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Random people, random topics, talking on random sidewalks in the City of Saginaw, Michigan.
SWT_Alex Mixter_2_Video_v1
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Phil: [00:00:00] Okay, so Alex Mixter, you're now with Renee Johnston on my... 'Cause I'm, 'cause- You feel like Renee right now. Yeah, she did such a great interview, but I don't have time to ch- rewrite this, so here we go. Alex Mixter, part two, take one. Yes
Alex: We're here to talk about the Saginaw Community Foundation.
Phil: So Alex, so Renee, tell me about the Saginaw Community Foundation.
Phil: Alex Mixter, before we get to the, the meat and potatoes of, of our, our second sitting down because we got completely off the rails. Hey.
Phil: In, in-
Alex: Choo-choo ...
Phil: in the absolute best way, and I was like, "Man, I gotta come back." Um, and to record a part two. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of that, um, I wanna tell you that you are possibly the first person to plant the [00:01:00] seed in me of my love for Saginaw. And I'm- What? I'm gonna tell you why. It was- Please
Phil: it was not your documentary, 'cause I had no idea that you had a, like, a documentary until- Yeah, like 30
Alex: people saw that.
Phil: Yeah. Everyone saw his documentary, that... It was just me that didn't see it. Yeah, I didn't know that you had a documentary, so it wasn't any of that. Um, and it w- it came before I had even the concept and idea of doing any kind of work for communities at all.
Phil: I was, uh, in Saginaw for some reason, and, um, I had heard about the, uh, the Lee Mansion. Hmm. And you were doing a cleanup that day. And I was like, "Oh, this kinda sounds interesting." So I went over there, and everybody's, like, walking around with their wheelbarrows and stuff like that. Yeah. And I met you, and, uh, we talked in the basement of the Lee Mansion for, no joke, two and a half hours.
Alex: I was gonna say, that was at least two hours.
Phil: It was at least two [00:02:00] hours. I went in there thinking like, "Oh, I'm just gonna talk to this dude for, like, 20 minutes, and it's gonna be super cool." And, um, for, like, two and a half hours, like, you, you showed me, like, the cl- uh, tire claw marks on the doors. And you're like, "Yeah, this is where the cats were kept in the basement."
Phil: Right. And you're just, like, ripping off into the history of, of Saginaw and, like, all of this stuff. And, you know, meanwhile, like, you have all these folks in Saginaw just pulling weeds and doing all of this other crazy stuff, and I just thought it was the, the most amazing thing. And then, um, as I was leaving the Lee Mansion, I, I was driving by the intersection of North Michigan and Genesee, at that little intersection there where it used to be a Walgreens, and I look over at the railroad tracks, and there's this huge group of people, like, walking down these railroad tracks.
Phil: I'm like, "What is going on?" And so I, I, I had my camera with me, and so I pulled over, and I was like, "I gotta see what's going on." So I walked over to [00:03:00] the, the, the railroad tracks, and it was, uh, DeSean Hayes doing Spot It Saginaw.
Alex: I was literally gonna say that had to be DeSean.
Phil: Yeah, it was Spot It Saginaw.
Phil: Yeah. And I, the, I have this group picture of, like, the 70 people there that were walking those railroad tracks, picking up the trash. And I drove straight home, and I wrote, like, this little blurb of something like, like, "Saginaw, things are happening." And it-
Alex: I remember that, yeah ...
Phil: and, like, Riverfront Saginaw, like w- like, wasn't a thing for me.
Phil: It was at that time. I had no idea what it was. Yep. The idea of working with communities, also not the thing. And so you were really w- I, I'm gonna say, like, the first person that- planted a little seed of my current love for Saginaw.
Alex: That is the coolest because, uh, th- the irony of that too is the Lee seems to be the common thread there.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: Because when I came home to do my documentary, uh, one of the stories I covered was there's all these people who care about this house so much, and there was a bunch of people outside pushing wheelbarrows around and cleaning up that house. And just, [00:04:00] like, when you start seeing the other people doing it...
Alex: And I remember, uh, prior to coming home, I lived out in Colorado, and I had come home for a wedding And I remember coming back and just being like, "Man, this is, this is like something's going on in Saginaw right now." Mm-hmm. Like th- th- there was like a palpable energy about what was going on. And, and I had felt like I had missed the Detroit thing completely.
Alex: Yeah. Like that place is cooked, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, it's fully, fully cooked at this point. Yeah. And so I was really curious about what was going on currently and, you know, doing all these interviews with people. It's so contagious. Yeah. Like it is so contagious when you start talking to people who are like on fire about things that, you know, a lot of people would think are crazy.
Alex: Like why would you be so excited about picking up trash? 'Cause it feels great, actually.
Phil: Yeah. Try it. It's amazing. Any
Alex: time, yeah.
Phil: Um, yeah. I, it was, mis- one of the mistakes communities make in their thinking [00:05:00] about themselves and how do we position ourselves to convince people to want to stay in a place and to, to attract people to a place- Mm-hmm
Phil: especially in areas that are, might be decreasing in population. Um, the, the question really becomes like how can we keep people here? How can we attract people to come here, businesses as well? And the, what, what we love to default to is this idea that w- we, we have to either be or portray ourselves to be a community that is perfect.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: When in actuality what people are really attracted to is a community with potential. Yeah. And I know that, that the, and I wanna clarify the word potential because sometimes we use potential as an excuse to not actually do anything. Yeah. Like, "Oh, we have so much potential here." And then seven years later you're like, "Oh, we have so much potential here."
Phil: And then decades and generations go by and like, "Oh man, we have so much potential," and it really gave us an excuse not to actually do anything.
Alex: Yeah. I have a lot of potential to be a bodybuilder if I only went to the [00:06:00] gym.
Phil: Yeah. I told somebody I r- I, I ran for the first time in years yesterday, um, after hearing a food truck, or not, a ice cream truck in front of my house.
Phil: My girls and I were out in the backyard and we heard the little ding, and I went- Go, go, go, go ... sprinting. I was literally like, "Go, go, go, go, go," and we missed it. And so then we ran back and hopped in the truck and then like speeding through the neighborhood trying to get the ice cream truck. So I have a lot of potential as a marathon runner.
Phil: But in regards to community potential, like that- Yeah ... feeling that we're going someplace. Like th- w- like if I put in effort here, there will be a return. That I, I, it's not just me doing the thing- Mm-hmm ... but there's other people doing the thing, too, and that is, to me, the most insane way to attract and, and tell people like, "You sh- you need to be a part of this."
Alex: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you can't really tell people. Um, it's really hard to just be [00:07:00] like-
Phil: Yeah ... "
Alex: You should care," you know? Yeah. Uh-huh. Because it's always the, um, it's always the events where people show up and they're not really sure what is going on. And like, we've had cleanups here where I've had people come up to me after and be like, "This is the best therapy I've ever had."
Alex: And it's like, yeah. It's like, grab some stuff- Yes ... throw it in a dumpster. And like, honestly, the early days of the Lee when it was people with wheelbarrows, you know? Now it's like small paint brushes with shellac on it- Yeah, yeah ... you know? Yeah. So like, and also like zoning and permitting and stuff like that.
Alex: Uh-huh,
Phil: yeah.
Alex: You go through all that stuff- The paperwork stuff, yeah ... and it's not nearly as, you know, inspiring. But like, to be able to get a group of people together and do something- Uh-huh ... that actually has a physical, you turn around at the end of the day and you go, "Oh, whoa, this looks way better here."
Alex: And then it just starts to spread into everything else that you're involved with.
Phil: It's really incredible that we're talking about this, which is completely off the subject again of why we're why we're here.
Alex: Yep, we're gonna need a part three.
Phil: Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna need to replace these memory cards, so like [00:08:00] we'll just call it The Alex Mixter and Phil Show.
Phil: And immediately everybody that hates us on the internet are like, "Nah." It's brought to you by Squarespace. Square up is sponsor my little podcast. Um, because yesterday I, I, I recorded an interview with Jeff Sigler of Revitalize or Die who does- Oh, yeah, yeah ... like national consulting, and he's all ab- Love that dude's
Alex: work
Phil: what he called... Yeah. He's actually, he's, he's the one who got me into, uh, like really going hard in communities. Because I had- Yeah ... in, in starting to work with small businesses, started to become like thinking people and relationships, and like how influential the community is. And then Jeff's work, um, kinda came on my radar, and I, I reached out 'cause I was really into like the social media marketing part of things.
Phil: Yeah. And, and he had a question, and I reached out to him and he's like, "Cool." Like, "Oh, thanks so much for helping me, buddy." And we kinda started talking about like how we're saying similar things, and then 2020 COVID happens, [00:09:00] and- I
Alex: don't remember that actually.
Phil: Yeah. It's like PTSD of COVID. Yeah. Like 2020 to 2022, like what is that?
Phil: And, um, so we were talking about how we're saying similar things and we should team up. And not only should we team up, but we should team up with people in urban planning, and real estate, and, uh, community branding who are all really taking a people first approach. That it's not just about economic development, it's about people, starting with people, and like how can you build buildings for people, and how can you, uh, make decisions people first, all these things.
Phil: And we decided like it starts with being proud of your community. 'Cause if you're n- if you don't care about it, if you're not proud of it, you won't do anything about it. Hmm. And so we started this group called Proud Places.
Alex: Yep.
Phil: And it was, uh, this kind of collective of people saying like, "This is how we can build people first communities."
Phil: And, um, Ryan Short and Ben Muldrow of that group, they, [00:10:00] they called me and they're like, "Phil, you gotta go all in on communities. Nobody else is doing this work nationally." Yeah. And I was like, "Well, I, I kinda like small businesses. You know, maybe I'll just like keep the Saginaw thing as kind of a nice little cherry on top."
Phil: They're like, "No. Like right now you need to go all in on communities, and you should call it Storyville." And like that's because of Jeff's work.
Alex: No kidding.
Phil: Yeah. And so like to circle it back to why we're talking about Jeff- Um, yesterday we, we, we recorded this interview about how, trying to help communities deal with this idea of, like, obsessive negativity.
Phil: And I just wanna clarify, like, it is absolutely important in every community to identify things that you can do better. Oh, yeah. Like, like, like, like nobody come for me and say, like, "Well, it's important that we should talk about things that, that are negative." Absolutely it is. Yeah. Like, we, we have to talk about those things.
Phil: What I'm talking about and what we talked about is, like, this obsessive performative criticism, um, uh, [00:11:00] specifically from people who have no skin in the game, have not created any kind of action, not tried to solve. Like, it's the Facebook jockeys of our communities. And what we ended up with, which wa- was the, an answer that we had kind of expected but not planned for, was, um You can't, you can't tell people with words.
Phil: You have to show them with actions, and you show them with actions by being with real people in real places.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And what happens over time is you prove to people that this is a community worth caring about because they can see projects like this happening, and they can see houses going up and people picking up trash- Yeah
Phil: and all of those things. And to your point about, like, therapy, like, 100%. Like, if you're a community leader, a community person who is just pouring themselves into community and going like, "Man, I'm getting really burned out," you gotta be with real people in real places. Mm-hmm. Reach out to the person, go to the Red Eye for coffee.
Phil: Say, "Hey, Alex," like, "I'm feeling really bummed [00:12:00] out right now. Can you just walk with me down the street and we'll just pick up trash?" Or like, like- Boy,
Alex: have I done that.
Phil: Yeah ... or like hand out money to kids on the street and say, "Please go buy yourself some ice cream." Like, it's- Yeah ... the single best way to not only improve your community, but also change your perspective about the community that you live in.
Alex: It's actually really interesting to hear that because I've always... Not always. In, in, like, recent years I kinda realized that this is, this is a show, don't tell community. Yeah. Um, that... I mean, honestly, there's been so many false promises and so many false starts, too, of, like, all these projects that there's always very high promises and, and, and- Mm-hmm
Alex: then, you know, people get upset that the community is a little bit apprehensive about it or like, "Okay," and they kinda roll their eyes. Skeptical. Yeah. Yeah. And, and honestly, you can't, you can't really blame them, but at the same time, there's this, like, if you try to explain what you're trying to do-
Phil: Mm-hmm
Alex: um, they're never gonna, like... It's not gonna, [00:13:00] it's not gonna get a huge reaction.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Um, and there is this thing that I've noticed, too, that you can kinda ride a high for a second, and, like, there are groups that, you know, they come up, they get some attention, and then it gets too big-
Phil: Yeah ...
Alex: out of nowhere.
Alex: Yeah. Um, and then it just kinda fizzles out when it was just, like, the initial thing was just, you know, doing something good. Um, and I think that the more that you can actually just show results of what you're doing, the more people will actually- Start to buy in. And the more that we do- Yeah ... I mean, that's the attitude here of like, we're not gonna sit here and ask you for, you know, money to fix the roof.
Alex: We're gonna go fix the roof, and then you're gonna see how serious we are about this. Mm-hmm. Um, 'cause there's just no way that it's ever just gonna... You're not gonna talk yourself into the funding.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And you're not going to, you know, strategic plan your way through it either. There has to be some kind of actual, like, what are you actually doing?
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: The shingles have to go on the roof.
Alex: Right. Some- someone has to put- Yeah ... the nails [00:14:00] into the shingles. Yeah.
Phil: Um, I read, I read something recently, like, the, the, the thought used to be, um, to, that w- you, i- if you're trying to make some kind of positive change in your life, you have to hold yourself accountable.
Phil: And one of the ways to do that is to tell other people that you're doing this thing. Mm. And so it usually ha- pops up around New Year's, and you s- you, you hop on Facebook and your friends are posting something like, um, "Hey, everybody, I wanna hold myself accountable this year, and so I'm gonna go to the gym three times a week."
Phil: And, uh, what I recently read was the, the problem with that is that it triggers the br- a part of the brain to feel like you're actually doing the thing. Like the
Alex: reward system
Phil: already kicking in. The reward system. Yeah. You get this dopamine hit, and then y- like, social media too, like, you post something like that and you've got 55 people in the comments saying like, "I'm so proud of you."
Phil: Like, like, "You can do it." Like, "I'm so happy for you. This is such a good thing." And what that is doing, it's [00:15:00] reinforcing the wrong action because to your, your, your brain knows the truth. The brain, your brain knows that you haven't gone to the gym. The brain knows that you talked about going to the gym. And so it gives you this chemical reward that associates you with talk, uh, that associates talking about the thing with like, "This is what you should do."
Phil: And so what you end up doing is you actually feed that system into, I need to keep talking about this thing that I want to do so that I continually feel good about myself. And that leads you to continually just talk about the thing because your brain hasn't associated an award with the action.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: And so what, now what the thinking is, is like, no, you go and do it. Like, there's no, like, there's no trick. There's no beating around the bush. There's like, you have to do the action so that your brain learns, oh, this is beneficial. This makes me feel good. The act makes me feel good. And then over time now it becomes a habit, and now you're action focused.
Alex: You get to carve those neural pathways as they say.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: [00:16:00] Like there's a tool- Who would've
Phil: thought sitting in front of the, the Potter Street Station we'd be talking about neural pathways and neurochemicals?
Alex: I mean, that's- But here we go ... usually how it happens. But the but that, that actually reminds me though, and this is, I can't believe it, but this is the second time I've quoted Chris Rock this week.
Alex: Um, but there is this one thing- Fair ... that I saw that I think is, is very relevant to this general idea and, like, the way that I see, you know, doing work in Saginaw too. But there's this, uh, I think it's Chris Rock. But there's this thing where he talks about, you know, if your car breaks down on the side of the road and you sit on your hood with jumper cables hoping that someone's gonna notice you, that maybe eventually someone might stop and say, "Hey, do you need help?"
Alex: And if you, um If you just get out of the car and start pushing it, people are gonna pull over immediately. It's true. And they're gonna, they're gonna notice that you're, that you're doing that alone. And there's this inherent, you know, I wanna, I wanna help with that. And then s- [00:17:00] strangely enough, I was on Bay Road, uh, and we were coming up on the construction, so it was the best possible spot for me to run out of gas.
Alex: And so I completely ran out of gas. Car just comes to a stop, and I just got out and started literally pushing the car by myself. And not even kidding, in 10 seconds I had three people pull over, get out of their car-
Phil: Really? ...
Alex: help push it. And then the lot that they pushed me into, I realized I didn't have a gas can with me.
Alex: The people in the house that we pulled into came out with a gas can, uh- ... and then gave me money for gas- ... too, because my, my wallet was at home when this happened too. And it was just one of those, like, very, like, validating moments of like, no, no, this a- this actually is how this kind of thing works. Like, you- Yeah
Alex: you start pushing, and people do notice that. And I, I don't think that you can say, you know, you can't post on Facebook, "I'm gonna push this car."
Phil: Who's with me?
Alex: Who's with me? Who's with me
Phil: and
Alex: every- Create a Facebook [00:18:00] event- Yeah ... and, you know- ... you get 300 i- interested. Yes.
Phil: Look at all the views my Facebook, uh, post got as I'm, like, sitting in this intersection getting hit with cars.
Phil: Cars are just whizzing by. Like, I got a lot of views. I wanna say two things to that. One, one, um, I was interviewing this, uh, d- uh, developer for the MEDC. Um, and, uh, he was, he was really brilliant in a, in, in a community first kind of way. Like, you could tell in his mind it was, it was always what does the, what does this community need, and what does this community want, and how do we bridge those two?
Phil: And- That's a good way
Alex: to be a developer.
Phil: Yeah. And he sa- he's, he's like, "I came from this... I came to this philosophy because I screwed it up at first." Because, like, like anybody who thinks, like, they're doing something really good for the community, he's like, "I, I was really inflicting harm on the community, and I'll tell you why."
Phil: He, he gave the example of one of his first developments in- It was in this incredibly [00:19:00] disadvantaged, devastated neighborhood. Uh, it, it used to be a factory town, and everybody worked at the factory, and it was, you know, bustling. Factory goes under, the entire community, the bottom of the community falls out.
Phil: And, like, this whole, like, t- like, two-mile strip leading to the factory, there's just, like, neigh- like, house after house after house. Like, you could see the wreckage of, of what had happened. And, um, he comes in as a devel- a young developer saying, like, like, "I'm gonna save this place. Like, I'm gonna save this place."
Phil: And he, like, t- three other people from the neighborhood he had connected with, and he was walking them kind of block by block about his vision for it and all, and all these things. And like, "Well, we could do this and this and this, and it's gonna be so good," and all of this other stuff. And he gets done with his spiel, and he looks at, at, at the three men that were there, and, um, no effect on them at all.
Phil: And he was like, "Like, it looks like you guys aren't ex- as excited about this as, as, as [00:20:00] I am."
Alex: Yeah. Can't you see I'm trying to help?
Phil: And they said, "Well, that's what the last guy said."
Alex: Uh-huh. Yeah
Phil: And he was like, like, "Oh." And then he said that was the most transformative moment in his life and his approach to community because, one, it showed him how, um, how you have to be about it.
Phil: You can't talk about it. Yeah. Like, you have to show people to win their trust. Um, but then also, like, this expectation. Like, the expectation, the words don't mean anything. You've, you've ... And then also you've gotta figure out what they want first, and then how you can meet their needs. Yes. 'Cause, like, a really great idea in another community that w- will change everything ends up destroying everything in another community- Mm-hmm
Phil: because you didn't figure it out first.
Alex: Mm-hmm. You know? Again, honestly, the, um, the, the way that there is ... I mean, there's, there's no way to go wrong when you're serving an underserved area, too. Mm. Because that [00:21:00] means that the bare minimum isn't being met, and if you provide those bare minimums- Yeah ... um, you literally can't go wrong.
Alex: And I remember having this conversation once with a developer about, you know, what it would take to get a grocery store here. Mm-hmm. And, uh, that's a, a constant topic of- Yep ... you know, how do we get, how do we get grocery to come back here? And the funny thing is I actually did this project where it was a late night and I had time, and so I, uh, I went through one of the directories from, like, 1914 and pulled all the grocers.
Alex: There was, like, 97 or something like that for grocers in Saginaw. Goodness gracious. Like, 100 years ago. And, uh, and the developer I was talking to was talking about how we don't have enough rooftops, uh, to justify a grocery store. And I'm sitting here remembering the video shoot that I did, you know, like, like, over at the soup kitchen, and seeing people needing food, and [00:22:00] cars lined up All the way around the block.
Alex: I think you did one of these shoots too. Yeah. Where like when you're there and you see how many cars there are, and I think I remember you posting about the beauty of like we sh- like it's great that we have this, but damn we shouldn't need it.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, just
Alex: to- There's a dichotomy to it.
Yeah ...
Phil: just to add, add to the extreme need of that, like i- i- middle of winter, people are in their cars the night before- Yeah
Phil: to get in line for what is sometimes only two boxes of food. Yep. Two cardboard boxes of food, and they're literally turning their cars on and off throughout the night so that they can stay warm enough- Yeah ... but not burn all of their gas. And so you have people spending the night, and then the next morning in their cars in line for two boxes of food.
Alex: Th- that's where it, it's hard for me to be like, "Well, if we had more rooftops," you know? Like- Right ... it's, it's really hard to look at it from that level when at- Yeah ... when at the street level and the block by block level. I mean, the, the way [00:23:00] that they did it 100 years ago was every block had- Yep ... a corner store basically Yep
Alex: that you could go to, and, uh, they were beloved institutions too. Yep. Um, but yeah, the, the way that it's gotten so big that it's gotten to a point that you have to do some kind of math equation to prove it.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Uh, to prove that there's a need. I, I don't think that that's really necessary. I think that if people just kinda started doing the things that we knew were needed-
Phil: Yeah
Alex: we would have a million news articles of like, "Who would have thought-" "... that, you know, that this would have worked out in this community?"
Phil: Never would have guessed. Like yeah, you don't need a feasibility study. Just go stand outside East Side Soup Kitchen- Yeah ... in the morning on the food giveaway and look down Genesee and be like, "Yep."
Alex: And,
Phil: and- "We need this."
Alex: I, I mean, talk about a perfect example of show, don't tell. Yep. You know? Like, I could tell you about that need, but you know what you should do?
Phil: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. 9:00- It'll change
Alex: your whole perspective.
Phil: Yeah, 9:00 AM on Thursday, you're gonna meet me here and you're gonna talk to Diane Keenan, and we're gonna look down Genesee- Yeah
Phil: and [00:24:00] we'll see what you think.
Alex: Yeah, no kidding.
Phil: Yeah, no kidding indeed. Um- We were here to talk about something- What is it? Y- yeah. This... Oh, okay. S- yeah. Here, Jamie Forbes sent me a text, and I was like, "I'm talking to Alex about Potter Street." And, um, she's like, "Awesome. Here's a special request." And I said, "Cool."
Phil: And she said, "Can you please talk to Alex about," I wrote it down- Yeah ... "green zone and equitable land use policy."
Alex: Jamie, I can't think of anyone- ... who would know a better question to ask me. Oh, that's my favorite.
Phil: I- I s- I see him salivating right now. Yeah. Like, "Oh, let me tell you about- I have to collect myself
Phil: green zone and equitable land use policy. Thank you." Well, where do we begin
Alex: on that- ... actually? 'Cause, um-
Phil: Can you just start maybe define, define what those things mean, and then how- Yeah ... it applies? Is that a good place to start? So- I mean, you can tell... You can say [00:25:00] no, but.
Alex: In the, uh... Actually, I've gotta go. The, uh, I think it was the 2011 master plan, um, there was this mention of, hey, this area in, you know, the northeast part of Saginaw- Okay
Alex: um, north of I-675, uh, kinda bound by Washington as it goes around, and then, uh, I think, like, the limit of the city on the east part. Um, when you look at that area, uh, the, you know, the idea that they had was w- this could potentially be, like, green space, that we, you know, return this, uh- And wh- ... to nature ... and when
Phil: you mean, yeah, green space, tell me, tell me specifically what that means.
Alex: So what it eventually turned into was the idea that any home that goes through, you know, the tax foreclosure process is gonna be demolished, because we have this plan for, uh, green space, or potentially, like, a business tech park or something like that. Um, [00:26:00] and to me, it is one of the worst policies that's ever existed in Saginaw.
Alex: Um, I believe that Mayor Moore ran on this, actually, that the green zone was the issue for her. Mm. And- What it ended up doing was, um, creating an unbelievable inventory of vacant lots that we've been trying to figure out ever since. You know, you get rid of the houses and now you have new problems. You have critters, you have overgrown lots, you have illegal dumping.
Alex: Um, you create this feeling of abandonment, which, you know, that's not necessarily what people look for in a neighborhood, uh, when they're looking to move somewhere to. Mm-hmm. But this area historically, and the thing that I think is, is, is hardest about why the green zone, um, was as damaging as it was, was that prior to the green zone, it was the redlined area of Saginaw.
Alex: So the FHA maps they made in the '30s, uh, to figure out which areas were good and bad for insurance, um, this [00:27:00] area in particular was hazardous, and it was hazardous because of its occupants. So there's this incredibly racist, you know, uh... Y- you can look up the documents, and it's genuinely horrifying to see that some guy with a clip- you know, a clipboard came through.
Alex: Mm-hmm. And they were talking about, um... Like, you can actually look these up online, but, uh- The, the, the, the maps, uh, the zone for downtown they were saying was not, you know, we can't redline it, but it's, it's, it's at a tipping point right now. And the reason was, uh, the invasion or the threat of an invasion of Black people.
Alex: Hmm. That that was, you know, uh-oh, we need to do something about this. So the-- not only was there this incredibly racist policy at the very found- like, during the Great Migration as a bunch of African American families were moving up, you know, from the South to, you know, to work at GM and, and all of these other factory jobs that existed.
Alex: And [00:28:00] then the bottom falls out on that, and then you have the housing kind of fall into, uh, you know, there's a lot of rentals. Uh, they're packing multiple families into one house. Mm-hmm. Um, and we never really addressed it in any other way other than we did the housing project in the '60s. Um, or, or actually that might've been the early '70s.
Alex: Uh, and then after that they, you know, they closed down and demolished the housing project, and then the remaining houses just dwindled from there.
Phil: Hmm.
Alex: And I actually did a, um, I did a, a small project where I looked into the retail along Potter Street to see, you know, what was there and when it really starts to, like, fall off, and it's a cliff in the '70s.
Alex: Hmm. It just absolutely drops off completely. Hmm. And so when you have that type of disinvestment, and the way that this comes back to the Green Zone is that you have a neighborhood with serious, like, ills that need addressing. Uh, the housing was inadequate. The schools were [00:29:00] inadequate. Um, you have-- like, there's this article that I found from, I wanna say the '40s or '50s, and there's a, uh, it's a pastor who is there to talk about the neighborhood and what it needs, and they have him choose between repairing the sidewalks or having, like, an adequate amount of police officers.
Alex: So when you have that type of like, you gotta pick, you know? Hmm. Like, the-- you, you gotta pick what is, uh, you know, what's important to you. And then when you have that type of freefall, um, to just approach it with the attitude of, "Well, let's level this whole area." Hmm. "And let's make sure that we can start over here," what that did was ignored the fact that there are multi-generational homes here.
Alex: There are people who have owned their houses outright- Mm-hmm ... for generations.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And I, I think the hardest thing that made the Green Zone, uh- [00:30:00] as real as it could possibly be, 'cause it's a policy for a lot of people, you know? And it's a map. And when you don't drive through the area and look at it, or if you do and you think that it's, you know, some, like, "Oh my God, what is this place?"
Alex: Mm-hmm. If that's your attitude towards it, it's pretty easy to make those types of decisions of like, "Ugh, just clear it," you know? "Let, let, let's start over here." But you ignore the fact that there are people who are there the whole time. Yeah. And one of my friends, uh, he wanted to, he wanted to bring his friend, um, 'cause sh- she was interested in acquiring her homes, uh, that her family owned.
Alex: Like, her aunt had a house, and then there was the house that she grew up in, and they were all on the same block And we went there and we looked at these houses and she was talking about, you know, growing up in the area and everything. And she wanted to buy them so badly, but because of the green zone policy you just couldn't.
Alex: So then, you know, a couple weeks later after that the houses were just gone.
Phil: Hmm.
Alex: And seeing someone talk about, you know, [00:31:00] their childhood home and, uh, how it, they want to buy it, but we have a policy that says, "No, you can't." And this only recently changed. And the thing that I found strange was that when, when they changed the policy that meant you were allowed to buy houses in this area again.
Alex: And when they changed that policy it was revealed that we had wait lists, that there were people who wanted those properties. And they started going through the list and calling people, "Do you still want this house?"
Phil: Hmm.
Alex: And that to me when it comes to l- you know, what we could have been doing with that- Mm-hmm
Alex: what we could have been doing with that infrastructure and those homes. Talk about affordable housing. Yeah. You know, the, the, like those kinds of opportunities there, but-
Phil: Incremental development. Like you, you- There's
Alex: so many
Phil: things we could do ... you're not g- you're not gonna get a developer that comes in and says, "I'm gonna buy," or, "I'm gonna build 150 homes."
Phil: Yeah. But you might be able to get 150 people to purchase one home and improve it and now it's a little bit better.
Alex: Well, and on top of that too, I mean, I don't think... I think [00:32:00] one of the habits we have a- around here is that we ask people to be pioneers of like, "You're gonna be the first." You know? Mm-hmm.
Alex: "You're gonna be the first one to build here in 50 years," or, or something like that where I think it's... The evidence is in Old Town. I feel like I always say that, but the evidence- Yeah ... is in Old Town that y- the, the investors wanna build upon. Mm-hmm. The investors are gonna look at it and say, "Okay, so this is an active, moving neighborhood."
Alex: Mm-hmm. And I'm very against, you know, things like the green zone policy because it's making the decision for the community- Mm-hmm ... when I think the grassroots level would show the exact opposite, that there are people who are willing to take these houses on. And if you're willing to spend $25,000 taking a house down, I think that $25,000 could go into a roof.
Alex: Mm-hmm. So the amount of... You know, if this is an area that you're willing to write off, um, one of the jokes that me and my friends have these days is the best thing you can do is nothing. Just- Mm-hmm ... if you just let it be to the point where people can actually [00:33:00] make decisions about, "You know what? I do wanna live in that house," instead of seeing the entire neighborhood disappear around you.
Alex: And then in the time that I've been involved in Potter Street, we've, we've lost, you know, even more houses. And you look around and- The, the, the most I see when I'm out here is deer. You know? Mm-hmm. Like, there's literally white-tailed deer running around here. Mm-hmm. Crossing Potter Street over there. And, um, to create...
Alex: Well, to go halfway, too. To, to say, "We're gonna do this green zone policy. Ah, never mind," it really undermines what the, uh, what the direction was, what, what the point was, because now it's just maimed.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: You know? Yeah. Uh, and we, we should have been I personally don't think that there should ever be a part of the city that the municipality says, "We can let that go."
Phil: Mm-hmm. "
Alex: We can let that part of the community go."
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Um, I think that that's reprehensible, but y- you also have policy after policy after policy, like the highway going [00:34:00] straight through this neighborhood. Mm-hmm. This was the area that they were like, "Well, you know, I guess it wouldn't matter as much," but try doing that through, like, Adams Boulevard or Northmore.
Alex: No way. Mm-hmm. That's never gonna happen. Mm-hmm. But it takes caring about it. It takes actually thinking that it's worth something. Mm-hmm. And when people have the attitude that it's not worth anything, to me, that's a tell. They're kinda telling on themselves in a big way- Mm-hmm ... about how they actually feel about certain people and certain things, because those redlining maps were about insurance, but they sure found a way to make it about race.
Phil: Yeah. The, the redlining i- was i- interesting 'cause of my, my understanding is that in, uh, in that redlining, you had this, the, the Black population coming from the South to work at GM and other, other factories. But because of the redlining, they could work at those factories, but they couldn't live nearby.
Phil: And so they had to go to work, and then they would leave work, and they would sleep outside the [00:35:00] factory, and then they would go into work the next morning. Um, and so, like, you, you see just how policy is, is not, like, amoral, which- Yeah ... which means, like, it, like it's ... But there's, there's always a, like, a moral value that motivates these policies.
Phil: And, and o- o- one of the things that, that I really loved about what you said is, like, you can drive through a neighborhood, and you can see empty lots but then not see the people. And as you were saying that, I'm, I'm literally looking at this corner empty lot in front of P- Potter Street, and then y- you said, "And not see the people," and then I look behind the empty lot, and I see a basketball hoop.
Alex: Yeah, exactly.
Phil: And so it really is ... It comes down to a choice. Like, what, like, what do you see? Like, like, you can walk through a neighborhood and say, like, "Well, this is, this is all vacant lots," or, "This is so far gone, it's beyond some kind of help." Yep. Or you could look and say, "Well, there's a house, and there's a house, and there's a house, and there's a basketball [00:36:00] hoop, so there's kids here."
Phil: Mm-hmm. "And there's a house," and starting from there and using that to inform the policies that you have and the actions that you take and, honestly, the hope that you have. Mm-hmm. You're starting with people first rather than looking at land. What can we do with that land?
Alex: Parcels.
Phil: Yeah. Which, which, like, is, is important.
Phil: Like, that, like, that's the math. That's the resource. That's the thing. But y- like, you have to look at the house. You have to look at the basketball hoop and say, like, "How do we, how do we help these people?" And then, "How do we build policy that helps these people?" And not, "How do we put this land to use?"
Alex: You must have read Jane Jacobs.
Phil: She's my girl ...
Alex: little bit. Okay. The, th- one of the things I love about the way that she worded this, and this is in the '60s she's saying this. Yeah. Um, because at the time, you know, they've got, like they've got the City Beautiful initiatives. Yeah. They've got all of these big things of-
Phil: City Beautiful meaning like-
Alex: Urban renewal
Phil: like, you can, you can create the, the, the most [00:37:00] ideal community from com- Cities of the
Alex: future ...
Phil: cities of the future, cities of Cloud Lake. You just can start from scratch, and if you just do this right, you will create this perfect utopia.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. And it always comes at the expense of an actual, like, uh, functional neighborhood.
Alex: Yeah. You know? Like, you, you have to lose something like that first in order to get to this big plan. And she, in the '60s, was so critical of planners in that way. She was. Of just like, "Oh, they know better. They always know better." Mm-hmm. And I find it to be, you know, resonant in a huge way because I think one of the most important things that I've experienced in this area was when we were working on the roof, I mean, we were there for probably, like, four to five days a week, and we, I think each of us put in...
Alex: There was three of us really, and each of us put in around, like, 2 to 300 hours each up on the roof. And when you're doing that, and when you're in the area that much, uh, you get the day-to-day. And there are these kids [00:38:00] who live real close by who, you know, if we had to keep an eye on our gate 'cause they were, th- they, they wanted to see so badly what was going on here.
Alex: But, like, they would come over and Like, I remember there was one of them who, like, he was asking me, like, not to board something up because that's all they have to do around here.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Like, "Don't board that thing. Like, that's where we go for fun. Like, please don't do that." Mm-hmm. And having that conversation and then going back up on the roof and, you know, talking, you know, to Alex and Cody while we're up there, and just being like, if that's all they're
Alex: Like, you would forget that there's kids growing up here- Mm-hmm ... if you look at it from a master plan perspective. Yeah. Um, that these kids had to put that hoop there themselves. Um, that there i- y- you know, you go right down the street here and there's the Civitan, and that's boarded up. And that, that type of, "Oh, it'll be fine," to remove the schools, and the community [00:39:00] centers, and the houses, and the businesses.
Alex: I'm sure a community can, you know, survive when you do that, but the fact that it's not just that there are people here, but there are all these vacant lots, there's a ton of overgrown grass, there's all this illegal dumping and things like that, and then the people who own their houses, they're immaculate.
Alex: Yeah. The lawns are perfectly maintained, and there are these small pockets where people have ownership, and it's beautiful.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: The thing that I'm noticing is the areas with, like, high rentals and high concentrations of, uh, you know, absentee owners. In fact, in, in the redlining maps from the '30s, one of the things that they note is that it was railroad worker housing, and now it's mostly being rented out to Black families.
Phil: Hmm.
Alex: They make that note in there, and rent is the key word, and it's always rent. It's always rent. And here we have an opportunity, like ... You know, I personally see [00:40:00] the land bank as the greatest tool we have- Hmm ... as a, you know, as a municipality. The opportunity to have this in- or, like, this influx of housing that's in public control that you can say, "What's the best thing for this neighborhood?"
Alex: 'Cause developers don't always look at it from that perspective. They're not always saying, "What is the best thing for this area?" Mm-hmm. It's lucky if you find a developer that is thinking that way. Mm-hmm. But with the land bank, I think it was an opportunity to create a ton of homeowners.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: To, to, you know, give people an opportunity for
Alex: Like, we talk about affordable housing, we talk about the need for housing and all of that stuff, but these are houses that go for $3,000. And if you told s- that is considerably less than your average down payment on a mortgage.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And for the- On a
Phil: car.
Alex: Absolutely, yeah. And you can get a whole house, you know?
Alex: Like- Mm ... there are houses for $200. And th- [00:41:00] we, we talk about affordable housing as if we need this big program, but I think what we actually need is the opportunity for people to just be able to own a home and to make it theirs. Yep. And we would be so- Yep ... surprised, I think, to see how many people are actually willing to do it.
Phil: I love, I love the, the phrase instead of affordable housing, attainable housing.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And there's, there's lots of the talking about, like, uh, missing middle housing and, and housing types, but I l- I think what you're talking about, it speaks to that idea of attainable housing in that, like, if, if people can buy these houses for $3,000, and then they can use the money that they w- the extra $40,000 they'd use on a down payment- Mm-hmm
Phil: to fix that house, we now as a community have plus one house. Yeah. And then if we do that again- On the
Alex: tax rolls too ...
Phil: now we, yeah, on the tax rolls. And so then we have plus two houses and plus three houses. And specifically in smaller communities, that's the kind of development that then builds a [00:42:00] foundation for, like, you do need a, a larger development.
Phil: Well, now that makes more sense, economic sense, for those larger developers who can come in and say, "I will create, uh, 50 apartments."
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: Because they see the community building itself and building itself. You can prove the demand. And you can prove the demand, and you can prove specifically the financial investment, 'cause let's face it, like, that is such an incredible factor when we're talking about h- housing and development.
Phil: Mm-hmm. Like, the math has to make sense, which is interesting about, like, green zones and, and lots and things, the idea of like, "Well, we'll just return it to g- like, this vacant parcel that people can build on," because then at the same time what happens in the world, uh, your labor costs go skyrocketing through the roof, your, uh, material costs exponentially.
Phil: Um, like Jen's, uh, Costa, Jenna Costa's building in Bay City, the Legacy Building, it was interesting. It was happening, it was being finished around the time of COVID. Mm-hmm. And she couldn't put the marble on the bottom of her [00:43:00] building because there was this strike going on. And so, like, you have all of these external complications that policy like that did not account for.
Phil: Like, you're g- making these policies that the world will be the same, that labor will always be cheap, that material costs will always be cheap, and people can just build what they want, like the urban renewal. Like, well, people- Yep ... will just build, people will build a Victorian train depot again is like- Yeah,
Alex: if we get rid of this, then we can have something better.
Phil: Yeah, we'll build something even better than this, and then the world changes, and like, oh, we'll never build anything like this again. Yeah. It didn't account for the changing world.
Alex: Yeah. Um- And honestly, the opportunity for a municipality to be able to prove the demand to the private market-
Phil: Yeah ...
Alex: is pretty I mean, that's an opportunity that I think is, is missed because there are a lot of people who I think are in government who see government as the problem, and, uh, that, you know, I, I wouldn't wanna go to a dentist that hates being a dentist or like I wouldn't wanna go to a chef that doesn't eat his own food.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: You know? [00:44:00] And, and I think that If you think that the, uh, you know, we need to clear the way for private development, I think it misses the good work that good government can do.
Phil: Yes.
Alex: Which that's why land banks exist. They are, they are the perfect opportunity. And in fact, the thing that changed my mind about this was, uh, Congressman Kildee, who is- Mm-hmm
Alex: you, you know, the godfather of land banking essentially. And I had a chance to meet him, and, uh, you know, I went, I went with a friend who, um, we had a map of all the parcels the land bank owns, which they are the largest property owner in, in the city. Mm-hmm. You know, the county is the largest property owner.
Alex: They own thousands of parcels. So we roll out this map and we're like, "Look at this problem we have." And Kildee looks at it and he goes, "Look at this opportunity you have."
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: He's like, "I see this as a beautiful map, that you have all of this opportunity to make the right decision on what this area needs the most right now."
Alex: Mm-hmm. So why wouldn't a land bank be able to, you know, like, [00:45:00] acquire a school from the school district that the school district can't maintain?
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And, and they're, you know, they're struggling to keep the building heated, and if you kill the heat to a building, rapid decline starts. So if the land bank could take a school and say, "What's the best thing for this?"
Alex: And we have an aging population, so it could be senior housing. We also have a housing crisis in general, where, uh, I think one of my favorite lines is, "Look at all these millennials walking around like they've rent the place." You know, 'cause that, that is the expectation is that you're gonna, you're gonna pay rent.
Alex: And I think that when you look at housing developments through the lens of how much money can we make on this-
Phil: Mm-hmm ...
Alex: every dollar that you charge that isn't, uh, hard costs is essentially taking from the next owner saying, "No, you need to pay me money for this for you to live here," when I think the reality is the, the actual cost of what these things costs isn't [00:46:00] nearly as crazy as we think it is.
Alex: Mm-hmm. I remember being told The Lee was gonna be $800,000, and it was, to take it from, uh, the condition it was in when we started, holes in the roof and a bunch of broken windows, the floors are rotting, all of that, to livable was, like, $120,000.
Phil: Hmm.
Alex: So when you look at the average house price, when I lived in Denver, it was, it had just peaked, or it had just gone past the average of half a million.
Alex: Half a million dollars for a house, and I moved back to Saginaw, Michigan and bought a house for 36,000.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And when people ask me, you know, like, "Why Saginaw?" It's like, we can start with my mortgage statement if you want. But, like, to, to focus on how do we make this profitable for developers, it misses the whole point that- The affordability is not a policy.
Alex: It is a hard fact of how much it hurts when you pay your mortgage every month.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: And the ability to own something, the ability to [00:47:00] actually dig in and establish roots in a community. Like, there's so much to a benefit to it, and I think if we focus just on the, you know, economic development part of it, you, you, you kind of miss the whole plot.
Phil: Yeah. I wa- I wanna tie what you're saying to Jane Jacobs, because sh- she's so fascinating to me. Because, like, here is a ... Jane Jacobs, she, she's kinda the mother of modern urbanism, if you wanna describe her like that. Oh, yeah. Like, we, we talked- She's
Alex: at least the poet.
Phil: Yeah. And, and she's the poet because, not because she was in economic development, community development, and ur- urban planning.
Phil: She's a poet of urbanism because she was a journalist. Yep. She was a journalist who could look at neighborhoods and say like, "How does it, how is this working?"
Alex: Dude, the best part of her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities- Yeah ... which actually I should, I should probably break the third wall and say read- Look
Phil: right into this camera.
Alex: Read, read- Look right
Phil: into this camera right here ...
Alex: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Uh, you could have my copy, but I already [00:48:00] gave it- Yeah ... I already gave it to Bella, so she, she's reading it right now. But I'm spreading the gospel.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: Um, but the, the best part of that book actually is her describing her neighborhood waking up.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: There's that whole part where she talks about, you know, and all the eyes on the street thing that she talks about too- Eyes on the street ... of like people who are opening their shop, and there's the guy sweeping, and then there's the person running off to work, and there's the kids getting on the school bus.
Phil: She, she has this great quote about like, that nobody ever quotes from her, is some- I'm paraphrasing, "The best thing that a city can be is interesting."
Alex: That is exactly, yeah. Yeah. That, that is exactly it. And there is, I mean, on, in the part one we talked about Tina and- Mm-hmm ... and like how you can't plan for that.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: Um, I think that that's really like- I don't know, I, this is why I like the approach that you're taking with all of this work too, is the fact that it is so crucial to, to not say, [00:49:00] "Oh, boy, what could we have?" But instead say, "Look what we have." Yeah. You know, like, as it is.
Phil: It's asset-led community development.
Alex: Yeah, no one's sitting in a boardroom trying to come up with- Yeah ... with these plans for, you know, what the community should look like.
Phil: Yes.
Alex: It just naturally happens that way.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: And, you know, it, it's amazing how many different people and characters and, uh, you know, personalities and cultures that just show up, and we have nothing to do with how that happens.
Alex: It, it,
Phil: it happens that way, and it happens that way when you trust the community. Communities move at the speed of trust, and if you withhold trust and you try to figure everything out without trust, you will not be successful. Or, at the very least, not as successful as you could be.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And then w- what ends up happening is we are good people with good ideas that end up inflicting great harm on a good community because we didn't trust the community.
Phil: And, like, like, Jane, the, the, kind [00:50:00] of the quintessential with Jane, um, is, is, like, she's living in New York City and Robert Moses c- comes on the scene, the urban planner. Like, he's, he's gonna create New Jerusalem here on Earth in New York City. And what does he plan do? Well, the, the future is the car. Yep.
Phil: And so what we need to do is we have to turn New York City into, like, this freeway. And so through l- lower Manhattan, he has this plan for lower Manhattan Expressway, 10-lane highway through lower Manhattan. Nine- Straight through
Alex: Greenwich Village ...
Phil: straight through, because this is the great idea. The future of America is the car, and so we have to make it accessible to car.
Phil: Here's a 10-lane highway through lower Manhattan. And little old Jane Jacobs, the journalist, is going, I'm, I'm gonna swear, "Fuck no."
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: Like, like, she's like, "No." Like, "You are gonna
Alex: dest-"
Phil: What are you talking about? Yeah. "You're gonna destroy the greatest city in the world if you do this, Robert Moses." And so what does she do?
Phil: She leads this group of [00:51:00] protesters against, like, the m- one of the most famous people in America at that time. Yeah ... and says, like, "You are n- like, no, like, you don't know what you're talking about. You're gonna destroy New York City." And l- like, leads this w- like, ragtag group of protesters against this 10-lane highway, and eventually convinces them to not build this highway, and she saves New York City.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: And- And
Alex: they called her just a housewife too
Phil: And they called her just a housewife.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And New York City is what it is today because Jane saw it and she studied it through observation. She understood how people work and how neighborhoods work and how great communities are built, and you trust them to do their thing.
Phil: They organically grow over time, and you trust people going block by block, person by person, and say, "What do you, what do you, what, what could be better here?" Mm-hmm. "It gets kinda dirty. Let's fix it. If let's fix it." She saved New York [00:52:00] City, just a housewife, just a journalist, and she got so... Like, she was, like, pilloried in every news- Like, "Who is this woman?
Phil: Who is this woman?" And she saved New York City.
Alex: Yeah. It, it, it's honestly incredible to... And, like, I don't know if you've read The Power Broker either. Um- It's like this. It's, it is-
Phil: I
Alex: got
Phil: three kids at home. John, like, sorry, John Kosinski, you suggested that book, and you said it's amazing book, and I trust you, and you have read it, but that thing is, like, thicker than my body.
Alex: Yeah. When I ordered it, 'cause I was listening to, uh, 99% Invisible did an entire, entire breakdown of the whole book. Oh, really? Which, great place to start
Phil: if you don't have time to read the book. Okay. Yeah, I, yeah, I'll listen
Alex: to that. Yeah. Um, Roman Mars. Uh- Yeah. There is, um- Yeah, like when I ordered that book actually, 'cause of that podcast, I hadn't really heard too much of it.
Alex: And then, uh, and then it, it, it arrived in the mail, and it almost threw my back out getting that package off the, off the doorstep. That's a huge book, but-
Phil: Yeah, like Amazon- ... it's amazing to see ... like it ships in like a- [00:53:00] ships in Amazon freight.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah, it really does.
Phil: They forklift it out of the back of the semi and put it on your door.
Phil: Chinook
Alex: helicopter comes in.
Phil: Vwa, vwa, vwa, vwa, vwa, vwa, vwa, vwa. I just got a book coming. It's fine. Just duck under the propellers. The windshield will get ya.
Alex: But it's, it's really cool in that book, though, how they highlight, like, the difference of... I mean, it's exactly what we're talking about, of like the high-level planning- Yeah
Alex: and the looking at it from a map, and then you then switch to the neighborhood. Yeah. And you have all these people. Like, not every neighborhood had a Jane Jacobs, and there was a lot of neighborhoods that had efforts of- Yes ... "Please don't do this," and then f- straight through, you know, straight through the neighborhood.
Alex: And, and it even points out in the book that there are instances where they went out of their way to destroy stuff, that like- Mm-hmm ... the highway could have just done this.
Phil: Yep.
Alex: And instead they, "Nope, straight through. We have to do it this way." And the, the way that you see the disconnect of this dude gets so much power, and he starts as [00:54:00] somebody who loves parks and public space.
Alex: And he starts as someone who's, like, reclaiming this land that's owned by really rich people. Mm-hmm. And, like, reclaiming it for the city, and then opening it to the public. And y- you know, there are plenty of faults that that guy has, too, uh, th- on the early days, and it just only gets worse and worse and worse as time goes on, and he gets more power and more money.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Um. Mm-hmm. But when you get that disconnected, I think that, uh, something really scary happens, especially in a city like New York that has millions of people. I think that in Saginaw we're pretty lucky that we actually only have, like, 44,000 people here. Yep. Um, 'cause... And, and honestly, that's one of the things that kept me here, is the, the way that it seems feasible.
Alex: It seems like every time I go to Detroit, I am overwhelmed by the scale of Detroit. Yeah. And, and how it's just so spread out. You can't play that game.
Phil: Yep.
Alex: And then around here, you know, it's like, like our community is about the size of a borough in New York. Yeah. You know, like [00:55:00] Yeah ... it's, uh- A
Phil: block. Yeah.
Alex: Yeah. It's, it's, it, it's really not, not that big. Um, but at the same time, it was a metropolis in the '60s. Uh-huh. They declared it a metropolis here, and, uh, that, that we, you know, we peaked at 100,000. But, uh, the thing that I like to remind people actually on that note is that, um- And we're at about half the population that we were in the 60s now.
Alex: More than half.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: But there's this, uh... I think the Goodrich Brothers put it out at, at like the turn of the century. My
Phil: boys.
Alex: Oh, they're, they are heroes of mine.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Uh, especially because of what they documented around here too. Yeah. Like, the very first, like, mill fire that Charles Lee had.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: They were there taking pictures.
Alex: Yep. And, you know, our friend Matt at The Lee, he's been doing research, and he, he was able to, like, totally suss out what... That building might be this thing that this guy... Like, all of this- Mm-hmm ... amazing work he's able to do because of those photographs. Um, but they put together this little [00:56:00] booklet that's like a, uh...
Alex: I think it's called, like, The Souvenir of Saginaw or something like that. And, um, I think The Castle Museum actually posted it online as well. Mm-hmm. So the whole thing is on there.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Page one, basically- They say, uh, "We're so proud of this community that we have. We have this many schools, this many businesses, this m-..."
Alex: They have all of these amazing stats. And we're a city of 50,000 people, and they're bragging about how we're 50,000 strong. Yeah. You know, that this community literally rose out of a swamp and a bayou, and they had to drain the water to make Hoyt Park. You know? Yeah. Like, that, that was a swamp. And the fact that they were able to take that and turn it into something great, and when this, you know, Souvenir of Saginaw goes out, GM doesn't exist yet, and lumber is over.
Alex: Mm-hmm. So they're, they're in this in-between of, like, what are we gonna do with-
Phil: Yeah ...
Alex: this place? Um, and what, what is the [00:57:00] future of this place? But they- They had every
Phil: reason to be hopeless.
Alex: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, it was only, like, a generation prior that it was still speculative. Mm-hmm. You know, that people were investing here on kind of a, like, very high risk.
Alex: And, you know, this is the same place that, like as I mentioned, like, you could build a road to the moon instead. Like, same attitude. Mm-hmm. Um, yet they built this incredible place out of that. Uh, and then they were bragging about how many people they had. And we have this weird perspective that we don't have enough people for what we need.
Alex: Um, yet those grocery stores I mentioned from 100 years ago, that was around the same time that The Souvenir came out.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: So if you have that kind of attitude about, you know, what you have already, um, it just really begs the question of, like, how, how were they able to do something like that? And also, it's a great framework for walkability, 'cause, you know, it doesn't exist yet.
Alex: Yeah. The car. So the, they're getting around on foot for [00:58:00] everything, or horseback potentially, or streetcar. Um, which those used to park right down the street here on Potter Street, too. Hmm. So, like, the, the fact that we had all of this amazing infrastructure, we had electric trolleys, we had all of these things.
Alex: I refuse to be a doomer about anything, because these people were-
Phil: Mm-hmm ...
Alex: electricity was brand new, you know? And, like, uh, just last night I was doing research on when they, like, lit the streets. That was 1913. The, the, there was all of that time that we didn't have electric lighting. And you think about how everything was gas-powered.
Alex: And you can actually see on the depot, there's holes in the wall where the gas lanterns were.
Phil: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Alex: And that's how we lit it, you know? And it's just so weird to me to see how much technology we have, how much capital there is in general in this region, and we have everything that we need. We, we have- Mm-hmm
Alex: this whole time. It's just that if you're in this, in this, uh- [00:59:00] Oh my God, it's all falling apart headspace. If you're doing damage control or, you know, God forbid you use the expression controlled decline, um- Mm-hmm ... the- there is this, there's this attitude that, well, it's over, and I can't believe... You know, to kinda get back to the Green Zone thing, I can't believe that there was ever an attitude of, "Uh, this place is done."
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: You know? I, I can't really wrap my head around that because if you ask anybody, go to anybody in any of the storefronts and say, like you were saying, "What do you need?" Mm-hmm. They're gonna have an answer for you. Mm-hmm. And it's probably not gonna be what you expect.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And they know all of the people who are just walking around who need housing.
Alex: They know all the people who are asking for money. They know all the people who need stuff, and all of those things are just right there, but somehow we have this major disconnect between, um, you know... Like, the thing that I observed right when I moved back to Saginaw is that, uh, the people with all the ideas are broke.
Alex: It's true. And the people with all of [01:00:00] the money are going, "What do we do with this money here?" Yeah. And there's this giant disconnect that I can't figure out why we can't just connect those dots because, you know, one man's million dollars is another man's $5,000.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: You know? The, the, the perception of how far your dollar can go.
Alex: Um, I think that being forced to work with nothing, uh, forces you to get very creative and, and I think that there's so many opportunities for putting in an amount of money that seems negligible that is revolutionary. And I'm always amazed too, 'cause I pay attention to the grant cycles and all that stuff, of how much money goes out to m- like, which things.
Alex: And then I talk to other people, like, uh, there was this one time I was talking to Hurley at the CAC, and he told me what th- what kind of, you know, struggles they're having at the CAC because of the changes in- Uh-huh ... you know, in Washington and all of that and, and what it's costing them. [01:01:00] But it's a fraction of what we put towards, you know, private development and things like that.
Alex: Um, and when I see that amount of money going around and then seeing how far someone from Saginaw can stretch a dollar-
Phil: Yeah ...
Alex: I don't think we need even that much.
Phil: Yeah. It's, it's so interesting 'cause, like, the one question other than the green zone and then the, uh, equitable land use that I wanted to ask you was, what, what's the story Saginaw tells a- about itself that you wanna push back on?
Phil: Yeah. And you just, you just answered that question in that, the, the idea, like, w- we need more people to be able to accomplish what it is we want. Yeah. And what, what you're saying right now is like, no, we ha- we have everything that we need to accomplish what we want. Mm-hmm. Like, and then more people, more things, more businesses, more ec- uh, more economic devel- like, all of those things are products of us realizing, like, we have everything that we need to make those things happen.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And, uh, like, you, you kept using the [01:02:00] word, uh, like, disconnect, and, and I think, like, like I want, I wanna focus on that for a second because, like, we're talking about urban planners, and people in government, and the people with all id- all the ideas and no money, and the people with, with all of the, the money and y- relative, well, maybe few ideas or, like, very specific ideas.
Phil: Mm-hmm. And, like, uh, the people who really love this place and people who don't, and, like, all, like, all of these different people, and it really comes down to Connecting all of those things. It's not, you know, those grassroots folks are always the, those pesky upstarts and like the same, like government, like those government like folks are always trying to squash our fun and keep us down and oppress us and like those rich folks and those poor folks and all of those, those things.
Phil: What, where the answer lies to me is at the nexus of connection, the point of connection. If we take that person [01:03:00] who's a, w- who has a lot of money and is an amazing person, and we introduce it to, him or her to a person who is like, "I have this big idea and the only thing keeping us from accomplishing this is $50,000, $40,000, $10,000."
Phil: Yeah. Like you connect those people, okay, now we're talking. Like people from the government, people on the, on the street. Like once you connect those, make those connections, the, the developers, land bank, once you connect those things, now you're cooking. And the reason why that is the answer to me is because that is what community is.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: Community is this experience of connection between people. And what's really, uh, Raj, uh, Chetty has this really amazing study that Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, was kind of like this really landmark how, how can we get back our social fabric, our [01:04:00] infrastructure, things like that. And what he came down to was it's about human-to-human connection, specifically within small groups.
Phil: Um, and what Raj Chetty looked at, w- he built on and he said, "Well, let's look at it in terms of economic mobility." And what he found was over Analyzing millions of connections, including those on social media, was that economic mobility happens, yes, between human to human, and yes, between small groups, but specifically between, uh, connections that cross classes.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: Because it's one thing to have all of the successful business folks in the same room together, and that's really, really great. But what you also need is you need all of the folks who are not successful business folks, or the people who have absolutely no money but big ideas, and they also have to be in that room.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: Because that's when things happen. That's when that person with that idea that can crack open the world connects with the [01:05:00] person who has all the money in the world, and now you've made things happen. Um, the cross-class connections, I think, is really what, what cracks things open. Like cross-role connections.
Phil: That urban planner with that neighborhood grandma.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: Like, what if that urban planner sat in her living room and said like, "W- what do we need to do here to bring that neighborhood back to where you remember it?" And she's gonna give you the three answers you need to know.
Alex: That's true. And, and I think one of the most eye-opening experiences we got to have as a community was the American Rescue Plan.
Alex: And the way that, uh, when we had, what was it, 52 million or something like that, um, to figure out what we need around here. And man, the things that came out of the woodwork- Yes ... uh, of, of people who were like, "Hey, we need a roof, please."
Phil: Yes.
Alex: And like the, the way that-
Phil: Windows ...
Alex: it's not lost on me too that, you [01:06:00] know, there are people in this community who are losing their houses to, you know, like the property taxes, and there are people in this region who spent that much money on apps and drinks in a night.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: You know? Like th- there's a very, um, there's a big disparity there. And it, it also really doesn't help too that we've geographically isolated ourselves too- True ... where it's, uh, we have gated communities now, when it used to be that the richest man in America lived on, uh, Genesee and Cherry. Mm-hmm. You know?
Alex: Like- Mm-hmm ... that kind of- That kind of integration to the community of understanding, like, what it needs versus being three municipalities away and going home- Yeah ... uh, and working in the city or something like that, and then driving a half hour away. I think it, it, it creates that disconnect that I keep mentioning, which is just that y- you, [01:07:00] you can't really know if you think you know everything.
Alex: Yes. If you think that school is gonna teach it to you. Because, you know, I called my documentary, I called that, you know, the whole project Re:Saginaw because, uh, I see all of these problems like a Mad Lib across the country.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: Like what you were describing earlier of the community that had the factory that people worked at, and then the factory closed, and that story reads like a Mad Lib around the entire Rust Belt.
Alex: Yep. Because you can just interchange, uh, give me an industry. The company name, the industry. Yeah. A product, you know. The
Phil: product.
Alex: They made, uh, car parts. Yeah. They made steering columns. Uh-huh. They made engine blocks. Yep. Um, all of those things are interchangeable, but, but I called the project Re:Saginaw because regarding Saginaw, here's our version of those issues, and here's our flavor of it.
Alex: Because what works for Saginaw might not work for Flint, and what works for Flint might n- you know, might not work for Grand Rapids. And there's all of these differences, and God forbid you start getting into Pennsylvania and all these other, like, East Coast, you [01:08:00] know, like, Rust Belt cities essentially.
Alex: Yeah. It's
Phil: different versions of the same thing. The Appalachian, Ohio mo- uh, mining towns.
Alex: Oh, yeah.
Phil: You know? Like, I, I did work in 26 counties down there, and it's the exact same story as th- and, um, I, I, I love what you're saying, and, and I wanna, I wanna end with this idea. Um, and you're gonna get the last word, of course.
Phil: Um, because, like, what we're, what we're talking about right now is not a m- a moral judgment on people and their competence and their motivations and all of those things. What we're talking about right now, and I think the u- the ultimate encouragement here is we, we have to be more connected. W- we, we have to look at ourselves, and we have to say, "I wanna do something good for this place.
Phil: Who do I have to talk to that I'm not?" Whose idea do I have to listen to that I think might be kinda [01:09:00] wrong, but I need to l- ask them questions and I need to hear them out? What's the additional perspective? What's the three more perspectives? Like, who can I talk to that's g- going to stretch me in a little b- a little way?
Phil: And th- that to me is the future of this place. Like, we're so... Like, it- we have to connect, and we have to make that an intentional thing with people and all of it. Because like, I, I interview so many different kinds of people, and we're all saying the same thing. And there's so much pride, and there's so much love, and there's so many g- in, in brilliant people and hardworking people, and over and over and over again.
Phil: And man, like, if we brought that together- ... like a fraction of the, those people together, oh, my goodness.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: Like, oh, my goodness. And so, like, my c- my encouragement, so I am on a soapbox right now, but my encouragement is every single one of us has to o- offload [01:10:00] our ego, 'cause we all got it.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: We're all smarter than everybody we all know.
Phil: And we just have to, to put that away for a second and replace it with community and connection, and it will, like it has with me, completely change your life. And w- when that happens, it will completely change the life of the people around you.
Alex: Yeah, I mean, honestly, the, the thing that has always kind of baffled me is how quick to judgment people can be about things, too, where, um, if you don't know the exact root for it, you know, there are people who, they have an issue with the land bank and they show up at city council.
Alex: Mm-hmm. And, and I'm sitting there thinking, "Man, that is, that's the wrong venue," because this is a county issue versus a city issue. Yeah. You know, but you can't sit there and go, "How stupid- Mm-hmm ... that they would show up." They, that's something that we're quick to do, and- Yeah,
Phil: it is. And I- We're all quick to do it.
Alex: [01:11:00] Oh, absolutely.
Phil: Like, like, I, like, you, you just called me out because I'm, I'm, I'm very mu- like, that's my reaction. Like, "Oh, that's the wrong-" And like, like, no, man. Like, that's what... You come up to him after and say, "I love everything that you said. Here's the l- here's, here's the land bank meeting."
Alex: Yeah. "
Phil: And they would love to hear that."
Alex: Oh, and I'm speaking from experience- Yes ... because I showed up at city council talking about the land bank, and I remember Floyd Clock, uh- Mm-hmm ... he said, you know, "You, you should go to land bank meetings." And so I did. I started going to land bank meetings. Yeah. And you learn a ton. But the grace to, you know, not just scoff at someone who's there, to, like- They're there to actually speak their mind, but they might not know what direction to go.
Alex: Yes. And if they're angry about it, um, you know, that passion can, can really, uh, it can put people off.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: Um, it can get you into trouble. It can get you into hot water and things. And so how many people who have really good, important things to say have been completely written off because [01:12:00] of how they said it, or maybe they brought it to Facebook before it should have been brought to this person or something.
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Alex: And I think we need a little bit more of a, um, like a how to... Like, I actually thought about doing like a video series called, like, How to Care About Saginaw. Mm-hmm. Like, if this is what you want to do, then here's the... Like- Yeah ... it needs to be a flowchart- It- yeah ... of, of like- Yep ... how to actually accomplish things, because it's a very complicated, weird landscape that is underfunded, understaffed.
Alex: Uh, the people who, you know, the people who work for the city are doing incredible things with very little. Yep. Even though it seems like there might be abundance in some area. Like, I think ARPA did that, you know, to our psyche in a big way. It did. Like, "
Phil: You got millions- Yeah ...
Alex: to work with." And it's like, no, these are people who are trying to figure out, like, do we close a fire station, or do we let some police officers go?
Alex: And you start- Yep ... weighing those things, and it's like these people are thinking about so many other things.
Phil: Yeah. [01:13:00] That- And, and they live in the world where a decision actually has to be made. Yeah. Like, like- Said that part, too ... and, and, and we, because we're, we're not in that, like, we can come up with all sorts of things that are not realistic at all.
Phil: Like, we'll fund both the fire department and, and the police officers. Yep. And they're like, "Yeah, but we have $4." And he's like, "Well, how about you just find more dollars?" They're like, "Well, we can't." Like, they're like, "There's no more money." And it's like, "Well, how about you do this?" It's like, well, here's the thing.
Phil: Like, they, they exist in the real world of decision-making. Yeah. And they deserve a lot of respect and credit because w- we can... L- like, when, like, I'm starting a business. Like, I wanna start this business. Like, I don- I don't know what that's gonna cost, I don't know what it's gonna take, I don't know what, like, but I'm...
Phil: Like, I really like this idea.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: And we apply that same kind of thinking a lot of times to our communities. "Oh, I really want this." And the, the folks in the city are like, "Yeah, well, we want this, too. Here are the constraints."
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: [01:14:00] And, and it's really easy for us to never think about those constraints, and they, they work in those constraints every single day.
Alex: I think the last thing that I would say Is that the constraints are the most beautiful part of the equation.
Phil: Tell me more.
Alex: If you know what you're dealing with, you immediately can make realistic decisions.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: Uh, if you have constraints... Like, I always encourage a person to, like, get a roll of black and white film and go shoot.
Alex: And when you start shooting in black and white, you start realizing that certain f- like, lighting makes all the difference, and now there's contrast that can create interesting images. And you start thinking differently based on what your constraint is. And I think that every historic preservation project that I'm involved with is heavily constrained.
Alex: You know? Like, I think the, the ballpark they gave us for this building is about $23 million. And we have a couple thousand dollars right now. But we were able to get [01:15:00] $100,000 roof fixed because of our constraints, you know? I actually... Now that we've done what we've done, I look back on that thinking, "Can you imagine if we just blew $100,000 on that?"
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: Because it cost us 4,000 total.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: The whole project was $4,000, and a lot of time, and a lot of donations of materials. But those constraints caused us to get a little bit more creative about how we could do it, and I think there is a curse to having an endless checkbook that can just- Yeah ... if you have so much money, you know- That like th- there, there are a lot of things that you can do, but I also don't really know if you'll always make the best decision if you have unlimited resources.
Alex: It gives
Phil: you, yeah, it gi- it gives you the ability to make really ba- big, bad decisions.
Alex: I don't want easy. I- Yeah ... I like the burned out, uh, collapsing mess, you know? And, and I, I just, I get so much out of seeing what it should be [01:16:00] and then- Mm-hmm ... taking it there. I-
Phil: i- when you're talking about constraints, um, I'm ta- I'm thinking about Ap- Apollo 13.
Phil: Um, y- you have these astronauts that i- there's an explosion outside the s- the space shuttle, we'll call it that, and they have to figure out, how do we get these people from space home? Yeah. And like, that's kind of a situation, right? And, and w- their, their approach towards solving that problem was something called, uh, working the problem.
Phil: In that you don't, you don't think about all of the infinite options and all the different ideas, and like, "Well, maybe we could," 'cause they're like, they're literally in outer space. Yep. And so it doesn't... Like, all of your good ideas do not matter. What you have to start with is what do you have to work with?
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And you start with the constraints, and you think about what is on board that right now, and what is the first problem that we have to solve? It's not trying to get them back home.
Alex: Mm-hmm.
Phil: [01:17:00] Because that's not what's gonna kill them. What's gonna kill them is the fact that those oxygen tanks are no longer functioning.
Phil: Mm-hmm. And what's gonna happen in that cabin is that CO2 is going to increase, and eventually those astronauts are gonna suffocate and die. So what do we have to solve that first problem? Well, we've got some duct tape, we have some tubes- ... and we have a cardboard box. And immediately, uh, the, all of the most brilliant people in the world and ground control are going, "Okay, how can we use duct tape, this tube, and this cardboard box to filter out the CO2 and funnel in oxygen from the one remaining tank?"
Phil: And they go, "Okay, here we got it." And they, they say, "Here, here's what you guys are gonna do." And then they move to the next problem and they say, "What do we have to work with?" Yep. "What do we have to work with? What do we have to work with?" And wouldn't you know it? They end up slingshotting Apollo 13 around the gravitational pull of the moon because they would not have fuel to get them back, and they are back [01:18:00] on Earth safely.
Phil: And that is the power of saying, "What do we have to work with?" Yeah. "What's the next problem we have to solve?" And that is this conversation 101.
Alex: I will never forget... The trains are, are always the perfect cue, actually. Yeah. But I will never forget talking to, uh, Cody Smith at Oracle and saying, "We're trying to fix this roof at Potter Street.
Alex: We have the mate- like, we have the OSB, we have the shingles, but who is gonna be crazy enough to go up on that roof and risk that?" And he goes, "I'm a mountain climber."
Alex: And I was just like, "Wait a minute, you just opened the whole door there." Like, that, that one comment shifted our entire thinking about it, of like, yeah, there are people who hang off of cliffs and do crazy things, and get that guy a framing nailer- Right ... and he's gonna fix those, those gullies for us. Yeah.
Phil: And you were able to solve that problem because you had a relationship with Cody, and you had that [01:19:00] conversation. I
Alex: was there getting a beer because of how stressed I was about Potter Street.
Phil: There you go. You're like, "Who would be crazy enough?" And he raises his hand. Yep. "I'm a mountain climber." Wild. Yep.
Alex: Now he's our treasurer.
Phil: Alex Mixter, I love talking to you.
Alex: Oh, it's always great.
Phil: Fantastic conversation. I'm glad
Alex: we got to do this again.
Phil: Me too. I mean, there's probably gonna be a part three, four, five. So let's be honest.
Alex: Yeah, you'll text me tonight at, like, 10:00, like, "Hey." Yeah. I've had a cancellation tomorrow.
Alex: Let's meet back at Potter soon. I'm, I'm, I'm totally down for it any time, though. Wonderful. I appreciate it.
Phil: Thanks so much, buddy.
Alex: Thank you.