about the idea that we're collecting locally like 20 cents on the dollar of what is needed to maintain our roadways. I'm sure there are cities that could point to they're doing better than that and less than that. But every city that we've looked at through the finance decoder shows that their infrastructure capacity is declining steadily over time. If we decide tomorrow, and let's be clear, cities have, as Jared says in the article, I've already decided this. They're already doing this. Let's decide tomorrow we're going to do a 20% cut in, you know, the, the massive underfunding. We're going to cut that by an additional 20% on the roadway side and on the transit side. What does it look like on the roadway side? It looks like we're not going to maintain roads that we're already not maintaining. So in other words, a road we were going to fix this year, we'll put it off for another two years. Guess what? Cities have been doing that for decades now. I mean, that's part of the thing. So your road just gets like a little junkier. A few more potholes, a few less fixes, it gets put off, your sidewalks fall apart. You know, it's a slow, soft default. Okay, let's cut our transit system by 20%. Okay, here's five bus routes we're no longer going to do. Here's three lines that I get zero service. In other words, the shock of it is like from 100 to zero, right? It's like an on off switch. It's binary where with a road maintenance and all that, it's a slower decline. And so I think what it does is it just augments this idea that a transit system built on this fragile foundation is itself like ridiculously fragile. To me, this idea becomes more acute with transit because we've put it in this crazy fragile position.
- [15:58]
A
I feel like that provides some clarification for what I was kind of thinking through in transit. It is an on off switch and I fear you said you wanted to come back to talk about the vulnerable users of transit and how that affects things. I mean, I feel like that is because it's such a binary on off switch. It immediately affects people who rely on the system and suddenly this system is no longer operating in a way that doesn't as immediately affect people who are driving and they're just having to weave around potholes and things are slowly declining, but it doesn't stop ability to like get to work, for example.
- [16:47]
B
Yeah, this may get a little ranty for a minute on the vulnerable user thing. I'm going to say something and it might not sit well with some people, but I feel like it needs to be stated. I think when it comes to transit, there's a certain group of people who, and I think this is not a small portion of people, but I think there's a certain amount of people for whom we need transit because we care about vulnerable people and they're empathetic, they're moved by that and they want to try to address that issue. And the way they're addressing it is with transit. I think there's a whole other group of people though, and they tend to, I think, dominate the transit conversation in space. Who. And I'm going to say this, and yeah, I think this is very true. But it's not going to come out nice. I think vulnerable people for them are like part of the marketing brochures. They're part of the conversation around transit. We're going through a government shutdown right now as you and I talk, and maybe it will be resolved by next week or what have you. But one, one of the things that we see the federal government doing, and it doesn't matter if it's a Democrat or Republican administration, what we see them doing, is that the minute there's a impasse in Congress and the budget doesn't pass and there's a shutdown, they close the Washington Monument and they close the Smithsonian and they close Yellowstone park and they close, close the high profile things that people really like and want and desire as a way to kind of make it painful. And we see the administration right now saying, hey, we're going to fire all these people, we're going to do all this stuff because we make it really painful. And I feel like a lot of transit advocacy holds vulnerable people up as the avatar of funding the system that they would like to see or use. And so when things start to go bad, they get hurt first. Like they're the ones on the front line. They're the ones who are sitting there out there vulnerable because of kind of how we built the system and how we place them in this. To me, if the idea is we need to have a transit system to serve vulnerable people. And that is something that is innate to us as compassionate humans. Living in a city, living in a place, living in a community, making sure that, you know, everybody has a base level of prosperity and quality of life that they can enjoy. And by the way, I'm saying those things sincerely, I can make the case for that. I think that that is a good case. It's really critical that transit not be a charity, but that transit actually be a fundamental viable thing. And that means that it can't be dependent on federal government funding, it can't be dependent on state government funding. It can't be the first, the thing that if 10% of it or 20% of it gets cut, it falls apart and doesn't work. You actually have to build a transit system that's more financially robust than that. And you can't do that without building actual places where transit works. In other words, it's a land use conversation, not a transportation funding conversation. And we've tried to deal with this is where the whole funding of transit has things backwards. We've tended to look at a problem, poverty, vulnerable people People who can't get to jobs, people who can't get to work. And we've treated that like a transportation problem because transportation is where the money is. You know, why do you rob the bank? Because that's where the money is. Why do you build transportation projects? Because that's where the money is. But what you've done, not you, Abby, but you us, society, Americans, what we've done is because we treated it like a transportation problem and not a poverty problem, not a land use problem, not a neighborhood problem, not a community problem. Our responses have put the people we were trying to help in the most dependent and vulnerable position in our society. And as soon as the charity starts to, you know, run, run a little bit dry, the whole thing collapses. My call to people who care about vulnerable people is if you care about vulnerable people, you have to build a, a construct on which it's not dependent on like, the benevolence of a distant bureaucracy to dish out money to you.
- [21:41]
A
Yeah. There's so many different things that I think about when you say that. You know, like, I feel like it gets down to this, like, very fundamental question, because when you talk about this and you're talking about transit, I'm also thinking about, you know, these are similar, similar arguments that come up for housing, for example, and other things that are desired to direct spending to help people who are vulnerable. And I think it's rare that I ever see like, vulnerable people actually in those conversations. It's, you know, typically people who are, you know, within these systems. But, you know, I'd be curious about what the thoughts of people who are actually using these systems are. And you know, maybe that's just something I'm kind of detached from, but I feel like it does get to this kind of fundamental question of like, what, what is government and society to do about these challenges? And is it just because we've kind of put these funding sources into these categories of transportation or housing or whatever, in kind of a top down manner from the structure of the federal government. And that's kind of why we address things in these ways, because I agree with you, I think there's this ideal perspective about how cities ought to operate. And I think in, in the U.S. especially, like, we have not decided as cities what we really want to be. Like, everybody wants to have their cake and eat it too. And we have all of these metropolitan areas and regions that are both trying to be cities and have transit systems and serve everybody who needs it. And then we also have continuing continuously sprawling suburbs and highway projects. And it's like we're trying to do two things at the same time, and these are just ever competing things. And it does affect people, and not just vulnerable people, but how these whole systems are able to operate. Like it's like the futon example that you've talked about before. It's like we have regions that are not a comfortable bed and not a comfortable couch, and we're trying to have it both ways.
- [24:18]
B
So I was in Akron a couple weeks ago and I hadn't been for a long time, but I was there talking housing trap stuff. But boy, it was about seven years ago I was there and doing transportation work and they brought me out to this bus stop that they had built. And it was part of a federally funded thing where they were building bus stops and they were really proud of this nice facility that they had built and it was going to serve the vulnerable in this neighborhood. And we sat in the parking lot across the street and watched people. Because I said, let's sit here for a while. And I just want to see how this works. Because I could see right away this was a thing that probably met federal design criteria, probably met the outsourced consultants ideal plan. But I was just looking at it, I'm like, this is not functional in any way. For people who live in this neighborhood who predominantly walk, who don't own cars, you had to cross to get to it. A four lane stroad. It was way from, you know, far away from any signal or crosswalk. So in other words, we sat there and in 10 minutes we saw multiple people coming to this bus stop, all of which had to jaywalk across a dangerous street in order to get to this new bus stop that they had had used. I don't think that the people who put it in lack compassion. I don't think that the people who put it in were motivated by the wrong things. I don't think they lacked empathy. What I think they lacked is not having people in the meeting who were going to use it. Right. Like, I kind of get that on a superficial standpoint, but I think what they lacked is a contextual understanding of the neighborhood that you would only actually get from doing small incremental projects in a neighborhood and then getting the feedback from those projects. They were sensitive to the federal grant they got. They were sensitive to the design criteria that were handed to them. They were sensitive to dealing with the issues that they were having to work around, which was traffic flow of automobiles, traffic flow of the intersection, how they acquire the right of way, all These things that are really not based on, like, the experience of people who use the system, but are based around the people who are providing the service. And because of that, in this high demand neighborhood with tons of vulnerable people who desperately need transit, you had a transit system that doesn't actually meet their needs. I, you know, you and I were talking earlier about a broken sidewalk and how the city staff's response to this broken sidewalk in this area where it was really important was, well, let's, let's kind of. I'm going to paraphrase what you said. You didn't say it this way, but let's wait till the whole system falls apart or there's more things that are bad, and then we can aggregate it into one big project and do one big bond and one big thing and fix all these broken sidewalks. And you were like, hey, how about we just fix this little segment of sidewalk now? Because it would make a huge difference to a lot of people. And, you know, we could do that relatively cheaply without having to go through all this expense. And people were like, oh, wow, okay, great idea. I think to most people, they, they, they step back and they look and they're frustrated by how government delivers things. But the reality is, is that I think you're seeing most visibly in these transit systems fall apart. You're seeing the kind of clunkiness of a government delivery system that assumes permanent levels or permanently increasing levels of affluence. And we just don't have that. We never did have that.
- [28:22]
A
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. That it. I mean, when we rely on these federal grants to run our systems, and I mean, we as local citizens living in local cities and towns, become very vulnerable to changes. I mean, especially now. But I think that we do have systems that have kind of assumed that we had stability in our funding. And we are going through a lot of changes, not just in the transit space, but in a lot of different sectors, spaces. And I think a lot of people are now scrambling to figure out how do we, how do we find alternative mechanisms to fund things that are important to us. And from the perspective of transit, I mean, what we're talking about with the sidewalk example, it's essentially a triage example, right? I mean, we're saying, hey, you only have this much money, let's do something here in this smaller area because it will be meaningful and enable your system to function. Even though it's not the $20 million project to make everything nice and shiny and new, it will work, Abby.
- [29:35]
B
Instead of building like the big box store conglomerate out on the edge that we can all like drive to and then saying, oh, poor people need to get there too, so let's build a crappy bus system that will get them there. Maybe we could just build like houses for poor people in existing neighborhoods and then allow them to open businesses too, so they won't be poor. I feel like if you take transportation funding off the table, which we're in the process of doing, what you see is not that we can't solve these problems, but that there's a whole bigger toolbox that we could actually use that would solve the problems in more beneficial ways.
- [30:10]
A
I don't have the answer to this necessarily, but it is making me think about, do we. If we have some ways to fund transit locally and fund smaller systems, it's going to be very difficult, I think, to, especially for areas that have kind of sprawled out transit systems, to actually decide, like, where, who do you serve and where do you put these things? And I think from kind of the urbanist perspective, they would say, well, put transit where the density is and make it, you know, accessible to more people. But we also have this land use and housing affordability issue that a lot of people who may have relied on transit before are like, in the, in the suburbs and areas in really the declining suburbs where things are more affordable. So I think that's a challenge too. Like this is a big land use issue and affordability issue. And I just don't know how you square that circle. I mean, transit is not necessarily my background, but it's an incredibly challenging set of circumstances. And I don't know that it necessarily has an outcome that is like, or it's not a solution based outcome, right? Like it's something that has to be managed.
- [31:33]
B
This is the big question that we're dealing with, right in, in all of society, we, we have built. I mean, if we just look at the cities that we built, we have built. I mean, how many times have I done this presentation where I'm like, All right, Lafayette, Louisiana, their population grew by three and a half times. Their household income grew by 1.6 times. Their sewer and water pipe grew by 10 times. Their roadway grew by 20 times. Like, you just. At some point we have to get beyond the idea that there's a solution for insolvency and say, how do we manage this in the most optimum way possible? And I think to me, the sooner we transition to that, what we do is we stop trying to pretend that we can actually do this. And we start developing other solutions that, oh, by the way. Or other. Other responses that, oh, by the way, I think we could actually help way more people. I think we could actually make things way better more quickly for a lot of people. Can I. Can I quote Jarrett here, He. He actually writes. And I think this is like a political observation, but I think it's rather astute. He's like, he said, quote, we can never expect rural areas to enthusiastically support such an intrinsically urban service as transit any more than we can expect urban voters to be excited about agriculture subsidies or rural road construction. That's why, in my view, the future lies in making these decisions as locally as possible. So I feel like. I feel like Jared is on to something here, which is the quicker we can actually localize the capital, the bigger toolbox we give people to actually solve this problem. So I've been working on this stuff about the Federal Highway Trust Fund. The Federal Highway Trust Fund runs out in one year, and then it would have to be reauthorized. It's been insolvent for two decades now. So there would need to be a more allocation of money to keep it going. It funds kind of the dumbest, worst projects. I would just love to see that money. Either just the federal government doesn't collect it and we let states collect it, or if the federal government's going to collect it, we just give it right back to states and allow states and localities to have a bigger toolbox to adapt to this change we're going through. I feel like Jarrett is leaning that way or on the same page on that. And this is a guy who has spent his life working on transit for, to me, like, all the right reasons.
- [34:10]
A
So my question is, and I don't think this is addressed in the article, but I do have a question about if the federal government is going to cut all of these different things. Like, are we going to not pay as much in taxes to them? Like, are they going to cut our taxes to the federal government so that people are able to localize how their taxes work and what we decide to spend our money on? Because to me, like, okay, if that's the case, and we decide, hey, we're going to tax ourselves at the regional level for transit because we're not paying as much in federal tax. Okay, but I have a feeling that people are going to pay just as much in federal tax, but then we'll also have to fund things locally, because I'm with you on, like, we should localize the funding because, frankly, it's A really horrible thing that cities have to continuously justify themselves to, you know, others in the hierarchy that. That cities are worth funding. And I would love for cities to have more autonomy over what we decide to spend money on, but I just have a feeling that we're. We're going to end up paying twice.
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B
I'm going to say this, and I don't mean this to be condescending, Abby. It's very cute to actually think that we're being taxed to pay for government.
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A
Yeah.
- [35:47]
B
You now have three Republican administrations and two Democrat administrations in, you know, this century or this millennia that have funded significant parts of government without paying for it. And, you know, we can argue there's a whole cheerleading chorus about, well, that's not a big deal. Like, we don't need to do that. You know, we can. We can print money. We can do what have you. Okay. The idea that we are going to get money back from taxes and actually, I think is predicated on the idea that our taxes are actually funding the services we get. The services that we get are increasingly funded by just debt. And I think if you follow that down a road, you. You wind up in a place where, you know, there's a whole lot that we are going to pay for that we've already spent in the past at some point and, you know, or a lot less we're going to receive in the future so that our taxes can go to paying for past things. I feel like there's a. There's a. There's a fiscal prudence conversation at, you know, the. The federal level that I avoid talking about because it is just so political and almost religious. You know, deficits don't matter, kind of religious, and there's no way to talk people out of that. I think the thing that is real and inarguable is that a city government is exactly like a family. We can't print our own money. We have to actually raise the money we spend. If we borrow money, we have to pay it back. If we go through bankruptcy, lots of people get hurt. You cannot say government operates differently than a family unless you say the federal government, which prints its own money and has a whole difference. A federal government operates different than a family, but states do not, cities do not. And I think the more we conflate cities and states with the federal government, the more of a disservice we do to the actual, like, dollars and cents. Fiscal prudence. We need to be compassionate, to do real things, to provide real services. I think the more trouble we get into and let me say it this way. I think from a government standpoint, you know, we all have that one, like, free spending friend when we were in college who we'd go out with and they'd be like, yeah, let's do this and let's do that. And maybe they had the dad's credit card or maybe they just were prolific or whatever. And then we get home and we'd be like, oh, my gosh, I overspent. Like, why did I do that? For cities that prolific, friends, the federal government. And the federal government's like, here's money for this project. Here's money for that project. Do this. This is good, you know, and cities need to actually look and say, you know, no, this. This may be fun in the short term, but this is really bad for me long term. And I need to put my money into things that actually benefit my citizens more than, you know, these, these federal systems.
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A
Well, that's a really good example, actually. But I feel like it's. I feel like it's like we're at a point that we've been hanging out with that friend for so long that it's not like we're in our 20s and we can turn our life around. It's like we're nearing retirement and we can't. We have no money, nothing to show for it. So I feel like things are much more dire in terms of us needing to find ways to, like, we. We haven't proactively planned to not rely on these systems. We. We have been relying on them, and now we have to be very reactive to what's happening, and we can't go back and change things. Right. But now we have to respond reactively and find ways to make the right decision in the moment, which I think is just what. It's very challenging for a lot of cities and organizations right now.
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B
Well, and we are at the national level having. I don't want to say a conversation, because I think that makes it more sophisticated than it is.
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A
Is that what it is?
- [40:07]
B
No, we're having, like, a national existential crisis over what government is. And, you know, I think the one thing that we agree on, at least two political parties agree on, is that government needs to be very, you know, the federal government needs to be very big, very expansive, very. In your life. It's just like, what version of that do we have? Do we have a red version or a blue version? I would argue to local leaders that what you need is like a buffer from that craziness because, yeah, you're On a fixed income. They're playing with a trust fund, and they want to get you to do A, B and C because it's actually good for them and bad for you. It's time we create some distance between the narcissistic dysfunction that we're getting. And that's a. That's from both parties. Right. Like, I'm not. That's not a Democrat, Republican thing. That's like, you know, the whole place is kind of crazy in that way.
- [41:08]
A
Yeah. Yeah. The federal government is just not a very good friend.
- [41:13]
B
Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I have been writing that since I started in 2008, writing. And it was really controversial at first because there were a lot of people who are like, we need to go build these transit system, and the only way we can do it is the federal government supports us. I was in Nantucket earlier this year, and in Nantucket, they want to do this transportation project that they can't afford, and they're going to the federal government to ask for money for it. They applied and they're like, we have a reasonable expectation we're going to get this because, you know, and then tuck it. Their joke was billionaires hire millionaires to mow their yard. This is a place of, like, in the United States, this is one of the most affluent zip codes in the entire nation. And when I gave my talk there, I brought this up and I asked them, who are you expecting to be taxed to pay for the grant you are seeking from the federal government? Like, which. Which zip code should send money to Washington, D.C. so that it can be sent to you so that you can have this road project on Nantucket? And that was kind of an uncomfortable question because the reality is, you know, should we. Should we tax, like, the neighborhoods of Detroit? Should we tax Memphis to pay for Nantucket? Should we tax, you know, South Boston? Like, who should pay for this? And the reality is that's an absurd question. Like, you know, it's Nantucket that should be paying for the other places. If you're really about, like, redistribution of wealth. We're not. What we are is about trying to conjure something out of nothing at the federal level. And I think that's the thing we've become addicted to. That's the magic that we've assumed will continue to happen. And if you read this article and if you care about transit and you start to understand what is being said by Jared here, I feel like what you're seeing is, like, that illusion breaking down in, like, its Most obvious way, like, no, you are not going to tax Detroit to pay for Nantucket. We're going to borrow money and conjure it out thin air and give it to Nantucket. That's not a viable long term strategy either to maintain a transit system across cities, across the country or even just run a darn country. It like it doesn't work. Yeah.
- [43:40]
A
I mean, unless we pay for it ourselves. And I think that's going to be really difficult in a lot of places.
- [43:48]
B
If Nantucket can't do it for road point to who can do it. Yeah, we talk a lot about highways and how, oh, people don't understand how subsidized highways are. They think they're paying for it. The gas tax. It's really not true. We need to make sure that they know. And it's like, yeah, okay, I agree with it. But people actually think we're paying for government. They actually think that we are being taxed because we are being taxed. We're being taxed a lot. And that we're sending it to Washington D.C. and then Washington D.C. is like funding government, you know, with a little bit of borrowing to, you know, but it's. And we're not, we, we do actually do not pay for even a fraction of, you know, we, we do not pay for a large portion of what we consume. And that is, that's really difficult for people to get their minds around.
- [44:35]
A
Well, Chuck, let's leave it there because yeah, I feel like this is just the ultimate predicament. And I mean it, it aligns with a lot of, a lot of things with, with the roads, with how we ultimately build our cities. And it'll be interesting to see what the reaction is to such a lack of federal funding and how cities actually contend with that. It's a little bit, it's a little bit scary, honestly. But yeah, it's going to be an.
- [45:13]
B
Outcome to me if people read this article and see it as a left right political issue or see it as a government choice to stiff transit or see it as anything else except basically the next stage of the end of the suburban experiment. I think they're missing the story. I think they're missing what this actually is. This is the, this is one of the fragile links of the suburban experiment failing as like the, the next tremor.
- [45:48]
A
In a bigger earthquake and I think may expedite things.
- [45:53]
B
Yeah, I think we'll accelerate decline. Yeah.
- [45:55]
A
The triage situation.
- [45:57]
B
Yes, yes.
- [45:59]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:00]
B
So on that happy note, let's do the down zone.
- [46:04]
A
Yeah, I know, I'm like, this is, this is pretty real and. Yeah, well, it's pretty. It's pretty real stuff. But yeah, let's do the down zone before we end. So part of this show where we share anything that we have been reading, watching, listening to anything that has been on our minds these days. Chuck, what do you have for the down zone today?
- [46:29]
B
I got this book called Little Bosses Everywhere. How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America. It was by Bridget Reed. R E A D. I think that's how you would say her last name. And I did not like it. I got it on audiobook. I listened to the entire thing. I went to quit it like a couple times. I actually, it was kind of sold to me as being like a broader conversation about, you know, kind of like how the economy is wired this way with, you know, the kind of Amway. Direct selling.
- [47:07]
A
Yeah. Multi level marketing.
- [47:09]
B
Multi level marketing being like the thing. And it was basically a book about multi level marketing. And it, it made me, I think, the one thing that I took away from it that I hadn't considered that really, because I've never, I've never done this. I'm kind of allergic to it. I'm not a salesperson. So, like, this never enticed me in any way. I've got a family member that got really into multi level marketing and you know, like multiple different versions of it and it's never worked out well. The thing that didn't occur to me that I did get from this book that I thought was a valuable insight was this. Its popularity rises during recessions and difficult economic times. And it rises the greatest in the poorest places because it feels like a get rich quick kind of scheme when it's actually like a predatory financial model. But it was, they described this one like Ohio town where basically like all these desperate people were going to sell whatever the latest multi level marketing thing was. And you look around and they're all in each other's pyramids. And it's like, you know, we just ran out of people in this town. Like, you know, you, you've got to have eight people so that I can make, you know, 40 bucks. And then you've got to. They've each got to have eight people so that you can make 40 bucks. And you just like run out of people that everybody knows because everybody's doing marketing, multilevel marketing, to every other desperate person in town. It went from one of these things that I have found to be kind of annoying to one of these things that I now find to be like, tragically sad. So I wouldn't. I feel like you could get the gist of the book by reading a good. It was one of those books that could have been an article, but you know, there was a story there to turn it into a book. But, you know, it was an article worth reading basically.
- [49:10]
A
Yeah, I think I've brought this up probably many years ago on this show, but there's a podcast called the Dream that is about multi level marketing. They have like several seasons now. They've talked about like the wellness industry and they, they basically talk about like predatory industries. And the first season is all about multi level marketing. And they go through the process of like signing up for one, getting into it, figuring out how it works. Works. Interviewing people that have been really deeply entrenched in, in many different companies. And it is really fascinating how it works as a model. I've never, like, I've never done multi level marketing. I don't know that I know people who have done it. But it is like, I mean, it's very predatory because essentially the people who are involved with it are like, they're, they're the buyers. It's like they're, they're, they're the ones buying all of the things and they're spending a lot of the times more than they'll ever make on it. So if you are interested in the topic, I would recommend the Dream. I thought it was a pretty good podcast. I probably wouldn't read this book because I bet a lot of the content from that is, is on there. And if you don't recommend it, I'm not going to read the book.
- [50:37]
B
Yeah, it won't make my top five list at the end of the year, but, you know, it wasn't too long. And so I think I, I think I listened to it when I was working in the yard one weekend and it was, it was not bad. But yeah, I think it was supposed to make me angry. It actually just made me sad because it's not going to go away. You know, like towards the end they're talking about like all the, basically like all the big players and they're all tied in, you know, they're, they're all tied into regulatory systems in a way where, you know, I think you could, if you're in the government, look at this and say we should just get rid of this. But they never will. And so you're just kind of like sad because it's one of these like sanctioned exploitation devices. And yeah, I, I always hate things in particular that take. I Think what is a natural human desire for improvement? You know, like, I want to improve my condition in life. Give people, like, a shortcut. Like, here's a. Here's a quick way to do that. Quick, pain free, easy way to do it. And then at the same time, kind of make it your personal failure if it actually doesn't work out when it was never going to work out. And so, yeah, it made me sad because I know a lot of people who are really good people who have spent a lot of energy in their life doing that, when that energy could have gone to things that not only, I think served them better, but actually made the world a better place instead of trying to sell someone a necklace or a lotion or a cleaning product or whatever it was.
- [52:23]
A
Yeah, it is unfortunate because people. People who are doing it, I mean, they're trying to take control of their situation and make their own money and be empowered. And yes, these companies take advantage of that.
- [52:38]
B
They do.
- [52:39]
A
And give people a product that they can't make money on. And so, yeah, it's very. It's horrible.
- [52:46]
B
They are selling a narrative, not a product. And that narrative is very seductive. Yeah, that narrative is very seductive to a certain kind of person who is in a vulnerable spot, but also sees themselves as a conduit to their own salvation. And I think the being a conduit to your own salvation is. That's a spark of, like, a good thing. Right. But it's not designed to lead you to the promised land. Well, you go ahead. Yeah.
- [53:16]
A
The book that I am, I'll admit I haven't started it yet because I just got here, but I'm going to be reading the Story Brand book that you recommended the other day.
- [53:28]
B
Oh, nice. Good. Yeah, that's a very easy read, but it's one where you should take some walks in between chapters and just think about it because. Yeah.
- [53:38]
A
Oh, really? Okay. That's good to know. Yeah.
- [53:40]
B
I mean, I feel like it's really simple, but I feel like the more you. The more you actually think about it and apply it, the deeper the levels go. Right. So.
- [53:50]
A
Yeah.
- [53:51]
B
Yeah. Why. Why did you. What. What motivated you to do that besides me telling you? Like, what was it about?
- [53:59]
A
Well, you mentioned it when we were in that meeting the other day with a group of folks with Dennis when you were in Kansas City. And it. I mean, I. I think for me, storytelling and communication is a. Believe it or not, I find it to be really challenging to, like, clarify what I'm trying to say and to structure it in a way that makes sense and is clear. I think that that is something that's challenging to do. And so, you know, whether it's through my job or otherwise, that. That's something that I've been wanting to get better at that. And I'm also. I am actually actively reading a book called Dare to Lead that was recommended by Brown. Yeah. About leadership. And, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm now entering a point where I'm, you know, managing other people. And I. I'm in a transition in my life in terms of how I'm operating professionally. And so I've been really interested in, like, communication. And how do you. How do you think systemically about, you know, working with others? I. I am someone who can do things independently, fairly well, but that's not how you grow in a profession and how you do things. I mean, you know, this. You run an organization. It started as a blog, and you doing stuff, and now you have a whole team of people that. And you run, like, a whole operation. And I feel like that's. I don't know what that was like for you, going from being more of, like, an autonomous, independent person to working now with a huge organization. But. And not to say that that's, like, where I'm headed, but it's something that I'm just. Just very aware of right now. And so I've been really interested in leadership, communication, and also, like, storytelling as well.
- [56:11]
B
Well, let me say this for you and for everybody who's listening who finds themselves in a similar situation. I think if you step back and look at the stats and the growth of Strong Towns and the whole thing, you would say, wow, Chuck is a great leader. What great success. Look at the, you know, look. Look at the transformation. I can tell you that there's not a day when I don't feel completely out of my league where I don't feel like I'm completely like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm messing this up. I'm, like, tragically screwing up. I don't know. I don't know what the next step is. I'm not sure where to go next. I feel like we're always working. If you're not working a step or two above your comfort zone, you're really not doing anything important. So, yeah, keep going, Abby. I mean, you're awesome. And I feel like the fact that you're at this point where you're maybe challenging yourself and asking those questions, it's all a good thing. And don't feel like the people, you know, other people have the answer, right. Like you, you'll figure this out. It's not impossible.
- [57:15]
A
Yeah, definitely. And I feel like I feel comfortable saying that because it's like I don't feel, I guess I don't feel like I'm, I'm in the wrong place or that what am I doing? Like, I, But I feel more like just very curious about how, how can I do something better? And yeah, I'm just, I'm just very curious about it. And I think this is how I, I really like information. So it's like I, I seek, I seek out information when I am, you know, faced with something that I find different or challenging, whether or not they necessarily have the answers. It's like I think that these things will help me think about things in a different way, which is constructive.
- [58:06]
B
I always said, like when my girls were 8 and 10, I felt really, really confident that I could raise girls that were three and five, but I had no idea what to do with an 8 year old and a 10 year old. And then when they were, you know, now they're, they're 18 and 20 and I'm like, I don't know what to do with an 18 and a 20 year old, but I would be really good if they were 14 and 16 again because I felt like I handled that well. You know, there's a, you're always going to be faced with like the new thing that you're not sure what to do about. And yeah, you just keep informing yourself, keep learning, keep. I mean, you've surrounded yourself with great mentors too, and people who are there to help you and bounce questions off of and give you, you know, give you some insight and advice that you should take some of it but not all of it. And I think, yeah, you'll be fine. It'll work out.
- [58:59]
A
Yeah, I feel very lucky. There's a lot of really great people in my life and you're one of them, Chuck. So I appreciate that.
- [59:10]
B
Thanks, Abby. I like being your old guy that, your old guy that you can ask questions of.
- [59:18]
A
The old wise Buddha of my life. No, that's Monty. He's the Buddha.
- [59:26]
B
When I started my first job, the old guy that I asked advice from was just turned 50. And when I turned 50 and I looked at the rest of the team, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm the old wise guy that they're gonna think. The funny thing is, is I'm like, you shouldn't be asking me for advice, like, I'm gonna screw things up for you. And then I realized that that's probably what my boss thought when I was 22 asking for advice.
- [59:48]
A
So. Yeah, that's funny.
- [59:53]
B
We don't get to play the record again. So you just get to play it once?
- [59:58]
A
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, well, thanks so much, Chuck. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode of Upzoned.
- [60:09]
B
Chuck thanks you too. Take care. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a non profit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong towns member@strongtowns.org membership.
- [60:35]
A
Sam.