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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 - 00:00:23:11
Nate Hood
One of the problems that we have in our city is we haven't let them evolve, right? we basically frozen them in time. The city of Saint Paul in the 1970s, essentially down zoned the entire city where something like 75% of all the land that you could build a house on was exclusively single family homes. Exactly. Fast forward 60 years, and everyone's like, you know, why is it expensive to live here?
00:00:23:12 - 00:00:43:16
Nate Hood
It's like, well, you know, we've been building 40 new houses a year, max. Meanwhile, you know, you've got this demand for jobs, population, etcetera, etcetera. So just allowing to create a framework that will allow things to develop organically and more organically. I think is going to be a big win for everybody.
00:00:43:18 - 00:01:09:28
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is my good friend Nate Hood from Saint Paul, Minnesota. And we are going to be talking about his comedy routine. He is a stand up comic, trying to get some urbanism stuff, wiggled into his, on stage routine. And we'll also talk a little bit about the work that he does there in that area, especially, along the lines of the role he plays on planning commission.
00:01:10:04 - 00:01:17:06
John Simmerman
So let's get right to it with Nate
00:01:17:08 - 00:01:20:28
John Simmerman
Nate, good to see you again. Welcome to the Active Talents podcast.
00:01:21:00 - 00:01:25:29
Nate Hood
Well, thank you for that warm introduction, John.
00:01:26:02 - 00:01:37:09
John Simmerman
Well, you know what I do? I like to give the floor over to my guests to, you know, allow them an opportunity. Take 30s to introduce themselves. So, who the heck is Nate Hood?
00:01:37:11 - 00:01:55:05
Nate Hood
You know, my name is Nate Hood. I'm, I'm a planner. that's what I do with my day job. I'm a planning commissioner. I'm a dad. I have two kids, and I'm a stand up comedian. Moonlight is a stand up comedian. So that's. That's really my background. I've. John, I've known you for over a decade now, as you've reminded me.
00:01:55:07 - 00:02:10:00
Nate Hood
Yeah. so it's great to chat with you. And it's always fun when someone says, hey, do you want to do a podcast? You you kind of internally think, what do I know? That would be interesting to anyone to listen to. So hopefully we can get a few few good nuggets out of it.
00:02:10:03 - 00:02:46:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. And yeah, it's it really is amazing. When I think back to, you know, the 2012 sort of era and all of that and we first got connected back in that sort of era. And then 2013, I did my big northern Midwest, Active Towns tour, swung through your town and spent some time with you. back then, you were doing a lot of writing with these strong Towns organization, and I was on my way up to Brainerd to meet up with Chuck Marone and and, had my first interview on his podcast, back in 2013.
00:02:46:20 - 00:02:50:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. What do you been up to since then?
00:02:50:12 - 00:03:06:27
Nate Hood
Dude, you know, you stayed with me two houses ago. Yeah. I have a married, have have two kids and just kind of trucking along and kind of once the pandemic happened, I was like, you know what? One of my hobbies is standup comedy. I've always, I did a little bit right after college, but I'm like, you know what?
00:03:06:27 - 00:03:19:13
Nate Hood
Let's just get back into it. So, I've really kind of dove into that, and that's really taken place from any of the good writing that I would have done for strong accounts. now I spend my time writing jokes about essentially being a dad.
00:03:19:15 - 00:03:39:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, and you just mentioned a couple houses ago, and, of course, when I was staying with y'all, I think it was even before you were engaged. I think so, yeah. Because, when you got engaged, you guys had some fun with it, and. And you did this.
00:03:39:03 - 00:04:04:27
Nate Hood
Yeah. That's right. You know, our, engagement photos went viral. We did. We noticed that everybody took photos of great urban streetscapes or beautiful scenery, like in in the rural countryside. Yeah. So, when I say we, I said, hey, why don't we do suburban engagement photos? And, they ended up going viral. They, It's funny. I still see him pop up every now and again.
00:04:04:29 - 00:04:16:29
Nate Hood
People will still bring it up. I was on Reddit, maybe like a few few months ago, and someone was like, look at these. Some of these networks, like, how are you even finding this stuff? but yeah. Well, yeah, this is up, dude.
00:04:16:29 - 00:04:23:25
John Simmerman
Dude, do the same way I found it. All you have to do is Google suburban engagement photo.
00:04:23:28 - 00:04:42:05
Nate Hood
You know, I'm surprised more people don't do it now. you know, what's funny is somebody said on this one recently. Yeah. one of the comments was. That's unfair. It's a new development. The trees haven't even grown in. Actually went back there. Yeah, it turned out all the trees had died.
00:04:42:08 - 00:04:43:05
Nate Hood
I but actually.
00:04:43:05 - 00:04:43:14
Nate Hood
It looks.
00:04:43:14 - 00:04:45:03
Nate Hood
Worse, right?
00:04:45:05 - 00:04:46:05
Nate Hood
That's hilarious.
00:04:46:05 - 00:04:58:28
John Simmerman
Zoom out. we'll zoom out on this one. And they're they're the. You can see the scraggly little tree here and, I like this, this one here is is classic the long shot.
00:04:59:01 - 00:05:03:01
Nate Hood
yeah. The undeveloped suburban cul de sac.
00:05:03:03 - 00:05:19:24
John Simmerman
So you were obviously sort of making fun about the suburban context and, and and all of that, but what was, I mean, your delightful, fiancé and now wife, you know, you said it was your idea, but she went along with it.
00:05:19:27 - 00:05:41:04
Nate Hood
Grudging, you know, honestly, we were we were actually going from our city scape location to our rural countryside location for photos and, like, pull over right there. So those photos have taken up. I probably had more internet traffic in my life related to that. And those photos took us maybe ten minutes. Yeah. what do you know?
00:05:41:04 - 00:06:00:20
Nate Hood
Our, our photographer, who is my sister in law. She takes photos all the time, and nobody's seen more photos in person than us. but, yeah. You know, it was just really one of these things that kind of popped into our heads. It was one of those, like, moments as we were kind of going from the city to the country, and that was nobody takes photos there.
00:06:00:20 - 00:06:12:06
Nate Hood
And, you know, really, this obviously goes with some of the things I was writing at the time, which is, you know, we should build and live in places that, people want to take photos where people want to take photos.
00:06:12:09 - 00:06:24:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. And we you had mentioned that you were writing at the time, was that sort of the, the, the, the genre or the, the Zeit geist of the stuff that you were writing, for, for Strong Towns at the time?
00:06:24:20 - 00:06:44:12
Nate Hood
Yeah. You know, I'm still kind of obsessed with most things strong towns, that is, you know, building financial resiliency, building great walkable places, that people can genuinely love. that really just kind of fit in. I've always tried to do, like, little fun, weird, quirky things. and that was it. Try to kind of break through the normal.
00:06:44:12 - 00:06:57:10
Nate Hood
I mean, we've read. How many articles have you read that walkable places are good, right? Like, I was like, let's try to take, like a different angle on that and, do something a little different, something playful, something fun.
00:06:57:12 - 00:07:23:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. I think one of the ones that you had done was, was this one, it should be about people and talking, you know, it's. Yeah, duh. It should be about people. We should be designing people or, you know, places around people. And this, of course, is the, rendering it with one of the proposed, Viking stadiums and talking about livability.
00:07:23:07 - 00:07:34:13
John Simmerman
And it should be centered around people and not around, you know, whatever the hell else we're doing these things around. It's like moving automobiles and, you know. So, yeah.
00:07:34:18 - 00:07:46:18
Nate Hood
If you want to bring that photo back up, we would be based on what we got, man, that stadium that you're looking at now would have been real nice. That would have been a good one.
00:07:46:21 - 00:07:47:08
Nate Hood
Yeah.
00:07:47:11 - 00:08:12:25
Nate Hood
You know, said they, talking about places for people. three of the four sides of the Viking Stadium are, like black zinc oxide panels that you come in, and it's just looks they made it look like, a Viking ship. Like an old Viking ship from the Viking. Okay. Yeah. So, you've got a large, dark, ominous, makeshift Viking ship made of black panels as you enter downtown.
00:08:12:28 - 00:08:17:24
Nate Hood
Might be intimidating to the opposite team. I don't know, but.
00:08:17:26 - 00:08:25:21
John Simmerman
I think, I think they can make their way past that. I think they have as NFL players. I'm pretty sure they're confident. To the point.
00:08:25:21 - 00:08:47:02
Nate Hood
And here's what's great about large sports stadiums, too, right? So they build in like the bare minimum kind of urbanist, sidewalks, street trees. They've all even a bike path. And you're like, okay, great. We're getting something out of this. Yeah. And, five years later, for safety reasons, they just fence it all off. So, you know, so this is game day.
00:08:47:02 - 00:08:56:27
Nate Hood
Like, you can't even really walk on it. So, you know, it's fun. Fun with, large stadiums. You know, I'm. Every city's got a story on it, too, so we're not alone.
00:08:57:00 - 00:09:25:13
John Simmerman
It's interesting that you should mention that, too, because, you and I would cross paths frequently at the, the annual gathering of the Congress for New Urbanism. It's been a couple years since I've seen you there. and in fact, I think the last time I saw you at a Congress for New Urbanism was in 2019, the year prior to the pandemic hitting, of course, 2020, you all were going to be hosting the Congress for New Urbanism in Minneapolis, Saint Paul.
00:09:25:15 - 00:09:42:14
John Simmerman
And then it didn't happen, obviously, because of the pandemic, which was really, really tragic. And I know it was a tough blow to you guys because you as the local host committee, you had put a lot of work into to making that happen. We'll talk a little bit about that, but I want to stick with the stadium, concept.
00:09:42:21 - 00:10:05:29
John Simmerman
Last year, at Charlotte, it was really cool to see, that integration of the stadium with the downtown area. And you mentioned, a bike path and you know that I host the morning fun runs at the Congress for New Urbanism on Thursday and Friday morning, typically. And, there was a wonderful bike path that literally takes you right to the stadium.
00:10:06:01 - 00:10:28:07
John Simmerman
And in fact, it's totally integrated, the bicycle connections and the pedestrian connections to that stadium. So, Charlotte, you know, thumbs up. You guys did it right. There really is some really good integration with that. And there's not this huge sea of parking, you know, surrounding it. So they did a pretty darn good job. I was happy to see that at last year's Congress.
00:10:28:09 - 00:10:29:21
Nate Hood
Well good job Charlotte.
00:10:29:23 - 00:10:48:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. So yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about that. That tragedy that kind of happened, of people not being able to host because I was really looking forward to that. You and I were sort of, chatting a little bit about maybe, doing a bike ride that would go from Saint Paul all the way into Minneapolis.
00:10:48:24 - 00:10:57:29
John Simmerman
And we were at the early stages. yeah. That had to have been, you know, a bit of a letdown for you guys.
00:10:58:01 - 00:11:28:00
Nate Hood
You know, it was it it was a big letdown from all the things that could happen during, the Covid pandemic. You know, it's not not a huge problem. But that being said, you know, if you're on the host committee, you're spending the year, a year and a half before that event even happens. Just doing everything from securing venues to setting up programing, coming up with themes, trying to coordinate bus drivers to take people on bus tours to different parts of the town.
00:11:28:02 - 00:11:49:12
Nate Hood
it's a lot of work. And, I think a lot of us felt like the rug was kind of pulled out from under us. And I think obviously it's 2020. Right? So, you know, that was kind of unfortunate. And it felt like a little bit of a blow. But, what can you do? I think we've all kind of moved on and, you kind of, I think it really kind of taught me to roll with the punches on these things.
00:11:49:12 - 00:11:53:16
Nate Hood
You know, there's some things that are out of your control, and you just got to make the best of it.
00:11:53:19 - 00:12:23:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And, and this topic has come up a few times as you can imagine, on the podcast is that. Yeah. You never know when a pandemic is going to happen. And when it does happen, you're out of control. You just gotta roll with it. And and honestly, this this podcast, it is a manifestation of the fact that, you know, the documentary that I was filming at the time came to an absolute abrupt halt, and I just had to, you know, pivot and do something new.
00:12:23:05 - 00:12:32:25
John Simmerman
And I pivoted and started the podcast a year later, started the YouTube channel, and here we are having this conversation on YouTube.
00:12:32:28 - 00:12:35:16
Nate Hood
That's, silver lining, man. Silver lining.
00:12:35:19 - 00:12:51:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. So you had mentioned earlier that, you spend a little bit of time, doing this, your alter ego getting up on stage. So I was going to ask you that question. You sort of, you know, already put it out there is that you did a little bit of standup back in college.
00:12:51:16 - 00:13:11:07
Nate Hood
And that's right. I did a little, right out of the gate, just, something I always loved. And then I took a pause on it because, I didn't have a car at the time, and it was impossible to get to shows, and, you know, so nobody wants to spend two hours in transit in Minneapolis. figure out they got turned down for a three minute spot.
00:13:11:10 - 00:13:31:07
Nate Hood
Right. But you know what? I found is the scene has completely changed. You got shows all over, and, really, the pandemic, really kind of sparked me to get back and, really what I enjoyed doing, and that was telling jokes about my life. Yeah. I'm still trying to find a good way to incorporate city planning into that.
00:13:31:09 - 00:13:42:17
Nate Hood
Okay. You know, I'm on the planning commission, and I test out a little material there, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in a conditional use permit hearing trying to crack jokes.
00:13:42:19 - 00:13:44:06
Nate Hood
I love that dude.
00:13:44:06 - 00:13:55:07
Nate Hood
I made some bad ones, man. You got to make sure that the okay to make a joke work as a planning commissioner. Yeah, you need to make sure that the applicant is going to be approved. Right?
00:13:55:09 - 00:13:56:11
Nate Hood
Yeah, yeah. You know.
00:13:56:11 - 00:14:00:21
Nate Hood
You need to crack a joke, and you're like, I'm sorry. You know, you can't build your dream house.
00:14:00:23 - 00:14:02:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, it's.
00:14:02:29 - 00:14:04:10
Nate Hood
Not on my land.
00:14:04:13 - 00:14:25:00
John Simmerman
it's funny too, because when you when you talk about urban issues and, you know, from an urbanism perspective and from a planning and zoning perspective and it's like, yeah, I mean, you and I and, you know, we could be hanging out with a whole bunch of urban us and we'll find all sorts of funny, you know, jokes and insider things and all that.
00:14:25:02 - 00:14:43:09
John Simmerman
but yeah, you don't you don't know, you know, how that's going to go over when you talk about urban issues and city issues and things like that. How has I, I get the sense that you've you've tested the waters a little bit on stage with some of these things. And I'm going to play a video clip of, of, of some of that.
00:14:43:12 - 00:15:02:21
John Simmerman
But talk a little bit about your mind and how it's working in as you're structuring jokes and saying, you know, I'm, I want to I'm going to try to work in, you know, this, this, this, you know, urban issue that's trending right now and on, on Twitter and see if it floats and see if it works on in a general audience.
00:15:02:21 - 00:15:22:02
John Simmerman
Because when obviously when you're on stage, you, you it's not like you're on stage at CNU where you have a whole bunch of peers and a whole bunch of folks that are going to be like, oh yeah, totally. I get that inside joke. And how's that gone when you're when you've tested some of those waters? It's funny, is urbanism.
00:15:22:05 - 00:15:43:09
Nate Hood
It's not it's not funny at all. It's gone very poorly. and I think the reason is you got to find things that, like, can universally connect with people. Right. So I'll tell a dad joke now, like a dad joke. Dad joke, but a joke about me being a dad. Yeah. No. You know, someone might not be a dad, but they understand the concept of what it's like to have young children, whether or not they have and not.
00:15:43:12 - 00:16:00:16
Nate Hood
So you can kind of find a way to relate on that. but when it comes to a lot of nuanced kind of urban issues, it takes a, it takes a long setup. And the thing with like, let's just say you're doing a standard set up punch joke, right? You want that set up to be as short as possible because you want people to laugh.
00:16:00:16 - 00:16:03:21
Nate Hood
So you got to you got to create the straightest line through to that laugh.
00:16:03:26 - 00:16:04:14
John Simmerman
Right? Right.
00:16:04:14 - 00:16:29:10
Nate Hood
And if you have to spend a lot of time explaining the city's 2040 comprehensive bike plan, right, you know you're going to lose people, right? And also a lot of planning. A lot of planning is, a lot of it is political. I try to avoid political material. I try to avoid political and dirty material in the comedy that I do sometimes slips in, but like, that's not the purpose of it, right?
00:16:29:12 - 00:16:43:00
Nate Hood
When you do that, you can split rooms. So if you go to CNU and you want to do something about urbanism, you know that everybody's more or less on your side or they understand the premise before you even state, right? They would understand it.
00:16:43:03 - 00:16:59:25
John Simmerman
Well and they would also understand being made fun of themselves. Correct. Because there's plenty of stuff that we can make fun about. Urban. It's like, you know, you're, you know, you know, you're on vacation or in a place where there's a whole bunch of urbanites because they're pulling out their camera and they're taking photos of streets.
00:16:59:28 - 00:17:21:14
Nate Hood
Yeah. So, yeah, like my wife says that all the time, like, oh, we'll be walk and I'll be like, wow, this is a real nice ten foot sidewalk. You know, like, why are you talking about this? Or else, like, you will be we'll just be going somewhere with you. Like, that's a good idea. Everybody used to say, yeah.
00:17:21:17 - 00:17:43:11
John Simmerman
So one of, one of the things that, I that I noticed from this clip here is you sort of, you know, pull in the, the zeitgeist of being proud of where you're at and being able to poke, poke fun at, other places. And so let's, let's turn the volume up and, and play this little video clip here.
00:17:43:14 - 00:17:48:10
John Simmerman
And, I thought it was I thought it was funny.
00:17:48:12 - 00:18:11:09
Nate Hood
It's a pleasure to be up here properly. and actually, it's a pleasure to be here in downtown Saint Paul. I love Saint Paul. Is a little boring. Nobody in this room. Saint Paul is so boring that one time somebody saw a raccoon on a building and the entire city shut down. That's the biggest thing we've ever seen.
00:18:11:12 - 00:18:19:28
Nate Hood
I remember that day vividly, and it was such a big deal that I was down at the courthouse, and the judge let us off jury duty.
00:18:20:01 - 00:18:21:00
Nate Hood
Just.
00:18:21:02 - 00:18:25:27
Nate Hood
There's a raccoon on the building now. They just double homicide is going anywhere.
00:18:26:00 - 00:18:41:02
Nate Hood
I think that people love that story. They were, like, affectionate for that story and they love that story. But what they don't know is that it had a tragic end. After they caught it, they relocated it to Minneapolis. Dun dun dun. The raccoon was like.
00:18:41:04 - 00:18:47:28
Nate Hood
It could have just shot. I for I totally forgot about that joke. I forgot about that.
00:18:48:02 - 00:19:11:08
John Simmerman
I think it was funny is it is kind of an urban ism kind of joke because it, it's it's a, it's poking fun at Saint Paul for being boring and then, you know, and then the real punchline at the end is, yeah, but at least it's stuck. Minneapolis is so and obviously there's this sibling competition that exists between the Twin Cities.
00:19:11:11 - 00:19:27:03
John Simmerman
so yeah, talk a little bit about that. I mean, what's it how how long have you been, sort of, you know, residing in the Twin Cities area and, you know, been a part of, you know, kind of that that sort of like, gaze between, you know, the two different cities.
00:19:27:05 - 00:19:51:13
Nate Hood
You know, about 20 years right now, as I don't want to say as somebody who didn't grow up here, I don't really view it so much as a rivalry. It's really kind of a single culture, single market. You do kind of. You do have a little icon, more of a friendly rivalry. you know, I like to think we're winning on a lot of aspects, although the numbers might not agree, but I, you know, I think it's healthy to have a little bit of it.
00:19:51:13 - 00:20:09:13
Nate Hood
I think it doesn't matter. It doesn't manifest itself in the unhealthy ways that it has in the past, where they would compete for companies, compete for funding. You know, there's a little of that, but it's more it's more kind of joint. and I think really that came out of, you know, you had these different immigrants from different parts of the world that would settle in different the different cities.
00:20:09:13 - 00:20:22:24
Nate Hood
Right. So you saw really the culture that really kind of grew out of that. that's going away a little bit. And I think that's just because, you know, new people are coming in and, you know, culture evolves.
00:20:22:26 - 00:20:35:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and refresh my memory, what's the relative size between the two different cities and then also the size of the population size of the entire metro area?
00:20:35:25 - 00:21:07:25
Nate Hood
Sure. Let's go big. So Minneapolis, Saint Paul, we're about 2.5 million, roughly, depending on how you want to draw your boundaries. You're looking at about three, 3.5 million. Minneapolis is about 400,000. And Saint Paul, I think we're we're right around three. Okay. So Minneapolis though has such a large so much larger like downtown presence, such a larger, worker base being probably 2 or 3 times size than what we have of just kind of workers coming in to work.
00:21:07:27 - 00:21:32:23
Nate Hood
So it very much is the wealthier, kind of more vibrant, more urban place. Although Saint Paul really does have some areas that are gems. We, back in the 50s and 60s, we really didn't have the money or wealth to tear things down. So we've really been gifted with a lot of beautiful old buildings, some of which have been perfectly restored and really healthier, but fabrics, some of which are falling down, but, you know, we didn't level them.
00:21:32:23 - 00:21:49:24
Nate Hood
We didn't as much. We didn't level it for parking lots and the like. So I think that really kind of gives Saint Paul that, as Mark Twain once said, Saint Paul is the last city of the East in Minneapolis is the first city of the West. And I think that's interesting, too, because you got the Mississippi right.
00:21:49:24 - 00:22:02:11
Nate Hood
It was kind of essentially cuts the country in half. Right. so geographically, I think it's partially true, but culturally as well, I think, it also holds true to a certain degree. Yeah.
00:22:02:13 - 00:22:31:15
John Simmerman
And I pulled a, I pulled up the map here with, Saint Paul sort of highlighted Minneapolis, just off to the west there. And, you kind of see that, you know, both cities are oriented with the river running right through it. And I know that when we, you and I were talking about doing the bike ride at the, at the Congress, that was going to be hosted there in Saint Paul and doing, some events there in Minneapolis.
00:22:31:22 - 00:22:48:05
John Simmerman
You know, we were talking about, okay, well, what we'll do is we'll do a bike ride and lead a bike ride from Saint Paul over to Minneapolis. Remind me how how what? The distances, you know, obviously, depending on which route you take. But yeah, it seems like it's very rideable.
00:22:48:08 - 00:22:51:04
Nate Hood
It's about ten, 12 miles between the two downtowns.
00:22:51:07 - 00:22:51:18
John Simmerman
Okay.
00:22:51:18 - 00:23:01:04
Nate Hood
So, you know, back in the day, I mean, when the city was starting up in the 1840s, 1850s, that was a day's trip.
00:23:01:06 - 00:23:02:11
John Simmerman
Right? Right.
00:23:02:13 - 00:23:03:16
Nate Hood
Now it's a bike ride.
00:23:03:22 - 00:23:05:20
John Simmerman
Now it's a bike ride. Yeah.
00:23:05:22 - 00:23:07:27
Nate Hood
Which is which is wild to think about.
00:23:07:29 - 00:23:31:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. And I do happen to have the, the bike route, layer turned on here on Google Maps. And so you can see the amount of green that just pops in. And that's one of the things that Minneapolis is well known for. And I'm not sure on Saint Paul, you can let me know, is that it has a reputation of being a pretty darn bike friendly place.
00:23:31:21 - 00:23:35:09
John Simmerman
You know, consider all things considered in North America.
00:23:35:12 - 00:23:59:25
Nate Hood
Yeah, I'm going to get some hate on this, but I think Saint Paul is actually a better bike city. And one of the reasons is, is I think that despite our hills inconvenient. get an e-bike if you can't handle rain. Yeah. Is that on our grid network? We just have so many more slow streets. We have so many more streets that connect specifically east west that just don't have a lot of cars on it.
00:23:59:28 - 00:24:23:01
Nate Hood
So even without bike infrastructure, as you can zoom in, we you know, we actually we have a fair amount of bike infrastructure and it's growing every day. And hats off to, you know, public works in the city for for making that happen. But you know, really even off some of these major bike racks, like if it's busy, dude, you can go two blocks south and, you know, just coast down with no car traffic.
00:24:23:03 - 00:24:46:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that too, because, you know, when we zoom in, we see the the green dashed, lines that, that show up, which basically means bicycle friendliness. this sort of is a is a good, you know, street, residential street. You know, that would be conducive for riding. But there's not necessarily, any infrastructure for cycling.
00:24:46:02 - 00:25:11:23
John Simmerman
And I was visiting the Minneapolis area one summer, I don't remember which visit that was. And I was on some major bike route there in Minneapolis. and it was also it was a bike lane, bus lane, shared lane on a major road. And I'm playing Frogger with with the bus in this, in this bike bus lane.
00:25:12:00 - 00:25:42:09
John Simmerman
And I'm like, this is B.S.. And so I went a couple blocks to the to, you know, parallel and found just this absolutely delightful residential street with zero infrastructure for bikes. But there was zero traffic. And and so it was. And because of the grid network, you were able to just, you know, roll through a leafy, quiet neighborhood in, you know, and you're just like, this is delightful.
00:25:42:09 - 00:26:07:09
John Simmerman
And it's one of the things that I harp on here on the channel is that I think cities oftentimes do themselves a disservice, by, you know, with their bike network planning is they spend all this time really, you know, emphasizing, okay, this is where our bike lanes are and everything. Whereas two blocks over you, you may have a much more delightful experience that still has good connectivity.
00:26:07:09 - 00:26:39:21
John Simmerman
If it's an older city that has a grid network that could be really enhanced, do you know, maybe, you know, maybe some traffic diversion, maybe some traffic calming if necessary. But inherently in a lot of these cities, the it's just it's it's ready to go. It's, you know, two blocks over from a bike lane. You've got a much more pleasant, especially as a dad, you would be like, oh, yeah, I know I feel more comfortable riding with my kids on this quiet residential street than I do where there's a bike lane.
00:26:39:24 - 00:26:45:18
John Simmerman
You know, even though there's a bike lane, it's still right next to 30 mile per hour or more traffic.
00:26:45:19 - 00:27:09:03
Nate Hood
Even if even if you've got a buffer, right, it's like you're still especially with kids or, you know, one of the problems that I have with buffers when you're pulling a trailer is like, you kind of have to be super careful with turns, so it is easier to go a block or two over. I think what we you need to do as a city, when you have issues like that, is you have to find where are the busy roads that these off streets have, right?
00:27:09:03 - 00:27:23:02
Nate Hood
There's that street, this block where the busy crossing and how do we facilitate better crossing of those busy streets? And I think that's that's the huge thing. Right. Like, how do we just get people safely across the busy ones. Yeah. And let them go about their way.
00:27:23:04 - 00:27:52:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. And a great example is, you know, maybe you're on one of these, you know, quiet residential streets here. And you come, up to a busier street that maybe even has a bicycle lane on it. It's like, how do you facilitate that crossing? I know that, the city of Fort Collins and Fort Collins, Colorado, they've done a really good job of activating their, neighborhood greenways and their residential streets that are you know, basically quiet, low volume streets.
00:27:52:28 - 00:28:25:14
John Simmerman
And then when they interact with those busier roads and arterials, they really work at creating, safe crossings, you know, in that environment and prioritizing that, you know, bike impaired movement of getting across those streets because, you know, to your point, that's the biggest challenge, of really facilitating that as part of the bicycle network of, you know, leaning into these neighborhood bikeways and whatnot is how do you get past those or cross those busy streets?
00:28:25:16 - 00:28:34:03
Nate Hood
Yeah. And I my comments are meant to disparage any city from doing bike infrastructure trails on your busy roads or your arterials.
00:28:34:06 - 00:28:35:13
John Simmerman
You need to do both.
00:28:35:18 - 00:28:48:15
Nate Hood
Yeah, typically if you have commercial areas. But just saying that, like as a dad, now you want to go to those, you want to go 2 or 3 blocks off and take the the slow route.
00:28:48:18 - 00:29:11:21
John Simmerman
Well, and not only that too in Minneapolis, I'm not sure about Saint Paul, but Minneapolis I know does a really good job of their off street network of pathways where you can connect, to meaningful destinations and at the same time, right next to a delightful lake and through a park, which is another great thing that, Jason Slaughter would not just bikes.
00:29:11:26 - 00:29:42:11
John Simmerman
the YouTube channel, showed me a couple summers ago when I was visiting him in Amsterdam. I wasn't sure what he was going to do. He. But he said, okay, come on, let's go. And and he he took us on a ride which linked together like 4 or 5 different, parks. And so we spent a lot of time off of the street network and in the off street network of pathways to prove that in Amsterdam, they do both, they do the on street, you know, bike lanes as well as the off street network.
00:29:42:13 - 00:29:44:00
John Simmerman
incredibly well.
00:29:44:03 - 00:30:04:04
Nate Hood
We do a little bit of both. I certainly not to the, to the level that Amsterdam does, I'm sure. But, I was a bike commuter prior to the pandemic, and I work from home 3 or 4 days a week now. and it's a little harder with the school ticket. but that said, you know, I was it for the longest time, I was a bike commuter.
00:30:04:04 - 00:30:23:28
Nate Hood
And for my, my route going downtown Minneapolis, it was about six and a half miles over about five and a half that was in an off street trail. Oh, wow. Fantastic. And honestly, if I had a battle with traffic for six straight miles, I probably would have rode the bus every day and I wouldn't have been on my computer.
00:30:24:00 - 00:30:44:24
Nate Hood
Yeah. but just by allowing that to, to exist. So obviously half of that route was along the Mississippi River, which is always nice to see in the morning. But even that aside, just being able to have a separated trail, you can go faster. You just it's more comfortable. And, not dealing with cars is, it's a great thing when you're on a bike.
00:30:44:27 - 00:30:52:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. No, I, I absolutely agree too. And I guess I didn't realize. So you you your office is actually in Minneapolis then.
00:30:52:03 - 00:30:54:08
Nate Hood
That's right. I live in Saint Paul, work in Minneapolis.
00:30:54:08 - 00:31:01:06
John Simmerman
Oh, okay. Fantastic. Yeah. All right, that's good. and you're working for the county, though, right?
00:31:01:08 - 00:31:24:21
Nate Hood
Yeah. I work for, our housing and economic development department, so we do a lot of planning. we we do a lot of planning around, kind of transit improvements. we, we also have some programs called Hennepin Planning grants and the Business District Initiative, which I work on, where we try to help small business nodes throughout the county, preferably kind of on, on our main streets.
00:31:24:23 - 00:31:48:19
Nate Hood
And, for Hennepin planning grants, if any city needs, say, some planning assistance to do something that meets our goals, such as, improve walkability, improve density, improve transit access, improve stormwater and a whole host of other things. we'll step in and we'll we'll help them on that, to try to solve the problem, because Minneapolis is there.
00:31:48:21 - 00:32:12:20
Nate Hood
we also have the city of Bloomington in the county, which is rather large, but most of the cities in the county are pretty small. We're pretty fractured suburban, landscape. So, you know, you might have a city of 25,000 people. They they're not like the city of Minneapolis or Bloomington, where they're doing large planning redevelopment project on a regular basis.
00:32:12:22 - 00:32:26:16
Nate Hood
So occasionally those things will come up and they'll say, okay, County, how can you help us with both resources and helping us hit these various redevelopment goals? So, hopefully I explain that without too much government speak.
00:32:26:23 - 00:32:28:24
John Simmerman
No, no, no, that's good. And I.
00:32:28:24 - 00:32:29:18
Nate Hood
I work on.
00:32:29:21 - 00:32:35:14
John Simmerman
And I'm getting in. The inference is that Saint Paul is actually in a different county. Is that correct?
00:32:35:16 - 00:32:55:27
Nate Hood
We are we're in Ramsey County. One of the great things, one of the great things about my role is, I work in Minneapolis and Hennepin County, and I just don't talk about politics or anything that happens over there. I just let it go. Yeah. And then I go hog wild on the Ramsey County Saint Paul side. And we have that political division that hopefully we're doesn't get across.
00:32:55:29 - 00:32:58:18
Nate Hood
Yeah. That's great. That's great.
00:32:58:21 - 00:33:11:23
John Simmerman
Well, hey, let's, let's play a little bit more of your stand up because, one of one of the things that I love about how you, you, you frame this up is you, you you do say how much you love Saint Paul.
00:33:11:25 - 00:33:34:01
Nate Hood
So I love the here for I live in Iowa Park, which is the most boring neighborhood that in the city. it's our our hottest new venue is the pickleball court. Whew. Yeah, that's not a joke. It's has been really busy since the baker Square, was the only thing that was interesting.
00:33:34:01 - 00:33:39:03
Nate Hood
That actually free out of the square. Yeah.
00:33:39:05 - 00:33:41:21
John Simmerman
so what is Baker's per?
00:33:41:23 - 00:34:08:18
Nate Hood
Baker square. Every every, like, county region has this. It's Baker square was our version of where every senior citizen went, like, Wednesday for breakfast. Okay. That's what it was. It was, it was like our, like, pancake house. And I went into the last time that I went in there, you know, it's probably 38 years old and I was the youngest person in that place.
00:34:08:25 - 00:34:20:25
Nate Hood
Right, right. It's like one of those places. I love it. So that's it. And, if you keep going, actually, this, I think this. Joe, I'm trying to think where this joke goes, but I think it's find a local.
00:34:20:28 - 00:34:35:16
Nate Hood
Epiphany was that there was a pizza place called pop into the Matrix that got busted. There's a drug front, but I heard that information. I was shocked, I had no idea they saw pizza.
00:34:35:19 - 00:34:37:01
Nate Hood
Yeah, you listen to that.
00:34:37:03 - 00:34:40:00
Nate Hood
That was. That was the of pop.
00:34:40:00 - 00:35:00:03
Nate Hood
I gotta tell you about Papa Dimitri's. So Papa Dimitri had it. Was this one. You know, it was like Russian pizza. Some, you know, you know, Russia and pizza. You know, it's not something you're like, oh, yeah, that goes together like peanut butter and jelly. So they open this place, Papa Dimitri's, and it's in this great, like, walkable little node.
00:35:00:09 - 00:35:10:17
Nate Hood
But it was never opened. They had the weirdest hours, and you'd read the reviews online and they'd say, this tastes like Papa Murphy. Do you know Papa murphy's? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:35:10:20 - 00:35:10:25
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:35:10:26 - 00:35:13:23
Nate Hood
Turns out it was pop murphy's. They were,
00:35:13:25 - 00:35:15:00
John Simmerman
It was a friend going.
00:35:15:00 - 00:35:38:05
Nate Hood
To the nearby. There's drive from there, going to the nearby Papa murphy's place. And whatever you did online. Cooking it and then delivering it. But it was actually better than that because people would call up and it was basically like a mero, a legal marijuana delivery service where you would call up and order that whatever pizza, they would show up with a box, but it would be marijuana.
00:35:38:07 - 00:35:58:27
Nate Hood
they were eventually busted, as a drug front. But here's what was fascinating about it. And this is what I can never imagine happened in in my life. It was a son, his mother and his grandmother. Three generation drug front. Oh, can you imagine operating a drug front with your grandmother or my mom?
00:35:58:29 - 00:36:00:23
Nate Hood
Yeah. You know.
00:36:00:26 - 00:36:03:27
Nate Hood
I was like these. They were shutting down this family business.
00:36:03:29 - 00:36:06:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:06:16 - 00:36:10:23
Nate Hood
Yeah, it's pretty wild. And, dude, I loved,
00:36:10:25 - 00:36:15:11
John Simmerman
What's the status with marijuana these days where they one of the states that have legalized it.
00:36:15:13 - 00:36:32:07
Nate Hood
You know, the state of Minnesota has legalized it. It's our I think hopefully, I don't say hopefully I don't really smoke or anything, but like, yeah, next year, it should be legal. However, you can buy it and gummy or pop form. Okay. You just buy like, like a soda or a seltzer.
00:36:32:14 - 00:36:49:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got the TV in there. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say because. Yeah, that's the world has changed a lot. And, you know, since, since the day of, you know, of complete the abolition, you know, the war on drugs kind of thing.
00:36:49:25 - 00:37:07:04
Nate Hood
It's kind of interesting. What we're seeing here is we're seeing, like from the state legislature, this huge list push still to like, further regulate. Right. Smoking and cigaret. At the same time, we're like encouraging marijuana shops to, like, pop up, at the same time.
00:37:07:09 - 00:37:30:19
John Simmerman
Well, and we're seeing, as you just mentioned, with gummies, we're seeing a lot more of the application of, of edibles being, you know, as, as the preferred delivery mechanism of the THC and of that, and. Yeah, because it if you're burning it, it's still bad for your lungs. Dude, trust me, from your health perspective.
00:37:30:21 - 00:37:47:12
Nate Hood
And it's interesting. You'll see this stuff. Marketing is like sugar free, gluten free, THC gummies. Right. So it's like, for the health conscious, I guess it's good, you know? And it's one of those things that, you know, I guess legalization opens doors for those markets to happen. Correct?
00:37:47:19 - 00:38:10:08
John Simmerman
Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of legal stuff and all that, I understand that there's some really cool, things being presented, at the state level in, in, Minnesota, regarding, a variety of different things, but including, parking minimums. Talk a little bit about that. It's kind of exciting seeing what you guys think about going on.
00:38:10:10 - 00:38:31:18
Nate Hood
We are two things going on in the state of Minnesota. One is the removal of parking minimums for most all uses. Now would just be a total statewide ban on cities enacting parking minimums. and then we also have a separate bill, which I would call the missing middle bill, which prohibits cities from I, I forget where the language stands.
00:38:31:18 - 00:38:52:22
Nate Hood
Right now, but it would be in all residential areas to permit 1 to 3 or 1 to 4 units on, what would be defined as the standard city law. I believe it also does a few things with, accessory dwelling units to legalize those statewide in pretty much all residential areas, with few exceptions. But it also goes even a little further.
00:38:52:24 - 00:39:22:15
Nate Hood
And it prevents cities from doing various mandates that kill housing, such as requiring that a facade be 100% brick, things like that. So, you know, I agree, I going through I agree with about 85% of, of what they're trying to do on that one. There are some, small issues that I have with it, such as, eliminating in housing developments that requirement there be retail at the ground level.
00:39:22:17 - 00:39:43:19
Nate Hood
So I think that my personal opinion is you don't want to put retail if it's going to be vacant, but if it's on a large commercial street, I don't see any issue, you know, mandating that on a case by case basis. But generally with the exception of a few of those small, kind of nuance things, it's kind of an exciting, kind of an exciting place.
00:39:43:19 - 00:40:02:08
Nate Hood
I feel like this is the stuff I've been arguing for, and writing blogs about. And telling jokes about for the last ten, 15 years. And, it's finally started to pick up steam. So it's good to speak in print. And I think if it doesn't happen this year, there's a good chance it'll probably happen next year. You know, the legislative sausage making.
00:40:02:08 - 00:40:25:02
Nate Hood
I try not to call the day to day. It's a good way to get gray hairs or pull your hair out trying to get obsessed with that stuff. But they're smart people on, you know, both sides of the aisle that are supporting these efforts, which is great to see a bipartisan in today's day and age, to see a bipartisan effort to try to get more housing built, to try to be more flexible, try to get a little more density in cities.
00:40:25:02 - 00:40:47:24
Nate Hood
And it's going to be a big win for places like Saint Paul in Minneapolis. But I also see it as being a big win for a lot of our rural communities, right where you don't have a lot of money to expand their infrastructure. They're not seeing huge demand so they can take a single family home. This, for example, in a traditional neighborhood and now that can be converted to a duplex, or they can add that accessory dwelling unit above a garage if they like.
00:40:47:26 - 00:41:03:24
Nate Hood
Right now, in most places that's prohibited. And that's unfortunate. So I think that's a great first. This is a great step in the right direction from state. So and if it passes, we'll, we'll see the fruits of our labor in 20 and 30 years. So it's kind of well, it's work.
00:41:03:28 - 00:41:32:16
John Simmerman
So I'm hearing the, the to that. There's also some relatively quicker turnaround in terms of the amount of of housing that is being built. And, you know, because I believe that, you know, maybe it was just the city of Minneapolis, I'm not sure. But if I'm remembering some of the headlines correctly, is that they're, you know, they kind of, you know, opened up the floodgates and made it legal to build more housing, much more dynamically.
00:41:32:16 - 00:41:37:27
John Simmerman
And that's really resulting in some positive outcomes. Is it my getting that right?
00:41:37:29 - 00:41:57:18
Nate Hood
No, you've nailed it. specifically in the city of Minneapolis, that I mean, a tremendous amount of housing was built in the last ten years. And a lot of that is, you know, you can thank the, city leaders for allowing that to happen by opening up zoning, allowing more density, removing parking minimums in most places in the city.
00:41:57:20 - 00:42:17:28
Nate Hood
And, you saw a flood of new units and a myth amongst places like Austin, Texas, for example, that saw, I guess now coming down. But places like Texas, that's our rate shoot up or what have you. Our rates are our rental rates have been relatively flat. but if you consider in things like inflation, that's a big win for renters.
00:42:18:00 - 00:42:18:20
Nate Hood
Yeah.
00:42:18:22 - 00:42:39:03
John Simmerman
And we have seen quite a few units coming online, you know, post-pandemic. And we are now seeing a flattening to and a slight dip in our, in our as well. how about be making it legal. You mentioned businesses and first floor retail. How about making it much more legal to be able to have a mixing of uses?
00:42:39:03 - 00:42:48:01
John Simmerman
I mean, I'd love to see more cities embracing the concept of. Oh, yeah, no, it's not illegal anymore to have, like, a corner grocery store in a market.
00:42:48:03 - 00:43:07:12
Nate Hood
Yeah, yeah. Something that Saint Paul, if we're doing a missing middle study right now, that's, working its way through and, that's part of it, right? Opening up, those possibilities to open that corner store. I know that's a tough business, and it's tough to make it happen, but I think that there's no reason that we shouldn't allow it.
00:43:07:15 - 00:43:39:20
John Simmerman
Well, I mean, in especially cities like Minneapolis and Saint Paul, you have a, a historic core, and you have plenty of examples of older neighborhoods where it's not just the corner store, it's also you've got a neighborhood pub and you've got other businesses that are within easy walking distance, biking distance. and so what's nice about cities like Minneapolis and Saint Paul is you don't have to look very far to find examples of neighborhoods that are served by these businesses.
00:43:39:22 - 00:43:51:01
John Simmerman
And so being able to say, hey, we just want to make it. We want to codify that it's legal to do this again. And the reason why is, hey, look over there, we got some good stuff.
00:43:51:03 - 00:44:08:29
Nate Hood
Yeah. I mean, I think that we're we're making progress on it. I don't, I don't again like I, I'm not sure the market's there often for a lot of the corner stores. But I think you open it up and you give it enough time and you'll see those things evolve, right. One of the problems we have in our city is we haven't let them evolve, right.
00:44:09:01 - 00:44:34:00
Nate Hood
we basically frozen them in time. The city of Saint Paul in the 1970s, essentially down, zoned the entire city where something like 75% of all of the land that you could build a house on was exclusively single family homes. Exactly. Fast forward 60 years, and everyone's like, you know, why is it expensive to live here? It's like, well, you know, we've been building 40 new houses a year max.
00:44:34:02 - 00:44:48:21
Nate Hood
Meanwhile, you know, you've got this demand for jobs and population, etc., etc. so just allowing to create a framework that will allow things to develop organic or more organically, I think is going to be a big win for everybody.
00:44:48:23 - 00:45:21:16
John Simmerman
Well, and to your point, I guess a big part of this too is let's not make it illegal. I mean, talk about a free market. Maybe you don't have to, like, worry about, well, is there a market for a corner store here? Let the entrepreneurs figure that out. Just don't just don't, you know, tie their, you know, their their hands behind their back, you know, it's like, hey, you know, let's let's go back to where we can have a mix, a mix of uses, you know, that can come up organically.
00:45:21:16 - 00:45:22:03
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:45:22:06 - 00:45:41:23
Nate Hood
Before we made a lot of these reforms, I was still on the Planning Commission. And you'd see one of these cases come up where you just want to pull your hair out, right? Right. You'd have you'd have a building that it used to be a corner store with an apartment on top. And they turned the main floor into an apartment, and now they want to turn it back into a corner store.
00:45:41:24 - 00:46:03:22
Nate Hood
Right. The building was built as a corner store and operated as a corner store for the majority of the building's existence, except for the last, like 20 years. Right? It'll be 110 year old building, 100 of the years where it was a corner store. The last 20, it was not. Yeah. And then you look at our code, and now you're in an awkward position for planning commissioner voting against it.
00:46:03:23 - 00:46:28:04
Nate Hood
Because the code just says that. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing people don't understand about planning commission. Like you. You make a judgment based on the rules, right? Whether you like those rules or not, you're making a judgment on the rules. And it really it frankly stinks having to look somebody in the eye like an applicant and say, I'm sorry, you can't open a corner store in a building that was clearly designed as a corner store, right?
00:46:28:04 - 00:46:37:22
Nate Hood
Because 40 years ago, somebody didn't like corner stores. Not like this is a scientifically like, yeah, decision is, you know, they just did it.
00:46:37:26 - 00:47:02:21
John Simmerman
And to be honest, you know, to be fair to, you know, the rule makers of the day, it probably wasn't even anything against corner stores. It was probably just something that, you know, and cities did this across the continent, around the nation, even around the world is they were copying and pasting, you know, zoning codes and whatnot, just because, oh, this is the modern thing to do.
00:47:02:21 - 00:47:20:09
John Simmerman
This is how we now separate uses. And it may not have been anything because, to be quite honest, those neighborhoods that have mixed uses and corner stores and a pub down at the end of the block are some of the most beloved and desirable places in our cities.
00:47:20:12 - 00:47:35:06
Nate Hood
Yeah, yeah, I think you bring up a good point, and I see this with a lot of policy. I don't think that the, you know, banning corner stores is probably not the intention of the down zoning. Right? That wasn't the intention, but it was it was certainly the result.
00:47:35:13 - 00:47:36:10
John Simmerman
Right. Yeah.
00:47:36:11 - 00:47:53:18
Nate Hood
And I kind of I do always think of that like what are what are the negative consequences of some of the policies that we're pushing today going to be. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's really hard to look forward five years, more or less 20 years down the road to see what those are. So.
00:47:53:21 - 00:47:54:21
John Simmerman
You know, yeah.
00:47:54:23 - 00:47:56:06
Nate Hood
So yeah.
00:47:56:09 - 00:47:59:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. So so how long have you been on the planning Commission.
00:47:59:12 - 00:48:01:22
Nate Hood
Five years now. Five years.
00:48:01:24 - 00:48:10:11
John Simmerman
And how does how does that work out? Or is this a lifetime appointment or you, do you have to is it is an appointment or is it an elected position?
00:48:10:14 - 00:48:28:28
Nate Hood
It's an appointment. thankfully not elected. it's, I think, man, I want to say their three year terms and you get three of them. So you got nine years max. Okay, so yeah, three more years. I think in me, that's about all I think I can put up with it. So yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like a planning commission is about.
00:48:28:28 - 00:48:30:16
Nate Hood
Yeah about much.
00:48:30:21 - 00:48:49:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you you mentioned it earlier is that it's been much more encouraging lately because you're starting to see the transformation of some of those rules and those codes to be a little bit more, progressive and helpful.
00:48:49:10 - 00:49:10:20
Nate Hood
Do. The best thing that we did for limiting my workload on the Planning Commission was getting rid of parking minimums in the city park. Yeah, every week prior to in 2021, I think is when we were the end of 2020, early 2121 is when we remove parking minimums. Man, our the amount of agenda items that we've had has been cut in half.
00:49:10:23 - 00:49:35:24
Nate Hood
There was always something silly, right? Like an apartment building. They met all the codes except they needed like eight parking spaces or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And you would see everybody who hated an apartment building show up to that testimony, you know, and argue against it. our workload has been cut in half because you just don't see those small, weird parking variances anymore and they don't exist.
00:49:35:26 - 00:49:57:27
Nate Hood
And that's honestly been not only it's been great for me, it's not that I'm lazy and I want fewer things, but you want to send people through the process a lot less. And I think it's been great for staff. Now you don't have one staff person writing a ten page report, doing public hearings and the whole work so somebody can get a variance for three parking spaces.
00:49:57:27 - 00:50:08:24
Nate Hood
So it's been great as far as less work, which is what you ideally what you want. Right. You want people to be doing project by right. And it's been a huge win.
00:50:08:27 - 00:50:33:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah exactly. And and I like this little knock knock joke here that we have at the, on the landing page for, the podcast episode that you did, you know, here with the planning commission, podcast. And it's like, knock, knock. Who's there? It's commissioner. Commissioner who got the commissioner who clearly didn't read there back at this unit.
00:50:33:03 - 00:50:51:10
Nate Hood
You know, I'm, so we have, we have committees. I'm on the zoning committee and then the planning commission for the zoning committee. It's smaller and everybody reads their packet. Everybody knows exactly what's going on. And I like that. But, man, you get to that planning commission as a whole. And who you know, some people, you know, some people are full time, you know, full time jobs like it, right?
00:50:51:11 - 00:51:03:12
Nate Hood
Yeah. You know, but they're learning about the zoning issue as it arrives. And it makes for some frustrating long conversations sometimes when, yeah, that's the way it goes.
00:51:03:14 - 00:51:30:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. to close us out, what's been one of the most encouraging things that you have witnessed? either, you know, in your job or in your advocacy work or maybe even your role as, a planning commissioner. what's one of the most encouraging things that you've seen in the last, you know, handful of years, other than what we've already talked about with, you know, the the the parking minimums.
00:51:30:22 - 00:51:58:15
Nate Hood
Sure. so a few things. One, adding or improving sidewalk parks, shared use trails, etc. that's just part of the process. The question isn't whether we should at least where I live, it's not should we do them? It's more a question of how are we going to pay for them? How are we going to afford to do that extra work, which I think is, it's a good spot to be, you know, because you get over that hurdle of having to fight over every single project.
00:51:58:15 - 00:52:30:18
Nate Hood
Right? It's just it's part of what we do and we do it. And over time, we're really going to build out that network and we're going to have a lot of better, bike infrastructure and pedestrian, for sure. That's been a huge win. I think it, locally and now at the state level, what we talked about having just honestly small changes to statewide zoning laws, I think that's it's just encouraging to see that it's encouraging to see something that has been, bugging me for the last decade and see people who are elected, people who have power, talking about these things.
00:52:30:20 - 00:52:49:24
Nate Hood
so it's encouraging just to see that. And I think, you know, given another 20 years, we're going to we're going to be in a good spot as far as, you know, I think I think the big challenge, one of the things that's encouraging to me is a lot of our city neighborhoods are doing tremendously well, right?
00:52:49:28 - 00:53:07:29
Nate Hood
Our downtown with Covid work from home and locally in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, we you know, we've had some other issues. I'm sure that you guys have guys heard about, you know, I'm not so sure about what we're going to do with the downtowns, but it's amazing to see the neighborhoods that are all adjacent to that just seems like we're thriving almost better than ever.
00:53:08:05 - 00:53:21:28
Nate Hood
So so that's been that's been a really, really encouraging to see that kind of like small scale mid city density urbanism. I feel like it's really come alive. And I think that's, that's really fantastic place to be. Yeah.
00:53:22:00 - 00:53:49:01
John Simmerman
Well, when it comes to like, having the money to invest in, active mobility, you mentioned sidewalks, you mentioned shared use paths and things of that nature. Oftentimes, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is the tremendous amount of money being spent on expanding highways and roadways and adding more lane miles. are you guys made it over the hump there, or is that still the battle?
00:53:49:01 - 00:54:10:17
John Simmerman
Is it you know, there you know, folks, you know, the cities and towns are like, you know, hey, or there's no no more left in our pocket. Sorry. We can't improve the sidewalks in the pathways and center the bike lanes. We just don't have any money. And oh, by the way, the next item on the agenda is we're approving, you know, $4.5 billion to expand the highway.
00:54:10:19 - 00:54:29:15
Nate Hood
Do we still have those issues with our Dot? Right. You know, within Minneapolis and Saint Paul, you do have leadership that will say, no, we're not going to give you municipal consent to expand I-94 through the center of our town. Right. So so you do have city leadership that has made that decision. And it's a great one, one that I support.
00:54:29:18 - 00:54:49:12
Nate Hood
But you're right. You know, you are to some suburban areas or even rural areas. You see this a ton kind of where I'm originally from Mankato. Oh man. You just spent I think it was like $44 million on a half mile bypass is going to save people eight seconds. And it's like, what do you do in gas? What are you doing?
00:54:49:15 - 00:55:12:17
Nate Hood
Yeah, the return on that is just so low, right? That money could obviously either better be spent elsewhere or honestly, nowhere at all. You know, I'd almost rather them not have their money. So you still see that at the dot level. But at least here your county and city level, most places, if they're not on the same page, they're getting pretty darn close to being on the same page, which is, you know, which is really encouraging.
00:55:12:17 - 00:55:15:12
Nate Hood
And that's something that I probably could not have said ten years ago.
00:55:15:14 - 00:55:50:04
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. When you're looking at, especially as a parent, you know, who's out there, you know, trying to get your kids around embracing active mobility. how safe do the streets feel? Do you do you get the sense that you know that the city is in and, and county and, and other municipalities are working hard to bring motor vehicle speeds down and make the streetscapes, a little bit safer and, and kinder so that you can feel like you, you know, you can get to school, you can get to the parks, you can get to friends houses by walking and biking.
00:55:50:09 - 00:56:05:14
Nate Hood
You know, I'm thankful I live in the city of Saint Paul. I think our city leadership, we got a great director of public works that's that really does some fantastic things, and they've got a good staff and I think that is happening. And I've also my wife and I, we chose to live in an area that was pretty walkable.
00:56:05:16 - 00:56:30:23
Nate Hood
you know, we're very close school. We're very close to the kids after school. So, a nice days, unlike today. you know, we generally walk the kids to and from school or. Excuse me, at least from school, to school, we had an early start time, so we're oftentimes rushing out, rushing out the door, but, no, I mean, I feel I feel very safe usually walking and biking within the city.
00:56:30:26 - 00:56:59:16
Nate Hood
However you live in a place, line up, you know where to avoid, right? I know not to go by highway five or West seventh. And I know not to bike along Snelling Avenue or mid-Fifties highway 51, as they call it. Right? So really, where I live, the city and county have gotten their acts together. It's really that state dot that will treat highways through cities like it's in a rural area where there there aren't conflicts, where there aren't people.
00:56:59:22 - 00:57:08:23
Nate Hood
So that's still a battle. I think that, you know, it is slightly getting better, but, it is not happening as fast as the way that the city and the county has moved.
00:57:08:25 - 00:57:11:18
Nate Hood
Yeah, yeah.
00:57:11:21 - 00:57:13:20
John Simmerman
Small steps.
00:57:13:23 - 00:57:15:25
Nate Hood
Yeah. That's that's what it is, right? Yeah, yeah.
00:57:15:27 - 00:57:21:13
John Simmerman
Some small steps. Small steps. And they. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast John.
00:57:21:15 - 00:57:23:06
Nate Hood
Just a pleasure. Thank you.
00:57:23:08 - 00:57:38:19
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Nate Neighborhood. If you did, please. Hey, 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 ring that notification bell.
00:57:38:20 - 00:58:00:23
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts. Become an Active Towns Ambassador. It's easy to do so just navigate over to Active towns.org and click on that support button. There's many different options, including Patreon, buy me a coffee and oh yeah, YouTube. Super. Thanks for here. You can also make a donation to the nonprofit.
00:58:00:26 - 00:58:19:16
John Simmerman
hey, every little bit helps and is much appreciated. And again, thank you so much for tuning in. It really means so much to me. Until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, love and happiness. Cheers and again sending a huge thank you out to all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patreon.
00:58:19:16 - 00:58:32:17
John Simmerman
Buy me a coffee YouTube. Super. Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the Active Town Store. Every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.