Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Of the thought, like, lighten up this. It's too important.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to episode 10 of the Rethink Local podcast.
Why do some towns seem to stay stuck no matter how many plans and studies and grants and consultants they get?
In this episode, I host Jeff Siegler, founder of Revitalize or Die and author of youf City is Sick, who argues that we've sort of misdiagnosed the problem and that civic apathy is often an emotional response to places that have become hard to care about and that you can't lecture people out of.
You make the place nicer incrementally, piece by piece, and the caring follows. In this episode we talk about a range of topics such as why growth is kind of a bad measure of success and. And why community health might be a better one, what run down town buildings and streetscapes do to members of the public and municipal staff, and why so many of our public meetings seem joyless.
Jeff shares some low cost ways to start, such as pulling weeds, planting flowers, and enforcing some codes.
And a really important point, why asking volunteers to do nothing is a recipe for actually doing nothing. If you care about finding ways to revitalize and support and make communities more resilient, check out this episode and when you're done, check out a little bit more about what Jeff does. If you want to find some links and additional resources, you can do so in the show notes. And as always, thanks for tuning in and enjoy.
Jeff, thank you for joining the Rethink Local podcast today.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Alex, I appreciate you having me on.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: So talk to us about apathy and civic apathy. What does that mean to you?
[00:01:57] Speaker A: This kind of dawned on me. I don't know. I Suppose probably about 10 years ago, I think is when I had this epiphany. I ran the Ohio Main street program and I found that I kept going back to certain towns and things wouldn't change. You know, it's. It's like I'd leave and like, man, I nailed it that time. I gave them great advice and this is going to solve it. And then I'd get back there and I would find that nothing's changed and.
And I simultaneously had this thing like these are the communities I sort of dreaded visiting. You know, I, I like, sort of did an internal temperature check and it's like, ugh, I don't like going there. And, and it sort of dawned on me. It's like, why don't I like being there? And it's like, well, because how it makes me feel.
It Makes me feel run down to be there. It makes me like, it's kind of exhausting. And so it just dawned on me. It's like, oh, why is it that way? And I realized that it just kind of occurred to me, like, I feel run down for being in this place for a little bit and nothing changes. Like, well, why is that? And it was this again, this epiphany. It's like we kept bringing these sort of technical solutions to these towns. It's like, well, do a plan know.
I don't know, get a grant, do a streetscape or streetscape's not the exact example I want to work use. But. But what it it I'd figured out is like, we're trying to treat this very technical problem when it was an emotional problem. Like the people didn't care, the people in town didn't care. And that's why, like, adding jobs doesn't matter. That's why. Bringing in tourists doesn't matter. That's why a plan doesn't matter. Like, none of those things affect how people feel and so they can't work. Like, apathy is a feeling. It's a sense of not caring at all. And if you don't care about your place, why get involved?
And so the solutions that we have been applying to our communities aren't working because the, like, we've misdiagnosed the problem.
People don't care about their towns. And rightly so. I think rightly so. Because they're hard to care about, we've made them very hard to care about. You know, you jump back 100 years and you look at most of these towns, they were easy to care about. They were attractive, they were locally owned.
It was easy to get involved. Like, this was an easy thing to care about. So it's a really rational response. As something, something deteriorates, it's harder to care about. So I think that there's this sort of stigma that I think we need to remove that's like, if people don't care about your community, that's, that's fine. It's a very rational response.
You aren't going to browbeat them into caring about your community. Like, the solution isn't. And we do this a lot in this field. It's like, oh, how do we get people to care more? How can we get everybody on board so we can fix it up? Like, that's dumb.
That's not, that's not how people work. You don't try to get people to care about something so it gets nicer you make it nicer and people care more. So that is ultimately the solution. Like make the town nicer. It's just a town is just made up of physical parts. It's just a, you know, it's a collection of components. It's buildings, sidewalks, streets, trees, benches, lights, et cetera.
And there's only one way to make the whole town nicer, is to take all the little bits and make them nicer.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: And so you're saying, you know, the giant parking lots, the strip malls, the traffic, the exhaust fumes, those are not nicer. So talk to us a little. Like, what do you see out there? I mean, you've worked with a lot of communities across the US like what, what are people? What's, what are some constant things that come up that you would put under that category of nicer. What are people? What do people want?
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah, you, you described it like a set for a zombie apocalypse movie, which is.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Right,
[00:05:34] Speaker A: which is what we keep building. And really a town is a set, it's a stage.
You know, you design the, the like. Think about it this way. It's like when you think about taking your partner out for a nice meal, you like something romantic, you're going to have an idea in mind of what that restaurant's going to look like.
Like you're anticipating how you want to feel later based on the lighting, the interior. Like all those little components of the restaurant. Same as, same as, you know, oh, I want to go stay in a nice hotel. Like you're picturing a grand lobby, you're picturing marble. Like you know how you're going to feel there. And it's the same for our towns. It's like, well, you design, you know, these, these parking decks and, and then you have these deteriorating buildings. It's like, you know, you've, you've designed a place or you've unintentionally, you know, not maintained a place that makes people feel run down. Like you are. Literally, it's the geography of addiction and depression.
That's what, you know, we've created. So it's not really a shock that people feel run down. Like those are antisocial spaces. You go there to create, to participate in antisocial behavior and pro social behavior avoids those kind of spaces like because of how they make you feel. So, and this is, and what I really, really love about this is like, it's not subjective, it's objective. Like this is how the human brain functions.
All of us feel threatened. I had a good one recently, like it, this was A good way to think about it. That was really helpful for me.
And it's the right time of year. Like, tell me what a haunted, what a spooky or haunted house looks like.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Well, for me it would be a municipal building that doesn't have a capital plan. But I don't think that's what you're going
[00:07:15] Speaker A: for. Fair enough.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: But yeah, you're saying there's some cobwebs, there's some spiders. There's things that we would all probably imagine and reference,
[00:07:24] Speaker A: right? What you're probably picking like some sort of Victorian house that was beautifully built, that's deteriorating, that's in essence blighted. And like your brain has signals like, ooh, whoever's in there is bad, something scary is happening there. Like, that's your brain's reaction. And that's no different to, you know, that's a. I like that example because it's small town or rural, but it's no different. If you were in, you know, an urban area and you came upon an alley or a block that, you know, had bad lighting and like the buildings were all falling apart, like your brain picks that up and it's like, danger, danger, beware. And that's all of us. Like, that is how we stay safe as a, as a species, by avoiding places that feel threatening. So like that's, it's kind of a fascinating bit of this to me. It's like that's, that's everybody, you know, so what is nice isn't, you know, special or unique to anybody? Like, I, you know, I'll do this in meetings. Like, raise your hand. Like here I'm going to do the public input portion of our comp plan. Raise your hand if you want a downtown that is pedestrian oriented. Narrow streets, ton of flowers, you know, great big trees, lots of little pretty shops, locally owned with apartments upstairs. You know, great and historic brickstone buildings. Like 100% of the crowd raises their hand like, cool. Like, I will invoice you now.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Right?
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Like, that's what everybody loves. That's, that's what we're designed to. Like, that's charming and that's calming. And like, that's how our nervous system is designed to find places like that, to be undeniable. You know, you, you see one of those and you can't help but gravitate towards it.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: It's funny. I mean, when you started describing the haunted house piece, I mean, I made that joke. But as you were talking, I'm just thinking about how many towns that I've worked in, where they owned a lot of small historic buildings that often were repurposed from other uses. They used to be houses. They used to be something else. They weren't built as a municipal building, and they're literally old Victorian houses that are falling apart. And it is spooky. And. And not only are you thinking about that, you know, oftentimes those are in your downtown core. But I wonder, you know, how does that.
How does this play in when you think about, like, the municipal workforce in a town? And I mean, one of the things that I see a lot in the work that I do is on the recruitment and staffing side is just getting harder and harder to hire people, and the labor market's changing, and towns are just having a harder time convincing people to come work for them.
And one of the things that I think is a big issue there is you're often asking people to come work in a dimly lit building that has mold in the basement, that doesn't really look great, that has, you know, that you have to put plastic bags on the windows in the winter. You have to bring your own space heater in. And like, you know, talk to me, talk to us a little bit about that side of things. So the people that, you know, the downtown planners and all those people that need to do some of the work, how does this affect them?
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. And I think about it this way a lot, and that's a bit of a different take, but it's still. The. The thought behind it is still applicable. Like, if.
If no one's ever been to a place that makes them feel a sense of dignity. How can you expect somebody to behave dignified?
And. And so I, like, you know, we're.
I don't know, there's a.
We're an age where there's a certain level of trashiness.
And. Because, like. And. And I don't mean that sort of so pejoratively, like, because there's not many nice places anymore. Like, I don't know if you've ever been inside a Dollar General or Walmart. Like, you come out of those places feeling gross.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't feel good.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, maybe heroin is for me, you know, like.
Like they're. They give you, like, it's a really terrible feeling. And it's like. But. But that's. The vast majority of the American experience is. Is being in places that make you feel that way, that, like, there are very few places where you can go and feel sort of sophisticated or dignified and there's a price to that. Like, people then, like, again, if you've never experienced how it feels to feel dignity, like, you're not likely to behave that way. And I think that translates into, you know, that that goes into the workplace too.
But if you feel run down in your workplace, like, then are you going to perform well? Are you going to have love for the position? Are you going to, you know, be creative? Are you going to want other residents to, you know, are like, is your heart really going to be in it? Like, no, of course not. You're. You're.
It's going to be somewhat of a dreadful experience because that's how your surroundings affect you. So, yeah, we shouldn't expect people to be, you know, inspirational in their job when they're in a cubicle, in a, you know, in a. In a collapsing building. Like, that's not realistic.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: I mean, there's a writer, speaker, this guy, Elaine Dutton, has talks about all sorts of interesting stuff. He's got a lot of videos on YouTube. And one of the things that he talks about is one of the things that the sort of secular community, you know, in modern Western societies didn't really get right was, you know, pushing back. You know, they were pushing back on some pieces of organized religion and they missed a lot of the community building aspects of historically organized religions and the architecture and being in a church or a synagogue or any house of worship. I mean, almost, you know, universally, they're beautiful buildings that make you feel like you're part of something bigger. And that seems like part of what you're like, we're just not really building that way anymore.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that was the idea like that. That is why you designed, you know, the soaring cathedral, so people felt closer to God, you know, so they felt awe and inspiration. And it works. It literally works. Like, and I think about all the time, it's like when you're in places like that, it changes. We don't go to pretty places to look at pretty things. We actually go to feel pretty, you know, if you will. Like, it feels dignified, it feels sophisticated. It feels, you know, you experience a sense of awe or wonder when you're in those places where changes again, how you feel. But then when it's when you change how you feel, you're going to change the decisions you make.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Right?
[00:13:23] Speaker A: And I think that's what, like, that's the absolute sort of, to me, that is the epitome of all this discussion. Like, changing how you feel through your surroundings changes the decision you make. And what is life if not the decisions? You know, you're the composite of all the decisions you make. If those decisions get better because you're feeling a certain way, then your life improves. Like, you're more likely to be.
Treat somebody else nicely. You know, you're going to be more civil, you're likely to be more civic. You're likely to make better decisions for yourself.
So that, that to me is like, why you do this. And one of my favorite examples of this, it's. It's the Medici design, you know, like, it wasn't haphazard how the Medici designed Florence. And like, they studied, they. They researched, you know, ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture, and what they found was that its masses, its ratios, its proportions. So they designed a Florence around that. And like, look what happened. Like, the greatest thinking, like the greatest creativity in the history of the world, some of the best artists to ever live, some of the best writing to ever exist, some of, you know, music, science, like all these things to this day. We still send people, we still send writers and painters to there to be inspired. And like, what's the difference? Like, it's, it's the, it's urbanism, simply put. Like, it is the built environment that ended up creating some of the greatest creativity in the history of the world.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: So, yeah, you've painted us some good word pictures of.
I think probably most people listening can imagine some of the things that you're describing right now. We've all seen the opposite of that, too. The strip malls and stuff.
What in your take on, you know, working on these things and studying all this, what's driving the design in those kinds of places? What's driving the strip mall design? What's the impetus? What's the motivation there?
[00:15:20] Speaker A: I think it's.
There's a number of things kind of coalescing, I think, that create it. One, it's cheap. And, you know, we're kind of obsessed with cheap, but we, you know, but that's. It's cheap if you ignore all the costs kind of thing,
[00:15:32] Speaker B: right?
[00:15:33] Speaker A: You know, like, yeah, sure, it's cheap, but, you know, your healthcare costs are soaring, your isolation, you know, like addiction, cost, like.
But I also think it's. It's economic development run amok, which is kind of capitalism run amok.
It's not that I'm not a capitalist, but capitalism requires guardrails. Even Adam Smith was, was pretty upfront. Like, we have to have guardrails on this thing.
You know, like, if we're not, if we're growing without getting better. Like, what's the. What's the point? And I think that that's really at the heart of this, Alex, and, and that's a conversation I have a lot when I visit communities is to stop and ask them, like, what are you trying to achieve? And most of them are like, well, we're growing. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Is that your only metric for success? Like, is growth how you measure success in this municipality? Because that's a. That's a. That's a terrible. Like, that's like, if weight was my only measure of health, it's not, you know, like, my weight's going up.
I must be getting. I must be getting super healthy. And I think that that's a lot. Like, most municipalities have adopted this idea that growth equates to success, and that's an absolute fallacy. And so they're not asking the question of, are we getting better? Is this a good place to live? Is the residential experience a healthy one?
And so there's just too much like, it's the, you know, sort of the economic industrial complex just keeps pushing growth, growth, growth. And it's been great for Wall street, but it's been a fiasco for anybody that lives in a community.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Right. Not as good for Main Street. And, you know, the. The folks that are listening here have probably heard me talk a little bit about Tupelo, Mississippi.
There's a. A really great email newsletter that's published in this area of New Hampshire and Vermont called Daybreak.
And Rob Gerwitt, decades ago wrote a really great article in Governing magazine about community development versus economic development.
And I kind of want to turn that question to you. I mean, so we're talking about some of the perverse incentives and economic development and who benefits from what we're calling that, what is not that what. And whether that's community development or a different term, what does something else look like? And how do you take into account some of those other factors?
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Sure. I would argument that economic development benefits very few anymore.
That it is not, I think, what it was meant to, you know, it's not achieving what it's meant to accomplish. And I want to be careful. Like, I know a ton of wonderful economic development people
[00:18:02] Speaker B: for
[00:18:02] Speaker A: sure. It is not to throw everybody in that boat, but as an industry, I think it. It.
It's quite good at removing resources from communities, unfortunately. And I think the opposite of that is, you know, how.
How do we make residents lives better? Like that should be at the heart of the question, you know, that should be of a concern to local government chamber, you know, all these organizations, sort of these nonprofit organizations, and any organization that's trying to strengthen a community in some should be asking, how do we make it a better place to live? Which is ultimately like the greatest financial achievement, too. Like, if you don't think that will result in higher home prices and, you know, increased sales, like, that's the greatest economic development. Win would be a wonderful place to live.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: So what's the. I mean, for a local official, you know, a planning director or planner manager, you know, elected official, when they're thinking about, I mean, there's pros and cons to how we talk about, like, metrics and data these days. But when thinking about what they need to be able to show progress to a community about investments they're making in the community, what are. Have you seen communities use more creative metrics than looking at, you know, the local equivalent of gdp, for example?
[00:19:20] Speaker A: That's a good question. I don't know if I have a great answer to that. You know, like resident satisfaction survey.
Not necessarily, you know, because those are.
Yeah. You know, health is a tricky thing to measure. And to me, this is a direct answer to your question. But I think it's where my head is at. It's like, I've come to think about this all through the lens of health, because what's more important to anybody than health?
At the end of the day, like, health is the most important thing to us because it's how long we're going to live and the quality of our life, but then how long the people we care about are going to live in the quality of their life.
So health is the ultimate, like, you know, that's what's more important than health. And that's not a way that we measure our communities. And that absolutely should be the way that we measure, you know, so that should be. That would include, you know what I mean, it's going to be crime rates.
We should measure with that. We should measure addiction rates. You know, how many problems are we having with people, you know, treatment anxiety and depression treatment, you know, how many people are being treated for those issues? Because that's a huge problem. You know, isolation, you know, all the, like when you live in a rundown environment and not even rundown, I'm sorry, even, like suburban environments, even boring.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Suburban environments are ultimately depressing and lead to.
These other issues do lead to, you know, addiction problems and depression problems. So.
And then obesity and heart, you know, heart disease. So to me, like, I think the way to Measure this would be looking at local healthcare outcomes. How many people are being treated for mental health problems and physical health problems is probably the greatest indicator of how your community is doing.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. I think so few. I mean, I don't know what it's like. I didn't see so much of this outside of New England, but what a lot of towns around here in Vermont, New Hampshire are doing is something called a community nurse. Where sometimes it's done directly through the municipality, sometimes it's done in a partnership through local organizations in the town.
And different towns, they work within different departments, but they basically hire often an RN that person sees. It's usually geared for seniors and they don't work with insurance whatsoever.
And they basically just help people with their health in whatever ways they can in whatever timeframes work because they don't have to bill.
And even some of these super small rural towns where it can be very hard to get primary care physician appointments and you might not have good home Internet access that you have someone stopping by and sort of working with you, seeing your home, seeing the way that you live, providing this sort of connection point to other resources and services.
You know, I was just at something yesterday actually around here that was, that was a small conference talking about some of these difficulties with sort of neighbors helping neighbors in trying to improve rural health outcomes. And I don't know, a ton of towns that I'm trying to think kind of go through my head here. I'm not really thinking of towns that, you know, at their annual town meeting in New England, they're looking at a bunch of numbers, but they're not looking at local health outcomes in most of those cases.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Right. And it is not something that I feel like it should be more intuitive, but it is not something that's considered yet. You know, what's a best. Like what compels you, you know, I think, sorry, another way to put it, when you go somewhere that you enjoy, you're experiencing health.
Like if you were walking down the street and you're like, oh my God, it's so pretty here, and I love it here, and I like being here. Like, you're elated, you're, you know, like you were actually being healthy in that moment. You know, it's like being joyful or elated or happy. Those are all really positive health signs. Like that's your brain is probably happy, your body's probably happy, you're moving, you know, and therefore your, your, your nervous system is probably extremely calm. You're probably around Other people,
[00:23:35] Speaker B: which
[00:23:35] Speaker A: is important to us. So, like, great places are places where you feel healthy simultaneously. Like, where do you. Where are you drawn to places that you like? I mean, places that make you feel good. Like, you'll pay a premium to live in a place that makes you feel good. Everybody does. And that's as a visitor or as a resident or as a business owner. So literally, like a place that brings you joy, it's got economic value, tremendous economic value. Like, there's so few nice places in country that they're. They're outpriced. Like, it's, you know, good urbanism is so rare that the handful of places that have it, the average person can't even afford to visit, let alone live there.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Right, right. I mean, that's partially what seems to be happening in a lot of places, is the. The. The attractive places are just getting unbelievably out of reach for most people and more so than it was 10 years ago.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Right. And which should be such a, like, obvious sign to a municipal leader in economic development office is like, oh, what is that place doing that makes it so appealing? Like, it's good urbanism. You know, it's a nice built environment. And I know the word urbanism scares people off. It's this idea of like, oh, big city. Like, no, no, no. It's just. It's a built environment. It's our surroundings. You know, it's. Urbanism is technically what any place with buildings is, whether that's a, you know, a hamlet or a village. But it's just design. It's just good design that draws people in. You know, it always think about it this way, like the greatest, the most direct route that the public sector can subsidize. The private sector is creating a beautiful public realm.
If you create a main street that's undeniable in terms of, say, sidewalks, flowers, trees, that's where I want my business to be. That's where I want to buy a building. That's where I want to renovate a building on a gorgeous street.
You know, like, we are really overthinking this idea of how to subsidize the private sector. How do we incentivize the private sector? Like, make main street gorgeous. That's all.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: So how does this work? I mean, all right, so we've got some sense of where these things go wrong, what that looks like, where they kind of go. Right. I mean, recently working with the town in Vermont, we're doing some town plan, master plan, you know, community feedback forums, and, you know, People are describing some of the, you know, bigger tourism towns in Vermont. And there's some very, there's a lot of beautiful towns in Vermont and.
But those towns have also in large part start catered to a higher and higher income tourism kind of demographic rather than serving their own local population. And you know, it seems like there can sometimes be a difficulty between, you know, let's take, you know, a post industrial smaller town or a town that, you know, maybe 100 years ago had a similar population to what it had today or an even larger population to what it had today. So they've got some beautiful buildings. They actually have a main street that's wide.
They've got big, wide sidewalks. They might, you know, a lot of New England towns have these, you know, beautiful town greens.
But it's been decades since they've really invested in that.
What does the sort of financial piece look like here? How do you kind of kickstart this? You know, is there a secret?
What's the best way for a smaller town that wants to make some of these investments but feels like they don't have the money to do so? But if they had the money to make the investments, they'd attract the business.
Like if they feel a little chicken or the egg, you know, are there ways that you've seen places kind of get going with some of this stuff to build some small wins
[00:27:18] Speaker A: and you have to. Towns behave like people. Towns are just, it's just a lot of people and people behave much the same.
So, you know, I think that we can take the lessons from how people work and apply them to our towns in the sense that, you know, if so you stopped exercising, you know, and just went years without exercising. It's the equivalent maintenance. Like, oh, it's just maintenance. If you stopped cleaning your home, you know, okay, in a week it's a, you know, it's, it's annoying. In a month it's a disaster. In a year you're insane.
And, and then it's overwhelming, like, oh God, where do I start?
Same if you, you know, stopped walking or going on your run, you know, like after a couple weeks you feel, you start to feel a little lousy. In a couple years it's a health crisis. And that's what our towns did. It's like, well, we built all these really nice things and then we stopped maintaining them. And that went on decades and now it's an overwhelming crisis. Like, where do we start? Like, well, same as a person. Like, you know, like, same as a house.
Go clean up like you know, you're not going to fix it overnight because it's been left to deteriorate for decades. Or, you know, like, you're not going to run the marathon tomorrow because you haven't gone for a jog in six months. But,
[00:28:29] Speaker B: right,
[00:28:29] Speaker A: you can go. But you can go for a walk.
And that's what it is. Like, start by going for a walk. Start by just doing the dishes. Start by pulling weeds.
Because better is better.
It's a trajectory thing. The improvement. Progress is progress and it's noticeable and it feels better. And any little bit helps.
When you go to the gym first time, you're not in good shape necessarily, but you went and you feel better. You might be sore, you might be tired, but you. You feel better for having done it. And it's the same. Like, you don't have to renovate your town overnight, but, like, you pull weeds and it's going to look a little bit better, and that's noticeable.
You know, you pass code enforcement or. Sorry, you don't pass code enforcement. You enforce codes,
[00:29:13] Speaker B: right,
[00:29:13] Speaker A: because they're probably already on the books. Like, enforce the code, require building owner to fix up. Like, all of a sudden that property is going to look a little bit nicer. Like, it's about small wins, it's about trajectories. It really, like, you just do a bunch of little things and those compound over time to be to like, in a year, you know, it's. There's a thing that people do like, oh, like, oh, I see you've lost a ton of weight. What happened? Like, oh, I saw a photo of myself.
You know, that's kind of what you hear a lot of people say. And I think it's the same. If you took a picture of your community today, in a year from now, after doing a lot of things, you'd be like, oh, wow, like, that does look nice. Like, oh, I can actually see the changes. How cool. How exciting.
Um, yeah, it doesn't need a ton of thought, you know, beating up on the fitness analogy, because I find that to be extremely useful. One that, that you don't need to spend, you know, a month coming up with a fitness plan. You need to get your ass outside and go for a jog. And I think it's the same. Like, we don't need to spend forever trying to come up with this community development plan. Like, pull the weeds, plant some flowers. Hostas and lilies are free. Plant those.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: So that was going to be my next question, which you've already kind of answered a Little bit. But you know, I've, I've. As I started doing a little bit more like creative nonfiction like, or fiction, science fiction writing. You know, I've gotten the sense that there's sort of these two, two different approaches. Some people who, and I forget the terms of them, but one is you sort of outline everything first and then you kind of write the thing and then the other people call discovery and you just start writing and you just kind of see where it goes. And I have fallen victim to this myself, which is sort of over engineering and over planning things sometimes. But it sounds like part of what you're saying is even if you don't have a five year plan of all your different steps here, just start doing some of these things, you know, and a question like who is doing some of those things? And maybe it doesn't matter, but who, who, who can take that first step and kind of get the ball rolling
[00:31:19] Speaker A: and, and truly it. Yeah, I am with you. Like just get started. You know, we talk too much. I mean, how many meetings,
[00:31:28] Speaker B: right.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: And, and, and talk is ultimately exhausting. I know we'll get to this a bit later, you know, with the volunteer thing, but it's, it's, it's true. Like there's a, I can't remember who said it, but the, the antithesis of, or the cure for anxiety is action. And I think it's the same for apathy. Like, just take action. You know, nothing. Like action cures nearly everything. Like if you're sitting around the house anxious, like I go for a run, paint clean.
If things in your community aren't what you want, like, just take action. And so, and I think it can come from anywhere. I think the originator, I mean the municipality ultimately would be best, you know, to shift where man hours are spent, where funding is directed. But it's not to say that a nonprofit organization or a passionate resident can't do the same because like that's, that's satisfying. Like start with your block, start with your front yard, start with your block. Get some neighbors together, maybe clean your block. You know, a park, it can start anywhere. It doesn't. And with anybody it's just, it's, you know, you just have to get motivated to go out and make a change. And, and that's when you can maybe the ball, maybe that's the impetus for, for my, I mean it absolutely, like that's where it all has to start is an entity, whether that's an individual or organization, you know, just, just going and taking again all the Little physical assets, all the little facets make those nicer in some fashion.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: I mean, one of the things that I've talked a lot about with, with elected officials and I, I wonder what you think about this here and, or if you've seen good examples of this where I think sometimes, you know, especially like select board, town council, city council members, they have this idea of what they're supposed to do in that position.
And it's like sitting in a lot of meetings talking about a lot of stuff.
And when I was in elected office, I mean a lot of what I did was trying to make connection points with people in the community and going out and talking to people. And I think that's one of the most kind of undervalued things an elected official could do. Make phone calls, knock on doors, not as a candidate, but as a, as a representative of your local government and ask people what's going on. If you want to do a survey, go up to people and ask them to take the survey in person.
And I wonder if this isn't also an example of this, which is that, you know, if there's a town and you've got a downtown that's a bit dusty and you're looking to do something here, and you've got elected officials spending hours and hours in meetings talking about what to do, you could take some of that time in that meeting and just go in your downtown and start cleaning up and start planting some flowers and start doing some things.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: 100%. 100%. And you know, I'm an elected official as well and I do spend too many times in meetings, which, it's like, man, I'm tired of these meetings that actually, you know, we'd be better spent going to do the stuff and not talking about it. And sometimes I'll, occasionally I have a constituent reach out and they're like, we should do something about that. I'm like, how about you meet me over there Saturday and we address it. They're like, that's not what I meant.
Well, sometimes that's how things need to get done. And I think about it that way. Often it's like, take your average, let's say 20,000 person community, you're going to have maybe, I don't know, let's say 15 nonprofits that meet once a month. And I mean there's thousands upon thousands of man hours over the course of year are in meetings. Like if you move 20% of those to like, let's huge. I mean the, the, the manpower, like downtown could be spotless you know, I mean, they think about all the building paint that could be scraped and all the weeds that could be pulled and all the plantings. Like, you could transform a town in a year if you. If we just stopped talking and dedicated that some to, you know, to doing.
It's a. It's a real misuse of resources.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Well, and I think it's one of those things, too. Like, we have this. You know, I spent a little bit of time in a couple other parts of the world looking at how people do community development work, and it's very different than at least most of what I've experienced in the US which, you know, is like people showing up to a meeting, sitting. You've got people at a table at the front of the room that are sitting a few feet higher up off the ground than everybody else. Everybody else is in an audience.
The chairs are all like. Everything is sort of in this almost template where, you know, I've gone. You know, I had. I was lucky to have spent some time in Rwanda and Uganda some years ago, and some of the community development there, you know, they started out in these communities, this particular organization, with doing, like, kind of like icebreaker team building activities, where, like, one of them was like, the human knot. I just remember this so clearly where, you know, I'm sure you've seen this sort of, like, game before. You, like, kind of, you put everybody's hands, you lock them all together, and the goal is you have to unravel yourself without anybody releasing their hands. And I just remember a. It was funny watching people sort of do that because they were getting more engaged as they were trying to figure it out. But what was really interesting about it was that there were a handful of people, mostly like younger men, it seemed like, that were sitting on the sort of outskirts because they were kind of like, too cool to participate in the thing. But then as the group was working through the challenge, they kept throwing suggestions out. And then at one point, I just remember one of these guys, you know, he gets up and he. And he. I did not speak the language in this particular community that they did, but some of this is like all body language. You can, you know exactly what's going on. And he gets up and he's like, no, no, no, you're doing this all wrong. And he jumps in there, and then he wants to get involved. And then everybody's laughing and they kind of figure it out. And I'm like, they're standing up, they're touching each other, which in meetings in the US Feels like, completely inappropriate. They're laughing. Which also feels inappropriate. Like a serious government meeting.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: Right. God forbid we experience joy. Right? Can't have
[00:37:29] Speaker B: fun while we're trying to solve problems in the community we live in and care about and are trying to revitalize.
And. And it just struck me at how different.
Like, I went back, you know, to New Jersey, and I'm just like, these meetings are so boring and so gray and nobody's smiling and why what we're doing is exciting in theory, and just wondering if you've kind of experienced some of that or. Yeah,
[00:37:55] Speaker A: absolutely. And I. It's. It's. I don't understand it. I really don't. Like, is a meeting better if it sucks?
Is it more official if everybody hates it?
Yeah, it's a really terrible strategy. And I think that this is in an instance where the public sector and nonprofit sector has, like, adopted policies from the prior, like, from the business world. And it's like, oh, we should be. You know, it's more serious if we're like, we, like, I don't know, somehow we. We took the idea of finance and applied it to everything. It's like, well, bankers are serious and we need to, like, now. God, it's terrible. Like,
[00:38:35] Speaker B: right?
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Like, we. It's. It's. Everything is about finance. And so we have meetings like bankers, and we are boring like bankers. And, like.
And then we've. We've taken a lot of finance people and put them on really important boards. And it's not to say, like, you know, we need bankers, we need finance people. But, like, they are not the only voice that we need. They are one voice, and that's important. But we also need, like, poets. You know, we. We need, like, silly people. We need artists on these boards. Like, meetings aren't better just because they're. They're boring or that they're serious. Like, in fact, quite the opposite. It's. If we, like, it's this.
It's intentionally ignoring human nature to our own peril.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Right?
[00:39:13] Speaker A: It's like, right. A meeting should be joyful. It should be fun. Your organization should bring joy to the people that get involved and give them meaning. Because if it's just boring, like, I don't want any part of it. I don't want to show up to your meetings. I don't want to take part. Like, that's not a good use of my time. And. And it just is exhausting.
So, yeah, it's a really miss. It's a huge misallocation of resources. Like, if you Want people to be involved in your organization, you better give them fun. You know, you better make it a decent experience. It should be social, joyful, and meaningful in the sense that you're accomplishing something, that you're making an impact. And if you're not doing that, like, if it's just like. And I know the impetus for it, I get it. It's like, well, we really want volunteers, so we're going to ask them to do nothing.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Right?
[00:39:54] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like, that's where it stems from. It's like, we have this organization that we need to populate. We don't want to scare off potential members, so we're going to ask them to do nothing. Like, hey, will you join my board? What's it entail? Nothing. Just show up to a meeting once a month, you have nothing to do, and then immediately you realize what a disaster that is. Like, why? What is your organization going to accomplish with 12 volunteers that do nothing once a month?
I think there's a lot of reason to change that up. It's like, you know, hey, what, you know, what's it involved being on your board? Like, first off, it's going to be a ton of work, you know, like, you're going to have to show up a lot, but it's fun. We meet, we hang out, we. We, you know, we. We host things.
We make a huge impact to the community. We get dirty. You know, like, we do all these things. It's pretty awesome. And you're going to feel a huge sense of reward. Like, you know, what's more fun? Like, what's more fun than sitting in a meeting and talking is, like, going out and, like. And planting, you know, planting flowers or planting trees or literally, like, it is more of a enjoyable experience to do physical labor than it is to, like, listen, you know, to participate in Robert's Rules of Order.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: That's true. I mean, I'm sure there's one parliamentarian out there who disagrees, but I think for everybody else, I think you're right. And I mean, talk to us a little more about that, because I think, you know, in actually the.
A recent episode on this podcast, we had a guest on from University of New Hampshire, Nate, who talked a bunch about this and that we've kind of approached some of these volunteer pipelines and pathways from the wrong direction in a lot of places. And so I think for some of the people that are listening, I have seen so many towns struggle with retaining and recruiting volunteers.
So I don't know if there's anything more?
You know, have you seen good examples of towns sort of turn this around? I mean, I think we've all seen bad examples of towns that are struggling and boards that are struggling, but I guess, yeah, what, what do we need to do to get people, I mean, you already answered a bunch of these just now. But, but interested in staying on these boards, volunteering, when they already have busy work lives and they already have, you know, they're, they're, they're dealing, you know, they're dealing with their health insurance company. They've got all sorts of issues in their life. And then we're asking them, yeah. To come to a boring council meeting or we're asking them to sit on a board where we're at. We're specifically telling them it's not even that. We're telling them you don't have to do anything. And we're almost telling them implicitly what you do here doesn't matter.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, of the thought, like, lighten up. This, it's too important.
Lighten up. It's too important to be so serious about.
And that's the problem. It's like, this is really important. We better be serious. No, the opposite. It's really important. Lighten up so that people show up.
I think about it this way just the same as if your downtown isn't more compelling than Netflix, don't expect anyone to show.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: And if your meetings aren't as compelling as, you know, Instagram reels, like, you know,
[00:42:57] Speaker B: like
[00:42:58] Speaker A: that's your problem.
You know, it's not that, that is, it's not that those, you know, forms of entertainment are superior. It's just that your public realm sucks or your meeting sucks.
That if you, you know, like most you, you go to a vibrant city and you'll see kids sitting around chatting. You know, it's like you go to really great places. You see teens and 20 somethings sitting around in the public conversations, not staring at their phones because it's superior. Like, it is a better experience and we'll always gravitate towards that. You get annoyed. I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, but it's too hard to get annoyed with. Like, how can we compete with Walmart? Like, no one's ever going to have a good experience at Walmart. It's convenience. Downtown is not convenient based. It's experience based. Your business and your downtown are about having an experience so you're not in competition with Walmart. Like, if you're just trying to make sure it's easy for somebody to park and run in and get something, like, you have failed. That's not the job. Humans will always want to have an experience. We would always rather stroll through a beautiful landscape or downtown and be near other humans doing human stuff.
And so make it compelling, make it interesting. And the same with meetings. They should be social, they should be joyful. They shouldn't be in terrible rooms. You know, like, yeah, I hate, like, oh, God, every conference on this stuff is. I'm stuck in, like, the worst room. It's like, here I am presenting one place, and I'm like, you know, the, the lighting that makes you, you know, that, like, makes everybody sad and depressed and like, you know, just the general conference space is so horrible. It's like, no, like, move your meetings. Like, move them outside, move them to your backyard. Move them to somebody. Like, just consider what you're trying to accomplish and try to make it a.
An experience that is satisfying, joyful, appealing in any way. Like, it's not. It is not that hard to provide people with something that can be a little bit entertaining.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny, I mean, you're reminding me a lot of. For years, when I taught at Seton Hall University, my class was in a basement that had no windows at all. Zero windows. And the way the building was designed, there was like an exterior set of windows, rooms, and like an interior set of rooms. And for probably six years or so, I was on an interior room. I taught at night. It was a master's program, so at least half the class was coming from a job, as was I. And then we'd get to class at 7 o' clock and it's all bright fluorescent lights, white walls, you know, some terrible carpet. And I, at one point, I was like, kind of complaining and complaining. I was, you know, I was taught one class a year, so I wasn't super high on the list of what I got to choose. But, you know, one year I was just like, I really need a different room. And they were like, well, we can give you this room, but it's kind of old and dingy. It was on the third floor in a corner. The corner was all windows, floor to ceiling. And every night we could see the sunset over the campus from that room. But in the, like, office that assigns room assignments, that was lower than the other room because the technology in the room was older.
And I was just like, this is crazy. I went from having zero, literally zero windows to full floor to ceiling windows that. Teaching at night, you literally are watching the sunset and how big of a difference it made the mood in the room feel like I'm not using the projector. Who cares what that is?
[00:46:30] Speaker A: Right? And that, that. That is the big thing that we over. I mean it's crazy to. That we overlooked that. Like there was a reason that we, you know, that you would build a courthouse to be beautiful because the weight of what's going on in there, like you should feel the heaviness of. Of law, of justice. Or there is a reason. Like. Yeah, I mean, the, the. Like finally the medical field is starting to understand this. Like your room changes the recovery time, whether you can see trees, whether you, you know, that changes how healthy people are. And I love giving these great anecdotes too that I get sometimes out in the road that like it was. Somebody was in a meeting with. At Superior Wisconsin last summer or Oshkosh, I guess, and it was a. Like a nursing home administrator. And they said, oh, after the renovations, like our red alerts just felt, you know, like just dropped like these, these, you know, like problem incidents just. Just completely dropped by like something like 70% just because they cleaned up the building and like crazy, you know, and just a lot of those. Or, or I even had somebody tell me from public works in another city. It's like when they did the.
Just when they did like a repaving of a street like that you would see incidents like, I don't know, like police calls go down, you know, like. So that's. Yeah, of course, like we.
You choose to renovate. This is the one. I always try to help it. I use to try to explain, like when you decorate your house, you do it because you're trying to be considerate of how you want to feel in that space. You know, the lighting, the. The paint, the furniture.
You're making decisions now about how you want to feel later.
And so like, yeah, that's the classroom thing. It's like, of course students are going to feel one way in a room with light versus another way in the basement and this, you know, and it's the same for a meeting and it's the same for your downtown or your block. You know, people are going to feel a certain way when they're there. Let's be intentional about, but let's just think about how we would like them to feel and work backwards from there.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's interesting. I mean, I think this is. This is a missed opportunity on my end recently with a couple projects, but something I'm going to take Note of. From our conversation here, which is, you know, when you're talking to people and surveying, whether it's through a survey or a conversation, but asking people about what they imagine about the future.
I mean, part of it. We actually did do this in one project recently where we were asking people to sort of select different words to describe how they feel about the long term. Not asking them for, like, solutions, but asking them for, you know, and hopeful, you know, optimistic, cautious, hesitant, you know, excited, concerned. Like, these different emotions and trying to think about, like, you know, when towns are doing municipal renovation projects or doing sidewalk improvements in the downtown.
Are. Is there some document somewhere that shows the emotions that you want to evoke when the project is complete? And my guess is for most of these projects, the answer is probably no.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Yeah, probably not. I mean, that's. That. That somebody pointed at that an architect did. Like, you know, all through architecture school, we never really talk about, like, human emotions. Like, oh, that's crazy.
You know, like, that what impacts people more than, you know, like, architecture.
But it wasn't a conversation in planning, you know, in my planning program either. It's like, well, it's not necessarily something that we think about, but it's like, well, yeah, how. How people feel is. Is pretty important. Like, we make all our decisions based on how we feel. You know, corporations get it. Corporations market. They're probably. Are very thoughtful about,
[00:50:25] Speaker B: how's this,
[00:50:26] Speaker A: you know, how's this advertising going to look? Wow. What. What's the body styling in this car? Like, how do we make people. How do we feed their ego? How do we, you know, all these things that go into those, that. To try to get us to buy them. But like, yeah, when it comes to designing a city and buildings, like, we just throw that all. You know, it's. It's just process. It's like, well, what's our process to do that? Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, maybe the. Maybe we shouldn't just be led by process. Maybe it would be useful to think about outcomes.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: And so I'm curious if you have any reflections of. I mean, when.
When we met, it was at a conference in Maine.
And I remember one of the things that you had showed during your presentation was a very bleak alley. Had a story that went along with it.
I think we can all picture those kinds of places in. In different towns and cities.
Are there any particular places. I mean, you've visited so many different communities. Are there any places that are just kind of fun to describe or that people can look up that are just like, Places where you're like, yeah, I think this town has. Is hitting a lot of the right elements of this, you know, places in the U.S. i mean, Florence. Okay, that's a good one. But I don't know if we want to set the bar quite that high.
But. Yeah. What are some examples of communities where you just have enjoyed walking through the downtown and how you felt from them?
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Yeah, this isn't one of my favorite examples. I think that's the.
What do they call it? It's like, maybe they call it Pocket Alley or Artist Alley, but in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, you know, it's an alley.
Yeah, I use this example like, you know, Hattiesburg is a great town. You know, it's not getting everything right, but. But it's definitely gets a lot of things right and it getting better. But one of my favorite examples that I love from Addisonburg is like, there's one alley that. That's really cool and it's like so super whimsical. And it's not. There's like a pocket museum. So it's, you know, like, there's little figurines and it's. It's. It's a little bit silly, but it's awesome. Like, it's compelling. And I just love the fact that, like, here is one alley that has really, like, made a huge transformation in this community that people go and visit that they want to see. And it's like, so it's just that that project reminds me, like, you don't have to fix everything. Like, start with one good place, start with one good alley. Start with one good park, one good block. Like, it can be transformative to have one nice place for people to go that to. To experience whimsy or joy or fun or, you know, a little bit of silliness. So Hattiesburg is an example. I really like where they like, it's just one alley is cool. I mean, not like, sorry not to say that the rest isn't cool, but like, that's a. Was a special project and like, that's what you need to get started.
Maysville, Kentucky was one. I really loved that they like, have a really very cool, like the great landscaping, really nice streetscapes, a lot of brick, and like, cool little parks around the downtown that just is. Is stands out.
So, you know, it's.
I'm trying to think of some other ones.
Last week I was. Got to go back. I'd spent some time in my 20s in Livingston, Montana, and I was just there last week. Oh my God, that's one of the coolest downtowns. Like, it's just awesome. And it's. What. I can't even explain why it's so great. I mean, it's pretty compact. Obviously, it's, you know, you're in the mountains, but it is just a lot of brick buildings that are timeless. You know, it really hasn't changed, and not many places can say that, but here, like, I'm not giving great examples, but what I do know about this work and whether that's, you know, it's.
It doesn't matter whether it's Florence or Kentucky. You know, what is the simple recipe for a great place?
This is a simple recipe for everything. You know, this is cooking. This is architecture. This is urbanism.
Quality craftsmanship, quality materials and patients.
You know, like, that's. That's all. Like, you can't rush a great meal. You know, no one's ever been to it, like, had a great conference meal. Like, you can't make 500 lunches at once and expect them.
And you can't build a place quickly. Like, there's a reason why these subdivisions are lifeless because, like, you can't. You know, it's. It's. It takes time and craftsmanship. You can't rush beauty. You can't. Or care. I love the idea. Like, care is such a useful word.
Like, if you didn't put care into building a place, you won't ever get care out. No one can care about it. And so what's universal is using local materials and care going into a place. And it's. It's undeniable. It's compelling. Like, that's. Those are the places we're drawn to from around the world. Every. You know, every continent. Well, not like everybody, you know, has one of these. Like, whether it's. Yeah. Whether you're India, Asia, Africa, South America, North America, whatever. Like, if. If there's a place that was built with local materials and care, it's going to be charming. And. And what's so cool about local, like, quality. Local materials is when they age, they actually even improve. You know, when. When vinyl ages, it's like,
[00:55:40] Speaker B: not so. It's.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: It's horrendous. But, you know, when quality places age, they. They. They remain attractive.
[00:55:48] Speaker B: Well, and it's funny, you. I mean, because I feel like to some degree, like there's a lot of different pieces here and. But the thing, I think part of what you're saying is you don't have to get everything right from the beginning. You can start poking at some of These different pieces on the chain. And it doesn't even have to. You don't all have to start at the same place. Because there was maybe one conference in memory that I do remember going to that was at Von Trapp here in Vermont.
And it was a vtcma. It was like Vermont's.
It was the ic, the Vermont chapter of icma.
And so it was municipal managers. And the food at the Von Trapp conference was one of the best conference food. And it was a lot of. It was Austrian food from the Von Trapp, like family stuff. But it was a lot of local ingredients and local farm stuff included in there. And they named the different places. And when I sometimes trying to do some of these, like even if you're having a meeting and you're getting, you know, your basic pizza and stuff, try to go to places in the downtown. Like, try to not do the easy thing where you could like place the order online or go to Panera or something. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: Well, come on, we can say there's something wrong with Panera.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: It's fine.
[00:57:09] Speaker A: Hospital food.
[00:57:10] Speaker B: Yeah, right. But there's, I mean, but it's like bringing in these like, local things and trying to understand, I mean, this is a huge rabbit hole that we're not gonna be able to even start to go down today. But what's happening in the world right now with like the sort of post World War II globalized supply chains and what, you know, I mean, you talked about it earlier, this sort of, this, this value of everything being like cheap and convenient and that for decades that's been the economic value. And I think in a lot of people's minds, they're starting to shift off of that value a little bit. And maybe not always intentionally, but the idea of, like, okay, maybe this as a town, we're going to spend a dollar more per person on food for this meeting, but we're going to get it from a place down the street and we're going to support a local business and we're going to just try to start creating some of these connection points. Points. And like even down to like if you are a procurement officer in a city, you know, depending on what state you're in, do you have the flexibility to do different bidding requirements that can give favor to local businesses over non local businesses and that there's just a thousand things like this that if we can just start picking away at these one by one, at some point you start to snowball a little bit.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that, that we've, we were too obsessed with saving. And again, maybe this is like how we, you know, everything has become the economy, everything has come finance. But like, we're too obsessed with saving and we ignore, like
[00:58:41] Speaker B: short term,
[00:58:42] Speaker A: I'm not worried about. Right, right. And it's like, let's stop worrying about how to save and let's think about how to spend.
You know, let's like, and I think about, like, I think about it, my personal life, like, how to spend time. You know, there's this thing like, how do we save time? How can we, you
[00:58:55] Speaker B: know,
[00:58:55] Speaker A: go through the quicker checkout? How can I, you know, get my doordash? How can I, you know, everything to be convenient? It's like, oh, that sucks. Like, that's a really mundane life. Like, what about how to spend time? You know, cooking is a joy. Going for a walk is, is, is pleasant. Like, I want to spend my time. And I think that we need to do the same with, with municipal finance. It's like not how to save, but how to spend. How, how are we going to spend, you know, like the county courthouse or the city hall, that's been the, the epicenter of your community for 150 years.
They spent a lot extra on it. And you know what? It's done. And it's like the icon of your community. It's the identity of your community. It's bolstered real estate values for decades, you know, centuries.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: Like
[00:59:35] Speaker A: it's done this important thing forever because it was because we spent a little extra on it. So we need to consider how to spend. And of course, let's put a little more into local. Let's get the lunch locally because we're spending within our community, which then stays in our community.
Yeah, I love the connection between food and place that you
[00:59:56] Speaker B: talk
[00:59:56] Speaker A: about a bit with Von Trapp, because I think there's just such a, like a meal like that that's going to be local again. Those are local ingredients that, like, there's a reason they taste right there. And that beer probably tastes right there. It's like, because it was grown there, it was raised there, it's from there. And so it always makes more sense. Just, just like a, you know, sort of an adobe house in New England or, you know, you know, a house with like the cedar shaped columns down south or whatever. Like these things are out of place because it doesn't make sense.
You know, it's like when you see shutters on that don't like decorative shutters or something, you, your brain Is like, wait, that doesn't make sense. Or when you see an 80 year old with jet black hair, you're like, why is what is happening here? Something, something's amiss. And I think about that, like, yeah, that use that local food because it's going to taste better and it makes sense there. And you know, and have that conference in a downtown space with like local, you know, that was built with local materials and local craftsmanship that paid attention to the climate there and the weather patterns there. Like those things are more enjoyable because it's, you can tell that they're authentic, that it makes sense and like it. And that's what's, and that's the great advantage to every single community in this country is that your, your landscape, your environment, your materials, your building materials, et cetera, your food is unique to only your place. And so they can all be compelling. You're not really in competition with one another.
You know, everybody's in such a race to be the same thing. Like, oh, we're going to be the cheapest place to live. Like that's not the winner that you think it is. You know, and I'm sad at how many, you know, mayors and economic development directors I talk to that. It's like, well, wait till we get this coffee chain. Like, you know, when we get this drive thru coffee that's like, what's that going to do? You know, like, oh cool, money's leaving your town faster. Like that's awesome. You know, like cool. More people hopped up on coffee behind the wheel. Like it just, these are, these are silly things to aspire to if you, because nobody's ever stopping to ask like, what's, what's the value? What's the benefit? Why?
[01:01:59] Speaker B: I think you've given folks a lot to think about here and as we kind of like wrap up, are there things that you hope people, especially those that are in and around local government, the elected officials, the appointed, you know, planning board, planning commission members, the volunteers in towns. Are there any couple things that you hope people really take away from this conversation?
[01:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Like what are the outcomes that you're trying to achieve?
Really think about what your goal is and that's going to change your decision making. And decision making is the most important thing, you know, like look, I don't. If you make better decisions over the course of your life, you're a completely different person. You know, you're the composite of your choices. And so consider what outcomes that you want, which to me I would think like happy, healthy residence seems Pretty obvious a place people can be proud of. And then reframe your decision making around that. Stop using growth as, you know, as some sort of testament to success. It's not growth has nothing to do with success. Get better, not bigger. So that would really be like decide what you want to achieve. Ask yourself, are you doing it?
And if you're not, what would be a better decision making lens? And then second, lighten up, lighten up. This is too important to take so seriously.
Add a little joy to your work. It should be fun and it's, it needs to if we want people to get involved.
[01:03:31] Speaker B: That's great. Well, I appreciate you taking time to share all this with us today. And there's going to be a bunch of link to Jeff's work and ways to get in touch and find out more about the kind of stuff that you do that I'll include in the show notes here. But appreciate all the work that you do and trying to get people inspired.
You know, there's a lot of crazy stuff the world is getting, you know, harder and harder to seem like we have a handle on. But at the local level, I mean, I think you give people a little bit of a blueprint for understanding how to do something very tangible and very direct that can make an impact on the people around you. So appreciate you sharing that with us.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It's great to be here. I'm going to do a little pitch. I just, just last Friday launched the Civic Health Workbook.
So very excited about that. The Civic Health Workbook breaks down, you know, because health in a community over social health, financial health, emotional health, physical health and then like ownership and engagement type of health. And so and each one, you know, talks about how we got where we are, what, what changed and why our communities declined. And then a short term, a checklist, kind of an assessment of where your community is and then a short, medium and long term set of plans for how do we tackle this. And it's not esoteric, it's very hands on, like do this thing this day. So I'm pretty excited to have that out there.
And yeah, I think it's going to be useful for people that work in this field.
[01:04:52] Speaker B: Where can people find out a little bit more about that if they want to?
[01:04:55] Speaker A: The Civic Health Workbook is available on, through my website. It's revitalizerdie.com so that's my consulting company's name, Revitalizer Die.
So yeah, check out the. You can find my book your City is sick. You can find the workbook on there and anybody can reach out to me through the website.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: Well, that's great. Well, I will make sure to include those links and I'm going to take a look through that workbook and the civic health index as well. So again, thank you for joining today.
[01:05:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's great to be here, Alex. Thanks for having me.
