We’ve reached the end of Go Cultivate! Season 3! To wrap us up, Kevin details the impacts that the suburban experiment has had on our country and asks the question: what does ‘quality of life’ really mean, and does an auto-centric lifestyle support these outcomes? After defining actionable steps to take in order to address the challenges posed by the suburban development pattern, Kevin emphasizes the importance of finding and connecting with other people and groups in your area to drive meaningful change at the local level. We believe that by working together, we can create more vibrant and inclusive communities that are built to last and benefit everyone.

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In this episode we are sitting down with Matt Meals, the newest addition to Verdunity’s engineering team. He and Kevin discuss Matt’s journey to Verdunity, and his perspective on how land use fiscal analysis gives cities the education they need to plan for communities to take root, as well as how it empowers citizens to take active roles in shaping the future of their communities. Throughout the interview, Matthew emphasizes the importance of context and community in engineering and design, and shares how his passion for environmentalism and sustainable energy led him to where he is today.

Matt Recommends:

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam

Fiscal policy, municipal finance, thoughtful budgeting, and infrastructure maintenance. If you ever wanted to know where and why your city's money gets spent, you'll want to hear this. Mark Funkhouser, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, with decades of experience in municipal finance, and Liz Farmer, a writer, thinker, and consultant on policy and budgeting, are two of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to local finance. They present us with some really tangible options for getting more out of those in this episode and explore how the systems we have built are fragile, like we've seen in places like Pittsburgh and even in a place like Texas that is ostensibly booming.

There's a lot more. Don't miss it.

Some things to check out after the episode:

Mark’s 2015 Governing article about Infrastructure vs. Pensions: https://www.governing.com/gov-institute/on-leadership/gov-fiscal-issue-that-matters-most-infrastructure-pensions.html
Liz Farmer’s Substack article on 5 things she’s learned after a decade of reporting on municipal bankruptcy:
https://lizfarmer.substack.com/p/5-things-ive-learned-after-a-decade?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=560793&post_id=96315141&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email

Volcker Alliance Paper: https://www.volckeralliance.org/resources/sustainable-state-and-local-budgeting-and-borrowing-0

BOOKS

Dignity by Chris Arnade
Bonds of Inequality by Justin Jenkins
Still Broke by Rick Wartzmann
Strong Towns by Charles Marohn
Think Again by Adam Grant

Contact Mark or Liz
mark@mayorfunk.com
Website: mayorfunk.com
Twitter: @mayorfunk

liz@majorfunk.com\
Substack: Long Story Short
Twitter: @LizFarmerTweets 

Today is a bit of a Thanksgiving grab-bag. Kevin and Jordan discuss:

• what cities (of any size) can learn from the Amazon HQ2 contest about economic development and “being your best you” [1:10]
• what the California wildfires should be telling cities about the implications of their development patterns [19:20]
• whether “criticize then commit” is a philosophy city leaders can employ in citizen engagement [30:20]

We also take a few moments at the end [50:00] to let you know about a few cool things we’re working on.

1. You can sign up for our brand-new Cultivate Journal, a monthly roundup of our best podcast episodes, written pieces, things we’ve read, and upcoming live events.
2. Join us on Friday, Nov. 30 [THIS IS A NEW DATE!], for a free live webinar: Dollars and Sense: How to Cultivate (Real) Fiscal Sustainability + Community Engagement
3. In 2019 we’re launching our Go Cultivate! Online Community. If you share our goal of building and managing cities in a more collaborative, fiscally-informed, and people-friendly fashion—and you want to discuss ways to deal with your city's challenges with like-minded peers—then this is your place. Sign up here and we’ll let you know when it’s officially open.

This podcast is brought to you by your friends at Verdunity. For more episodes, check out verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records)

This is the first of a short series on city growth. Are there good ways or bad ways to grow? In this episode, we're asking whether there is such a thing as growing too fast or too slow.

Jordan speaks with Verdunity's Felix Landry about both the financial and social/cultural implications of fast growth vs. slow growth. We discuss the ways building standards can help or hurt, what it means to love a place, whether cities have knobs that can speed up growth or slow it down, whether it matters that you build a whole block out at once or over time, why scapegoating renters is off-base, and much more.

Have thoughts on this discussion? We want to hear from you. Email us: info@verdunity.com.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Learn more at verdunity.com.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

Jim Walker is CEO, cofounder, and lead artist at Big Car Collaborative, an Indianapolis-based art and design organization "brings art to people and people to art, sparking creativity in lives to support communities." Jim and Jordan talk about the role of artists in making neighborhoods more loving, vibrant, and homelike—and the ways partnerships are always messy but always necessary in making good things happen.

Here’s a further sample of our conversation topics:

• Why community building is about the personal connections between people
• Big Car’s role as a “neighbor-to-neighbor” project, as well as its role as a hub for arts, cultural events, making things, and as an example of putting an old place to new use with minimal infrastructure
• Pop-up testing sites as a way of exposing the City of Indianapolis to new ideas
• Why and how Big Car Collaborative started out in the bathroom of a (former) nunnery
• How artists make a neighborhood desirable and often end up getting pushed out—and how Big Car is trying to buck that trend by building a long-term home for artists in the Garfield Park neighborhood of Indianapolis
• Why “socially-engaged art” is about "making things happen," rather than just “making things"
• What it means to invest in the people in a neighborhood
• The Tube Factory – an example of adaptive building re-use that flexes to be what the neighborhood wants it to be
• Partnering with the City, philanthropic organizations
• Where the name “Big Car” comes from
• Why collaboration (both internal and external) is messy but essential to making something happen – and how it leads to unexpected places
• Why so many partnership difficulties revolve around money
• Partnerships generally happen between people, rather than entities
• What it’s like partnering with a City through changes in administration
• Demonstrating that artists can (and should) be voices at the table in city decision making
• How to make sure pop-up placemaking turns into “placekeeping” that benefits people in the neihgborhood
• How Jim thinks you can start something like Big Car in your own community (hint: it should be fun)
• The importance of working on projects with friends – and the opportunities to find a friend group through community work
• Jim’s book recommendations!
• Why a place can be a home instead of just a house
• How planning and design could be different if we spent lots more time out in the physical places we’re working in

Follow Jim on Twitter: @walkerjj
Learn more about the seriously kick-ass Big Car Collaborative at bigcar.org. And check out the Tube Factory Artspace at tubefactory.org. (If you are planning to host an event in Indianapolis, this is the place to be!)

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Learn more at verdunity.com Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

Kevin and Jordan discuss the beginnings of a framework for getting any city in better fiscal shape – all while building trust and collaboration with residents of all neighborhoods. Buckle in! We made Kevin the mayor of a city for this episode.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of VERDUNITY. Learn more at verdunity.com Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

We're trying something new here. The Verdunity office is always buzzing with good discussions about what's on our minds that week. So, instead of keeping them all to ourselves, we'll be dropping short, spur-of-the-moment conversations like this one into the feed from time to time. It might be something we've read that day, an interaction we've had with a community leader, or just something we ate (hopefully not).

Today, Tim Wright (the brand-newest member of Verdunity!) and Jordan Clark chat about neighborhood identity and community involvement.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of your friends at Verdunity. If you like this addition to the podcast feed, or if you hate it—or if you really want us to riff on a particular subject—let us know: info@verdunity.com.

Find us elsewhere in cyberspace: Twitter and Facebook

(Music in this episode is from Blank & Kytt)

Kevin sits down with (fellow engineer) Chuck Marohn from Strong Towns to talk about recognizing our delusions, admitting failure, and embracing the "chaos" of bottom-up action at the local level.

Here are some highlights from the discussion:

• When optimism becomes delusion for city administrators.
• The ways that many engineers and other professionals have built up natural defense mechanisms to avoid acknowledging failure and fallibility.
• The common myth in Texas and other high growth areas that "fast growth will continue indefinitely and it will solve all our problems"—and the two possible ways it could end.
• Not learning lessons from major events: droughts and near-bankruptcies.
• The social and economic results of "slash-and-burn city development."
• Why city leaders should be more supportive of the short-term "chaos" of bottom-up action—and more wary of the long-term chaos of rigid order.
• How affluence makes people and cities less adaptive—and how small, early failures can build resilience.

Links:

• Chuck's Strong Towns podcast episode on the peak delusion of the long emergency
• Kevin's post for Strong Towns last year: How Strong Towns changed the way I view development
• Reflections on the Strong Towns North Texas Regional Gathering - Ivy Vann

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of VERDUNITY. Learn more at verdunity.com. Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

This is the second of a two-part interview with AJ Fawver, director of planning for the City of Lubbock, Texas. (Follow her on Twitter: @planningguru. Read her blog on ELGL here.)

In part two, we talk about the world of strengths assessments and communication styles—and how they can be applied to make organizations like city government more effective and empathetic. Then Kevin asks AJ what she as a planner wants people other roles in the city to know. They run through advice and input for elected officials, city management, economic development folks, engineers, and citizens.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of VERDUNITY. Learn more at verdunity.com. Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

We thought this would be a quick chat. It wasn't that quick, but we do think it's a good start to a deeper discussion on ways cities can better serve and engage citizens – and build a more sustainable community in the process. In this episode we walk through Kevin's most recent post on the blog.

Here's a rundown of the nine lessons Kevin spells out in his post and this discussion:

1. Quality of life is measured at the neighborhood level. (IBM paper discussed in the episode can be found here.)

2. Citizens often have a lot of ideas for things (big and small) that will improve quality of life in their neighborhood.

3. Every citizen has time, talent or treasure they’d like to invest in their neighborhood/community.

4. Small tactical or pop-up projects are more effective when connected to a bigger purpose.

5. Code changes are needed for small developers to thrive.

6. The challenges facing cities are too big for local agencies to address alone.

7. The average citizen does not understand the financial gap many cities are facing or the relationship between development patterns, revenues and service costs, and property tax rates.

8. Communities need a common language and a single metric to frame discussions, inform decisions and prioritize investments.

9. The community engagement process should be an ongoing effort and not limited to public hearings on a project-by-project basis.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of VERDUNITY. Learn more at verdunity.com. Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

This is the first of a two-part interview with AJ Fawver, director of planning for the City of Lubbock, Texas. (Follow her on Twitter: @planningguru. Read her blog on ELGL here.)

Here's a sampling of what Kevin and AJ get into:

• The difference between land use planing and zoning—and what they’re good for. And some ways that their application hasn’t been good for cities.

• Dealing with the common perception (in various cities) that planning departments exist to hinder growth or development

• The ways that money enters the equation in decision making, for planners, for city administrators, for elected officials, and even for citizens. And the ways that it often doesn’t but should.

• Why it’s so common for (vocal) residents in cities to oppose things like apartments and assisted living facilities.

• AJ also addresses the politics of having discussions about development patterns with residents and elected officials.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of VERDUNITY. Learn more at verdunity.com. Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.

(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)

Kevin sits down with Tim Wright, co-founder of Re-Form Shreveport, to talk about about the conversations and actions that incrementally help make a community stronger. Tim gives insight into ways to build momentum and trust, through his roles as both a civil engineer and as a neighbor in a new city.

--

1:00 – Introducing Tim Wright and Re-Form Shreveport

4:50 – Teasing our involvement in the upcoming Strong Towns Regional Gathering (join us for that!)

13:05 – Beginning of Kevin’s discussion with Tim

15:26 – Why Tim (and Kevin) joined the Strong Towns movement

17:45 – Key challenges for an engineer who is concerned about social and fiscal sustainability

21:27 – The soft skills today’s engineer’s need to have

23:35 – On discussing the adverse effects of sprawling development with other engineers and city officials (vs. the benefits of infill)

25:45 – “Do you know what a block of your street costs?” and “Do you think your city has enough money to fix it when it needs to be replaced?”

31:50 – What it means to “Re-form Shreveport”

39:33 – Putting the principles of a people-friendly, fiscally-sustainable approach into action

51:00 – Starting small, by making Shreveport’s Highland Park a true place

54:24 – Harnessing citizens’ ideas for ways their neighborhoods could be better (and then implementing them)

1:00:07 – Advice for someone in a new city who wants to make a difference

1:02:11 – Takeaways from the discussion

1:06:38 – An impromptu discussion on resource shortages and what that means for the wellbeing of cities and citizens

--

We'd love to see you at the Strong Towns Regional Gathering in Plano (or the free Curbside Chat in Arlington)!

For more on our podcasts and blog, visit GoCultivate.org. This podcast is a project of the nice folks (whose voices you're listening to) at VERDUNITY.

(Music from this episode is from Custodian of Records)

We’re kicking off 2023 with an interview with Mara Mintzer, a co-founder and the Executive Director of Growing Up Boulder, an initiative to engage with city children and youth and offer them opportunities to affect change within their community. In 2017, Mara hosted a TEDx talk on including young people in city planning—which has amassed nearly 2 million views—and she recently co-authored the book, "Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices for Planning Sustainable Communities". In this episode, we discuss Mara's mission and inspiration, young people’s natural ability for intuitive and smart city design, and the connection between the inclusion of children in community building with the residents they’ll become in the future as adults.

"Placemaking with Children and Youth" book

Growing Up Boulder

GUB's Child-Friendly City Map

 "How kids can help design cities" TEDx talk

"The Nature of Cities" documentary trailer

VERDUNITY's Felix Landry joins the show to discuss the importance of understanding the fiscal consequences of our development patterns, as well as the ways that cities can use map-based fiscal analysis to make more holistic land use decisions.

3:29 – Beginning of interview

5:00 – How Felix stumbled into looking at the economics of cities

7:00 – Pro formas—why don't city planning departments have them? (And more questions Felix had during his time in a his city's planning department)

12:00 – Confusion on how to go about applying fiscal analysis in planning work

17:53 – Insolvency issues and how fiscal analysis can be a common language for analyzing cities holistically

20:20 – How your city isn't like a hamburger joint

22:30 – What exactly do we mean by fiscal analysis?

25:25 – The backwards way most cities decide what gets built

26:50 – What would fiscal analysis actually look like for cities?

31:56 – How fiscal analysis maps can show us otherwise unseen trends

33:25 – Which development types are loss leaders for cities, and what it means if those areas make up too much of a city

37:32 – The gym analogy: treadmills vs. swimming pools

39:42 – Other analogies Felix likes to use for understanding development types and fiscal consequences: personal heath and grocery stores

50:05 – What happens when citizens insist on both an unproductive development pattern and a lower tax rate?

53:50 – Differences between modern-day suburbs and pre-war suburbs

1:17:00 – How cities can apply fiscal analysis to decision making? We discuss applications to zoning ordinances, comprehensive plans, economic development, and more.

1:20:20 – What Felix is reading these days

1:22:19 – Wrap-up with Kevin and Jordan

Show page: https://gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-05/

For more on our podcasts and blog, visit GoCultivate.org. This podcast is a project of the nice folks at VERDUNITY.

(This episode features music from Custodian of Records)

Joanna Taft of the Harrison Center discusses the role of the arts, place, and story to humanize, connect, and empower a neighborhood. We talk about how a neighborhood can change and improve in inclusive and equitable ways, and how important it is for people to feel known and loved in their community and their homes. Central to it all is being a neighbor to your neighbors. This is a jam-packed discussion you can't afford to miss!

2:15 – Brief recap of our Cultivating Strong Towns workshop in Shreveport

9:30 – Introducing Joanna Taft & the Harrison Center

14:15 – Beginning of interview: Joanna's role as a neighbor, helping her neighborhood grow stronger through the arts, education, entrepreneurship, youth development and more

15:00 – What "community building" means to Joanna, and how her thinking on the matter has evolved over the years

18:00 – Harrison Center's neighborhood partnerships, and how residents' concerns about being left out of their neighborhood's story and evolution led her organization to try a new approach to storytelling

22:45 – "Preenactment," or reimagining a neighborhood the way it ought to be

28:00 – How Joanna's team collected stories and concerns from the neighborhood

32:00 – Changing behaviors and attitudes, not just the physical makeup of a neighborhood, and how Joanna uses the concept of preenactment in her personal life

38:00 – Preenactment as a response to the question: "How do we revitalize in an inclusive way?"

39:05 – The centrality of art and place in building vibrant, equitable, and human neighborhoods

43:05 – Cultivating a generation of arts patrons at Herron High School

48:10 – Partnerships with the City of Indianapolis

50:15 – Some of the challenges (and unique opportunities) that come from working directly with a city government

52:50 – The role of relationships and how other cities could set themselves up to be welcoming to grassroots community building

54:00 – The Harrison Center's City Gallery: "Could the arts actually help with the abandoned housing issue?"

57:45 – Porching! How the simple act of inviting neighbors onto your front porch can begin to change your neighborhood

1:00:25 – How to start a grassroots community building movement in a neighborhood without much current involvement

(We had some audio quality issues on this episode. Sorry about that! Hoping to have those fixed for the next one.)

Links:

The Harrison Center

PreEnact Indy

City Gallery

Music in this episode is from Custodian of Records and Tours

Many citizens think their local government has enough money to maintain its infrastructure and keep up services, because they pay taxes. The reality is most cities do not, and it can be challenging for city leadership to communicate this to citizens. Today's guests are bucking that trend of silence.

We talk to three key leaders (Mayor Connie Schroeder, City Manager Lynda Humble, and Hospitality & Downtown Director Sarah O'Brien) from the City of Bastrop, TX, about what managed growth means to the future of their city.

They discuss Bastrop's resource constraints and affordability challenges, why they are openly talking about their infrastructure funding gap when many cities' leaderships are reluctant to do so, and why cities need to be doing the math on the eventual costs of repairing roads and subdivisions. Find out more about their Building Bastrop initiative, which aims "to streamline the development process and create fiscally sustainable standards for future projects."

Your city may go by a different name, but it's likely facing many similar challenges to those in Bastrop, and it could certainly learn from this refreshing approach to sustainable development.

Follow Bastrop's progress on Twitter (@CityofBastropTX) and facebook.com/bastroptx

Show page: https://gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-03/

Kevin sits down with VERDUNITY's summer intern Nadia Whitehouse for a brief chat on the ways the engineering profession is changing, and what it means to bring a resource-conscious, people-first attitude to engineering school. They also get into some of the ways Nadia sees the world differently after a few months with the VERDUNITY crew.

An in-depth discussion with VERDUNITY's Kevin Shepherd, P.E., on the past, present, and future of the civil engineering profession—and the lasting fiscal and social impacts their work has on communities.

1:30 – What does is mean to be considered a "creative engineer”?

5:15 – What the conventional approach to civil engineering misses, and how Kevin’s thought process changed as his career progressed

9:50 – The impact of considering financial implications in the design process, vs. the assumption that “the money’s always going to be there”

15:00 – What is the engineer’s role and responsibility with regard to financial viability?

16:20 – Why Kevin left his big A/E firm to start VERDUNITY, and how he approaches his work with cities

17:55 – Why desperation makes cities more interested in fiscally viable infrastructure decisions

23:20 – How city planners tend to think differently than engineers, and the constraints on how much impact they can have

25:00 – Why a conventional approach to engineering is so prevalent, despite its broad lack of sustainability

27:50 – Why exactly did we start designing and building in such a destructive way to begin with?

32:00 – We can't let the planning profession off the hook, either

33:30 – Why other engineers used to think Kevin was crazy, and now they’re getting curious—and why it’s hard for engineers at big, status-quo-affirming companies to shift their organization’s approach

37:00 – Guiding cities and technical professionals to a more fiscally-informed and people-friendly approach to city-building

39:30 – What does it actually look like to give a city recommendations for a more financially viable infrastructure project?

43:00 – A “plangineer’s” approach to spanning silos and working at different scales

45:50 – Return on investment for infrastructure projects

Episode page: gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-02.

Learn more about VERDUNITY here.

(This episode features music from Custodian of Records and Tours)

In the first episode of Go Cultivate!, we discuss what it means for a city to be financially resilient, resource-conscious, and people-friendly. Then, we talk about 5 key groups of community leaders.

1:03 – Why Go Cultivate? And what's up with the name VERDUNITY?

5:00 – Revisiting the purpose of the podcast: "helping community leaders grow financially resilient, resource-conscious, and people-friendly cities.

5:51 – "Financially resilient"

7:00 – "Resource-conscious"

8:00 – "People-friendly"

11:40 – What is the status quo and what keeps the status quo in place?

16:32 – Community leaders: five broad groups

17:52 – Elected officials

22:21 – City administrators

23:50 – City technical staff

25:28 – Economic development

27:17 – Implementers!

27:50 – The importance of making citizens feel like their contribution is welcome – and what a city might look like when they don't

31:36 – Implementers as allies to official city leaders

35:21 – The connection between working on yourself, your neighborhood, and your community

(The music in this episode is by Custodian of Records)

https://gocultivate.org/podcast-episode-01

Kevin Shepherd, the founder and CEO of Verdunity is here to talk about where the company has been, where it might be going in the future, and what gifts your city-focused friends might enjoy. Spoiler alert: he loves books. Kevin is an engineer, but as is usually pretty obvious, not your typical engineer, and its interesting to hear from him some of the struggles he has faced trying to communicate a message of fiscal responsibility to sometimes very resistant parties. This episode rounds out our Meet the Verdooners mini-series. We hope you've enjoyed getting to know a little more about our team!

Episode 5 of “Meet the Verdooners” introduces us to AJ Fawver, who leads Verdunity’s Community Consulting Program. In this episode we learn what initially brought AJ into the planning world and what element of community building she is most concerned about. AJ is a firm believer that we serve communities best when we remember that people are at the center of everything we do, and she greatly admires communities that are willing to have difficult conversations in order to effect positive change in their cities.

After the episode make sure to check out AJ’s book recommendations:

The Local Economy Solution by Michael Shuman

Placemaking with Children and Youth by Victoria Derr, Louise Chawla, and Mara Mintzer

As well as “We Built it That Way”, a podcast she co-hosts with Jordan Clark.

Tim Wright's work spans the gamut from missing middle housing to incremental development and infrastructure right-sizing. He has been an engineer on the kinds of projects that can transform a place into a more sustainable, connected community. Hailing from the great state of Louisiana (Shreveport to be exact) and proudly lacking on sleep (as he's a brand new dad), Tim is an integral part of the team here at Verdunity. Tim is also the founder of Re:Form Shreveport, an organization that is working to improve the city of Shreveport by fostering deep community connections and volunteerism, locally.

Mari Austin is Verdunity's Process and Communications Coordinator. Her work is too varied to adequately explain in a podcast blurb – but it ranges from process improvement to multimedia production (including this very podcast), to fostering a positive and forward-looking company culture here in-house. Mari comes from outside the world of municipal planning and engineering, and thus brings a unique perspective to our team. But it's clear in this episode how much Mari brings to the work that we do here; her personal experience living in underserved communities and looking up at the systemic apathy that can often oversee the communities we live in is critical to the conversations we have. Enjoy!

Episode 2 of "Meet the Verdooners is back with Karina Castillo, a planner here at Verdunity. If you are a young planner, ready to go out and change the world, there is some interesting backstory you might enjoy from Karina. There are some real gems of knowledge here when it comes to trying to get good work done – who really makes the big decisions in your community, and are those the same people who are most qualified to solve the issues in front of them?

We are heading into this holiday season with a little series of episodes called "Meet the Verdooners. You'll get to hear from each of our team members and get a little background on them and what makes them tick. This first episode introduces Marshall Hines, our Creative Director and the person responsible for helping us communicate this message of fiscal responsibility in the most compelling and understandable way possible. 

After the episode be sure to check out the books Marshall recommended:

Increments of the Neighborhood Brian O'Looney

Visualizing Density Julie Campoli and Alex S. MacLean

Ryan Short is the CEO of CivicBrand, a firm that blends together branding, communications, and direct engagement with communities. As we think about the kinds of places we want our cities to grow into and be in the future, it's important to directly connect with members of the community to help identify and then take ownership of a place. CivicBrand is right at the place where those things converge. If you are interested in how to get your community more engaged in discussions both large and small, this episode is right for you.  

There is also some really interesting discussion about communicating in a meaningful way in the time of COVID, and work-from-home in this episode. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

Links:
Eyes On the Street Podcast – https://www.civicbrand.com/insights/podcast
CivicBrand Website – https://www.civicbrand.com

How sustainable is any system which requires the agreement and buy-in of those with the deepest pockets and largest portfolios to be successful? Can many small players create the same value in a place that the big guys do? This week's guests will tell you that the former simply isn't sustainable, and not only is the latter, but it also creates more lasting value for the community. Monte Anderson and Mike Keen are working in two different places (South Dallas and South Bend, Indiana). Still, they are working to create incremental wealth in the communities where they live, and as you will hear, both of them have been successful at this bottom-up approach to development.

The discussion on this week's podcast covers topics like financing these small projects and how imperative it is that common sense and effective land use entitlements are to the success of these small, locally-led projects.

Mike Keen is a Managing Partner with Hometowne Development LLC, and President of The Bakery Group LLC.  A LEED-AP with two decades experience as a sustainability professional, he spent 30 years as a professor of sociology and sustainability studies at Indiana University South Bend.  

 As Managing Partner of Hometowne Development for the last six years, Mike has taken the lead role in the development of Portage Midtown, a sustainable neighborhood demonstration infill project located in South Bend, Indiana.  He is also the facilitator of the Michiana Town Makers ecosystem, an informal network of small scale developers, design professionals, finance officers, real estate agents, property managers, contractors, neighbors, and municipal officials dedicated to helping to create wealth in neighborhoods for neighborhoods.

 A social entrepreneur, Mike is trained in The Natural Step’s Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development.  He offers seminars, workshops and consulting services to developers, municipalities, and not-for-profits wishing integrate sustainability and/or incremental development into their localities.

Since 1984, Monte has been improving the living and working environments in Texas’ southern Dallas and northern Ellis counties. He’s an outspoken man who cares about people, and he is an advocate for policies and practices that serve urban neighborhoods.

In this episode, AJ interviews Dr. Kaye Monk-Morgan and Shaun Rojas of the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) where Kaye is the President and CEO, and Shaun is the Senior Director of Civic Engagement. Their discussion emphasizes the importance of building a culture of civic leadership and engaging with community members to address their concerns and build stronger, healthier, and more prosperous communities. The conversation also touches on the idea that leadership is an activity rather than a title or position, and the need to develop skills and engage in activities that promote leadership.

Kaye Monk-Morgan, KLC President and CEO

A third-generation Kansan, Dr. Kaye Monk-Morgan is the president and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC), an internationally recognized center of excellence for leadership development and civic engagement. She previously served as the inaugural chief impact officer. Her work fosters civic leadership for stronger, healthier, and more prosperous communities in Kansas and beyond. Service and education have been hallmarks of Monk-Morgan’s personal and professional story for decades. Prior to her time at the KLC, Monk-Morgan dedicated her talents to higher education. Over 30 years, she served in roles ranging from residence hall director to Assistant Dean of Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and ultimately the Vice President for Strategic Engagement and Planning at Wichita State University. Her areas of responsibility varied over the years and included community and economic development, strategic planning, assessment and accreditation, and coordination of WSU’s First-Generation student services. Her longest appointment was as director of the TRIO Upward Bound Math Science program. An active community servant, Monk-Morgan has served on non-profit and corporate boards at the local, state, regional and national levels. She currently serves as a board member for: NXTUS, a non-profit that catalyzes startup ecosystems, The African American Museum of Kansas; and Emprise Bank. She is a trustee for the Wichita Land Bank; and advisor to the Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University.

Shaun Rojas, Senior Director of Civic Engagement

As Senior Director of Civic Engagement at the Kansas Leadership Center, Shaun oversees the organization’s Civic Engagement Initiative tasked to equip Kansans in public life to build civic trust on the most pressing issues. Shaun works with the Civic Engagement Team to develop Tresources for those in elected and appointed office and partners with organizations who are facing a civic challenge. Starting at KLC as an intern in 2008, Shaun has been around the KLC block. Over the years, he has done everything from help support community leadership programs across the state to help Kansans have better conversations on divisive issues. Shaun’s dedication to help communities engage in better civic dialogue goes well beyond his role at KLC. He is the founder of the Young Latino Professionals of Wichita – which helps raise the profile and equip young professionals with leadership skills – and was a previous board member for the Association of Leadership Programs. In 2014, Shaun was named as Young Professional of Year for Wichita Urban Professionals. In 2016, he was named to the City of Wichita’s Citizen Review Board by the City Manager. Shaun also serves on the District Six Advisory Board for the City of Wichita.

Press Coverage:

Local Entreprenuership Pilot Program

https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Kauffman-Grant-Communities_FINAL.pdf

Heartland Together Partnership

https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/kansas-leadership-center-launches-multi-state-listening-tour/

Resources:

Kansas Leadership Center (KLC)

https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/

KLC’s Civic Mission

https://youtu.be/jcMEWtUXVPg

Heartland Together Project

https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/heartland-together/

Mentioned in this Episode:

Create Campaign, Inc.

https://www.createcampaignks.com/about-us

The Journal: A Civic Issues Magazine

https://klcjournal.com/

When Everyone Leads, by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride

https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/when-everyone-leads/

Network Kansas

https://www.networkkansas.com/

Center on Rural Innovation

https://ruralinnovation.us/

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

https://www.kauffman.org/

Kent Cagle has been a city manager in Texas for over 20 years, and has worked in local government in Texas for nearly 35. He has worked in cities that are growing rapidly, and ones that are built out and having to determine how they can balance a budget with limited resources. He is the current city manager in Killeen, Texas and oversaw the city's recent Comprehensive Planning effort. Kent shares a great deal of knowledge on how he has navigated the changing landscape of local government and provides some useful insight on how to actually get things done. Hint: he's very pragmatic about it all.

In this episode:

City of Killeen – 2022 Comprehensive Plan

Kent Cagle – City Manager

Contact Kent

Monte Anderson

City of Leander

City of Duncanville

City of Carrollton

City of Plano

If just about anyone tells you that they totally understand zoning codes, they are probably lying to you. Well, unless they are today's guest. Sara Bronin is a Mexican-American architect, attorney, and policymaker specializing in property, land use, historic preservation, and climate change.  She's a professor of planning and law at Cornell University, and she was recently nominated by President Biden to Chair the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, pending Senate confirmation.  She founded and directs the National Zoning Atlas, a tool that aims to depict critical aspects of zoning codes nationwide in an online, user-friendly map. If there is one thing we love discussing here at Verdunity, it's zoning and how it can be improved. You won't want to miss this episode.

Links to things discussed in this episode:

Cornell Chronicle 5/17/22 National Zoning Atlas launched to make America's patchwork of codes accessible and comprehensible

National Zoning Atlas website

Bloomberg, 2/2/22 Why the U.S. Needs a National Zoning Atlas

Strong Towns, 3/30/22 Is It Time for a National Zoning Atlas?

Connecticut Public Radio/WNPR, 1/28/21, Report: The Vast Majority of Connecticut Zoning Blocks Affordable Housing

The Connecticut Mirror, 1/28/21, Data suggests dozens of towns are violating CT Supreme Court decision on exclusionary zoning

The Connecticut Mirror, 2/3/21, The Zoning ATlas – an important resource as Connecticut rethinks housing policies

Hartford Courant, 1/27/21, New zoning map shows how hard it is to build multifamily housing in Connecticut; most of state is restricted to single-family homes

https://parkingreform.org/resources/mandates-map/

The Day, 1/31/21, Study: Connecticut zoning regulations restrict expansion of affordable housing

Sara Bronin - audio/print/video works

Desegregate Connecticut website

Energy Policy Now podcast: Zoning Rules Stifle Urban Clean Energy. Can The Rules Be Rewritten?

Courier Journal, 6/9/20, Opinion: In fight for justice, zoning laws that exclude low-income people must be changed

PBS Newshour, Roads to Recovery

Next City, 6/10/22, New Digital Atlas Hopes to Demystify Urban Zoning

Governing, 6/19/22, Project Highlights Relationship Between Zoning and Affordable Housing

Incremental improvement is a key element to the success of any place. The biggest projects, developments, and infrastructure also come with the biggest collection of dangers and places that something can go wrong. Starting from the bottom and working to solve an immediate need in the most effective way possible can also solve big problems over time, we just need to embrace that way of thinking. Kevin and Colleen Askew discuss just this (and more). 

Jason Duff is the Founder of Small Nation which encompasses a group of companies, leaders, and investors who develop places, spaces, and dreams for small towns and small-town entrepreneurs across the county.  Jason and his team at Small Nation have completely revitalized the town of Bellefontaine, Ohio.  In 10 short years, they have turned a dying town around and helped make it a Best-in-State destination. If you want some serious inspiration for how your downtown can be enlivened with passion and hard work, this is a must-listen. 

Mentioned in This Episode:

About Jason & Small Nation:

https://smallnationstrong.com/

Jason’s Work:

Downtown Proponent Breathes Life Into One Small Town, Hopes to Repeat Feat

https://ddc.downtowndevelopment.com/2022/03/01/downtown-proponent-breathes-life-into-one-small-town-hopes-to-repeat-feat-2/?doing_wp_cron=1647274596.8421850204467773437500

BG Leaders Look at Bellefontaine’s ‘Hustle Hard’ Approach Used to Rescue that Downtown

http://bgindependentmedia.org/bg-leaders-look-at-bellefontaines-hustle-hard-approach-to-rescue-that-downtown/

Bellefontaine - The Resuscitation of a Dying Small Town

https://smallnationstrong.com/case_study/bellefontaine/

Articles by Jason:

The Best Entrepreneurs Spend Less Time Marketing And More Time Building Social Media Engagement

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/09/13/the-best-entrepreneurs-spend-less-time-marketing-and-more-time-building-social-media-engagement/?sh=19dd88f76e2c

Other Resources:

Incremental Development Alliance

https://www.incrementaldevelopment.org/

Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders, and Great Communities, by Jim Heid

https://www.jheid.com/small/

How to Get Started as a Small-Scale Developer 

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/1/how-to-be-a-small-scale-developer

Seeing Small

https://www.mainstreet.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=e921d7c8-92fe-b822-1975-1254a2f6ee61&forceDialog=0

4 Tested Techniques to Catalyze Small Town Redevelopment

https://meetingoftheminds.org/4-tested-techniques-to-catalyze-small-town-redevelopment-27017

A Common-Sense Approach to Reinvigorating Small-Town America

https://www.ruralbusiness.com/a-common-sense-approach-to-reinvigorating-small-town-america/

Andrew Kleine is the author of "City On the Line" and is working tirelessly toward a future in which municipal budgeting produces the results that leaders are looking for. Shayne Kavanagh, the Senior Manager of Research for the Government Finance Officers Association, has spent his career looking at how government policy interacts with the fiscal health of the places in which he works.

To some, municipal budgeting is a black box, but today's conversation aims to make this sometimes-confusing topic a little more transparent. Can the budgeting process be communicated to the public in a way that actually helps them understand and be a part of the process? The answer is yes. Kevin, Shayne, and Andrew look seriously at how we can we take a data-first approach to planning for the future and come up with ways for our budgets to actually produce meaningful results in our communities.

Lots of great content to check out after you listen to this episode:

https://www.gfoa.org/rethinking-budgeting
https://bloombergcities.jhu.edu/category/budgeting-equity

Some books worth checking out:

City on the Line by Andrew Kleine
Trying Hard is Not Good Enough by Mark Friedman
The Price of Government by David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson
The Art of Explanation by Lee LeFever
Data Story by Nancy Duarte
Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

Have you ever heard the phrase "affordable housing" used by 5 different people,  but it seems like every one of them is talking about something slightly different? This episode will help shed some light on this sometimes confusing, always complex subject. AJ and Deborah go deep and we are here for it.

Lots of great content to check out after you listen to this episode:

Deborah’s Business: 

https://dmyersonconsulting.com/

Mentioned in This Episode:

How Did They Do It? Discovering New Opportunities for Affordable Housing

https://dmyersonconsulting.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/how-did-they-do-it-jan-2017.pdf

Few American Cities are Truly Dense. We Can Do Better.

https://www.governing.com/community/few-american-cities-are-truly-dense-we-can-do-better

Public Meetings Thwart Housing Reform Where it is Needed Most

https://www.governing.com/now/public-meetings-thwart-housing-reform-where-it-is-needed-most

Some of Deborah’s Work:

Invisible Neighbors: How To Include People Left Out of B-town’s Neighborhoods 

https://limestonepostmagazine.com/invisible-neighbors-left-out-of-neighborhoods/

Best in American Living (Blog)

https://bestinamericanliving.com/?s=deborah+myerson

Prospects for New Housing Cooperatives: Feasibility Study for Housing Cooperatives in the Northern Rockies

https://dmyersonconsulting.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/prospects-for-new-housing-cooperatives-executive-summary-1.pdf

Multifamily Housing Development: Ten Case Studies of Innovative Projects

https://uli.bookstore.ipgbook.com/multifamily-housing-development--ten-case-studies-of-innovative-projects-products-9780874203868.php

Other Relevant Tools and Articles:

Are We Doing This Right: Granny Flats Edition

https://www.verdunity.com/podcast/episode-37

The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (and Keeping it There) by Shane Phillips

https://islandpress.org/books/affordable-city

Supportive Housing: A Community Solution

https://www.csh.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/BeyondNIMBYpdf.pdf

The Radical Way Cities are Tackling Affordable Housing

https://www.fastcompany.com/90618596/the-radical-way-cities-are-tackling-affordable-housing

Local Tools to Address Housing Affordability: A State-By-State Analysis

https://www.nlc.org/resource/local-tools-to-address-housing-affordability-a-state-by-state-analysis/

Cooperatively Owned Builder Sees Affordable Housing, Climate Action in ‘Granny Flats’

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/cooperatively-owned-builder-sees-affordable-housing-climate-action-in-grann

In the heart of San Antonio, Texas lies 2.2 miles of 7-lane stroad that connects to I-35.

Originally part of a state owned loop, the Texas Transportation Commission (TTC) approved a transfer of ownership to the City of San Antonio in late 2014. Since then, the City has undertaken a public engagement process to determine how best to adjust this road to better suit its citizens.

Leaders in San Antonio are proposing to reduce travel lanes to two in each direction and add protected bike lanes, widen sidewalks, and plant street trees to make the thoroughfare accessible to all types of traffic. But the state has decided that is unacceptable, and in January rescinded the transfer on the grounds that an official Project Acceptance letter was never issued. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has opposed similar Road Diets in Austin, and has referred to these types of projects as a "war on cars".

Kevin, and Kea explore this back and forth between the state and local leaders and discuss reasons why there is such a disparity between what direction is being given from the top-down, and the push for reform from the bottom-up. 

Links:

TxDOT votes to take control of Broadway, short-circuiting city's redevelopment plans

State moves to take back Broadway and stop city's redevelopment project

Lower Broadway Transformed: What's Coming and on the Drawing Board

TxDOT Ends Program That Converts Paved Roads to Gravel | The Texas Tribune

What makes a great downtown? What do we sometimes miss that can influence the way new visitors feel about our downtown? AJ interviews Catherine Sak, Executive Director of Texas Downtown to get the answers to these questions.

If you care about your downtown, or are just a lover of downtowns generally this episode is for you. Catherine and AJ get into when you need to drop Truth Grenades on the members of your community who aren't helping your downtown to be as successful as it can be, and how important a downtown is to your sales tax revenue. There's also some interesting discussion about small commercial districts in neighborhoods and how those places are deserving of our time and attention.

Links:

Texas Downtown website: https://www.texasdowntown.org/

The Value of U.S. Downtowns and Center Cities: 2020 Summary: 
https://downtown.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IDAVODT20_Compendium_2020_ExecSum_021921.pdf.pdf?utm_source=ida&utm_medium=publication&utm_campaign=button

Key Elements of Successful Downtowns: https://ced.sog.unc.edu/2019/01/key-elements-of-successful-downtowns/

Here's What *Not* to Do to Your Small-Town Main Street: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/12/2/heres-what-not-to-do-to-your-small-town-main-street

Main Street America - Resources: https://www.mainstreet.org/howwecanhelp/resourcecenter/webinarseries

Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdnIvp9Udv0

The Heart of the City: Creating Vibrant Downtowns for a New Century by Alexander Garvin

Resilient Downtowns: A New Approach to Revitalizing Small- and Medium-City Downtowns by Michael A. Burayidi

In this first Podcast of the year Kevin takes an introspective look look back at Verdunity’s last year and gives a preview of what we expect to be up to in 2022. Listen in to Kevin giving some thought to

1. What prosperity is.
2. How we are building cities we can’t afford to live in or maintain.
3. How clear it’s becoming that there is hope at the neighborhood level.

As we look forward to 2022 we hope you will join us for some upcoming workshops we will be holding around the state of Texas. Stay tuned, chances are we will be coming somewhere near you!

Items mentioned in the podcast:

Podcast Survey

Episode 23 – Co-creating the city you want to live in, with Ben Orcutt

"Buckle Up, Baby" – with Chuck Marohn

Fiscally Informed Planning - with the City of Taylor, Texas

Building community wealth with Monte Anderson

Episode 28 – A small city does the math on new development

Does your community say it values fiscal responsibility but continue to make development decisions that increase infrastructure and service liabilities without a plan to pay for them in the future? If so, a fiscally-informed comprehensive plan process like the one Verdunity helped Taylor, Texas prepare might be beneficial. Taylor is a small town in Central Texas who’s heyday came and went in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Originally a major hub for commerce in Williamson County, Taylor stagnated due to a number of factors including having I-35 routed significantly west of town bypassing the community entirely. Now in the early part of the 21st century Taylor is poised for major growth as more people move outside of Austin. Major employers have taken notice – Samsung has just inked a deal for the single largest silicon chip manufacturing facility in the US to be built at the edge of Taylor. Having just completed the first major rewrite of their comprehensive plan in 20 years Mayor Brandt Rydell and Assistant City Manager Tom Yantis discuss why the city wanted financial resilience to be at the center of their planning process, the role Verdunity’s fiscal analysis played in informing decisions and building alignment in the community, and why it’s important to have these conversations in your community before you jump into investing valuable time and dollars into code updates or capital improvement projects.  

Envision Taylor Comprehensive Plan (PDF)  

Envision Taylor Comp Plan Promotional Video (5 big ideas)

Samsung to Choose Taylor, Texas, for $17 Billion Chip-Making Factory - WSJ

Time to roll out some new Meet the Verdooners episodes to introduce y'all to the newest members of our team! In this episode, Kevin sits down with Maddie Bonney, our new Planner, and they discuss her personal motivations for pursuing a career in planning, including her desire to improve quality of life and promote self-sustaining economic development. She explains how her values align with Verdunity's focus on fiscal health and local wealth, and they discuss the relationship between the design of our neighborhoods and the mental health of the people living there. 

The Go Cultivate! podcast is back! In this episode Kevin introduces Marshall Hines who will be helping out with episodes going forward and they talk about what to expect from us in the future. Chuck Marohn (of Strong Towns) and Kevin Shepherd (of Verdunity) discuss how they came to engineering in the first place, what led them to discover some problems in the profession, and their divergent paths to solving them. It turns out to be a critical conversation between two engineers recovering from the dogma of their chosen career with thoughtful advice for the rest of us. You'll also hear how Chuck and Kevin think about Bottom Up action applies to larger infrastructure projects and planning efforts. 

Items mentioned in the podcast:

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Strong Towns

Careers at Verdunity

Episode 47 – Chuck Marohn and the Revolution We Need

Episode 10 – Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns

Andrew Kleine is the Former Chief Administrative Officer for Montgomery County, MD, and before that, he was the budget director for the City of Baltimore. He’s the author of one of our favorite books, City on the Line: How Baltimore Transformed Its Budget to Beat the Great Recession and Deliver Outcomes. He describes the city's implementation of outcome-based budgeting during his time there. It’s an excellent resource for any city looking to implement an outcome budgeting approach.

Learn more about Andrew (or get in touch with him): @awkleine on Twitter / andrew@andrewkleine.com / cityontheline.com

Mentioned in the show:

• A Playbook for Reducing Police Budgets and Investing in Equity – Andrew's recent op-ed in NextCity

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The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

(This episode features music from No Future, Tours, and Custodian of Records.)

2020 is almost over, and it's time for our annual assessment of how we're doing and what we want to focus on in the upcoming year. In this short update, Kevin and AJ talk about Verdunity's commitment to serving our listeners, followers, and partners and how we use listener feedback to inform what we write and talk about. To help us make the podcast and other content as relevant and helpful as possible, we're asking our friends and followers to complete a quick survey. Click HERE to let us know what podcast episodes and blogs were your favorites, what your biggest challenges are, and what information and topics you'd like us to cover in upcoming episodes!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Verdunity-GoCultivate2020

Thank you for listening to the Go Cultivate! podcast. We look forward to continuing to share content to help you cultivate meaningful improvement in yourself, your neighborhood, and your community!

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The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Kevin speaks with Jim Proce, City Manager for the City of Anna, Texas, about a pressing issue many cities are facing: the struggle to find the money needed to maintain and replace streets and other infrastructure built back in their growth years. Also discussed in this episode:

• The difference between street maintenance and replacement, and how they're each typically funded
• How cities typically prioritize maintenance and CIP projects
• How Jim is approaching his job in a city that is in the midst of its fast-growth phase

To see some of Jim's CIP process mentioned in the show, follow this link.

Find  Jim on LinkedIn

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The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Future, Jim Croce, and Custodian of Records.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-76

In this installment of the 'Are We Doing This Right?' series, we take on the humble sidewalk. We packed a lot into this episode, including:

• How the use of the street right-of-way has changed over time
• Who “pedestrian infrastructure” is really for
• The common use of the term “pedestrian” and its implications
• The bizarre ways sidewalks get paid for (and who that impacts most)
• The recent resurgence in walking awareness
• Elements of successful sidewalks
• Scoring streets for their sidewalk quality
• How shared space eliminates the need for the sidewalk
• And of course, we answer the question, “Are we doing this right?”

Want to do some further research on the topic? Head on over to the show page for this episode to find a list of resources we found helpful in compiling this show.

--

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Future, Freddie Kepperd, Peter Grudzien, Dionne Warwick, and Jellybean.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-75

In this episode, Kevin is joined by a trio of folks from Smart Growth America: Vice President for Economic Development Chris Zimmerman, Deputy Director of Economic Development Jeri Mintzer, and visiting Director of Research Michael Rodriguez. 

We discuss Smart Growth America's fiscal sustainability research and its implications for communities of all sizes, as well as some things the group would like to see all levels of government doing differently to build a stronger foundation for the communities of tomorrow. 

--

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money and Custodian of Records.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-74

Kevin sits down with John Lettelleir, Director of Development Services for the City of Frisco, Texas. John has been with the City of Frisco since 1998, when the population was around 25,000, and has seen it grow to more than 200,000 residents. John brings a unique perspective on planning for and managing fast population growth in North Texas. 

Kevin and John discuss the recent repeal of the Plano Tomorrow comprehensive plan and the impact it may have on planning in North Texas in the coming years. They also talk about the challenges that come with managing growth, the long-term fiscal impacts of growth, and  advice for leaders in other cities who find themselves in similar situations.

--

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money and Custodian of Records.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-73

Noel Bernal and Helen Ramirez, are the city manager and assistant city manager (respectively) for the City of Brownsville, Texas. In this wide-ranging interview, they discuss some of the ways they're using the lens of fiscal sustainability to guide investments, prioritize infrastructure projects, and make land use decisions. (Last year, Verdunity conducted a land use fiscal analysis for Brownsville, which was used as the launch point for a more intentional budgeting process, the creation of a new Unified Development Code, and investment in revitalization of their historic downtown.)

Noel and Helen also give some insights on building an effective and unified leadership team. 

--

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money, Tours, and Custodian of Records.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-72

This time on our ‘Are We Doing This Right?’ series, we take a look at the local budgeting process. Here’s what you can expect from this episode:

• A quick rundown of common presumptions
• An overview of the way budgeting processes work in most towns and cities
• A discussion of the “seven deadly sins” of public finance (as told by friend of the show Liz Farmer), 
• Some of the most common criticisms of city budgeting processes and outcomes
• A bit of perspective from AJ on what budgeting processes actually look like from inside a local government 
• A snapshot of some popular types of budgeting approaches that are out there (from line-item, to zero-based, to participatory, to outcome-based, and everything in between)
• A list of best practices for creating a truly accessible budgeting process, plus examples of cities that have taken big steps in this direction
• A final discussion about budgets as exercises in making choices
• And, of course, we answer the titular question—are we doing this right?

Want to do some further research on the topic? Head on over to the show page for this episode to find a list of resources we found helpful in compiling this show.

--

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money, Custodian of Records, Scott Joplin, and The Kinks.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-71

In this episode, Kevin speaks with Kennedy Smith, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), about strategies that city leaders can use to help local businesses weather the pandemic—and the post-pandemic world. Kennedy has just authored a report titled 'Safeguarding Small Business During the Pandemic: 26 Strategies for Local Leaders.'

The 26 actions outlined are grouped into three main priority areas that address immediate, short-term, and longer-term actions to guide community leaders:

1. First: Provide quick relief to keep businesses afloat
2. Next: Help businesses adapt and pivot
3. Later: Fix systemic problems that the pandemic has laid bare

We're big fans of ILSR, and we encourage you to check out the rest of their work as well!

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The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

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(This episode features music from No Money, Custodian of Records, and Petula Clark.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-10