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- [00:08]
A
Got my bus pass been a ride first class streetcar downtown with a fine Ladies in the peeps are OG say
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B
don't hurt nobody looking this damn thing. What if the easiest way to get people to accept more housing was just to pay them? That's the idea at the center of a July article in the Atlantic titled A Perfectly Crude solution to America's Housing Shortage. According to the article, just about every effort to solve America's housing shortage runs into the iron law of nimby, the not in my backyard mindset. Whenever a development is proposed in a place where people already live, existing residents erupt in opposition, claiming the new homes will alter neighborhood character, increase traffic and hurt property values. Those who benefit the most from new housing, meanwhile, don't yet live in the community and thus have no say in the political process. This creates an asymmetry that's hard to overcome. Even reforms passed at the state level to override local building restrictions keep failing because, according to the article, NIMBYs find clever ways to work around them. The solution being proposed is simple. If you can't beat the NIMBYs, just pay them. Welcome to Upzoned, where we talk about one big story making the news and explore what it can teach us about building stronger towns. I'm Chuck Marone, the founder and president of Strong Towns. Joining me today is first of all, Dr. Chloe Groom. She's the treasurer of Strongtown Chicago. She has a PhD in Material Science and engineering and now works as a support engineer at Rescale. She's been part of the fight to re legalize ADUs, fix single family zoning and make the city's neighborhoods work better at the local scale. She's also helping bring a very Chicago mix of detailed policy work, neighborhood organizing and improv rooted comedy to issues like transit funding and the looming fiscal cliff. Chloe, it was cool to hang out with you earlier this week. It's now super cool to have you on Upzone. Welcome to the show.
- [02:13]
C
Delighted to be here Chuck. Thank you.
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B
We're also joined by John Reuter. John is the Executive director of Strong Towns. Before that he served for over a dozen years on the Strong Towns board. He served on City Council in Sandpoint, Idaho. He now lives in Boston with his wife and his Wookiee like dog. John, welcome to Upzoned. Glad you're here.
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A
It's good to see you Chuck.
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B
John, I want to start with you and I feel like you and your time in Sandpoint and the other work that you've done, really advocacy work for many decades now, trying to whether it's cross political lines or build coalitions. I feel like you're gonna have a strong reaction to the idea of just paying the people you perceive as your opposition to an issue. Give us your take. First of all, on the article, I
- [03:05]
A
did a very strong, like, revulsion on my first reading of it because it just feels like the crux of the matter here, right, Is the need to see people as people, right? And so it's a moment where they're like, oh, gosh, we keep trying to pass things federal, we keep trying to pass things on state level. We keep trying to skip over talking to people in community and, like, having to, like, deal with the politics of neighborhoods and the politics of cities and, like, figure out how to bring people together. What if we just bribe them now instead? What if we just take a dump truck full of money, bring it up to their house, and figure out how much money would it cost you to do this? It just feels like we're still, like, avoiding having to deal with the humanity at a local level and understanding people's motivations of how people are thinking about their place and actually having a conversation with people and finding that common ground that would let us build the housing we desperately need. Because we desperately do need to build more housing, and we do need to get communities to come on board with that, to really make it happen. And that, I guess, is the flip side of this, is after I took that beat of feeling angry about or annoyed or frustrated with the dehumanization of the approach, my second take was, well, no, wait, there's something really good about this, which is that we're starting to think about the motivations of NIMBYs. We're starting to think about the motivations of communities and figure out how to approach them. And so I guess that's the hopeful side of this, to me, is at least we're starting to figure out that we can't just jump over neighborhoods and communities and cities and towns, but have to figure out how to have some sort of engagement. But I don't think this quite hits the mark for a number of reasons.
- [04:39]
B
Chloe, you spent a lot of time in the trenches in these meetings, and people show up and they're against this or against that. What was your surface level reaction to this piece?
- [04:53]
C
Pretty similarly to John, I had a pretty immediate visceral reaction of really hating this idea, to be honest with you. Coming from. Yeah, I've been hissed at zoning meetings by kind of the stereotypical NIMBY that you picture. They do tend to be older Retired in Chicago, largely white people. They've booed us at city council meetings. It's just for me, it was the very human reaction of like, and you want to pay those people. So I had to read the article twice to kind of get past my initial emotional reaction, to really kind of marinate on the idea, moving past my own experiences. I still don't think that this really hits the mark. Like John said, from what I've seen and from what they've said, they give public comments as well. I've spoken to many of them at these different meetings when they're nice to me. And I think for most people, and what this research kind of misses is that housing in your neighborhood is deeply, deeply emotional. This approach is a very like, dry economic way of trying to shift incentives. But I think on the ground, for real people, a check for $1,000 is not going to make you okay with a building or a duplex, whatever it is that you just feel is wrong for your neighborhood for whatever reason. I think this is kind of a band aid over a cultural problem and it would be rewarding kind of the worst antisocial behavior that I tend to see on the ground.
- [06:49]
B
Clay, I want to come back to you after this. I read the article, I read in my intro here a little bit of the opening. In the very first sentence, it talks about the iron law of nimby. And there was a part of me that feels like this is coming from a place where people actually have never engaged with their neighbors. Even towards the end, the very last paragraph in this piece, it says housing advocates have done everything in their power to combat what, what they see as a selfishness of local NIMBYs. You know, it goes through like they've tried to convince them of the economic benefits, they've filled town hall meetings to shut them down. They've lobbied for state level laws to override them. And my reaction was, well, have they ever tried to understand their motivations? I feel like there is a grotesque caricature of the NIMBY that is kind of easy to have because you can go, I mean, I've been in meetings and people get up and they say awful things and they hiss at and they, you know, do not represent themselves. Well. I think you can go on Twitter or Reddit or wherever, you know, the Yimby sometimes hang out and see like equally grotesque things kind of shouted at the void. It does seem like a lot of what is just lost is the humanity of people. I really wanted to have you on because I feel like you have more credibility on this than even I would, because I think you've been in more of these meetings in recent years in particular than I have. But it does feel like the places that we've seen make headway on this are the ones that have actually sat down with, you know, the opposition or the people who are opposing housing or NIMBYs, if we want to use the term and say, okay, like, what is, what is the concern here that we're actually dealing with? Chloe, go for it.
- [08:45]
C
Yeah, I think that's a really good point because there is. There is a stereotype of who. What a NIMBY is, and, like, that does exist, and I don't want to, like, pretend that it doesn't. But at the same time, the broader ecosystem of NIMBYS is very diverse. And it's been pretty interesting even in my time in Chicago. Like, there's, there's different neighborhood groups. Like, Chicago has a very hyperlocal strongtown system, in a sense, where almost every neighborhood has a block club. And these people meet monthly. Some of them are great. You know, it's a mixed bag. Some of them, you know, seem to use all of their money and energy to go against housing. But what's been really interesting is groups that. When I first moved to Chicago three years ago, I was told by people, oh, they're very, they're very nimby. You know, we're going to have to kind of work around them on this project. They've sort of evolved. I've increasingly seen, quote, unquote, NIMBY groups who ask for less parking in projects. So in some way, like, the traffic concern is still there, but they, the parking messaging has gotten through. So, yeah, like, meeting people where they're at in Chicago, there's people who, they kind of say the quiet part out loud. They don't want their property values to go down. They don't want shadows from buildings falling on their backyard. It is in a vacuum, very selfish. But at the same time, that's not every nimby. And some of them actually do, like, learn and kind of understand. Oh, actually, there's another way to address, like, their concern. What I, what I'm trying to get at is that everyone's lived experience is real. Like, NIMBYs are rational people acting rationally just in a way that, you know, we largely don't like or appreciate. But, yeah, I think a lot of it is education. And I was talking to another advocate recently who shared that at one meeting. I think this is Laura Foot. Actually, I met her last Friday, at one meeting, she shared, like, you know, you guys blocking housing is why your grandkids can't afford to live in this neighborhood. And she said that one of them actually gasped and actually, like, clutched her pearl necklace, which is so cute, and left and talked to her later and shared like that had never clicked for her. So I know that Strong Towns Chicago doesn't do memes, but my somewhat glib answer is that maybe we should start making AI slap on Facebook to get the older 65 demographic. But, yeah, basically, I don't think people are impossible to change. And I've seen it in person. But at the same time, I am very sympathetic to the other side of people are struggling. We don't have time to change the hearts and minds of every single person in Chicago. Chicago specifically. Also, I could get into this forever, but our local context, in my opinion, is that we need state intervention for sanity around zoning. But that's maybe beyond the scope of the article.
- [12:33]
B
John, in reading the article, it was. I think maybe the listeners should also grasp and understand that this is not just like the writer's idea. He's actually quoting researchers that are doing this work, economists that are out studying this. One of the things that I. I mean, Chloe and I both have, like, technical backgrounds. And so the idea of calling economics a science sometimes sits wrong with me because it is a social science, but it's not a material science in the way that, you know, Chloe or I may look at things. But you have people who were asking, you know, if how much would you charge to have this building built at the edge of your neighborhood? And then how much would you charge to have it built next door to you? And then how much would you charge if it was the same size and bulk and scale as something in your neighborhood versus something that was out of scale with your neighborhood? And I feel like their answers, while very unscientific, kind of pointed in a direction that I think was very logical, which is when things change incrementally and gradually, people tend to have less concern. And when things change dramatically, people tend to get their hackles up. I don't know if that resonated to you or if there was something that Chloe said here that resonated with you, but. Floor is yours. Take it.
- [14:00]
A
Yeah, there are a few threads here that I think are really interesting. Let me just start with the bribe itself. The money itself, right? As though this were just about money. What we know is that people's concerns about development happening next door to them, if done well, which often it will be. And we can certainly figure out how to mandate that rather than stop it. Right. It's going to actually increase your property values. It's actually going to increase your wealth. Right. We're already, you know, it will increase. Like talk about having benefits to the cities. The city will actually get more revenue from building, especially infill development in their cities. Will actually make the city financially stronger. Well, I mean, there is more funding for parks and police and fire and schools. Right. All of it will actually be better off because of that increments being built up there and seeing those new developments come in place. And so I think that's part of my problem with this idea of giving people money is it suggests that people are being harmed by new development. And I do think that that's, I guess that's the crux here that I think we need to figure out how to solve in our communities is to understand that development and growth doesn't have to be a negative. You know, I live on a street in Boston that has some single family homes, that has a triplex, that has some duplexes, that my neighbor who I adore, who's in her 80s, she has an apartment that she rents out. She could not afford to stay in her house without having that apartment that she rents out upstairs. Right. I love my neighbor. She comes over with her dog three or four times a week and they hang out in our backyard and we all play, you know, they all play together and, and we talk to each other and have these great conversations. I would not want to live here without her living here too. And she only can live here because she was allowed to have that apartment upstairs. Down the street there's this family with these two little girls who are just adorable, who wave and talk to us as we walk by when we're walking our dog in the morning and we have conversations every day. They are able to afford in our neighborhood because they live in a duplex and we're able to find somewhere they could buy. They moved here from a more expensive place to our neighborhood because they could have it. My neighborhood is better because they're here because they're on my block with me. And there's also a single family home next door just like we live in. Right. Which has a great family in it who I love and adore and make my neighborhood stronger. So this idea, and I think about the renter next door to me who lives in a two family unit there, who's a Vietnam veteran and a former retired officer who I love. And when his Granddaughter is what he calls it. Comes, comes and visits. He comes over and hangs out. But we talk all the time and solve problems together and talk about the neighbors. And he keeps an eye on our house when we're out of town. Right. All these people make our neighborhood stronger. All these people were possible because we didn't just freeze the neighborhood as single family when it was first built. My house was actually one of the first houses built on this block in 1915. Right. And if we just frozen it, then none of these people would be around us, none of these people would be here. And frankly, it wouldn't be a street I wanted to live on. And so I think we have to understand fundamentally the idea that growth can actually improve our lives, can actually make our lives richer, can actually surround us by people that we develop friendships with and relationships with that really make us better off. And I think that's why in this study, when you see people who are in more dense areas, in apartment buildings or in closer corridors, less worried about development, is because when you live in these places with more development, with more people, you start to discovering that having neighbors is. Is. Is often a gift. It is not just having noisy people next door or a distraction or other things. It's actually having a community. It's actually have a rich thing of life. It's actually having a life outside of having to drive somewhere to get there, that you actually have this richness around you. So that really hits to me. And then the last thing I want to say beyond that is I hear, I think one of the insights in the article that I think was really right by a lot of these big thinkers who have been trying to figure out how to solve these problems from the top down. And I guess this is where I'd push back on what Chloe said. If we. I think. I think state legislation is part of the solution. But if we don't figure out how to solve the problem in the community, if we don't figure out how to get to the neighborhood level and to the city level and get in alignment, people will always find a way out. It's just too easy. There are too many tools, from transportation planning to fees that we can put on things to design reviews that if the city really. If neighborhoods really don't want to build, if the city really doesn't want to build, they'll find a way out. And I think that's where these bribes come from, is a reckoning that we have to deal with people who oppose development at the local level. We have to find a way to engage with them. And I think that that's really true. That part I think is really right on. I just don't think this is the way to do it. I think we have to find a way that engages them more fully. And I don't mean to simplify your beliefs, Chloe, either, to say you're avoiding all of that. Like, I don't think that state legislation isn't a place. They're definitely a place of triggering action and triggering conversations. But we're going to have to get down to neighborhood level and start to build a recognition of having more people in neighborhoods, recognizing that their neighbors make their place stronger rather than worse off.
- [19:08]
C
One part of the article. And John, you hit the nail on the head here. The detail that I think really stuck with me and I found interesting from a study point of view is that they had to offer five times the original payment for low income housing to be accepted to the study participants. And to me, I think that really fits in with the noxious frame of people as pollution. As this is a hazard that I don't want in my neighborhood and I'll only tolerate it for this inflated amount of money. It's unfortunately radical. The idea that having neighbors is awesome, growth is good. It's nice to be around other people. What happens in Chicago, what's been very challenging. Is Chicago really invented? Not invented, maybe perfected using zoning to facilitate racial and every other category of segregation. The challenge that we run into is a lot of these neighborhoods have been single family for over 70 years. There's a very specific type of person that lives there. And it's a little awkward to just like show up and knock on doors. That's not very like socially accepted. And they've had multiple generations of this sort of insular, like, oh, we're a cop neighborhood or you know, we're the bungalow belt, or you know, we're a Latino area. It gets pretty insular and that's very challenging to break down. And because they've had single family zoning, not a lot of people live there. So I hear you on Changing Hearts and Minds and I do think it still needs to be bottom up. We still need to get the message out there to as many people as possible. But there are very real barriers that in some cases were put up intentionally. Maybe offering cash payments is a way around that. I'm a scientist. I would still appreciate seeing a pilot project done in real life. I could be wrong and I will accept evidence to the contrary.
- [21:30]
B
I struggle with the dissonance of the conversation Because I agree with the insight that having more people move into your neighborhood makes your neighborhood better. And I think particularly when that's done in an incremental way where it grows, you're not dislocating people, you're not kicking people out. You're just adding to what's there. I think it's really positive, it's really helpful. How do we frame that with a statewide often framework that says, and I'll look here in Minnesota, we've done this in the seven county metro area. I know this has been a big push in California's state preemption stuff. Everybody has to take their share, and I'll put in quotes, you know, their share of undesirable housing development. And if you're not doing your share, we're going to come in and, you know, force that down your throat. In a sense, it's hard to reconcile a viewpoint that is, this is good and you should want it and it's wonderful, and here's how much value it adds. And if you don't want it, then we're going to force you to take it because you know it's good for you. I feel like this article contains a little bit of that dissonance and this idea and this study, like, okay, we're not even going to bother convincing you that it's good for you. We're not going to have the conversation about my neighbor is able to live in her place because she can rent out one of her rooms. That actually is a really compelling story that would appeal to a lot of people who are feeling that precarity that like, am I going to get kicked out of my neighborhood? Am I going to get priced out or what have you. Well, I can. I'm house rich, I'm cash poor. I can turn some of my house into cash and have someone here who can maybe help me shovel the sidewalks. That story disappears when it becomes a. All right, we're just going to pay you to take on this negative thing that we've defined as negative. And how much do we have to pay for you to take other people's garbage? I mean, there is a dollar amount that China will accept our trash for. We've figured that out on a global marketplace. There is a dollar amount that poor neighborhoods will pay to house the incinerator or what have you. I feel like that's a really bad frame of governance.
- [23:51]
A
Let's go back to something that Chloe raised that I think is really important about the racism that fueled the zoning and in Chicago. Right. And it's not always racism, but racism is a really good and relevant example across our country of a way that made us misunderstand what growth means or what having other people around us means. Right. And I think we often talk about racism in this country as something that harmed people of color, that harmed black people. Right. Especially. And that is true. They have been disproportionately impacted. But when you look at the economic impacts on. Of racism in this country, we're all actually poorer because of it.
- [24:31]
B
Right.
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A
This exclusionary zoning actually made everybody poorer. When you look at what happened in Tulsa. Right. And we look at, like, actually, like, shutting down black Wall street, that was wealth that was being created, that was helping an entire community better off, and racism shut that down in a way that made the entire community poorer. You can actually see there's. There's a book about this. I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it's this idea that we're. That actually racial solidarity actually makes us stronger. I think about actually another great leader from Chicago, a black leader, who talked about the idea of how do we fight racism? He said, you don't fight racism with more racism. You don't fight. He said, you don't fight fire with fire. You don't fight water with water. The solution to racism is solidarity. And what he meant by that was an understanding that we're actually in this together, that actually our fates are intertwined. And I think that there's a real. There's a real connection to that idea of when we feed into these ideas that we are each other's threats, that we are threats to each other, that we are harming each other rather than see each other as allies. That that force to separate us away from each other does not actually benefit us. That it actually makes us do things like shut down the swimming pool and now there's only a private public swimming pool. Which is one of the things that happened in the South. Right. Is they would shut down. Probably happened in Chicago, too. I don't know. But my suspicion is likely the case. Shut down public swimming pools. Nope. Because it stopped black and white people from mingling together. And then nobody had public swimming pools anymore except the richest people who had private pools. Right. And this is what we do with all these things all the time, is we, you know, we spite our nose and damage our face in the process or whatever the saying goes there. And I feel like that's what happened with housing, too, is we. We've allowed ourselves to see each other as threats to us. We've allowed ourselves to see the other as human pollution. And I think we have to take those things head on. That part of resolving this moment is a recognition that there is strength in each other, that community has strength and relationships have strength. And I don't think it's easy. I just think it's necessary, I guess is what I come back to over and over again. I don't think these problems are some like, oh, there's some quick and easy fix. And I guess that's what I get resistant to in this too is it's like we keep looking for what the silver bullet is to this problem. How, how will we. What's the one policy solution that solve this whole stuff? And it's like, oh, it turns out there isn't one. That it actually is a complex thing that built us here and a complex set of economic and social and political barriers that are stopping us from building housing, having affordable housing and having vibrant communities. And it's going to take us dismantling those and rebuilding those in ways that allow us to be good neighbors to each other piece by piece. So I guess that's part of what. That's sort of my sort of sideways answer to what you're talking about.
- [27:16]
B
Kelly, I'm going to give you the last word before we switch into the down zone.
- [27:20]
C
Something that I have found really interesting and I want to do more reading and research, is actually tied to the Civil Rights movement. There were towns in the south that proactively desegregated before the Civil Rights Act. I think that's really inspiring and I mean, incredible. As someone not from that era, not from that area of the country, I think we could learn a lot from that for the strong towns movement, for the Yimby movement as a whole. But at the same time, I'll point out those were few and far between. And for real immediate social change, the massive impacts that the Civil Rights act had, that did have to come from above. You did have to force the dog to swallow the pill a little bit with the top down action and that's not desirable. That does frame a lot of things in maybe an unkind way. But at the same time, I think most people kind of saw like, oh, the sky didn't fall down, okay, you know, big, big government is making me do this, but actually my life isn't worse. I don't think that every, like you said, there's no like one shot housing policy. It's going to take time and experimentation and lots of things are not going to work. But state Level legislation is also incremental. People, you know, have amendments to bills, they're able to switch things out, try new things and so on. And I think, at least in Illinois, what we're aiming for is allowing four flats by right in like every single family zoning area anywhere. You can build a single family house, you can build a four unit. You know, I think that's probably one of the better ways to approach the top down. I think that avoids some of the negative framing of like, your neighbors are pollution and this thing we have to pay you to deal with. And I hope for most people just living the experience of like, oh, my neighbor built a duplex. Normally if someone had asked me, I would have hated this. But now that I see hasn't been a big deal. There's actually a term for it if you guys have seen the hill of hysteria. The hill of hysteria. I was introduced to this by a city nerd, the YouTuber city nerd ray Delahanty. I'm sure he didn't invent it, but it's the idea that someone is going to change something. And it applies to lots of different things, but especially new housing. As more people hear about it and as it gets closer to actually happening, there's more and more resistance. There's a group in Chicago that bought billboards that have been paying lawyers, like tens of thousands of dollars to fight a zoning change. Eventually it happens. That's the top of the hill of hysteria. And you'll get backlash. But eventually, as time goes on, people adjust and they adapt and they realize, you know what, you know, maybe, maybe having more neighbors is okay. Maybe they get to meet like their own older neighbor lady who has an adorable dog. I, I, I love the bottom up. And like, in my heart, that's 100%. We need both. It's not one or the other. It's synergy. That's my favorite buzzword. Um, I think it's synergistic and works together. Um, yeah, I, again, I don't, I don't think paying people is it, but, you know, maybe they do a pilot and maybe it works great and then I'll change my mind. But those, those are my final thoughts. Thank you.
- [31:24]
B
All right, let's switch into the down zone. Is there anything that you are reading, watching, engaging with that you'd like to share with the broader strong towns community? John, can we start with you this week? You have a down zone item?
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A
Sure. Mine's a little heady this week. I just finished reading the Human Condition by Hannah randt from the 1950s when she first published it. And lots of people talking to Randt because she writes about fascism and those types of topics typically. But this one is about people and what it means to live a good life. And something that she talks about is the need to have people, both a private self and a public self, and the need for both of those things to have a good life. And the public self being about political action, the private self being away from it and on your own. And something I've been thinking a lot about, and that extends naturally from what she writes about in the Human Condition, is how technology and the suburban pattern have made us lose both the public self and the private self simultaneously. That we're never really alone anymore with our phone at our fingertips. And it's so much harder to get together than it used to be, too, because of how we've built our places and how much there's a lack of third places out there and a disconnect. And so, I don't know. This has been on my mind a lot of how do we restore and how do we find the space to be private and also go out into our communities and find ways to be together and to engage and take action? So that's what's on my mind right now.
- [32:54]
B
Chloe, do you have a Town Zone item you want to share?
- [32:57]
C
Yeah. I have really been enjoying a creator on YouTube. The channel is called Farm to Tabor. Tabor is T A B E R. I think it's a cute little pun. It's Sarah Tabor. She's a small farmer herself, and she went to school for farming and agriculture. And her content has been incredibly interesting, learning about kind of agricultural subsidies and our popular sort of media presentation of who farmers are and what their challenges are compared to the reality on the ground. And I think it helps really understand challenges for rural people. What I've been really interested in with it is the idea that by subsidizing agricultural land, one, a lot of these rural areas lose out on a huge amount of tax revenue they increasingly can't pay for themselves because, you know, farmland is taxed at 30 to 50% less than residential land. And then, two, it also incentivizes farmland as a tax shelter. So a lot of people that farm have no, like, necessarily an interest in farming as a. As a vocation. They're not necessarily good at it. And I'm included in this. I inherited my grandmother's farm. I have two acres, technically. And yeah, we. We let a family friend harvest wheat and that categorizes it as farmland. So I, I am my own, you know, strong towns, I guess. I don't want to say enemy, that's a strong word. But I'm benefiting from the system too, so it's been pretty eye opening and super interesting. Highly recommend.
- [35:01]
B
It's a very good web channel. I've watched it too. For my down zone this week I've been into a book called Stolen Revolution. The subtitle is Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran. It is kind of a reporter written, so it's not a commentary, it's. It's two reporters who are documenting essentially from the fall of the Shah up until modern times in Iran. And you know, this is a story that I'm familiar with to a degree, obviously is very timely right now with, with the, the conflict that our country is having right now with Iran. But I think the most hopeful thing so far and I'm, I'm only about two thirds of the way through it, so there's more to come. But I think I didn't fully appreciate how in the early days of the Iranian regime, how much, let's just say, intellectual diversity there was within their movement. This was a movement to push back on the Shah and on that version of Iran. But it wasn't necessarily a theocratic revolution without care for the poor, care for the vulnerable, care for minorities that in many ways like arose out of conflict in the early days. But it was, I guess it was very interesting to me to hear Iranians in their own language and their own way speak about different paths the country could be on that seem, you know, very different than the one that we're having in dialogue today. And I guess it gave me hope that, you know, sometimes it's easy when you have conflict to caricature an entire people in one way. And this book is just a reminder again for me that there's a broad diversity of people here, both in Iran and in, you know, in the region as a, as a whole. And we would do good to pause and remember that. So Stolen Revolution has been a very good book and again written by reporters. So it is, I think there's an attempt here to be more factual than there is opinion or anything like that, which I really appreciate. That's it for upzone this week. If you have a reaction to this conversation, you want to take part in it yourself, you can go to thestrungtownscommons commons.strongtowns.org and participate. We've shared the article there and there's an ongoing discussion and as always we'll be back next week with a new article and a new team to chat about it. Keep doing what you can to build a strong town. In the meantime, we'll talk later. Let me show you what I'm about to do.
- [37:46]
A
This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong towns member@strongtowns.com.