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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
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:36:03
Sara Bronin
And I think that that kind of positivity is well warranted for a world that we all live in where, you know, we have constant uncertainty, constant, you know, polarization. And maybe not always that what can I do in my own communities? I hope that as people look to, the things that they can change, that zoning which takes place at the local level and arguably one of the most accessible yet inaccessible powers of local government, with huge impacts.
00:00:36:06 - 00:00:42:15
Sara Bronin
That's why I wrote this book. I wrote this book to arm people with information that they can use in their own communities.
00:00:42:17 - 00:01:06:19
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman, and that is Sara Bronin, author of the new book key to the city. We're going to be talking about this new book, which is incredibly important, talking about the impact that the positive impact that zoning can have within our communities, and really emphasizing the fact that this is something that we can control at the local level.
00:01:06:20 - 00:01:13:03
John Simmerman
Let's get right to it with Sara.
00:01:13:05 - 00:01:17:10
John Simmerman
Sara Bronin such a pleasure having you on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.
00:01:17:12 - 00:01:19:26
Sara Bronin
Thank you so much for having me, John.
00:01:19:28 - 00:01:25:19
John Simmerman
Sarah, I love giving my guests just a quick opportunity to introduce themselves. So who the heck is Sarah?
00:01:25:22 - 00:01:50:20
Sara Bronin
Oh, well, I am an architect and attorney. I'm from Houston, Texas. I live in DC. And I think probably my main, job in life is to try to expose how land use rules affect our lives. You know, connecting these very arcane legal concepts and documents to what we end up seeing and experiencing in our cities.
00:01:50:22 - 00:02:01:21
Sara Bronin
So that cuts through various work that I do, as a professor on the public service side, and more recently as a writer.
00:02:01:23 - 00:02:34:11
John Simmerman
I love it, and I love it. Yeah. So you just mentioned you are a writer, and we're here to talk about your brand new book. Okay. The key to the city. I just finished reading it this week, and it was just so delightful to to to read this, in and it's one of the things that I loved about the book, though, too, is that, especially, like in this world of, like, zoning and talking about zoning and what is all this being, it really I mean, it seriously is the key to the city in so many different ways.
00:02:34:14 - 00:02:58:12
John Simmerman
And that's coming from a public health guy, you know. So I've, I've been in public health now for going on 35 years. And, when we look at the built environment and how it encourages healthy living, physical activity is my area of emphasis in the built environment. And that interaction that takes places at that nexus, that intersection of health and the built environment.
00:02:58:14 - 00:03:10:08
John Simmerman
But zoning also has a deep history in kind of where it came from, was from public health. Talk a little bit about, you know, what really compelled you to want to write this book?
00:03:10:10 - 00:03:34:28
Sara Bronin
Well, I think people deserve to understand how these zoning codes, which are adopted at the local level and govern virtually everything that gets built in this country, actually work in their communities. And it's really hard to access a zoning code normally because they might be 150 pages. They might be 3800 pages, like the City of Boston zoning code.
00:03:35:01 - 00:04:07:12
Sara Bronin
And they are definitely filled with technical jargon and cross-references, and they're extremely technical and dense. So what I wanted to do with this book was to take some of the things that we see across American zoning codes, no matter where they are locally, which jurisdiction or local government has adopted them and say for this kind of zoning provision, here are the things that might happen in real life in your community and I really hope that by doing that, people will start to engage with zoning.
00:04:07:14 - 00:04:16:03
Sara Bronin
They feel like they have an entry point into the conversations about zoning, and then hopefully change them for the better.
00:04:16:05 - 00:04:46:09
John Simmerman
And I, I like the fact that you emphasize that change them for the better, because one of the narratives that sometimes happens when it comes to zoning and, you know, we can talk about zoning in several different ways. We can think about, exclusionary single family housing, zoning. We can think about, you know, zoning, you know, getting back to the the roots of how zoning really came about was separating out some of those, uses that became toxic to the populace.
00:04:46:09 - 00:05:07:20
John Simmerman
Hence the connection to public health. But what I love about how you kind of frame the book is that, no, let's just not throw zoning completely out, because that's not a solution either. And you have a personal relationship to that. You know, you have income grown up in the Houston area.
00:05:07:22 - 00:05:35:06
Sara Bronin
So Houston is the only large American city without zoning. And you're right, in the book, I start in chapter one talking about, my childhood home and and saying, I visited, where I used to live, in my early years in the book and right across from the apartment complex I lived in was a gas station, a nightclub, a self storage facility, a strip mall parking lot.
00:05:35:09 - 00:05:57:00
Sara Bronin
These are not the kinds of things that make a great neighborhood. Certainly not an active walking neighborhood. And yet they were sort of sprinkled all about, right across the street. So it made me realize that when I was driving around Houston as a young kid going, why is this look like this? And why isn't this more beautiful?
00:05:57:00 - 00:06:22:28
Sara Bronin
And why do we have so many strip malls, that, you know, there might be a bigger story here. So I went to architecture school and law school and, you know, really, that opened my eyes to the importance of the rules of the game. And zoning is is the most important. But but I do think Houston, presents, a great, I think, argument for zoning, even though lots of people use Houston to say why do we need a zoning?
00:06:22:28 - 00:06:28:10
Sara Bronin
The city still works. I guess I'm here to say to someone from there, it doesn't really work that well.
00:06:28:13 - 00:06:52:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. And that's what I love about the nuance of the book, because we do get into these arguments, especially with, from the yimby movement of, yes, in my backyard. Let's try to build more housing to do it. Let's throw the zoning codes out and instead of, well, no, that's really not what we need to do. And I love that nuance in your book of saying, let's get it right.
00:06:52:04 - 00:07:32:27
John Simmerman
And oh, by the way, while we're getting it right, let's look at some of these other aspects of zoning and how that can apply to areas that you wouldn't necessarily even consider and think about, like you have an entire chapter all about, let's complete the street, completing the street, and how zoning can be a part of that. And that's kind of the nexus of where this applies to active towns, because frequently I'm talking about zoning in the context of, hey, let's have more meaningful destinations within walking and biking and transit access and distances so that we can encourage more people to live a healthy, active lifestyle naturally and not have to, quote unquote, exercise or
00:07:32:27 - 00:08:01:17
John Simmerman
work out. It's like built into our life, which is exactly what we end up seeing, you know, throughout, you know, Europe. I spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and, and a very big part of the audience, tuning in today is from the Netherlands and that's one of the things that is, is quite natural. There is the distances are such and the mix, the mix of uses is such that you have many trips you can do by walking and biking.
00:08:01:20 - 00:08:25:01
Sara Bronin
Yeah. As I point out in key to the city, there is such a thing as too much mixing. So the Houston situation I think goes. That doesn't work. You, you know, you have though an appropriate mix for neighborhoods. There's other, you know, office, perhaps retail stores, you know, sprinkled about, that makes for a much more convenient neighborhood.
00:08:25:04 - 00:09:08:01
Sara Bronin
It encourages people to walk. I hesitate to, you know, with so many of your viewers, listeners from the Netherlands, opine on any great American strategies for bike lanes. But I definitely do talk in the book about how zoning can be used to create more, and better infrastructure for walking and biking. Not so much, for, and not as much for cars, which has been the thing that zoning codes have accommodated through things like minimum parking requirements, which require people to be parking on their lot, setting up a system that, you know, you're, you're you're building you're you're carving out space for cars in a way that you're not
00:09:08:01 - 00:09:11:29
Sara Bronin
for people, for bikes, for walking, and more.
00:09:12:01 - 00:09:32:13
John Simmerman
And you do talk about that in the book, too, is that relationship to that other aspect of kind of zoning and the relationship to what you just address was parking minimums? I've had Donald Shoup on before on the channel, and I'm slated to talk with him in a couple weeks as well to to do a reboot here on the YouTube channel.
00:09:32:15 - 00:09:37:17
John Simmerman
And talk a little bit about that side of it, because you do address it in the book as well.
00:09:37:20 - 00:10:11:02
Sara Bronin
So, you know, Donald Shoup, the the great professor who really, I think articulately and convincingly has made the case for a generation of planners and policymakers that, parking and the provision of parking and the mandates, for parking, have actually really ruined our cities. And you certainly see that, it has been the case in Hartford, Connecticut, where I served for seven years as chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission and, where the introduction to the book starts.
00:10:11:04 - 00:10:36:08
Sara Bronin
But, you see, in Hartford, a downtown that is covered in parking lots, you see our historic main streets, as those uses got converted to other uses, as the buildings got converted to other uses, it triggered minimum parking requirements. And so then the neighboring building got torn down. And instead of having this nice little historic street, you have, street lined with curb cuts and parking.
00:10:36:09 - 00:11:01:12
Sara Bronin
And in some neighborhoods, fast food and gas stations and, so, so parking has been, not only, and zoning has used parking not only to reinforce the infrastructure of cars, but it's had negative environmental effects, because we've seen studies that say that the provision of parking encourages people to drive. So they drive more greenhouse gases. And we're paving over our cities with concrete.
00:11:01:12 - 00:11:05:13
Sara Bronin
So all in on a great situation.
00:11:05:16 - 00:11:27:21
John Simmerman
And it goes hand in hand. I mean, it's it's one of those things where if we sort of take the shackles that are preventing us from building the sort of the traditional neighborhood development pattern that we had when some of our more historic cities were built here in North America, and they were looking a little bit more European in nature.
00:11:27:21 - 00:11:58:12
John Simmerman
And it's like, you know, we especially those that had that healthy mix to your point of the right type of mixed uses. You didn't have necessarily the tanneries and the other toxic, you know, industries that were were you know, polluting the water and, you know, impacting health and well-being. Thinking down in, in Houston of looking at, you know, the chemical factories in the oil, you know, processing and things of, you know, creating, you know, massive pollution, you know, air pollution and things that are affecting health like that.
00:11:58:19 - 00:12:36:18
John Simmerman
Those things aside. But when we did have our traditional development patterns before we had the the advent of sort of these exclusionary zoning codes sort of taking off and being copied in Paste City after city, state after state, you know, and and suddenly we're seeing that we're to your point, we're starting to codify and create auto dependency. You know, we're starting to like, spread things out and further and further and especially post-World War Two, we're seeing, you know, leaning into drive everywhere for everything because the distances are so great.
00:12:36:21 - 00:13:08:20
Sara Bronin
Yeah. You're talking about the minimum lot size that's really embedded across zoning codes around the country. And with those minimum lot sizes, say, is that you're going to build only a single family home, and you're going to build that on a one acre lot or a two acre lot. We have a I have a project called the National Zoning Atlas that has shown around the country how much the, zoning, across the country has contributed to exactly that kind of sprawl that, that you just referred to.
00:13:08:22 - 00:13:36:04
Sara Bronin
And the primary culprit is, through this, the single family zone that has, has made those minimum, acreage requirements across the board in Connecticut, where we we started that project. We found that 80% of residential land has a one acre minimum parking requirement and 50% has a two acre minimum parking requirement. And that's where the football field per house.
00:13:36:06 - 00:13:57:06
Sara Bronin
So, yeah, there. You see, that's a great map of Connecticut showing where single family housing is allowed in the state. And here's another statistic kind of speaking to the the single use nature of our communities. This is 91% of the state. So anything that's purple in the zoning atlas is a hit. And I selected you've selected here on the top left single family housing.
00:13:57:08 - 00:14:26:01
Sara Bronin
And if you look at the same, map for apartments, so four or more units of housing, you can see it's barely purple. And that land there represents just 2% of land in the state. So you compare 91% of land allowing for single family housing on these huge lots. And you say 2% of land, is allowing housing on, on it's allowing housing, multifamily housing.
00:14:26:03 - 00:14:52:05
Sara Bronin
And you see exactly very clearly why at this scale, when you're able to compare jurisdictions like we can in the National Zoning Atlas, you're seeing that the, there's a reason why Connecticut has a housing shortage. And, rents are expensive. It's because we're not allowing the kind of construction that people need in order to live, affordably and in order to access opportunity.
00:14:52:07 - 00:15:19:22
John Simmerman
I'm glad you mentioned that. Being able to live affordably, because one of the the key challenges to household in home affordability is the fact that if you're sort of, de facto committing yourself to having to drive everywhere for everything, suddenly you're, you're, you're, you know, you're getting stuck into a, a situation where you're not able to walk and bike and use transit to your meaningful destinations.
00:15:19:22 - 00:15:37:20
John Simmerman
You're supporting one, two, maybe three cars and car payments. And with the AA, you know, estimating in upwards of 10 to $12,000 annually per person, per car. I mean, that's that really undermines affordability.
00:15:37:23 - 00:15:58:27
Sara Bronin
I totally agree. And I have to say that I take a lot of heart, and the fact that young people today are saying we're not even getting driver's licenses. We don't want to deal with this. A car is not freedom. Like we've, and streets are for people. There you go. A car is not for, you know, as car manufacturers would have us believe, a car is a burden.
00:15:58:27 - 00:16:23:10
Sara Bronin
It's a, it's it's a financial burden. It's, of course, an environmental burden. But yet we are forced to have cars oftentimes because our communities are not built in ways that enable us to get around, and to access different neighborhoods, different things that you might have in a broader, broader neighborhood or region. And that's a that's a big problem.
00:16:23:10 - 00:16:26:20
Sara Bronin
And, and zoning can play a bit of a role in that.
00:16:26:22 - 00:16:54:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And yet you noticed my, my coffee mug. Streets are for people. And it's one of the, the declarative statements that I tried to, to put out there about active towns is that, you know, streets really are for people. They've been around streets have been around for thousands of years. The car has these sort of, mobility technology interlopers that showed up 120 years ago sort of transformed what our city streets look like.
00:16:54:15 - 00:17:32:05
John Simmerman
And in the book, you, you even reference, you know, Las Vegas and the strip and the, you know, and, and channel Chuck Marone and talking about roads and the fact that we've sort of morphed into this concept of, streets and roads, you know, highways and, you know, the road, which is that, you know, futon of transportation, where it's a mash up trying to act like a street, the platform for building wealth and prosperity and, and social interactions, and transport and, you know, with a highway transporting cars quickly and throughput level of service.
00:17:32:08 - 00:17:49:23
John Simmerman
And it's a disastrous combination. It's a dangerous combination. But to me, it also kills more vitality and vibrancy in economic, prosperity than it helps being able to drive everywhere for everything fast.
00:17:49:25 - 00:18:14:22
Sara Bronin
Yeah. So these fast moving strode to call, you know, they're called or, you know, four lane, 6.8 lane, roads that are not highways. They cut through places with buildings and in places where people might want to cross, but they make it virtually impossible for people to to exist safely. Within the street. Right of way. It's it's a huge problem.
00:18:14:25 - 00:18:35:19
Sara Bronin
One that, you know, at least in Hartford, we tried to address, with a zoning code that had a chapter on streets and street design, that would, we hoped, enable future streets to actually respond to the needs of multiple users and not just cars.
00:18:35:21 - 00:18:58:22
John Simmerman
I'm glad you mentioned that, because that was the most satisfying part of the book for me. Obviously, being an active transportation guy, is I was like, wait, really? They were able to include streets in the zoning codes to tell us more? I mean, how does that happen? Because I've always kind of seen it as being completely separate.
00:18:58:24 - 00:19:23:23
Sara Bronin
Well, this is the case that I make. It's a bit of a, you know, legal case described as a, you know, an interesting anecdote. But if you look at the statutes, the state statutes, that enable local governments to zone, there's one in every state and it says, you know, cities and towns can enact zoning and they can do so for the general welfare, for safety and public health and whatever.
00:19:23:24 - 00:19:57:28
Sara Bronin
It's a laundry list of things, they give local governments very broad powers to, to regulate land within the jurisdiction. In many cases where local roads are owned locally, where roads are privately owned. So when I you about state roads or federal highways, but in every other case, I make the argument that local governments should consider whether zoning might be a tool to enable for, compatible street design streets and designs that are compatible with the neighboring uses.
00:19:58:01 - 00:20:20:05
Sara Bronin
So in the City of Hartford, zoning code chapter nine is about streetscape shapes. And we lay out a series of, considerations. If you're in a commercial street, if you're in a, a residential neighborhood, what kinds of things, does the city need to take care of and, and understand when it's redoing its own roads or when private developers are building roads?
00:20:20:07 - 00:20:45:11
Sara Bronin
And we did see the effect, the positive effect of that chapter in one of the very few large subdivision developments that have happened in Hartford in recent years, where new streets were created and they had bike lanes and they had sort of a nicely tucked away, street cars. And, I, I'm really proud that that in again, one of the few opportunities that we've had to test that because we don't build a lot of new roads in Hartford.
00:20:45:13 - 00:20:53:20
Sara Bronin
We don't rehab, at scale, a lot of new road, a lot of existing roads. That it did work to actually create a street that was for people.
00:20:53:23 - 00:21:12:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Now I, I'm going to say this, and I don't mean to date you at all, but, you did spend your undergraduate here in Austin, at the University of Texas, you know, at that time, was the Miller Mueller airport operating or had it already been shut down?
00:21:12:28 - 00:21:18:21
Sara Bronin
It was at I believe it was undergoing the redevelopment planning process, at that time.
00:21:18:23 - 00:21:57:20
John Simmerman
Because it's been underway for about 20 years, and they are currently at about 90, 95% built out. And what's really been, you know, fascinating, especially documenting it over the last decade that I've been here in Austin is just that is like actually looking at a new community that's been built from the ground up, having the influence of, the New Urbanists, the Congress for New Urbanism, you know, you kind of see it and feel it and you're like, ooh, this is a really nice mix of missing middle housing, commercial districts that are blended in with housing.
00:21:57:22 - 00:22:41:15
John Simmerman
And to your point, they also had the opportunity to, sort of codify an ongoing relationship, which has been in place for the last 12 years with the Dutch cycling embassy. And so they have an entire Dutch inspired bicycle network that is, is growing up, you know, from the ground up, literally from the tarmac, from what used to be runways up, throughout the the community connecting the brand new Marshall Middle School that's there, where they have, you know, protected bikeways and, and even some of that, that classic Dutch red color, in the intersections, being able to deliver people safely to their destinations, whatever that might be, the, the brand
00:22:41:15 - 00:23:09:07
John Simmerman
new skate park or the middle school, all the wonderful shopping. In fact, they even have a Kirby Lane now in, in Miller, which is really cool. So I, I see what you mean by it's, it's so encouraging when you see a brand new community coming up and, and embracing that concept. Now, what I don't know is whether any of those streets were done, because zoning kind of like, helped empower that, I don't know.
00:23:09:09 - 00:23:38:06
Sara Bronin
Yeah. I mean, so in the case of the Mueller development, I believe it was a zoning overlay that that happened there that enabled development to happen pursuant to pursuant to a plan. And it was, I think, more carefully thought out than, of course, most neighborhoods. And there you had a bit of a blank slate because it was an airport, a big municipal facility that that ended up being, being able to be converted, and new streets built and new uses.
00:23:38:06 - 00:23:53:14
Sara Bronin
And, you know, not many cities have that kind of opportunity. And fortunately and, and I think from all that I've heard that it has worked. Well, overall, it sounds like you think so, too.
00:23:53:16 - 00:24:22:23
John Simmerman
I think so, too. Yeah. And it's been very encouraging to see also how, the developer could tell us has been like sort of very, very carefully evaluating how those streets are, in the, in the infrastructure that they're putting in specifically, like with the walking and biking infrastructure, to see how people are responding to them and how well that serving as residents as well as people visiting the businesses there.
00:24:22:26 - 00:24:56:06
John Simmerman
And I've seen like improvements, for instance, many of the bike lanes that were originally being put in were just painted bike lanes. And then they quickly moved to. No, we need separation and we need some protection. So you started seeing flex post go in and buffers and then they're like, oh, this next phase. And you can like literally you can, you can ride your bike down Zach Scott and see the different layers of, of, you know, through the years, you can literally ride through the years and see how it got better and better and better.
00:24:56:13 - 00:25:27:02
John Simmerman
The closer to, you know, the martial middle school there at the intersection of Zach, Scott and Tillie. And you can be like, oh wow, this is amazing. This is very I feel like I'm in Europe now with a completely concrete, protected, separated facility. And, what's interesting too, is it could tell us, as they're getting ready to hand the entire, development over to the residents to then, you know, have their, their sort of management of it, through the homeowners association and etc..
00:25:27:04 - 00:25:47:01
John Simmerman
They've gone back and fixed what was previously just lighter, quicker, cheaper materials and interim materials like flex pose and then put in, you know, really best in class protection and concrete. And so it is very, very interesting to see that and satisfying to see that. Now in your book you also. Oh go ahead. Yeah.
00:25:47:04 - 00:26:09:06
Sara Bronin
I was just going to say the other thing about that development is that the blocks are actually very small. And, you know, that's something that that we also laid out in the Hartford zoning code of establishing blocks, as well as in the new subdivision regulation that we adopted. But I do think that block size has a lot to do with the feeling in a neighborhood, of walkability.
00:26:09:06 - 00:26:12:23
Sara Bronin
And, so I just I just wanted to point that out also just. I'm glad.
00:26:12:23 - 00:26:14:20
John Simmerman
You did. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:14:23 - 00:26:42:21
Sara Bronin
Did what they did there because they knew there was a market for it. They developed much more densely than much of the rest of Austin, because I knew there was a market for it. And I think, you know, the zoning, the planned unit development that was, that that allowed that development to happen, within the again, the context of a larger master plan, is something that, you know, more communities should, should try to figure out, like, how do we address market demand?
00:26:42:21 - 00:26:49:11
Sara Bronin
Because right now, the one size fits all approach to lots of American zoning is simply not doing that.
00:26:49:13 - 00:27:15:04
John Simmerman
What I love, too, about that development is you've got a little bit of everything if if what you really want is a single family house on a on a single families, you know, lot, boom. You can do that if you want. Sort of almost like a brownstone, sort of like feel. There's some of those as well, row houses, etc. if you want more of an apartment, living condo, you got that?
00:27:15:04 - 00:27:40:09
John Simmerman
I mean, literally there's something there for everything. But what's really, really cool about it and I was literally just there, a few weeks ago filming, Dan Burton, was in town. And so we took him out for a tour, and I produced a video on that, earlier this week. And what was really great was seeing his eyes light up when he realized, oh, this is all alley fed.
00:27:40:11 - 00:28:02:15
John Simmerman
You've got front, front yards and porches in your. And everything's not cut up by multiple driveways and continuous driveway cuts. And so there's that sensible quality that there's this there's some walkability that's a little bit. Yeah. As you mentioned it's got gentle density. You feel like it's walkable. You can get to meaningful destinations within walking distance. And biking distance.
00:28:02:17 - 00:28:11:20
John Simmerman
And and it just feels like it's also more sociable in the sense now you're in the DC area, Georgetown, right?
00:28:11:23 - 00:28:12:02
Sara Bronin
Yeah.
00:28:12:02 - 00:28:43:04
John Simmerman
Sam. Yeah, yeah. Georgetown area. I mean, for for those of us here in the, in the western side of the United States, so to speak. I'm originally from California. It's like we go to a place like Georgetown and we're like, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing. I can walk forever. There's so many things in this part of it is a short blocks, and it's also many, many different, houses and also corner stores and businesses and that, that mixed use that happens there.
00:28:43:07 - 00:29:24:22
John Simmerman
One of the things I wanted to talk about that I love that you highlighted in the book as well, which is street related, was the was Church Street in Burlington. You also sort of mentioned, Pearl Street from Boulder. I lived in Boulder for a decade. And so that was sort of this, this concept of back in the 1970s, there were many streets that tried to go, quote unquote, pedestrianize and talk a little bit about the context, though, of zoning and how Burlington really kind of did something a little special that really, I think is part of what they're trying to do to improve it, because the irony is there and you talk about
00:29:24:22 - 00:29:29:20
John Simmerman
this in the book, is they also have a Pearl Street, and it's not as nice as Church Street.
00:29:29:23 - 00:29:57:09
Sara Bronin
So, yeah. So in in Burlington, I talk about, a visit that my family made, about, six years ago, I think now. And, we, we started to walk around this pedestrianized area, Church Street, and then got to the end of that and really saw it kind of like what I was describing in Hartford, you know, maybe a little bit more a desolate, streetscape, with parking lots and so on.
00:29:57:09 - 00:30:22:14
Sara Bronin
And compared to what we had just seen on this pedestrianized way, a successful, I think, pedestrianized, mall is what they call it. And, but, you know, little did I know, that, in, in at that very same time, there was a process and underway in, Burlington to actually redesign, to develop new design manuals for their streets.
00:30:22:17 - 00:30:54:14
Sara Bronin
And what was interesting about what Burlington did is that they also, integrated into the design manual, green infrastructure. So essentially stormwater management, that might be landscaping. It well, in Berlin, in this case, it was, basically setting aside space within the public right of way for tree wells for, rain gardens. And that's really smart, because if you think about Street, they're the single biggest, you know, paving source of paving impervious coverage in our and our cities.
00:30:54:17 - 00:31:20:17
Sara Bronin
And they contribute significantly to our ability to not manage stormwater. So in the er in the era of increased precipitation of rising waters, and we definitely see that there is, a need for, for jurisdictions to take a look at their streets. So I, I was glad to kind of connect our walk there in Burlington to some of the city processes that were underway.
00:31:20:17 - 00:31:32:28
Sara Bronin
And, I look forward to that. My next visit there, I was there two years ago, and then I, I like to keep track to see how much of the city they've actually done. So.
00:31:33:01 - 00:31:44:22
John Simmerman
And, and to put this in context for the audience, too, I mean, the location of this area of Burlington relative to Lake Champlain is part of what we're talking about. Yeah.
00:31:44:22 - 00:31:47:11
Sara Bronin
Because, oh, go ahead.
00:31:47:14 - 00:31:51:02
John Simmerman
I, I was just gonna say the pollution effect, which is what we're I think we're going to go on that.
00:31:51:07 - 00:32:26:29
Sara Bronin
Yes. So the EPA had required, the city to, develop some kind of plan to manage the stormwater, which, was running along these streets and picking up all the contamination that streets have and, dumping all of that into the lake. And obviously, this is problematic, but, for a number of reasons. I mean, for the habitat, for, aquatic life, for the city's, ability to, to access from a recreation standpoint, maybe even from a drinking water standpoint, clean water.
00:32:27:02 - 00:32:51:18
Sara Bronin
But, the street redesign project was, I think, a very innovative and important, response to that knowledge that the lake was polluted. And hopefully again, over time, it might actually have a real effect of maintaining some of that polluted runoff in, within the city itself, allowing the new landscaping to process that.
00:32:51:20 - 00:33:20:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. And one of the things that I've been seeing too, recently in North America, and I've also documented this in Europe, too, is the integration of building out more enhanced, more safe and inviting active mobility infrastructure, and then also integrating an opportunity for, rain gardens and paving efforts and using more permeable pavers to be able to soak up some of that.
00:33:20:24 - 00:33:50:22
John Simmerman
So, not only are we trying to make it safer and more inviting, and encourage people to participate in active mobility, a much more, environmental friendly process. But then also looking at opportunities, can we do some paving strategically here and, and bring in some rain, rain garden aspect and some greening aspect of it? You you have an entire chapter to talk a little bit about, nature.
00:33:50:22 - 00:34:02:03
John Simmerman
And you, you channel a very special tree, in, in your book, what did you talk about? This very special tree that you profiled in the book.
00:34:02:05 - 00:34:35:21
Sara Bronin
Well, well, just to say that, you know, the Charter Oak, tree which was in front of my house in Hartford, in the. And there it is, in the city's, actually the country's oldest public park, Bushnell Park. And it's exactly the tree in the park and next to the state capitol. So my my, where I right there, looks out onto this tree, and it just reminded me really every day about the beauty of trees, the beauty of this specific tree, but also the environmental impacts.
00:34:35:21 - 00:35:02:18
Sara Bronin
And if you squint, you can see a little sign there that, is a sign during one of the tree commissions, public relations weeks, that talks about the benefits of the tree to the city in terms of cleaner air and so on. So that, tree, I think there's not that many huge, magnificent specimen trees in our cities today.
00:35:02:21 - 00:35:37:12
Sara Bronin
But there are lots of, of ordinary trees. There's a lot of trees that make up, a city's forest. And, in my view, zoning codes can be harnessed to actually help to reinforce, the forest that's there and actually create new forest. So, things like requiring new development to have a certain number of street trees, certain number of onsite trees, to require native or, naturally occurring trees, to, requires a certain amount of green space as opposed to paving.
00:35:37:15 - 00:36:00:01
Sara Bronin
All of these things are strategies that a zoning code can use to help to green a city for Hartford, a city that has lost many of its urban trees, especially street trees, meaning trees that line the street. It's especially important to to boost that. And we certainly did that through the zoning curve. Yeah.
00:36:00:03 - 00:36:22:10
John Simmerman
And and this brings us back around to, to public health once again, because we know that having access to nature and green places is very good for health. On a societal level, as well as from an individual level, both long term in terms of chronic disease, but also just from a sense of well-being.
00:36:22:12 - 00:36:42:12
Sara Bronin
Certainly. And we've also seen, in addition to what you just said, studies that show that the existence of trees actually reduces, crime, the incidence of crime in certain neighborhoods, because perhaps it provides that sense of, of calm, it provides a respite from, the concrete that we see in too many of our cities and in key to the city.
00:36:42:12 - 00:36:59:10
Sara Bronin
I really do try to make the point that zoning is one of the ways that we might actually create more beautiful cities, more delightful cities. And I think it's hard to to argue that, a tree lined street isn't, a potential part of that.
00:36:59:13 - 00:37:29:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now, we mentioned earlier that that you spent some time in, in Austin and, you actually were in Austin earlier this year for the Yimby conference, and, and you, did a little presentation about the zoning atlas and all of that. So I did want to pull up something that is is near and dear to our hearts as we're looking at trying to make Columbus Avenue a little more of a pleasant environment, a little less of a traffic sewer.
00:37:29:27 - 00:38:00:17
John Simmerman
This is actually being proposed by the, the City of Austin Transportation, Public Works Department. And it's it's the possibility of reimagining what Congress Avenue could be and should be. And, some of the images that we have, you know, on screen here, are really leaning into the aspect especially closer to the capital, where the number of motor vehicle trips decreases dramatically.
00:38:00:17 - 00:38:42:02
John Simmerman
There's just not very many motor vehicles actually driving through that space is reimagining whether it could be more of a pedestrian friendly, bike friendly, or maybe even, a pedestrian only plaza type park, or maybe a flex park, or it doesn't have to be, you know, just 100%, you know, bike impaired. From a zoning perspective, when I was reading that chapter on Burlington and, and thinking about how many of the pedestrian pedestrianized malls that we saw in the 1970s fail, it seems to me that it's incredibly important from a zoning perspective.
00:38:42:02 - 00:38:58:13
John Simmerman
And what the surrounding buildings are doing and are allowed to do from a zoning perspective really matter a lot as to whether this becomes a successful, street successful plaza. Any thoughts on that?
00:38:58:16 - 00:39:40:07
Sara Bronin
You know, I think that that is, so for Austin. So first of all, good job. Austin. I'm glad that Congress Avenue, which has been a bit of a, in some ways it has turned into a strode, especially south of the river. And I'm not sure that anybody had that, in mind necessarily. And, and but yet, you see, South Congress and I don't know if this is extending to South Congress being a place where people like to walk and, you know, go to Guerras and go to the shops and, I think, you know, it's it's a, it's increased popularity as a destination I hope has inspired
00:39:40:07 - 00:39:45:11
Sara Bronin
and I hope will actually support, this project getting, over the finish line.
00:39:45:13 - 00:40:14:19
John Simmerman
So, so this will be primarily from, Cesar Chavez Street, up to, yeah. Up to to seventh and then seventh to 11, will be the, the plaza area. But it is interesting if we take a look at this existing versus proposed sort of delineation of what the quote unquote street is for, we can see that, you know, as we start looking at the possibility of a proposed redesign, Congress Avenue starts to become more of a street for people.
00:40:14:23 - 00:40:38:28
Sara Bronin
Yeah. I mean, you look at what Mayor Hidalgo has done in Paris and, you know, that might be some what Austin is leaning towards here. I mean, these blocks from Cesar Chavez to Seventh Street, a lot of those blocks are actually filled with office, uses and, you know, office buildings that not all of them, but there are going to be definite gaps in terms of the uses on the adjacent streets.
00:40:38:28 - 00:41:16:00
Sara Bronin
And, you know, maybe the active, the activation, that you might see, in an area that is actually more like South Congress where you have, you know, more little shops and more sort of, activities. So, it I mean, just going back to your point about the the uses that are on the that align, this new street design, I, you know, it will be important to continue to take a look at those uses because you don't want a situation where somebody will argue that the street redesign and this massive investment failed because people aren't using it.
00:41:16:02 - 00:41:32:05
Sara Bronin
And could it be that people aren't using it because the land use hasn't been updated? And there is to I know, I know, there's, there's some shops and, and, you know, museum type places, but, I just, I do think that's a, it's something that the city needs to keep an eye on.
00:41:32:07 - 00:41:41:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know, is there anything that we haven't talked about yet about the book that you'd really like to leave the active towns audience with?
00:41:41:19 - 00:42:04:12
Sara Bronin
Gosh. Let's see, we talked about housing. We talked about transportation. We talked a bit about the environment, which I do think is an extremely important part of this. I don't want to go back to maybe your own background in public health, if we if that's okay. And to to speak to once more that the, the public health implications of zoning.
00:42:04:15 - 00:42:27:06
Sara Bronin
So we've talked a little bit about the driving aspect and the lack of walking. But I and key to the city, I also focus on, on Baltimore, a city that has seen, it was is a post-industrial city, like lots of, eastern, northeastern cities, and had huge swaths of its community, devoted to manufacturing purposes.
00:42:27:06 - 00:42:59:15
Sara Bronin
The same was true in Hartford, where, along our entire river, like many cities along the Connecticut River and other great rivers in New England, had entirely industrial uses. And I do, you know, want to recognize that part of the history of zoning is also the the industrial uses located next to environmental justice communities, the industrial uses located in, next to rivers, cutting people off from that source of recreation and that access to nature.
00:42:59:17 - 00:43:20:19
Sara Bronin
And these are legacy impacts of zoning, legacy impacts of the way cities developed. And that is another thing, especially that older cities need to, to take, look at. So I would I would put that on the list of, of things that, are important implications of zoning that we might, that we might not have, passed over.
00:43:20:24 - 00:43:51:07
Sara Bronin
And similarly to there's a chapter, chapter seven in the book about about agriculture. So whether it's access to urban agriculture, so growing your own food, which is a healthy, enterprise, or whether it's rural zoning that allows for, commercial agricultural feeding operations, which are catastrophic in terms of public health or people living around them. That's an issue that we have not talked about enough in mainstream conversations about zoning.
00:43:51:07 - 00:44:18:14
Sara Bronin
When zoning gets talked about a 100% of the time about housing, but connecting zoning to our food system, connecting zoning to these other, sort of, I guess, site specific, effects, where neighbors are at, suffer from pollution, post industrial, after effects, commercial agricultural feeding operations and the pig farms and the stench and the runoff.
00:44:18:14 - 00:44:32:26
Sara Bronin
And it's just really bad. You know, those are things that we need to talk about more. So I'll put those little, thoughts in your readers minds, and hope that they, they dig into the book and see how it does connect to public health.
00:44:32:29 - 00:44:51:20
John Simmerman
Well, and I love that you did have that chapter in there on on agriculture. I actually grew up on a ranch in Northern California, about two miles outside of my little town of Lincoln, California, that, at the time was only like 4000 people. It's a very, very small town. But here in Austin, we try to grow our own food.
00:44:51:25 - 00:45:11:20
John Simmerman
We actually, you know, have a little cottage, a little 700ft, 1946 cottage that's, walking and biking distance to downtown. But we try to have our own little garden and we try to grow our own food. And we had backyard chickens for the longest time as well. And so it just made me smile. And it's like, oh, yeah, that's that's a big part of it, too.
00:45:11:20 - 00:45:25:00
John Simmerman
In. You're absolutely right. We don't even think about that, that that is oftentimes included in those in those zoning areas. And, it shouldn't be illegal to be able to grow your own food for yourself or your neighbors.
00:45:25:03 - 00:45:40:20
Sara Bronin
Yeah. And then the book, I use Boston as an example of this highly urbanized city that actually has some pretty great, urban agriculture provisions. So, for anyone interested in that, check out the books. Journey into Boston.
00:45:40:23 - 00:46:06:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Well, I highly recommend everybody, you know, pick up your own copy of key to the city. I do have it out here on, the Active Towns bookshop, and, it's it's a fabulous read. I didn't find it at all. You know, it's one of those dry books that you open up that's, about zoning and and and and it also was very positive.
00:46:06:08 - 00:46:32:13
John Simmerman
I liked the fact, because it also can get very negative very fast. When we look at the historical context of zoning, I mean, we don't have to look very far here in Austin to see how zoning was used, as a kludge and of, of segregation and, you know, and really, really, you know, negative aspects. So I really appreciated the fact that the book was so positive and gave some uplifting stories of what is possible.
00:46:32:19 - 00:47:08:23
Sara Bronin
And I think that that kind of positivity is, well warranted for a world that we all live in where, you know, we have constant uncertainty, constant, you know, a polarized nation. And maybe not always that what can I do in my own communities? I hope that as people look to, the things that they can change, the zoning which takes place at the local level and arguably one of the most accessible yet inaccessible powers of local government, with huge impacts.
00:47:08:25 - 00:47:26:14
Sara Bronin
That's why I wrote this book. I wrote this book to arm people with information, that they can use in their own communities. And, for people who want to do something out in the world. I hope it I hope it provides some, some guidance, some fortification and maybe some, some hope that that change is possible.
00:47:26:16 - 00:48:02:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And if you'll indulge me, I will actually read your your final paragraph in the book. It says, to be sure, zoning is not the only tool that matters. History, time, wealth, geography and countless other factors will shape how communities evolve and development and develop. But while good zoning is not sufficient, it is necessary. Most important is something that we control, and I think that is a wonderful way to end this, because it does give us that sense of this is something that we can control.
00:48:02:11 - 00:48:19:22
John Simmerman
This is something that we can do. So get involved, folks. Get get a copy of the book, get involved at the local level. Because that's where zoning really is controlled, is at the local level. Sarah, this has been such a joy and pleasure having you on the Active Towns podcast. Thank you so much.
00:48:19:24 - 00:48:21:19
Sara Bronin
Thanks so much for having me.
00:48:21:21 - 00:48:36:15
John Simmerman
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00:48:36:22 - 00:48:56:11
John Simmerman
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00:48:56:13 - 00:49:15:23
John Simmerman
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00:49:15:23 - 00:49:27:17
John Simmerman
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