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Conversations about Creating a Culture of Activity: Profiling the people, places, programs, and policies that help to promote a culture of activity within our communities.
Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:24
Diane Alisa
And codependency is so frightening for people. It feels ideological and they don't understand like the dependency part. They just understand the car part. Now I'm mostly just going to focus on, like the village, talking about the village and, and telling them how much they are going to get from doing walkability.
00:00:25:26 - 00:00:44:16
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman, and that is Diane Alisa, author of the new book A Love Letter to Suburbia How to Restore the American Village. But before we get into that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here in the Active Towns Channel, hey, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador.
00:00:44:18 - 00:01:02:10
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here on YouTube. Or you can navigate over to Active Town Strategy. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there's several different options. Okay. Let's get right to it with Diane Alisa.
00:01:02:12 - 00:01:06:07
John Simmerman
Alisa, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:06:09 - 00:01:10:12
Diane Alisa
Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm I'm super excited about this.
00:01:10:15 - 00:01:31:26
John Simmerman
Oh, I am super excited too. I was joking with you before we hit the record button that your your book features so many of the folks who are near and dear to my heart and is part of this movement. I joke and say I'm a public health professional with 35 years of experience turned YouTuber and storyteller, and you're very much a storyteller too.
00:01:31:26 - 00:01:56:29
John Simmerman
But, you know, my good friend Chuck Marone with, with Strong Towns has been on the channel here multiple, multiple times, and I've been on his podcast multiple times. This is how I learned about you is you were on the Strong Towns podcast. So I'm really, really excited to talk about your book. But before we dive into the book and all that, I'm going to just turn the floor over to you for like, 30s to have you introduce yourself.
00:01:57:00 - 00:02:00:07
John Simmerman
So who the heck is Diana? Lisa.
00:02:00:09 - 00:02:22:18
Diane Alisa
Okay, so I, I guess I'm a actress, actually. I went to school to do professional theater, and then I did a little bit of professional theater after I graduated, and I actually just wanted to have a baby more than I wanted to do theater. I just felt like it wasn't quite my season yet. So I had a baby.
00:02:22:18 - 00:03:00:07
Diane Alisa
And then I discovered urbanism, and I feel like I went a bit manic trying to write my book, because all of this information was. So it just clicked. Everything clicked for me when I discovered urbanism, and I realized that I needed to get people on my side if I was ever going to actually make any change. And so I wrote a story that I felt was convincing and was really endearing to them, so that they could see that codependent design is really unhealthy.
00:03:00:07 - 00:03:08:19
Diane Alisa
And it's something that they're complaining about all the time. They just don't have the language yet to to, to talk about it. So that was what I was trying to do.
00:03:08:21 - 00:03:30:00
John Simmerman
Wow. That's I love that. And you do cover this in your book. And so, I really encourage everybody to, you know, pick up your book and we'll talk about that a little bit, more extensively. But, take take us back to that story, though, of your discovering it. How did you discover urbanism.
00:03:30:02 - 00:03:55:28
Diane Alisa
Was just, Jason Slaughter's YouTube channel. I, I discovered one of his videos that said, why I won't raise my kids in the suburbs. And it just hit me so powerfully that this was why I was struggling with American infrastructure. And I had been sort of blown away by how difficult it was to raise a baby in America.
00:03:56:01 - 00:04:24:28
Diane Alisa
And I had been watching this dialog for a long time between mothers. But it wasn't until I had my baby that I truly understand why so many women are complaining, and why there's such a large gap in empathy, almost for American mothers, even from each other. I feel like some mothers kind of find a way to make it work, and we'll dismiss other people's problems because they're like, well, you're just not disciplined enough.
00:04:24:28 - 00:04:48:06
Diane Alisa
You're just not doing this enough. And when I had that baby, I was like, wow, I can't there's a level of care that I literally cannot complete in this infrastructure. One of them was just carrying my baby around, and how many disconnected moments there are between me and my baby when I have to go live life?
00:04:48:09 - 00:05:16:14
Diane Alisa
I think a lot of women are just sort of suffering through that thinking that it's normal or being told that it's okay. And, yeah, that was just I mean, it goes on and on as the kids age, but that for me was, really difficult. And I guess the last thing I'll say was that I actually moved into a multigenerational home because there was a level of community that I didn't have, and my son needed it so desperately.
00:05:16:14 - 00:05:31:18
Diane Alisa
I just kind of tell my I tell people that my son was immensely bored with me. I could not do enough to entertain him. And it wasn't until we moved in where there was lots of people that he was okay getting what he needed.
00:05:31:21 - 00:05:55:06
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Now I'm going to pop us over to the cover of your book. So, the Olive Conservancy is your publishing house. And again, here is the book, which is a love letter to suburbia. I'm going to make an a an admission here. A and and basically say, I didn't read the book. I listen to the book.
00:05:55:08 - 00:06:18:14
John Simmerman
So I had your your voice in my head the entire time, going through the book. Two times. I've actually listened to your book two times through, and, I love it when authors, do their own audible. It's fun. Because you're you're it's such a personal story, and you're you're writing about the story. I do have the book out on my bookshop on the Active Towns channel.
00:06:18:17 - 00:07:09:18
John Simmerman
Bookshop. So, folks, if you're used to, seeing profiles from the authors, that I do feature here on the active sales channel, pop on over to the bookshop. Or you can get it directly from the publisher. So, we like to support our local bookstores as well as bookshop.org, and whenever possible, to, to help the small businesses out because this is part of a little subtheme to your book as you talk about the difference between suburbia and corporate America and mega corporations versus our traditional habitation patterns in our villages that, you know, emerged and evolved, as Chuck Marone likes to say, you know, over thousands of years and in I
00:07:09:18 - 00:07:37:28
John Simmerman
like to also say, this is same with our streets. You know, I've got my little coffee mug streets of for people. And you actually say streets are for people, literally, you know, in quoting that in your book. And so this is a fascinating, fascinating story for me to hear from you is that you just stumbled upon not just Bikes and Jason's channel and some of the suite of videos that he did.
00:07:38:01 - 00:08:02:21
John Simmerman
Because he did a whole, I think, seven different, videos in addition to that particular video that you mentioned, that focused in on, the Strong Towns message. And so he talks about roads, he talks about all of those things. Yeah. And it's just it's amazing how much impact that series of videos has had. So I just I love the fact that we're having this conversation.
00:08:02:21 - 00:08:24:24
John Simmerman
And you went out and did a book. Now I have to ask you, what is it about you and your husband? Because you also, I think, started like a nonprofit, too. What is it about you two that are like, oh yeah, we've we can't unsee what we've just seen. We need to go out and change the world. We need to do something about it, because not everybody does that.
00:08:24:27 - 00:08:55:19
Diane Alisa
And everybody around me is like, just find a comfortable place to live. And I'm like, no, I just have to, I have to, I just feel called to it. I feel like and he feels the same way that family really is the core of our message, and it is so important to give this very hopeful message that if you build for walkability, are building for families, and it's just so counterintuitive.
00:08:55:19 - 00:09:20:26
Diane Alisa
But once the person understands, they just can't go back, they see how ugly it is. They see how hard it is to raise children, they see how expensive it is. And, like for expenses, for example, I didn't I almost didn't understand because I was like, you can have a baby for a really cheap, maybe not like the hospital fees, but, like, you can raise children in a cheap way.
00:09:20:26 - 00:09:42:16
Diane Alisa
We we've done it all through human history. So what is the problem? Why? Why are we spending so much money? And it's just because your children have nothing organic around them to entertain them, to learn from. And so people are like, it's so expensive because they're paying for the schools, are paying for the lessons, they're paying for their kid to be in soccer.
00:09:42:18 - 00:10:08:10
Diane Alisa
And all that comes with that and all the growing prices that are coming from that too, like the uniforms, the fees. And then you realize, well, if I actually want a quality of life for my children, I must pay. There is no other way. And so that was really clarifying for me. And yeah, my husband and I, we, we feel so warmly about this and, there's just a lot of love coming from this message.
00:10:08:12 - 00:10:18:01
John Simmerman
So talk a little bit about because this has been a bit of a whirlwind, I'm sure, for you. When did the book come out?
00:10:18:03 - 00:10:26:20
Diane Alisa
But came out in December last year. I don't know, but now we're so close in January the year before that.
00:10:26:22 - 00:10:51:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. Oh, say December 2024. So you you had all of 2025, you know, gaining momentum and attention. And I'm going to pull up this particular article, this is in the American conservative American suburbs to blame for everything. You got to be pinching yourself a little bit of going, oh my gosh. You know, all of this stuff is happening.
00:10:51:23 - 00:11:13:29
John Simmerman
This was published on December 31st of 2025. So just about two months ago. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that experience of, you know, being on, you know, the Strong Towns podcast and, you know, profiling. So, so talk about that. I mean, you got to be pinching yourself a little bit, both of you and your husband as well of like oh my gosh.
00:11:13:29 - 00:11:33:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. We we started getting passionate about this. We blogged about it a little bit. And we'll talk in a little bit about the influencer side of things and Instagram and Facebook and all that in just a moment. But yeah, you two have got to be like pinching yourselves, going, oh my gosh, what what happened here?
00:11:33:22 - 00:12:13:27
Diane Alisa
We're so excited. And I actually just felt very confident in the message when we published that, I was just like, I know people are going to resonate with this. I think that's part of the foolhardiness of, amateur that helps you get going. But yeah, the I think that people are desperate for a piece of hope and to like, create again, to live in a world where they're not just consuming, but they're actually building a wonderful world around them and, and really, really have I mean, we've got, I think I've done over like 10 or 11 podcasts.
00:12:13:27 - 00:12:27:26
Diane Alisa
We've had several articles written about it. I've done I will have done two speaking engagements at the end of this week, and, sorry. It's just there's a lot. Yeah.
00:12:27:28 - 00:12:47:02
John Simmerman
No, it's I'm, I'm super, super excited for you again. I feel like I've been, you know, in the trenches, you know, again, 35 years I've been in public health and health promotion and trying to do this about 20 years ago was when I shifted to look at the built environment. And how it impacts our ability to live a healthy, active lifestyle.
00:12:47:04 - 00:13:11:29
John Simmerman
And so I, I just like get so excited when I've got like fresh blood here. I've got new people, like connecting all the dots and saying, hey, guys, hey, look at this. We need to be looking at returning to our villages and how we can have multi-generational things. And, the ability for, you know, Tim Gill, he and I are good friends, and we've I've had him on the channel a couple times.
00:13:12:04 - 00:13:34:04
John Simmerman
The ability for kids to be able to get around and play in their environment, it's so incredibly important. And, and what I love about your book is it just covers so many different topics because you're able to, like, draw the dotted line to car dependency and how it's undermining so many aspects of life.
00:13:34:06 - 00:13:56:09
Diane Alisa
Yeah, I, I just want to say that I feel like I'm, I am standing on a mountain of giants. I just couldn't have done it by myself, you know? And it's also a timing thing. Like, I don't even think they would have been ready to hear even five years ago. It's just all coming together in just the right way, like, I don't I'm not a finance girl.
00:13:56:09 - 00:14:23:07
Diane Alisa
It doesn't really interest me for me. But then we have Charles Chuck Marone figuring that out for me. And being able to draw how it's fitting into family life. So all of that has been very useful to me. And I just want to, like, separate myself from the message. I don't really feel like it's mine, but I think it's something that I can give, I can share with how many people have been involved in this?
00:14:23:10 - 00:14:45:07
John Simmerman
Well, and this is a good, good point, to pause and talk a little bit about the fact that, you know, there's a difference between just writing a book and putting it out there and and letting people come to, you know, the message. And then there's it's a different thing to be, you know, out there hustling and trying to have these conversations.
00:14:45:09 - 00:15:11:01
John Simmerman
And that's where I think, you know, this aspect. I mean, what I do in terms of producing a podcast and producing YouTube videos is I produce this content. I put it out there, and then I kind of let the YouTube algorithm do its work and hopefully, you know, my video gets in front of the future. Diana, Lisa who who says, oh my gosh, you know, John was interviewing Jason Slaughter and Chuck Marone and I'm so excited.
00:15:11:01 - 00:15:37:05
John Simmerman
And I do get that feedback from folks that, you know, they they found them because they, you know, got served up one of my interviews with them. But you're doing the same thing. You're you're creating content continuously. So let's take a look at your, your Instagram here. And so you're constantly putting out content and, you know, riffing on and talking about this.
00:15:37:12 - 00:15:43:04
John Simmerman
So, now you're an influencer to.
00:15:43:06 - 00:15:51:20
Diane Alisa
It's crazy because I think I got a year or two ago, I was like, wouldn't it be a horrible job to be an influencer?
00:15:51:22 - 00:15:55:14
John Simmerman
Welcome to the welcome to the party.
00:15:55:16 - 00:16:15:14
Diane Alisa
And it is it's got its quirks for sure. And like working with the algorithm sometimes I'll take a nine second video that I had. No, I didn't even work on it. You know, I just said something and posted. It has got millions of views and anything that I'm working on with a bit of effort, I'm like, I love doing.
00:16:15:17 - 00:16:40:20
Diane Alisa
So. It's it's interesting that way. And I just have to separate myself from it. A bit because, I mean, content creation, it's not my strongest talent, but it has helped to get this message across, and we actually are going to be a lot more deliberate about the content. We're probably going to do long form content. I mean, the content.
00:16:40:20 - 00:16:52:26
Diane Alisa
This is where people are. This is where the social circles are happening. They're not happening in real communities. And so I have to put myself into this world to get them out of that world and put them in their home communities.
00:16:52:29 - 00:17:17:06
John Simmerman
And hence that's the irony. Right? So yeah, you know, same with me producing this content is I'd love nothing more than for people to watch one of my profile videos of a beautiful new bit of active mobility infrastructure like I did in, in Salt Lake City and, and have people go, oh my gosh, this is great and get inspired and get out there and go ride it.
00:17:17:08 - 00:17:18:10
Diane Alisa
Exactly.
00:17:18:12 - 00:17:39:22
John Simmerman
I you know, I don't want to necessarily the irony of what you're just referring to there is that, you know, people are going to this for community in the irony, of course, is what we want to do is create an environment and transform our communities so that they are community based and people based, not carbon based.
00:17:39:25 - 00:17:51:24
Diane Alisa
The whole influencer thing is interesting because I don't I feel like people go into the influencer realm to make it their career, and I'm doing it as a means to an end. I'm like, hopefully, yeah, I don't have to do this very long.
00:17:51:27 - 00:18:22:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I hear you, I hear you. So let's let's take a step back and and talk about the fact that too, this is very personal. So you came to this personally and then your, your, your book. And in fact, let's, let's talk about the title of the book, walk us through that origin story of coming up with this title, title, A Love Letter to Suburbia.
00:18:22:25 - 00:18:53:25
Diane Alisa
What's crazy is that this was the first and only title I consider. Yeah. I don't know why I felt so strongly about it, but I knew that the people I was talking to, especially like red leaning suburbanites, would be extremely defensive against my movement. And they were, which is why I wrote the book. Like, I couldn't get anything done in Utah when we were trying to advocate for better streets.
00:18:53:25 - 00:19:21:24
Diane Alisa
And so then I was like, okay, we need a better message. And so a love letter to suburbia. It is a love letter. It's a message that the suburbs, as much as they have heard us, are actually the way out there in the places where people own and have private land and can really localize their community, it's it's almost one of the only untouched places in the economy, and they're very beautiful as well.
00:19:21:24 - 00:19:45:26
Diane Alisa
So and they can be made more beautiful, which I hope I got across, that I am trying to give American families what they've lost. I'm not trying to take anything away from them. That was the biggest message for me because they're very fearful already. They think everything's expensive. They feel their families are failing. And I was like, well, what if I.
00:19:46:03 - 00:19:53:00
Diane Alisa
What if we had a better community for all of that? What if there's a way to get back what you've been yearning for through walkability?
00:19:53:03 - 00:20:24:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And the subtitle is How to Restore the American Village. I just love this, too. I mean, I grew up in a, just outside. I actually grew up on a ranch outside of a small town, a town of 4000 people in Northern California. Back then, it was it was like a ranching community. I mean, I was a member of four H and FFA, and so I was very much, you know, very much a part of that sort of agrarian sort of environment.
00:20:24:24 - 00:21:05:21
John Simmerman
And so I identify with that small town as being like a village, a village concept. And I would come in, you know, I was only two miles out, so I was a few miles closer than Chuck was from where he grew up on his, his farm, outside of Brainerd. But it that village concept really resonated, I think, in the book talk a little bit about wanting to hone in and lean into having this conversation about villages and a village and how that you think resonates across the political spectrum, because I think that's what the, the needle that you were threading was, was precisely that.
00:21:05:27 - 00:21:09:24
John Simmerman
And I think you even referenced you had to do that even with your own mother.
00:21:09:27 - 00:21:34:28
Diane Alisa
Yes, I know it took a long time for my mother to be convinced, and she was with me the whole journey. Like you, she read the book twice. So village is just an extremely warm word, and it's historically based. So people can look back and just see what a village was. And village again wasn't a city.
00:21:34:28 - 00:22:04:29
Diane Alisa
I knew that suburbanites were very triggered by the word city. And there's a lot of negative narratives, like you're stacked on top of each other. There's so much crime, things like that. So I wanted to take away any type of, sentence that I would use for city. I didn't say city very often in my book, even, and village, it provides all of the warmth that needed to add upon things that they're worried about, like density.
00:22:05:02 - 00:22:35:25
Diane Alisa
They hate the idea of having more dense cities. And it's, I explain, because of cars, cars make density really horrible. And, and then I also talked about villages being really family centric, like, it's okay if we're kind of closer together when we have more amenities, more beautiful things, more community, more autonomy for our children, more things for mothers to do on top of having families.
00:22:35:28 - 00:23:04:07
Diane Alisa
It's a balance between convenience, amenities and community. It's right there in the middle. And when I was talking to these people in my book, it was to say, this is as close to the lifestyle that you currently have, through walkability. You know, as much as I could let them have what they already have, I tried to do that with the word village.
00:23:04:09 - 00:23:21:24
Diane Alisa
Oh, and restore, because restore is, I don't know if we ever truly had, like, a ton of villages, but we had it pretty darn close. And it's also just the the feeling of of community that I was trying to return to them.
00:23:21:27 - 00:23:45:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that's a really good thing to, to, to reference and you know, the whole, the whole reason why I have, you know, streets are for people, as you know, one of my taglines for the Active Towns channel is because I like to remind folks that the automobile has really only been prevalent in our societies for the last 120 years.
00:23:45:15 - 00:24:25:21
John Simmerman
I mean, you know, prior to that, I mean, we did have American villages. We did build, you know, yes, we also built cities. But I mean, many of these places, you know, had historical, walkable cores and villages, you know, even even there in, you know, the Wasatch, you know, Valley, you know, and, and the Salt Lake City metro area, you know, you look at the cities that, you know, were established, the villages that were established, the communities that were established, they were all built around the same premise as Venice, a 15, you know, minute walk.
00:24:25:22 - 00:24:45:12
John Simmerman
You know, it's basically, you know, being able to walk and bike to get to places and or if you're a little further out and. Yeah, then you switch over to, you know, my how I grew up as a kid, you know, you can switch back to, you know, switch to horseback and you know, you're able to, you know, have have a little horse power, if you will.
00:24:45:14 - 00:25:15:17
John Simmerman
But it's it's really, really interesting. So I love the fact that you have Restore the American Village because it really, I think, brings up the fact that it's only the past several generations, decades that have caused us to go so hog wild on this car dependency aspect of it. So I love the fact that you, you use that as your subtitle of Restoring the American Village.
00:25:15:19 - 00:25:42:21
John Simmerman
When we look at the new attempts, the New Urbanism attempts to restore American village, patterns and development patterns. I was just in your neck of the woods, filming, over the summer and fall, and, and I had the opportunity to to look at the city context and went out with, the Department of Transportation director John Larson.
00:25:42:23 - 00:26:14:18
John Simmerman
And we filmed, around Salt Lake City and how they are trying to, transform that built environment that is has it's extremely wide rights of way, which go back to the original platting the Zion plat of the actual city. But they're trying to, you know, deemphasize the cars and be able to shoehorn active mobility, make it more walkable and bikeable under these extreme conditions of wide streets and long blocks.
00:26:14:21 - 00:26:47:19
John Simmerman
But I also had the opportunity to, you know, profile daybreak. There in South Jordan and be able to get into a new urbanism sort of enclave of trying to make it more walkable and bikeable, have beautiful access to open space and parks, and also integrate some of these commercial activities, these small businesses that, you know, people can, you know, access by walking and biking, not feeling like they have to drive everywhere for everything.
00:26:47:21 - 00:27:08:00
John Simmerman
It's not perfect. And, you know, Mike West, my my tour guide, who is a resident of daybreak, you know, says, yeah, no, it's we're still in North America and it's not perfect, but it's so much better than what we've seen of suburbia, you know, since post-World War Two. And so there's a little bit of hope there, too.
00:27:08:03 - 00:27:34:27
Diane Alisa
Yeah. But I, I just want to say that, just before I, when I was talking about how we don't have two villages, I don't think we have villages and with, all of our technology that we have now, this is sort of new territory. Daybreak is an interesting place. It's I call it a walkable suburb because it tries to emphasize walkability, but it's still very car dependent.
00:27:34:29 - 00:28:02:06
Diane Alisa
And that was actually one of the developments that people kept telling me to move to was to break. But I for me, daybreak isn't quite enough. It kind of it halfway completes its goals. And so I think that if we were to restore villages, it have to be an entirely holistic approach. It would be a new system of building new values, new principles.
00:28:02:08 - 00:28:06:20
Diane Alisa
And I don't feel like it can really be done in isolation.
00:28:06:22 - 00:28:38:15
John Simmerman
So and I would say also the biggest criticism I have with daybreak, with, the Mueller development in Austin, Texas, these, Stapleton development, which is now called Central Park, in Denver, these are all New Urbanism types of things where they're trying to lean into, you know, more walkable, bikeable environments. But the thing that's missing from our original villages is that they can't, like, open a coffee shop at the end of the block.
00:28:38:17 - 00:29:03:23
John Simmerman
They can't say, you know, hey, on our ground floor, I'm going to I'm going to have a barber shop. That's the key thing. And that's one of the things that the Chuck Marone, you know, leans into on with the Strong Towns movement is that we are building many of these things and still separating uses, you know, still leaning too heavily into the land use code side of things.
00:29:03:26 - 00:29:19:15
John Simmerman
And that's not natural. I mean, you should be able to feel like, hey, I'm a seamstress and, you know, I'm going, I have I'm going to run my little business right out of my, you know, my lower level or whatever if there's multi levels. So yeah.
00:29:19:17 - 00:29:19:28
Diane Alisa
Yeah.
00:29:19:28 - 00:29:26:23
John Simmerman
It's that's part of the walkability is, is like having that sort of, you know corner store and cafe etc. etc..
00:29:26:25 - 00:29:50:27
Diane Alisa
I just think that walkability is functionality. It functions where you can link get to places efficiently and safety without buying a 2010 vehicle. And what's great about it is that I can tell my very right leaning audience that I'm actually returning a free market to them, because they think they're living in a free market, and they're really not.
00:29:50:27 - 00:30:21:27
Diane Alisa
They're kind of honed down by regulations and red tape. And the wonderful thing is, too, that if you allow these businesses back into your neighborhoods, they don't function in the same way that a Wal mart does. They're not as ugly, they're not as chaotic, they're not as loud. There's a lot of familiarity with these people. So when when they get nervous about bringing in these small businesses I'm like, well do you walk your kids to piano lessons?
00:30:21:27 - 00:30:44:15
Diane Alisa
Do you. I can't think of another example, but there's a lot of things that we can walk to, like dog groomers and haircutting individuals, little salons and basements. And the question is, do those disrupt your life very much? No. Not really. In fact, they're kind of nice. But I don't have to get in a car to get to them.
00:30:44:18 - 00:30:50:09
Diane Alisa
And there's a strong connections because of those little things that we have in suburbs right now.
00:30:50:12 - 00:31:20:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think that that's one of the the great things about, my approach and Chuck Moran's approach with Strong Towns is to look at these concepts and say, hey, this is not this is sort of apolitical in the sense that it crosses across political spectrums. What we're talking about is stuff that's good for everyone, for humans, for mankind, for families.
00:31:20:21 - 00:31:55:04
John Simmerman
It's it's not something that's this way or that way. Right or left leaning necessarily. It's just, hey, this is the way that, you know, we developed villages and towns before. And if we head back in that direction or help to transform our built environment, our suburbs, if you will, and make them a little bit more village like, that would really help us all out because there's things about suburbia and you talk about this in, in, in the book that are attractive.
00:31:55:06 - 00:32:14:20
John Simmerman
And so we need to be in and Chuck says the same thing. We need to not demonize people who have chosen to live in that type of environment. There's a reason why that's attractive. I mean, there's a reason why the the cul de sac is, is attractive. A it's it, you know, there's not a constant stream of traffic outside your front door.
00:32:14:20 - 00:32:45:06
John Simmerman
And the kids can, you know, oftentimes, you know, set up a hoop in, in, you know, in the cul de sac or whatever, what makes the cul de sac devastating. And, and and, Jason Slaughter would not just bikes talks about this is that if there's not a way to permeate or penetrate through the cul de sac, to be able to get to a network of active mobility trails and pathways through a modal filter, then it makes every trip a long trip that ends up being a car trip.
00:32:45:09 - 00:33:24:16
John Simmerman
And so I think that's one of the things that we did wrong about our suburban pattern. And the cul de sacs is we didn't penetrate those cul de sacs with active mobility networks. Places like daybreak actually do a good job at that, where they they actually have a lot of mold of filters, and you can do a combination of quiet residential streets from an active mobility perspective, get on to the extensive network of off street pathways and get to meaningful destinations, including, schools and parks, as well as grocery stores, etc., etc., etc..
00:33:24:18 - 00:33:54:06
Diane Alisa
Yeah, I tell a lot of people that everything that they love about a suburb is pretty much what's connected to walkability. Like, you actually just love walkability, because if you find yourself lucky enough to be in a cul de sac, now you have a little community, you know, a micro community of people who are around this area, and you just know your kids aren't going to get hit by a car and, that is such a relief to have.
00:33:54:09 - 00:34:17:29
Diane Alisa
I mean, I live in a suburb right now, and the road in front of my house is extremely dangerous, and you wouldn't think that it is, but people will fly through these neighborhoods, and I just can't trust that they're not going to hit my children. The level of, care and mental burden that I have to, to just be outside with my children.
00:34:18:01 - 00:34:49:12
Diane Alisa
I don't even feel comfortable letting my children be outside by themselves, even if I'm just inside cooking dinner. It's a huge burden. I mean, I talk a lot about children and babies in my book, but I feel terribly because I know my children are not getting enough outside time, but there is nothing pulling me outside, so I'm either very bored or I'm sitting in the weather and, but they need it.
00:34:49:12 - 00:35:05:06
Diane Alisa
And the other thing is, it's not a lot of kids out either, because if your suburb gets geriatric, then kids are literally by themselves, like, I'll go to the park and nobody, nobody will be there except for me and my children. It's just a different type of parenting. It almost feels like babysitting.
00:35:05:08 - 00:35:52:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, well enough to not to, you know, go too far deep down the hall of of like daybreak and and those types of intentional, New urbanism sort of developments. They tend to be more expensive, too. And you talk about this is the walkable places and the more desirable places and the beautiful places and the places where kids can roam and be out on their own tend to be incredibly unaffordable because there's so few true American villages and places where, you know, you feel like, well, I don't have to worry about my kids outside my front door because the street that's outside my front door is not a road, because what you're describing is not
00:35:52:15 - 00:36:18:11
John Simmerman
a residential street. You're describing a road. And I love the fact that you define the strode in the book. And you talk about, you know, the difference between a road, a place to get from point A to point B very, very quickly and a street, the place where life happens and vitality happens and vibrancy happens. You know, Chuck likes to say a street is where, you know, is the platform for building wealth and prosperity for a community.
00:36:18:13 - 00:36:51:10
John Simmerman
And, you know, you should be able to feel like, hey, my kids should be able to, you know, go out the front door, be able to, you know, jump on their bike and zip down to the park or to the school or to a friend's place and be able to roam. And I will say that that was the thing that was really most encouraging when Mike and I were filming in daybreak, as we saw just hordes of kids out on their own, either individually or in little packs of kids, and you're like, oh my gosh, thank you.
00:36:51:12 - 00:36:59:15
John Simmerman
But it shouldn't have to be something where you feel like I have to be wealthy to be able to afford that.
00:36:59:18 - 00:37:32:17
Diane Alisa
Yep. It's really a matter of there's just not enough housing. And one of my goals is to buy a suburban home, a single family home, and show how I am transforming my own neighborhood. And like if you cut the red tape and people start transforming these single family homes as well as make things walkable again, then the housing prices will plummet because there will be so much housing.
00:37:32:20 - 00:37:54:10
Diane Alisa
You know, there's the potential for housing that doesn't exist yet. But when you're like, sure, what I'm doing is actually moving in with my sister and we will basically have a legal duplex because it's not legal yet. We're just sharing a home. But the way that we've set it up, and if I feel like if we were less close, we probably wouldn't share the kitchen in the communal area.
00:37:54:12 - 00:38:16:28
Diane Alisa
But because we've lived with each other for a while now and know each other's habits and feel really comfortable that that would be okay, we are going to do that. But we are like splitting. I will be on the upstairs. They'll be on the downstairs, and we're paying half the price for the home. So you just lower the barrier and you say, okay, what would you do?
00:38:17:03 - 00:38:35:19
Diane Alisa
And the language that Chuck gave us with the strode and the street, people can look at that technical language and say, oh, this is the strode, or this needs to be a narrower street so that they actually can make a change. They are given all of the tools.
00:38:35:21 - 00:38:55:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I like to say this is that no, no city, no community, no village should have a street that services residences and local businesses. None of those should have speed limits above 20mph.
00:38:56:02 - 00:38:56:25
Diane Alisa
You know.
00:38:56:28 - 00:39:31:16
John Simmerman
Full stop. It should be. The streets are for people, full stop. And people like, freak out and they're like, oh my gosh, would never be able to get anywhere. And it's like, well, that's one of the reasons why we need to decrease. We need the code reform, the land use code reform to take place, to be able to, free up people, to be able to have, multi-generational and multifamily within our, you know, communities are lots are are, you know, and what you're describing is exactly what Chuck describes in his newest book, Escaping the Housing trap of you need.
00:39:31:18 - 00:39:58:09
John Simmerman
We need to remove the shackles so that people can have, you know, multiple families in a single family home. Many of these are just massive in size on massive lots and if we unshackle them and let them, you know, be able to organically transform themselves out, an accessory dwelling unit, you know, be able to have a place so that grandma can live, you know, on the property too.
00:39:58:14 - 00:40:19:14
John Simmerman
So again, multi-generational, all the better. And like you said, you can double or triple the number of housing units if we just are not, you know, having to continue to have the quote unquote red tape that you said, which is the the land use reform, the single family zoning that is, is in place that's, you know, kind of keeping us there.
00:40:19:16 - 00:40:41:28
Diane Alisa
I think that the culture is going to shift to where they are thinking outside of the suburban box. I used to think it was totally impossible for me to live with my family. And it's just not taught that the idea is that you leave the coop and you say goodbye forever, and you visit each other on Christmas.
00:40:42:00 - 00:41:16:10
Diane Alisa
And as the suburbs get more and more regulated and more expensive, the harder it is to do this. Which is interesting how degenerative the suburbs are to family life. But when we moved in and we had three families in the same home, I was like, we could actually do this. It's it's not so bad. And we had like, kinks and, and contentions and some areas that like the longer that we worked with each other and the longer we were with each other, the more collaborative and problem solving we got.
00:41:16:13 - 00:41:39:10
Diane Alisa
And now I'm in this really wonderful situation where I literally feel like I would be super comfortable sharing a home with my sister. And so I think there would be a lot more of that where it's not illegal, but it's not technically legal yet, right? You can't add an address to the house, or a front door. Right.
00:41:39:12 - 00:41:50:11
Diane Alisa
But I think that's the shift that I think we're going to see is people start pushing buttons. And, how much further can we go with this? And then they will they'll change the laws.
00:41:50:13 - 00:42:14:05
John Simmerman
So yeah. And I think if we, we see this and we kind of like put language around this and help people understand that this is not something to be feared. This is something to embrace. We can, you know, get even more creative ideas. I had an opportunity to interview, Phil Levin with the live with friends, organization.
00:42:14:07 - 00:42:42:15
John Simmerman
And, they were especially in the Berkeley area, they were able to create, like a multi unit little compound of, you know, being able to, you know, live in close proximity to friends and family and each, you know, each sort of family has their own little cottage, etc., and then a common area and the ability to, watch after each other's kids and have kids feel that grow up together.
00:42:42:18 - 00:43:12:26
John Simmerman
And these are the types of village concepts that we used to have. This used to be common for us. I also had, Ros Chapman on from Prop Pocket neighborhoods. And again, if we make it legal to do pocket neighborhoods, these little clusters of smaller dwellings around a common area where people can have, you know, relations with you still have a little bit of privacy, but at the same time, you're able to have, oh, it's that C word.
00:43:13:01 - 00:43:16:19
John Simmerman
You're able to have community too. Yeah.
00:43:16:22 - 00:43:43:05
Diane Alisa
It's such a fine line to walk because when you talk about it, the word that comes up to me is like hippie dippy. This sort of, I don't know, the feeling of these communal spaces, like communal, is almost tied to cult, I think. And so when you're talking about it, I almost don't even know what word to use because community feel I think.
00:43:43:11 - 00:44:06:28
John Simmerman
I think I think you, you, you actually embraced the word to use in its village. Yes, you're right, the communal sounds too much like communism, which, you know, and or the s-word socialism. But when you put it in the verbiage of villages, it's like the again, restore the American village. Oh, okay. Well, what could be more American than that?
00:44:07:00 - 00:44:08:18
John Simmerman
Go red, white and blue?
00:44:08:20 - 00:44:42:13
Diane Alisa
Yeah, exactly. I had to make it feel really patriotic. The whole idea of, like, living with family or living right next to family, it solves so many problems. Like, I feel I don't personally have the strength, especially because I've grown up as a suburbanite and there's a lot of trade skills and a lot of things that I was kind of denied to raise my children with a level of care and where I'm not being neurotic like, it's super difficult to raise children alone.
00:44:42:13 - 00:45:06:23
Diane Alisa
And when I go and visit some of my friends in the neighborhood and it's just them, I'm like, wow, this is so this must be so lonely, so hard. Because there's a ton of moments in my life where somebody is watching my children and they're small, right? I'm not like asking them to babysit, but they're entertaining and having fun with my children, and nobody asked them to do that.
00:45:06:26 - 00:45:30:21
Diane Alisa
And so I have a lot of reprieve. I only cook dinner twice a week. I mean, can you imagine only cooking dinner twice a week? It's I can't imagine not doing that anymore. And so and then the density, right. When you make these villages a bit denser so you can have the conveniences that you're hoping for, you're reconnecting amenity to people.
00:45:30:24 - 00:46:05:15
Diane Alisa
If you share these spaces, then you can have this sort of private space if you need it, but you're sharing it with people that you care about and are willing to be in the same area as you. I mean, we'll be sharing a backyard. I, I promote that people have, that people start making like courtyard homes where they go in with families and they have a shared space in the middle for gardens, for grilling, for, you know, whatever that they're hoping that they can share that space and they still have the privacy, but also have the benefits of being in a village, having walkability.
00:46:05:17 - 00:46:06:04
Diane Alisa
00:46:06:07 - 00:46:24:08
John Simmerman
One of the stories that you share in your book is, a, an interaction that took place, I think it might have been at an open house or something on walkability. And you're, you're you're, you know, saying you know, hey, you know, this is what we kind of want. We want to be able to walk to meaningful destinations, etc..
00:46:24:08 - 00:46:53:01
John Simmerman
And and I can't remember the entire context, but somebody spoke, you know, stood up and spoke and said, well, I'm not going to be, you know, allowing my children or I'm not going to walk with my children in the snow, you know, do this. And in the book you reference, you know, Finland and the fact that, you know, amazing percentages of kids, especially up in the Arctic Circle in, in Oslo, Finland, which is very much a suburban context.
00:46:53:01 - 00:47:31:13
John Simmerman
Orlu was built on, you know, really a suburban model, but with a redundancy, a mobility network. So they have your car network, and servicing all of the suburban households. But they also have an active mobility network where people can walk and bike to all the meaningful destinations. And that's the highest level of kids walking and biking to school in the dead of winter, to the tune of 60 to 70% of kids get to school by riding on these separated pathways through conditioned snow.
00:47:31:15 - 00:47:58:10
John Simmerman
And, and in other words, it's not about the weather. It's not about that it's cold. It's that, you know, you you said it. Well, it's like kids are actually more resilient than we give them credit for. Talk a little bit more about that, because I think that's one of the things that has happened in our society is we treat kids as if they're so fragile, they can't go out, play and get to meaningful destinations on their own.
00:47:58:13 - 00:48:21:27
Diane Alisa
Yeah, it's all about suburban culture. I feel, and I make this point in my book that we have switched the roles between like babies and children. We treat babies as though they're capable of being very independent, and they aren't, they cannot. And then with children and there's some validity to this, like, it's dangerous for my kid to be out on the street, but we just don't think that they're capable of working.
00:48:21:27 - 00:48:49:20
Diane Alisa
We don't think they're capable of getting to their places on their own. And it's because we've made it almost impossible for children to do this. I live in this suburb, is extremely car dependent. And the high school, there's there's a several schools next to me, but the road is 50 miles an hour, so it didn't even occur to me as a kid that I could even walk to these places.
00:48:49:23 - 00:49:19:21
Diane Alisa
Never crossed my mind. And when I got a car in high school, of course, that that was part of growing up. You get a car and I'm realizing how terrible this philosophy is, and I, I have so much personal experience with the suffering that I mentioned in my book. I feel like I was one of those kids who was delayed, who was babied, and not in the way you think about babied.
00:49:19:21 - 00:49:46:11
Diane Alisa
But just like you can't, you can't do this by yourself. And having so many moments in my adolescence being like, okay, I'm ready to grow up now. I'm ready to grow up now. And it just like becoming almost, what is the word? I'm languid, especially when there's so many screens at your fingertips. And, I mean, it's even worse than it was when I was growing up.
00:49:46:14 - 00:49:49:19
Diane Alisa
And I felt like when I was growing up, it was pretty bad.
00:49:49:22 - 00:50:19:28
John Simmerman
It seems like that reality you mentioned language. You said language. It it reminds me of the conversation I had with Lenore Skenazy, the, the author of Free Range Kids and the, co-founder of the Let Grow organization is that we're not allowing children to grow. We're not letting them grow. And and that's unfortunate because then that carries on into adulthood to the point where, you know, you're having these epiphanies.
00:50:19:28 - 00:50:27:04
John Simmerman
But after watching a YouTube video going, oh my gosh, it doesn't have to be this way.
00:50:27:07 - 00:50:47:12
Diane Alisa
I know, and, that's what I tell American families because they're very nervous about letting their kids out and play. And I'm like, well, if you actually build an infrastructure where they're capable and where people are outside, you haven't completely separated them from society or all now in the same space doing the same things. Then you are going to feel as afraid.
00:50:47:19 - 00:51:04:24
Diane Alisa
But like right now again, like my children are pretty little, but I still don't feel comfortable letting them out in my front yard. Like I'm, I'm nervous that they're going to just be picked up by a car and whisked away. I mean, it's so easy to do that in a suburb. Yeah, because I know that.
00:51:04:26 - 00:51:28:24
John Simmerman
And that's probably not going to happen in terms of time, but will more likely happen is since the street outside of your in front of your house is a road and not a street, the traffic violence is going to be much more likely. The, you know, the likelihood of stranger danger and, you know, kids being whisked away by a stranger is incredibly low.
00:51:28:28 - 00:51:59:19
John Simmerman
But much more likely that the traffic violence, which is something we can change because we can actually transform our roads into streets. It's going to be painful for people who are used to driving fast. And that's the irony. You talk a little bit about this in your book. Is the irony of the fact that as suburbanites, when we buy that what we're, we're, we're cherishing is the fact that hopefully in front of my home, there's low traffic.
00:51:59:19 - 00:52:00:03
John Simmerman
It may be.
00:52:00:09 - 00:52:00:27
Diane Alisa
Exactly.
00:52:01:04 - 00:52:24:28
John Simmerman
Etc. but then, then we have blindness when we get behind the wheel and we're traveling fast on one of the collector streets, that has higher speeds and we're driving right past people's driveways, it's like, oh, it's not okay for for people to speed in front of my home, but I'm okay with the fact that I'm speeding in front of, Diana Lisa's home.
00:52:25:00 - 00:52:36:25
Diane Alisa
Yeah. And I, I wanted to take the blame off of drivers because I think that previous urban arguments was like, you suck as a driver. Yeah, yeah.
00:52:37:02 - 00:52:37:19
John Simmerman
It's it's.
00:52:37:19 - 00:53:08:29
Diane Alisa
Why? For charitable. Yeah. My goal would be to build infrastructure where we don't really need speed limits or I. I can feel what the speed limit is on a street. And it's personal for me because, we're joking, and I, my brother, he got a ticket because he didn't have, What was it? He didn't have his license while he was riding his motor scooter.
00:53:09:01 - 00:53:36:01
Diane Alisa
And, they took away his license like it was so jarring. It was just he flipped over his, motorbike at a gas station. He just basically tripped. Police saw him and took away his license, and his life kind of ended after that. We had to, like, start driving him away everywhere. And I was joking because I've gotten into eight fender benders and my license has not been taken away.
00:53:36:03 - 00:54:05:12
Diane Alisa
Know, and I just don't have the discipline I feel to drive a two ton vehicle everywhere, but I don't have a choice. And I think there's a lot of people like that who, would, would walk, would take the bus, would take a train. And that's what's crazy, is that, suburbanites and anyone who's really enamored with car dependance because they don't quite understand it is like, no, you can't walk.
00:54:05:12 - 00:54:24:15
Diane Alisa
I'm not going to pay for you to walk. I'm not going to pay for taxes on trains. And yet complaining that they're in traffic, you know what I mean? Because they're like, you're taking away my freedom if you don't drive, but you're also taking away my freedom. If you do drive, we need four lanes.
00:54:24:18 - 00:55:02:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. I love to lean into freedom and independence and choice. And one of the things that I love about the Dutch network in the Dutch system is that you have mobility options, you have mobility choice, and yes, you can. You've got meaningful destinations within walking distance, but you also have a nine fold increase in places that you can get to when you ride a bike and when you have a network of safe and inviting streets and safe and inviting cycle networks, you can get to all of these meaningful destinations.
00:55:02:13 - 00:55:21:25
John Simmerman
And with the advent of electric assist, you know of being able to have, an E cargo bike like my turn GSD that's right outside the window here. When I want to go do a larger shopping run or I want to go to Home Depot, I'll jump on that and take off and do that. Why? Well, why would I drive?
00:55:22:00 - 00:55:40:11
John Simmerman
I mean, yeah, easy biking distance. I'm going to get some fresh air and I'm going to do it. And I've got the right piece of equipment to be able to, you know, bring that, that item back. But that's what I love about that Dutch system is you've got mobility choice. Yes, I can drive. Yes, I can take transit.
00:55:40:16 - 00:55:51:26
John Simmerman
Yes, I can ride my bike and I can also walk. And what's also really, really powerful about it is the following phrase. It's all ages and all abilities.
00:55:51:28 - 00:55:55:14
Diane Alisa
Exactly. Yeah, it's very inclusive.
00:55:55:16 - 00:56:24:19
John Simmerman
Yes. Yeah. I just saw a report coming out of the Urban Cycling Institute this morning comparing, the ridership levels and the gender differences between Amsterdam and London. London is building out their, protected cycle network, and, and they're making good strides on it, but we're still seeing that it's like 60 to 70% male in that environment.
00:56:24:19 - 00:56:54:20
John Simmerman
And people are still riding faster equipment, and they're still dressing in Lycra and still wearing helmets, which is compared to like a Dutch city in like Amsterdam. They've got 55% of the people who are riding bikes are female. And we also see kids riding alone and elderly riding. Why? Because it feels authentically safe. And no, they don't feel compelled to wear helmets because it doesn't feel like it's a dangerous environment.
00:56:54:22 - 00:57:06:01
John Simmerman
Because honestly, it's not a dangerous environment when you're driving, when you're driving a bike, when you're riding a bike, it 15mph or less. It's incredibly safe activity.
00:57:06:03 - 00:57:35:05
Diane Alisa
Yeah. And I would love to touch on this idea about feminism, that walkable communities are much more, equal to women because women are always connected to children. So if you are creating a society in which children can travel around, you're taking an hour commute off of a a mother who's been chauffeuring her children for hundreds of hours every year, wasting her life so that her kid can play the piano.
00:57:35:07 - 00:57:36:02
Diane Alisa
And also.
00:57:36:07 - 00:58:17:18
John Simmerman
I if I can jump in real quick and just say this is that Melissa Brundtland and I had this conversation about the fact that, yes, females more often than not sometimes. So sometimes it's the males too, but they're more often doing trip chaining. And so if you can create a welcoming environment where, they can do these care trips, these trip chaining trips, by walking and biking, that's so empowering for, you know, for people regardless, you know, you know, if it's a male or female, but to your point in what her point is that more often than not, in our society, it's still those care trips or in those trip chaining trips are
00:58:17:18 - 00:58:19:22
John Simmerman
done by females.
00:58:19:25 - 00:58:48:18
Diane Alisa
Yeah. And I just think that home economies are extremely feminized because they allow women to use their home and, do their own careers. Like, we have a lot of, doulas in Utah that use their home as a way for local mothers to come and and be with them. And there's just a far less suburban corporate culture, even expected in a more localized environment.
00:58:48:20 - 00:59:14:19
Diane Alisa
And so you would my hope would be like that. It would all come together. Right? If you wanted to be a nurse, for example, you'd have these local clinics that were nearby society like, bring society back to women and then also lifestyle. If you're actually eating well and you're walking around, you're far less likely to need to go to that massive hospital that's been built 20 minutes from your home by car.
00:59:14:22 - 00:59:43:03
Diane Alisa
So it's all about giving people and giving women and children the ability to be a part of society without tearing them from their families, because what women really want is to have that balance of community, career and, and, and family and this and suburban experiment completely takes that away from them. They're either expected to be stay at home mothers or they're expected to be working mothers.
00:59:43:03 - 00:59:51:13
Diane Alisa
And I, I reject it. You're just supposed to be mom. Like you should live in an environment that allows you to do all of these things within a reason.
00:59:51:16 - 01:00:16:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. And we were talking about this earlier is, you know, taking the shackles off and being allowing people to actually have that business being run from the household. And and again, you know, we've so profoundly changed the built environment because we don't allow people to say, well, you know, let's just say that, you know, the mom is is an artisan.
01:00:16:16 - 01:00:40:12
John Simmerman
And she her, her her shtick is she loves doing just really amazing candle work and etc. and being able to have a candle shop, you know, right out of her at her home, you know, it's technically going to be illegal for her to do that. And, you know, in and if she's in an HOA situation even more profoundly in violation of the HOA policies.
01:00:40:12 - 01:01:03:03
John Simmerman
Oh, no, you can't do that. So, yeah, I think we've really stifled ourselves in so many different levels. Talk a little bit about the the sort of the Khafre side of what you and your husband, you know, you know, have done. And think about in that context between I think you guys established a nonprofit. Is that correct?
01:01:03:05 - 01:01:39:25
Diane Alisa
We did. And we're probably where it was closed. We were we're probably going to change it to be restored. The village. Because and codependency is so frightening for people, it feels ideological. And they don't understand like the dependency part. They just understand the car part. They like Blanco. And so, since I've been doing this for a year, I have completely changed my tactics on how I'm even talking about this.
01:01:39:28 - 01:02:02:29
Diane Alisa
So now I'm mostly just going to focus on, like, the village, talking about the village and, and telling them how much they are going to get from doing walkability and, and car dependency that was in our kind of angry phase. It's good.
01:02:03:06 - 01:02:19:08
John Simmerman
It's good to have that. It's good to have that. But what I like about that, your story of this is your realizing how viscerally people react to that. And yet you're like, wait a minute, do you like dependency?
01:02:19:10 - 01:02:19:17
Diane Alisa
Right.
01:02:19:19 - 01:02:46:18
John Simmerman
You don't. You want freedom, you want independence. You don't want to feel like. But you're absolutely right. I, I think you're on the right track. It's kind of, you know, my, my approach to, to the active Towns channel is, is to be very, very positive is to tell these positive success stories that are out there, having these types of conversations, going out and profiling some successes where I can find them.
01:02:46:18 - 01:03:10:12
John Simmerman
Again, it's not that they're perfect. Daybreak isn't perfect. You know, Mueller is not perfect, but they're positive. Success stories are steps in the right direction, and hopefully people will respond to them in a positive spirit as well. And, but at the same time, sometimes I get a little upfront and blunt and say, you know, in car dependency streets are for people.
01:03:10:15 - 01:03:36:18
Diane Alisa
Hey. Yeah. And it's it depends on who you're really talking to, because I've found that I've connected with a, an audience that is able to step into the verbiage with me. They're able to, you know, talk about walkability. But I find that most people just the word walkability is so foreign and so boring. I would say that has very little story to it.
01:03:36:18 - 01:04:05:08
Diane Alisa
It's it's very technical. And so I found my audience, you know, that's helped me push my message along. But now I need like the that my, that big audience that is just completely ignorant on this topic. I just saw a real about how California's passing their new they want to pass taxing per mile, how many miles you drive and yeah.
01:04:05:08 - 01:04:30:28
Diane Alisa
And the first thing that, like I said, was that they're taking away our rights and curvy I'm like, no, no, no. Okay. First of all, like driving a car is not a right. I don't really even know where you would put that car category, but it's probably more of a privilege than anything we're talking about here. But they I had lots of people be like, I wrote this comment that it's just too expensive to maintain.
01:04:30:28 - 01:04:55:11
Diane Alisa
That's why they're taxing you now. And people were like, no, my taxes should be going to this. They're just being corrupt. And I don't know much about the corruption of California. I can't really speak to it. But what I do know is that even if Gavin Newsom, who was mentioned several times, was the cleanest politician and was being super responsible with every single fund that he was given, I know they still couldn't pay him.
01:04:55:11 - 01:05:19:04
John Simmerman
And that just goes to the fundamentals of what Chuck talks about, in the Strong Towns book and, and the whole concept of the Ponzi scheme of suburban development, the horizontal development pattern is that there's just no way that you can tax people enough to be able to support the infrastructure, and its long term financial obligation is just.
01:05:19:04 - 01:05:49:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, it just it is impossible. And that's the whole reason. And and you know, Joe, I'm in a cozy has done a great job with, you know with with his organization urban three of actually looking at the, the numbers and seeing the fact that are more traditional development patterns where we have people closer to meaningful destinations, you're able to have a situation where you're able to collect enough revenue to support the infrastructure.
01:05:49:24 - 01:05:52:16
John Simmerman
You can't do that the further out we go. So yeah, I.
01:05:52:16 - 01:06:25:28
Diane Alisa
Think it is literally one of the most critical things we could do is educate people about how expensive car infrastructure is, because a lot of the comments that I got were from right leaning individuals who are like, fed up with, blue states and blue cities. And it really isn't about that. And I don't want America torn apart because they're just ignorant on how much this infrastructure costs, how much homelessness occurs, how much, housing prices skyrocket in car dependance.
01:06:26:01 - 01:06:34:09
Diane Alisa
I need them to actually understand what's going on because they're more aligned than they think they are. They just don't know. They don't know.
01:06:34:11 - 01:06:53:26
John Simmerman
Well, and and this is one of the major challenges that we have. And I've had this discussion with, Professor Ian Walker, the that who's doing so much research around modal normativity and car brain is that there's just this perception that this is what is normal.
01:06:53:29 - 01:06:54:19
Diane Alisa
Yes, we call.
01:06:54:19 - 01:07:01:29
John Simmerman
It we're calling it car dependency, which is sort of a negative angle to this. I know they're but it's just normal.
01:07:02:01 - 01:07:02:21
Diane Alisa
Exactly.
01:07:02:22 - 01:07:30:16
John Simmerman
It that, you know, if we want to get to that school that's just around the block, the only way that I'm able to get there is to drive because of the built environment that we've built, supports that versus walking or biking there. And so, yes, transforming that built environment in doing so in a way where you're able to have these conversations and create the content that you're creating to hopefully enhance awareness is a key thing.
01:07:30:19 - 01:07:42:14
John Simmerman
So I say thank you for doing that. You are and you're primarily out on Instagram and Facebook, is that correct?
01:07:42:17 - 01:07:48:08
Diane Alisa
Yeah, that's where most of my work is done and where we'll be creating a YouTube channel shortly.
01:07:48:10 - 01:08:13:06
John Simmerman
Okay. Fantastic. And and no, no, that's that's good. And you know, in John John who's been on before the happy urbanist, he's, he's a TikTok guy and he's, he's out in that environment. And I've had Coach Balto on with his bike bus world. And he's he's also a TikTok guy and all of that. So I just I tip my hat to all of you who are, you know, producing that content.
01:08:13:06 - 01:08:33:29
John Simmerman
This the short form content and getting it out there and serving as an influencer. You're just shy, just a little bit under 30,000 followers out on Instagram right now. I'm not even sure on Facebook, whatever. It, you know, I'm sure they cross post over there, too. Thank you for having these conversations. Thank you for getting it out there.
01:08:33:29 - 01:08:41:05
John Simmerman
And I'm so, so excited to have had this opportunity to chat with you. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
01:08:41:12 - 01:08:51:08
Diane Alisa
And of course, thank you. You do so much good work. And you are you know, you're you're part of that foundation, right, of of getting the message out there. So thank you.
01:08:51:15 - 01:09:06:28
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Diane Alisa. And if you did, please say give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below, and don't forget to ring that notification bell.
01:09:07:00 - 01:09:30:01
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Again, super easy to do again. Just go on that YouTube join button right down below. You can also leave a YouTube super thanks here. Or you can navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there's several different options, including making a donation to the nonprofit.
01:09:30:07 - 01:09:53:21
John Simmerman
You can join my Patreon. Patrons do get early in that free access to all this video content. Okay, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha. And I just want to also say thank you all so much to all my Active Towns ambassadors supporting the channel financially via YouTube super.
01:09:53:21 - 01:10:03:18
John Simmerman
Thanks YouTube memberships. Buy me a coffee, Patreon and making donations to the nonprofit again. I simply could not produce this content without your support.