Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:09 - 00:00:29:22
Ross Chapin
We're not just building physical places. We're shaping the conditions for human connection. We're creating environments at a scale that, that fosters spontaneous engagement. When design really works. It's not about the object. It's not about the shiny new style curb appeal. It's about what does it call forward right? That's that's the key right there. Yeah.

00:00:29:25 - 00:00:51:21
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns channel. My name is John Cinnamon and that is Ross Chapman. Back again to talk about pocket neighborhoods. Of the first time in video format. In the podcast format. Super, super excited to share this message. But before we get into that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador.

00:00:51:24 - 00:01:09:28
John Simmerman
It's super easy to do. You can just hit the join button right here on YouTube down below. You can leave a YouTube super thanks. Or you can navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there's several different options. Okay, let's get right into the conversation about pocket neighborhoods and why they matter with Ross Chapman.

00:01:10:00 - 00:01:15:09
John Simmerman
Now.

00:01:15:11 - 00:01:19:14
John Simmerman
Ross, thank you so much for joining me once again on the Active Towns podcast.

00:01:19:16 - 00:01:42:29
Ross Chapin
John, it's great to be back with you. You know, I've been thinking about this conversation for since I don't know when. It's been a long time, and in some ways the idea hasn't changed, but I think the need for them has gotten clearer. And your conversation and what you bring you together, it just seems to me we're at a new place in the round of this, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and yeah, how this goes.

00:01:43:01 - 00:01:57:27
John Simmerman
Well, again, it's it's such a joy and pleasure having you on the channel once again. I'm going to turn the tables over to you for about 30s to just give, a quick little introduction. Who is Ross Chapman?

00:01:57:29 - 00:02:23:28
Ross Chapin
Sure. I'm, an architect. I'm a land planner. I, I've written a book called Pocket Neighborhoods creating small Scale Community in a large scale World. I live on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, and a town, not very large. Less than 1500 people. And, somewhat near the big city, though, so I'm able to get in as needed.

00:02:24:00 - 00:02:25:19
Ross Chapin
That's that's the first round.

00:02:25:24 - 00:02:27:19
John Simmerman
That's in a nutshell. But there.

00:02:27:19 - 00:02:30:03
Ross Chapin
You go. The first. Yeah. The first. Yeah, yeah.

00:02:30:05 - 00:03:04:24
John Simmerman
And as I mentioned, welcome back because you have been on the podcast before. In the era that was the pre video era. When I was just producing audio only, back in season two, episode number 76, we can see a younger version of you right there. Boom. Clean, clean shaven at that point in time. And that was so much fun because that actually, gave us an opportunity to reconnect, sort of in the pandemic era, you know, that was back.

00:03:04:26 - 00:03:29:00
John Simmerman
It like I said, in season two, that was back in the the early 2020, 2021 range. But you and I had met and have filmed together, prior to that because we filmed, a classic Active Towns video, the Pocket Neighborhoods video, we filmed that way back in, 2017. Talk a little bit about that.

00:03:29:00 - 00:03:30:16
Ross Chapin
It wasn't really that long ago.

00:03:30:16 - 00:03:34:25
John Simmerman
That was seeing you back in, seeing you. Seattle. That was 2017.

00:03:35:01 - 00:03:36:24
Ross Chapin
If Congress for the New Urbanism.

00:03:36:25 - 00:03:38:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:38:16 - 00:03:57:28
Ross Chapin
You know, what I loved about that is that you hooked up a mic to me. I didn't even know you were filming. I didn't know, you know, you were there. I was just chatting with people. And what I loved about it is that we were in one of the places that I helped create. I was a co developer, designer.

00:03:57:28 - 00:04:19:24
Ross Chapin
We worked with the city and creating, a demonstration code, and we talked about the essence, the heart of it, with the people who were there. So, here I am seeing that, you know, we're walking up to, one of the porches, and we can look around to the, to the other ones. Maybe you can you click the sound on here?

00:04:19:26 - 00:04:23:20
John Simmerman
Oh, yeah. Let's let's do that. Let's pop on over here. Let's turn the sound up.

00:04:23:21 - 00:04:45:08
Ross Chapin
Personal space allows for, community to not be sort of a front of in your face. Julie, how is it like living here? And what do you. What would you want to share? Anything. I love she was one of the, neighbors right there, particularly because it's so beautiful.

00:04:45:10 - 00:04:59:07
Julie - Pocket Neighborhood Resident
It's a real oasis. And, we have great neighbors. It's a nice, small community. There are 16 houses here. I've lived here almost 11 years now.

00:04:59:10 - 00:05:31:25
John Simmerman
And, yeah, it this was such a fun experience. And I know that, you know, for you, it was it was a kind of a pivotal moment, too, because nobody else had filmed it quite the way that I filmed it for that. And so that classic video for years was out on Vimeo, and you had a link out on your website to, to that Vimeo, and it racked up thousands and thousands of views.

00:05:31:27 - 00:05:52:27
John Simmerman
It now resides. I recut it and put a new version of it out on YouTube. And that's where what what what? This video is here. You know, we're we're looking at the, the YouTube version of that, that video. And so it lives on in a new sort of iteration. The Vimeo, doesn't, exist anymore.

00:05:53:03 - 00:06:17:03
John Simmerman
We had to pull that one down, for a variety of different complicated technical reasons. But, talk about that experience of, of and how that kind of pivoted things because it did enable with that video sitting out on your website. It gave people a different way of experiencing what you were trying to communicate about pocket neighborhoods.

00:06:17:04 - 00:06:43:12
Ross Chapin
Sure, sure. You know, we can take in things, images, static images are powerful. You know, a picture is a thousand words. But I remember when, the publishers of Taunton Press were talking with me about writing this book, and, Sarah Sue Sankar, who wrote, they're not creating the not so big house. Not a big house series, a lot of things.

00:06:43:18 - 00:07:12:28
Ross Chapin
She really push the editors of the publishers of Taunton to have me write the book on, pocket neighborhoods. And it was. I remember when the, the main publisher from Taunton came out, and we spent a couple of days in the Seattle area and walking out of probably right here, Conover Commons and Danielson Grove. He said, you know, I've seen these pictures, but walking through it is a whole other story.

00:07:13:00 - 00:07:40:12
Ross Chapin
And that is just really powerful. So in between the actual walking through it and a static picture, you come in, John, and you film us walking through it in a conversation, and it's the second best to being there. And the challenging thing is that because, of all the media attention that this has gotten, people find out about it.

00:07:40:15 - 00:08:02:16
Ross Chapin
They they come in, they because they've seen it, they feel like a little bit like they own it. Right? And so they'll step up on the porches and we'll look in the windows and see, oh, hello there. And shake. And it's like, oh. And I really respect the privacy of the people that, that we build for. And so we don't tell people where they are.

00:08:02:19 - 00:08:08:16
Ross Chapin
We said there's a lot of photos, there's your video. And that's the best we're going to do now.

00:08:08:19 - 00:08:36:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. What has really transpired in happened in that period of time from 2017 to the 2020, 2021 realm? What is really, I think, changed about this movement in pocket neighborhoods. I mean, obviously there have been more of them, but yeah, what else? What else has really fundamentally changed? Yeah.

00:08:36:22 - 00:09:08:25
Ross Chapin
Yeah, Doug, we've had Covid. Kim came about and we didn't realize, up until then, the importance of sociability. You know, we've isolated ourselves more and more and more over the decades. It's the American dream, to have your own independent home. And the best thing is when you when you open the curtain and you don't see a neighbor, you know, you've got your own little place in the world, and it's wonderful.

00:09:08:28 - 00:09:50:06
Ross Chapin
And that's you're you're showing, you know, the world and what that is. Yeah. Covid came along and we realized that that sociability is critical to our well-being. Sociability is part of our nature. We are, We need to be around others. And let's not all go on that direction, because too much community can be claustrophobic. And so there's a balance where you've got a balance with, enough privacy and the designed for privacy and the kind of, the neighborly sensibility that and the ease that that interactions can happen in the flow of daily life.

00:09:50:09 - 00:10:21:26
Ross Chapin
So that's what I think came about. I think the desire to live in, a more supportive setting has really taken hold across the country. We're seeing we're seeing interest everywhere in the country. Forget about red state. Blue state. Forget about even different parts of the country. I mean, we're doing, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, South America.

00:10:21:28 - 00:10:43:10
Ross Chapin
Across the country, from rural to suburban to urban. And I think the notion of how we come together in small groups in a supportive setting makes makes a difference. Pause on this one for a moment. Because I think this is key if you want to go ahead to your question, but I think we're touching in on something is just absolutely critical here.

00:10:43:13 - 00:11:15:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. I what I was going to do, in fact, we'll go back, a slide here to, to what we saw on on this. You know, series of photos that sort of emerge here is this reminds me a lot of the historic sort of courtyard apartment, situation that I remember as a very, very young child, living in Southern California, not far from Pasadena.

00:11:15:03 - 00:11:38:16
John Simmerman
You know, I'm fourth generation Los Angelino, and so, I think my great grandmother, lived in, in a similar type of, of little courtyard apartment. Talk a little bit about that historic context of this modern interpretation of of, you know, that those clustering and that creating of the shared space in the center.

00:11:38:19 - 00:12:05:20
Ross Chapin
Well, it's interesting because I hadn't heard of, the bungalow courts in Pasadena. I've heard Bungalow Court, but I just I really wasn't aware of the history. And back in the mid 80s, I think it was 1984. I was a newly minted, architect, and, there was a competition called The New American House. And I said, well, let's explore this.

00:12:05:21 - 00:12:45:20
Ross Chapin
And I created a cluster of six townhomes around a shared court, and it was one of the winners to the competition. Fast forward, mid 1990s and Whidbey Island and is very attractive to retirees. It's very attractive to people from LA, from California moving out of California to this, you know, almost idyllic setting. And the zoning that was in place that enabled that encourage that created the homes was straight out of the 1970s and 80s, you know, the Buick in the garage.

00:12:45:22 - 00:13:17:20
Ross Chapin
It's it's hits the, suburban zoning. And yet, most of the people and literally most 60% of people in our little tiny town were one and two person households, single women, empty nesters. You know, young couples. And the zoning didn't, didn't jive. And so I was part of the conversation and with the city planner came up with a new code called the Cottage Housing Ordinance.

00:13:17:22 - 00:14:01:05
Ross Chapin
And it suggested, small homes limited in size around it. A court with parking that's friendly, that's tucked in. What I didn't know is that the, the inspiration for the code came from, Seattle Court that was banned at the 1917, 1918, which came from Pasadena in the past. So what happened in 1910, 1911 is that there's a big influx of people from the east coming into Southern California, and they came up with an approach where the people arriving could have instant community in a small setting.

00:14:01:07 - 00:14:30:24
Ross Chapin
And so they would they would settle into their small home with a garden court and, within a walkable neighborhood. And they were this is the 1910 through the 19 tens. And, it took off at one point. Pasadena, I think, had 7% of all of its residents living in Cottage Court. That's how popular they were. And then it went from there all over California and then all over the country and so on.

00:14:30:24 - 00:14:57:12
Ross Chapin
A lot of the, the, towns and cities around the country that were built in the era of maybe 1920s would have cottage courts. They moved from cottages, bungalows to apartment courts. When when the automobile era came in, they decided, instead of they would travel up to, say, San Francisco. And the car travelers would need to stop along the way.

00:14:57:12 - 00:15:19:27
Ross Chapin
Usually they would stop in like a campground and they would like, you know, bring the car in. And some guy said, oh, well, let's take the bungalow court idea and let's make a motor motor court, right? Yeah, yeah. And when they were, when the sign maker was out there saying something, something motor court hotel, the sign maker said, I don't have enough room.

00:15:19:29 - 00:15:22:11
Ross Chapin
How about if we call it a motel.

00:15:22:14 - 00:15:23:17
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah.

00:15:23:20 - 00:15:29:14
Ross Chapin
Yeah. It's stuck. It's stuck. So the motels came out of the bungalow. Cottage courts?

00:15:29:16 - 00:16:15:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Anyways, I thought that that I mean, this series of images. And the first time that we had, our conversation, again way back in the pandemic era, made me remember you know, my early, early childhood and, you know, brushing shoulders with many of those courts. But this is one of the powerful aspects of of having these types of living situations is that we we create a little bit more cohesiveness and sociability, talk a little bit about, you know, why this is such a powerful concept and why this, particular image is so powerful for us to share about what a pocket neighborhood is or could be.

00:16:15:18 - 00:16:38:13
Ross Chapin
This this I was I was looking for a long time for an image that captured what this is all about. So we we know that sociability is wired into our human nature. We love to chat. We tell stories. We reminisce, we argue, we laugh, you know, in small groups. This is spontaneous. And, you click on that the next one.

00:16:38:13 - 00:17:01:12
Ross Chapin
And so that will will come up. I'll ask you to do a couple things up I guess. Back up. Never mind. Back up one more. So, you know, this is people gathered around a table. Know, I guess you got to go through this. So people are gathered around that table, and when you take a look at the it, you're a little closer where conversations are happening.

00:17:01:15 - 00:17:38:29
Ross Chapin
They're in small groups. You know, you've got 2 or 3 people, maybe four either side across the table. This, sense of small groups is, is the scale of sociability. And so if the table, metaphorically is the block, the pocket neighborhoods are the the neighbors right around one another where it's kind of like, this is your slipper neighbors, you know, you go out to the pick up the newspaper or the mail and, you see your neighbor and it's all completely informal and it's spontaneous.

00:17:39:01 - 00:18:02:21
Ross Chapin
So somebody might gather the table to sing. You know, a birthday song or raise your toast. That's the larger. And it's got to be organized. But when you settle down into it, it's the chats that happen without effort. That's just the key. Without effort. And it's the scale of sociability that makes that happen. Right, right. So move, move along to where it goes from here.

00:18:02:28 - 00:18:03:15
Ross Chapin
Yeah.

00:18:03:18 - 00:18:36:19
John Simmerman
That's I think that that's really important to understand too. Is that in in any kind of mentioned it earlier is humans are a social species. I mean, we really are. And part of the reason why I think that this is so incredibly relevant to, to active towns, too, is you we we have this kind of, you know, opportunity to create more sociability by being out there and being having just natural.

00:18:36:19 - 00:19:04:05
John Simmerman
You mentioned it there with, you know, that that slipper sort of thing where, you know, you're out checking your mail or whatever in your slippers, etc., and you have these kind of conversations, you know, with those nearby neighbors. I kind of see that the same thing happening when we are encouraging, we're building cities and communities where we encourage more people to get out the door and be active without just getting into a car.

00:19:04:07 - 00:19:07:06
John Simmerman
So there's more opportunity for that. Let's talk about the.

00:19:07:07 - 00:19:30:28
Ross Chapin
Framing of scale. Yeah. Well, this is the taking the that table notion and bringing it into a little closer reality. You've got, duplex, a couple of doors, broad steps, and, it's a place that invites people to hang out. It it happens at this level of scale, the small level of scale. Go on to the next one.

00:19:31:00 - 00:19:54:24
Ross Chapin
It's it's this is where, people are on a first name basis. If there's a need, you recognize it or you have a need, you ask for help, shift to the next one. And this is a series of three. So you've got maybe a single person with a cat. She's goes off traveling. Her cat's fine.

00:19:54:27 - 00:20:30:00
Ross Chapin
Yeah, yeah. Or a mom. You know, she's just arrived home from, the store or the kids are tired. She's getting on me, and. Oh, my God, I forgot my my purse or whatever. And you're nearby. A neighbor can either cover for you or can go back to the store and, you know, pick that up. Or when I was visiting, this, the bungalow court in Pasadena, there was a conversation with these two folks, the elderly guy was thinking about trimming his hedge, and his other neighbor came out and said, Joe, you know, I've got you here.

00:20:30:02 - 00:21:00:26
Ross Chapin
You're covered. So in, in a small setting, these just it just happens. It's what we do. So the next slide, that you get into talks about, the, the in the world format that we have in developed America. And unfortunately, around in other parts of suburban the world, Australia is that example, a good example of this anti-pattern?

00:21:00:28 - 00:21:18:08
Ross Chapin
You've got a public street and a private street. But look at the public. You've got a street and you've got your fronted with garage doors and, formal living room that nobody uses. And you come home and you retreat to your little backyard. It's your relief from the world. Go to the next one.

00:21:18:10 - 00:21:47:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Just to clarify for us, you've got this public street, and then you have your private realm, your private backyard. And and these are like these sanctuaries. And so I like to say, from an active towns perspective, because we're driving everywhere for everything. You know, we're we're getting into our hermetically sealed metal boxes with wheels and driving, you know, from our hermetically sealed homes.

00:21:47:12 - 00:22:28:22
John Simmerman
And you know, that insert humanoid via, you know, automobile. You drive into the driveway. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Drive in. You're right. Exactly. And you don't see that neighborliness happening as much because of not just the design of the street network and the cul de sac kind of approach, but even the architecture of the homes. We see here that what we're, what we are accommodating is, you know, a lot, you know, from the front is a lot of car space, you know, a three car garage, a two car garage.

00:22:28:24 - 00:22:50:05
John Simmerman
If an alien was coming down from an out other planet, they'd be like, this is a very, very strange, you know, species. They they drive around in these things, and then they obviously love these things so much. These machines, they sleep with them. They go into the home. And then you never see anybody out there. And I say never.

00:22:50:05 - 00:23:18:29
John Simmerman
It's not completely true. One of the things that we do see from this environment of a cul de sac type of public street is we'll oftentimes see, because again, there's not a high motor vehicle volumes and speeds in this particular type of environment. If you're lucky enough to be in the bulb of the cul de sac or in the cul de sac, is we will see a little bit of life drifting out into the cul de sac.

00:23:18:29 - 00:23:40:06
John Simmerman
Maybe the kids have a basketball hoop down at the end of it, and there's a little bit of street play that happens. And that's like the, the kind of the only chance of it. But for the most part, we've deemphasize the front yards. We've d we've sort of said, oh, it's our backyards where in our private realm where we maybe socialize.

00:23:40:06 - 00:24:00:29
John Simmerman
Maybe if we do have a street barbecue, it's like, everybody resist me or, you know, kind of goes cloisters into their own individual private backyards. So I just wanted to to emphasize that and will bring that connection back to how this, you know, what we're going to be talking about is so relevant to active towns, to.

00:24:01:01 - 00:24:23:07
Ross Chapin
I want to point out a couple things. One is I don't want to be completely down on, you know, this suburban model. I remember as a kid visiting my cousins in the Bay area, and they lived in a California cul de sac suburb. The kids were having all kinds of fun out on the street. And, there are other places that I know.

00:24:23:07 - 00:24:40:25
Ross Chapin
I've got another cousin in Texas, and the people in the college sac really formed a bond, and they'd go off camping together and they would have parties. They would they would have a a day where they would, like a Friday evening in the summer and they'd bring out, tents and they'd put them in the middle cul de sac in a barbecue.

00:24:40:25 - 00:25:03:13
Ross Chapin
And it's it can happen. We're again, we're assuming we're human, but but what happens is that the kids grow up, they move away, so they boomerang. They come back because they can't afford to live out in the world. So they come here and they they live in their old bedroom. But by and large, the kids grow up, they move away, and you've got, empty nesters.

00:25:03:16 - 00:25:45:21
Ross Chapin
The dogs are another way in which we're sociable. We walk our dogs, we engage with people. You know what? The dogs don't live that long. They die. The point is that is that we are these elements bring us together until they don't. But the places themselves don't encourage connectivity by by their structure. When you think about, the automobile, about the neighborhoods that were done in the teens and 20s and maybe 40s, where you had porches, pre thermostat era, pre television era, you had porches that had a reality that had a real need.

00:25:45:24 - 00:26:09:25
Ross Chapin
And so it was the porch culture onto a street. You see somebody walking by, you're gonna say hi, you're gonna wave or their neighbor, you're going to nod. What what's happened in the 60s and 70s and 80s is that we completely turned the house around, and we didn't. Most of us didn't realize it.

00:26:09:27 - 00:26:37:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and part of the context of turning the house around is that when we do look at some of the housing that took wood that was built pre World War two, many of them were on sort of historic grid networks of streets. Many of them were fed by an alleyway. So if there was a garage it was probably accessed from the alley.

00:26:37:22 - 00:27:01:05
John Simmerman
And so or if or if you had a driveway in the front of the house, maybe the driveway went past the house into the backyard. And you had a garage back in that era. And, and so there was a little bit of, of a, emphasis on, you know, the front of the house and a little bit more of an emphasis on that front porch aspect of it.

00:27:01:11 - 00:27:10:11
John Simmerman
And you mentioned pre thermostat area era. Explain that a little bit more why pre thermostat area era for a front porch.

00:27:10:18 - 00:27:37:11
Ross Chapin
Well it's hot. You hang out on the porch. You got a breeze. I grew up in a home that was from 1903 and it had a big wraparound porch. And our beds were out there all summer long, all the way up until this was in Minnesota, all the way up until the first snow came. My mom would bring would bring hot bricks in, in socks, and put them into our bed about a half an hour ahead of time.

00:27:37:14 - 00:28:04:14
Ross Chapin
So. And porches were the place where neighbors are hanging out. There's, conversation that goes on into the evening. They're active. They're real. They're big enough. They. It's their room sized. And that that was a huge difference in the lifestyle when thermostats came along. The porch is really a place to maybe take your boots off and get inside because, there's no need.

00:28:04:14 - 00:28:22:18
Ross Chapin
It's cooler inside. There's no whatever. Same thing with the television. You know, when? Before the television. Maybe people had a radio. But people were more in in the field with each other rather than zoomed around the flickering tube.

00:28:22:20 - 00:28:52:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And what's what I love about, you know, again, the, the, the pocket neighborhoods in this emphasis on creating an environment where a, a very ample and generous front porch is then fronting into a shared space area. You've got this labeled as sort of that intermediate zone, that takes place that's immediately in front of that little, space that you have in front of the cottage, you know, courtyard.

00:28:53:01 - 00:29:20:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. Or a house or whatever, you know, dwelling there. And this is very, analogous to what we saw in many of the houses, again, pre-World War II, two that had ample front porches and maybe the street had a sidewalk there. You you know, if you're walking down to the corner store or the market, you know, the pharmacy, whatever you're passing by, I see you on the front porch and say, hey, Roz, how's it gone?

00:29:20:05 - 00:29:31:08
John Simmerman
We pause and we chat, and we have that conversation that's happening on the sidewalk. You're in your front porch area, or maybe you're tending to your roses in your front garden. So yeah, you know.

00:29:31:08 - 00:29:44:03
Ross Chapin
Yeah. So this is this is the key in terms of structure. So the earlier slide had clear private public.

00:29:44:05 - 00:30:17:26
Ross Chapin
To share what park neighborhoods do is to take that and create the space in between this intermediate zone and, slip a couple of slides ahead and I'll just go in. So you would do this quickly? This is people chatting and these conversations that happen, informally, can grow into meaningful relationships. Kids, you head out the door, I think about, another situation where you head out the door and there's the busy street or a street and you don't know who's out there because nobody's looking on.

00:30:17:29 - 00:30:46:24
Ross Chapin
Or elders knowing that when there are others around, they are, they feel safe. And so it's a place for more free play with, children. Hold it there from a place for free play, where children can grow naturally with their own sense of internal development. The environment matches how they will grow naturally. Tensions arrive when we thwart that development.

00:30:46:26 - 00:31:15:03
Ross Chapin
You know, Johnny, you are not to go out the front door, you know, stay in here. Okay, well, that makes, mom, chauffeur and a gofer and a planner for play rather than having natural play, rather than having other, caring adults around, doing what, you know, helping parenting, or helping, engage and move the kids farther along.

00:31:15:05 - 00:31:15:19
Ross Chapin
In.

00:31:15:21 - 00:31:39:23
John Simmerman
Ross, if I could jump in real quick and say to, you know, telling the kids, well, no, it's not safe for you to go out there staying here. Also, in our modern era, it it's that much more likelihood that they're spending, you know, hour upon hour on their screens, you know, whether it's their phones or their iPads or something, you know, similar to that.

00:31:39:26 - 00:32:09:09
John Simmerman
And we wonder and again, you know, Jonathan Hite, in the Anxious Generation book that has recently come out and talked to about the negative externalities of, of kids, you know, spending so much time on social media and then that negative impact that they're having. So not only from a physical health perspective, because they're not out running around like we just saw with that, that youngster, dashing about and on on that little sidewalk area.

00:32:09:11 - 00:32:20:08
John Simmerman
But they're also from a mental health perspective, we're seeing major negative impacts on them. You know, spending time in a virtual world.

00:32:20:11 - 00:32:42:25
Ross Chapin
I you know, when I've been working on this over the years, and in the last five, six, seven years, this is a whole other world that I've, come to recognize as being probably more vital than anything. I focus on design. I'm an architect, I create spaces, I just, I just they're here. They have all the support.

00:32:42:27 - 00:33:18:29
Ross Chapin
Right? And metaphorically, that's the hardware. When people move in, they don't care about what's under the hood of a computer that's, you know, they're interested in. How does the what are the apps? What are the, the the tools that have to make my life work happy, engage what's engaging. That's the software metaphorically. And so I think that when we pay attention to that, we're really looking at how do we support well-being individually within households, between households and community.

00:33:19:01 - 00:33:29:22
Ross Chapin
And when we've got when we've got a continuity of scale, when we've got the environment meeting up from.

00:33:29:24 - 00:33:55:18
Ross Chapin
Real private, having a place to retreat, having a place to be with family in a way that is, is appropriate. Having a place to be with nearby neighbors, having a place for the neighbors, come together and stuff the scale up. Beyond that, then we have, I think, more, settled at home human beings which find their gifts to offer to the world.

00:33:55:20 - 00:34:19:28
Ross Chapin
We have people who are engaged in active towns, which means that they're engaged in the well-being and they're caring of the communities that they live in. When they are out, walking, they, and bicycling and engaging, they've got a place for, for for them to care and be engaged in, you know. Oh, gosh. You know, the couple of Dutch elms have died.

00:34:19:28 - 00:34:46:20
Ross Chapin
Let's see if we can replace these trees. Oh, you know, the kids really need a safe, way to school. Let's see if we can make this work. We've got conversation in places that are in the community. Civic conversations, which is the which is the heart of democracy. If we are in safe places, we can be meeting with people across our differences.

00:34:46:23 - 00:35:29:10
Ross Chapin
We can be meeting with people, to have authentic dialog. We can work out some of the differences. We can see new things. So the civic dimension, especially now when things have gotten so warped, absolutely warped, that our democracy is at risk. And this is a contribution, creating a structure that supports authenticity, that supports, humans, families, tribes, communities, towns connecting with each other and with the land itself in our world.

00:35:29:10 - 00:35:34:26
Ross Chapin
Now, this this is cannot be more important. Yeah.

00:35:34:28 - 00:35:40:06
John Simmerman
We had the public street and we had the intermediate zone, and now we have this.

00:35:40:08 - 00:35:42:25
Ross Chapin
Well, in many ways this can work.

00:35:42:27 - 00:35:47:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. And is this the also an intermediate zone or what is this, is this a semi-private zone.

00:35:47:21 - 00:36:22:15
Ross Chapin
You know what this is the I think this is a version of an authentic face to face conversation. You are holding something that you're inviting others to attend to. And yes, we're in a, in a, a dialog between two people, hopefully in a real way, asking real questions. And people gain what they can. So dovetail this with, sitting around a table with, friends and hey, I had saw this recording earlier today, and here's what I got from it.

00:36:22:15 - 00:36:34:00
Ross Chapin
Or here's a question so it this doesn't substitute, but it augments. And I think this is a good, good way.

00:36:34:02 - 00:37:03:20
Ross Chapin
My wife is a, my wife is, teaches an art process. And she used to do it all hands on in one place. The Covid came along, and what happened is that her traveling around the country and beyond, around the world to do this teaching of this process couldn't happen. And so she then began to have, her, workshops online.

00:37:03:20 - 00:37:19:09
Ross Chapin
And they were they were she created a field, a social space is what she describes it, where people are really coming to meet. It's not one person talking, lecturing, but it's coming to meet in an authentic way. And it continues to today. Wow.

00:37:19:15 - 00:37:51:12
John Simmerman
Well, I have an observation about this photo. Compared to the overhead photo of the typical suburban, more modern house where that front area is, is really, you know, it's that transition between, you know, the public street and then the private residence. And with the emphasis on the garages, we mentioned it, you know, insert humanoid in in hermetically sealed box into that.

00:37:51:15 - 00:38:20:28
John Simmerman
It's very car oriented. I look at this and say, this is very humanoid. This is people oriented. This is like an interface where, and it's not to say that these neighborhoods are anti-caa, you know, if we say the other one is car oriented development and, you know, the architecture is emphasizing, you know, the ability to easily drive your car into the back.

00:38:21:00 - 00:38:44:22
John Simmerman
I know that many of these developments have car parking and it, you know, it is possible to own a car. Yeah, they they all do. We are in North America after all. Hopefully we're in a situation where we can decouple parking minimums from being able to build meaningful, you know, places and desirable residences without having parking minimums.

00:38:44:24 - 00:39:20:25
John Simmerman
But what I want to emphasize here is that the architecture from the front porches to the, the, the, the private versus semi-private and the public realm, the, the grassy area there in the middle is seems like this is architecture that is people oriented and sociability oriented, wandering, wanting to build the hardware that makes it more possible for us to work on that, programing the software that enhances sociability, livability, connectedness with our neighbors.

00:39:20:28 - 00:40:10:14
Ross Chapin
That's right. I, the architecture in terms of the style doesn't matter. I naturally tend toward cottage style buildings. Growing up in Minnesota around all the Scandinavians, possibly. But the issue, I mean, here, we've got a, an apartment in, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and some graduate students decided to buy the apartment, and all the friends got together and they they basically tore up the parking lot in the back, and they created a lawn and, shade tree and picnic tables and the, their kids, grew up over their lifetimes in the backyard of an urban, apartment building three stories tall.

00:40:10:16 - 00:40:37:21
Ross Chapin
This is a pocket neighborhood. Yeah. Go to the next one. This a little sequence here? This is one of the, Danish co-housing communities. And what happens here is that they they park, away from the homes, and they come through this pedestrian walkway to their, to their homes. I think these are attached, duplexes, maybe.

00:40:37:21 - 00:40:40:19
Ross Chapin
Triplexes. This is a pocket neighborhood.

00:40:40:22 - 00:41:06:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. And this is this and this pedestrian lane. We call it a pedestrian lane. But we can also see that it's very, very conducive to be able to to ride one's bike. And we see this child, this child doing that. It's in slow. It's. Yeah, it's a slow speed zone. And you can see it's a natural surface zone to in my terminology this is a hardware activity asset.

00:41:06:02 - 00:41:22:07
John Simmerman
This is yeah. This encourages you know that that that behavior of hey of course we're going to get to that destination by walking or biking because there's a safe and inviting space for us to do so. The shared.

00:41:22:08 - 00:41:23:01
Ross Chapin
Hardware.

00:41:23:02 - 00:41:23:11
John Simmerman
Zone.

00:41:23:15 - 00:41:52:25
Ross Chapin
Yeah, the hardware either, supports or supports, you know, support sociability. It'll support a sense of personal space and dominant, personal space and, and, expression of your little, you know, private self and, but it could also, if it's another model, it could be a car oriented model, it could be an image oriented model, and that's towards connectivity.

00:41:52:27 - 00:42:20:07
Ross Chapin
And so this is all about how to support it. Now what happens among neighbors? I mean maybe you got kids who are acting out or you've got, you know, you I may be just totally enjoying my music, and I got some new speakers and I'm playing, really loudly and. Yeah, John, you just text me or knock on my door and say, hey, Ross, it's after 10:00.

00:42:20:07 - 00:42:50:20
Ross Chapin
I've got to get up and out in the morning. Can you just tone it down? You came to me because we are on a relational basis. If we are living in a condo with an HOA with, 65 others, you would call the property manager or call the police on me now, because this was the third time you've asked me and I wasn't listening, or I was saying to you, so that's the software issue.

00:42:50:20 - 00:43:25:15
Ross Chapin
And so how do you then create tools for the people who are living there that matches the hardware to handle the inevitable disputes, the differences that come up to make decisions? Because this is common ground, which means that we own this together. It needs maintenance. How do we do that? And how do we see that as opportunities for coming together, maybe on a weekly workday where you're out, you know, taking some weeds out and, kind of clearing some things and planting some flowers.

00:43:25:15 - 00:43:50:09
Ross Chapin
And we're chatting for, you know, maybe three hours just we're working away. And, later, somebody making a big pot of, of stone soup, adding things to it, and you get together with, good soup with bread, with kids playing. That's that's not a burden. That's not a task. That's not a work to do list. Yes, it is a to do list.

00:43:50:09 - 00:43:59:12
Ross Chapin
You're getting work done. But the essence of it is that we are finding ways, to to cultivate community together.

00:43:59:14 - 00:44:24:04
John Simmerman
Let's let's talk a little bit about, one aspect of the software that I, I bring in and I channel frequently here on the channel and that is, yes, this is, this is the hardware. This is these are activity assets that are built into the structure of the community. We've got walkable and bikeable facilities that are in place.

00:44:24:04 - 00:44:54:26
John Simmerman
That is the hardware. I can put a pin on a map and say, hey, I've got a wonderful pedestrian slash shared space lane here. We've got a protected bike lane over there. We've got a park over here. Those are the hardware aspects, the activity assets that I think of. On the software activity asset side. I also look at that ability to actually build the hardware in other words, the policies and the procedures and the programing that's in place.

00:44:54:28 - 00:45:10:04
John Simmerman
Ros, how do we make building pocket neighborhoods legal? Because that's part of the software in my mind. Is is this possible from a code perspective, from a regulation perspective, that's huge too.

00:45:10:10 - 00:45:25:05
Ross Chapin
That is so huge. I had not thought about policy as software, but it in many ways it is. It's creating the, the conditions to buy which, these places precipitate.

00:45:25:07 - 00:45:28:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's something that you can have a connected.

00:45:28:01 - 00:45:29:08
Ross Chapin
Backyard.

00:45:29:11 - 00:46:10:06
John Simmerman
You know, again, going back and looking at that, that overhead image of the, of that typical suburban cul de sac neighborhood where the backyards are just considered private realm and there's no connectivity to a one of the examples that I use from also Southern California, northern Orange County, in Breyer, as an example, where I lived in the early 1990s, we lived on these cul de sacs, but every cul de sac was penetrated by a walking and biking, pathway that then connected to an entire network of pathways.

00:46:10:12 - 00:46:31:16
John Simmerman
And many of the backyards were connected to those pathways, and ideally for maximum sociability, maybe we also have our backyards connected with all of our neighbors to, again, less of that sense that this is our own private realm of backyards versus encourage sociability.

00:46:31:22 - 00:47:12:04
Ross Chapin
You're creating a field. Yeah, a constellation of community. It's a connected community. The very first cul de sacs that happened were in, New York, new Jersey, Stein. And right in 1927, 28, created, this place where the houses, the, the, the, spaces created. They had they opened out to a shared ground among maybe 10 or 12 other houses in the back of the house, had the kitchen and the mudroom, and it opened out to a place where you park your car.

00:47:12:07 - 00:47:49:23
Ross Chapin
That was the first cul de sac. But when you go there and look at at the end of the cul de sac, like you said, had a, a, pedestrian connection to the greenway which connected all of these sub neighborhoods, the greens and the cul de sac for the cars. And so it was a connected neighborhood. And what we have done in our worlds is that we have only thought about, the development of individual houses that shell and the we're selling independents were selling, the curb appeal.

00:47:49:25 - 00:48:31:03
Ross Chapin
And we are this is the scale of economy. This is the value of consumerism rather than the values around the scale of sociability, the scale of community around, the Commons. We've forgotten the commons. And I think that there's a place that blends individualism and the commons so that communities that you talk about, that you grew up in have autonomous, independent homes on lots, these simple, large, but they are connected by walking and bicycling to an entire community in a safe way.

00:48:31:03 - 00:48:38:19
Ross Chapin
You don't have to go out on a highway to get to your neighbor who is just across the fence, but you got to go a mile around to get there. Yeah.

00:48:38:21 - 00:49:11:09
John Simmerman
I love this image here of reclaimed alleys. And if you happen to have a city that's fortunate enough to have alleyways, oftentimes these are some of the most, valuable and could become the most cherished because they at least they could be, I took a fabulous bike tour in, Montreal in 2019. That was a bike tour of all of their activated alleys.

00:49:11:12 - 00:49:38:26
John Simmerman
And it's just it's such a joy to be able to see how you can take alleys and create, you know, transform them into extensions of the home and, and create additional space just I think it's another one of those, wonderful taking advantage of these types of hidden assets when you have them.

00:49:38:29 - 00:50:04:29
Ross Chapin
I'm going to pull a thread from the last piece when you asked about where the policy can be, you know, it's software. So, this is an alley. And I don't know if the other slide is is in here. I don't think it is. This is now in Quebec. There's a before, and it is the most sketchy, rundown, rat infested alley.

00:50:05:02 - 00:50:26:06
Ross Chapin
The, the utility service people wouldn't go down the alley. It was that dangerous. It was the shortcut for some of the drug runs that were happening in Baltimore. And, some of the neighbors got together. They were so upset, and they, went to the city, and they said, we we want to take over the alley.

00:50:26:08 - 00:50:50:15
Ross Chapin
I said, you can't do that. That's public space. You know, we don't have any way for you to do that. I said, but but this is not safe. We can make this safe. You can't do that. So what they did, is that they went to the state level, and they rallied, and they created something that was a state law was given to all cities.

00:50:50:15 - 00:51:10:05
Ross Chapin
And in Pennsylvania, to create a policy whereby if they had a very high bar, if 80% of the households on the alley would approve, they could take control of the alley. And there are maybe 16 alleyways in Baltimore. Okay.

00:51:10:05 - 00:51:19:06
John Simmerman
So and so Maryland, Maryland, Pennsylvania. Baltimore, Maryland. Yeah. Okay, good. I just want to make sure we're not confusing our folks with our geography.

00:51:19:06 - 00:51:48:08
Ross Chapin
I was thinking, you know, in my mind, I was thinking Philadelphia. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. Yeah. That's good. In in Maryland. So they they worked with that, and they changed the policy by which the homeowners could themselves take control. And they have gates that either. And the you can come and go, and, and the place is a place for get togethers, and kids can go out the back door and feel safe.

00:51:48:11 - 00:52:13:25
John Simmerman
I want to pause just to, to emphasize something that I talk about a lot here on the channel. And that is when you're being told no and you're having difficulty transforming your built environment into more people oriented places, the best thing that you can do is organize, start talking with your neighbors, start growing the awareness of what you want to say.

00:52:14:00 - 00:52:33:13
John Simmerman
So if you're getting no, no, we can't do that from, you know, city administration, from city leadership, etc. you need to grow your constituency, you need to grow your movement. And hopefully you don't have to go all the way to, you know, the state level to be able to change state law. Hopefully doesn't come to that.

00:52:33:19 - 00:53:15:23
John Simmerman
Hopefully you can, you know, gather enough, grow your tent enough so that the actual elected officials that are representing you in your municipality will go, hey, wait a minute. Maybe we should think about this. Maybe we should relook at this. And so I want to really emphasize that if the if you're feeling powerless within your neighborhood to be able to create more livable places, whether that is reclaiming alleys like this or creating, safer, more inviting all ages and abilities, active mobility environments, safer streets, slower streets, protected bike lanes, whatever your whatever your thing that you're passionate about in your community needs grow.

00:53:15:23 - 00:53:40:24
John Simmerman
Your movement is start talking with your neighbors. Start, you know, really getting that, you know, the level of community that understands this, to the point where the elected officials go, wow, I had no clue that so many people were passionate and want to see this. This is like, this could make or break my career as an elected politician if I'm not listening to my constituents.

00:53:40:24 - 00:53:41:24
John Simmerman
So I just wanted to pause.

00:53:41:24 - 00:54:11:28
Ross Chapin
And this is where this is where, this, podcast is important. It gives people a sense of, seeing this up close, of hearing this conversation of the dialog if, if, if this was the first one out of the gate. It's a pretty tall leap to get there. This has now been done hundreds of times across the country and North America.

00:54:12:00 - 00:54:38:12
Ross Chapin
The stories that are being told, the images, the the films, your film powerful. These are now in the hands of community advocates on my website. I created quite a few tools that people can use. There was a developer who, came to me, I think he's from Dallas, and he said, gosh, I just love what you're doing.

00:54:38:12 - 00:55:01:03
Ross Chapin
And I helped him design, a little community, and it's so different than anything else. It was happening here. And he said, you you just you're fluid with with describing this. This is new to me. What do I say to a neighbor? What do I say to the Planning commission? And what I did was to go back and create, eight slides.

00:55:01:06 - 00:55:36:01
Ross Chapin
And I said, these are the, eight essentials for pocket neighborhoods, eight Nephi 11 and get them on my website. You can print them and you can give them to your planning commission. You can also point to my website and say, okay, here are, the 12. I think I put 12 or so design essentials, that are up there and those are hopefully I think, you know, they're powerful images just the way that these stories, this film can be powerful.

00:55:36:01 - 00:55:47:28
Ross Chapin
Once people get the bug in them about the possibility, I can't tell you how many people that come in and says, I've thought about this for years and I didn't know is possible. And here you're showing it.

00:55:48:01 - 00:55:48:24
John Simmerman
Right?

00:55:48:27 - 00:55:51:23
Ross Chapin
Yeah. And I said yes and do it.

00:55:51:26 - 00:56:18:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And on screen now we've got, again, an example of more suburban application of this. These are larger, but again, the same concept of, you know, having a, you know, sort of semi-private realm looking out into that intermediate zone, you know, looking out onto that, you know, sort of gathering place, the green where everybody can come and get together.

00:56:18:08 - 00:56:42:09
Ross Chapin
You know, when I was doing my, talk show around the country and people were coming and, around with my book and they loved it. And they said, create. But I'm not a developer. This is bigger than I can handle. And I wrote a little piece that I posted called, Creating Community Where You live. Right, right.

00:56:42:11 - 00:56:51:01
Ross Chapin
And I think it's creating community where you live with whatever money you have. Things like, bring your picnic table to the front yard.

00:56:51:03 - 00:56:59:02
John Simmerman
Right. Or let's, let's gather a few chairs in our common area that we have in this urban environment.

00:56:59:05 - 00:57:23:19
Ross Chapin
That's right. There are things that that can be done that activate the commons. You have control of your yard, your porch, even if you're a renter, you can do things that are in your, your realm. Maybe, you're you're a homeowner and you say, you know, a porch. I can afford a porch, you know, on the front side of the of the house.

00:57:23:19 - 00:57:31:28
Ross Chapin
So you build that and that begins to activate, there's another another neighborhood in Seattle. I went, and they're planting corn in the median. Strip.

00:57:32:01 - 00:57:34:12
John Simmerman
It really allow.

00:57:34:15 - 00:57:50:10
Ross Chapin
And it's like, why not? You know, it's a city going to come come and tear it out. Well, you know, you've got neighbors coming together and they're creating, flowers and vegetables in the median strip that's pockets of nearby neighbors.

00:57:50:13 - 00:58:20:25
John Simmerman
Right, right. And this, this final image of these examples, we had the the suburban, we had the, you know, the, the urban. And now we've got this rural example too, is again, there's that picnic table that we were just talking about. We're creating opportunities. This is the hardware. This is the physical layout of what we've got. The software part of it are these engagement activities, these things that we do as individuals, collectively as community that help activate that space, activate the hardware.

00:58:21:01 - 00:58:26:07
John Simmerman
That picnic table becomes like an activation point.

00:58:26:09 - 00:58:54:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. The the other thing that that and again, the relevance back to active towns is that when we do create this type of environment, for instance, this, this rural type of environment, again, going back to the dog walking and going out for a stroll in the neighborhood as soon as you start, you know, creating that opportunity to have interactions with your nearby neighbors.

00:58:54:04 - 00:59:24:02
John Simmerman
Again, you're getting activation of the space. You're getting that ability to have that double entendre of of active mobility. You're getting your your walk in. That's good for you physically and mentally and emotionally, but you're also engaging. So you become an active member of your your community, of your neighborhood. I love that double entendre of active towns are both physically active and also engaged and socially active, too.

00:59:24:04 - 00:59:56:28
Ross Chapin
We're creating not just we're we're not just building physical places. We're shaping the conditions for human connection. We're creating environments at a scale that, that fosters spontaneous engagement. That's what that's what when when design really works. It's not about the object. It's not about the shiny new style, a curb appeal. It's about what does it call forward right.

00:59:57:01 - 00:59:59:20
Ross Chapin
That's that's the key right there. Yeah.

00:59:59:22 - 01:00:31:28
John Simmerman
And it can take on different looks. I mean, we're looking at a very, programed example of, a community that was very intentionally designed, but it doesn't have to look like this. It can look like my, my little drive that I shared with you of where I live here in Kona, Hawaii, of, you know, it's just it's a it's a, a dead end driveway with, I don't know how many neighbors we have on this little driveway, but, you know, maybe 10 or 12.

01:00:32:01 - 01:00:47:07
John Simmerman
And it's not a cul de sac. It's when I say dead end, it literally ends at the oceanfront. And so we have this cohesiveness as a group. And, and I'm like, hey, Ross, take a look at this. I live on Little Pocket Neighborhood.

01:00:47:10 - 01:00:48:01
Ross Chapin
It's a scale.

01:00:48:08 - 01:00:51:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, it's small scale. It's it's even though.

01:00:51:03 - 01:00:51:13
Ross Chapin
You.

01:00:51:13 - 01:01:07:22
John Simmerman
Know that that even though that that center area that we kind of share is a driveway and not a beautiful green. At least, you know, the the cars that are driving there are, are very limited in terms of number and also very, very slow.

01:01:07:22 - 01:01:30:16
Ross Chapin
So the cars are on a at the pedestrian scale. The people come first. You can have a kid on a trike, a bike playing, they're going to be fine. The cars are going to come in Chicago. Well it's, it's, it's the it's the people first. And so you come in off the busier street and you entered another zone.

01:01:30:19 - 01:01:54:17
Ross Chapin
And that zone can be shared with cars. That's fine. But it's got to be on the, on the, on the it's the place for people. Some people have criticized, the fact that they have parking neighborhoods that I've built and created and up to become incredibly expensive because there's so few and because we've done them at a high quality.

01:01:54:19 - 01:02:29:04
Ross Chapin
And, in some ways that's a sign of success. And in other ways, I'm just going these are not just to serve the wealthiest people in the community. And so there's an example, there's some examples that I've given. Let me do an extreme. A friend, was a FEMA inspector after Hurricane Katrina down in, Mississippi, and he visited and was telling me about a place where, they had leveled out, an area bigger than a football field.

01:02:29:11 - 01:03:16:09
Ross Chapin
And FEMA brought in, in that region in that section 10,000. Trailers, that were trying to get people back in and they could, they could Mark. Oh, we housed 10,000 people. Yeah. In row em and you know. Oh, house trailer 2627. That's not human scale. And so I suggested during our conversation, I said, imagine maybe the same number, but you might gather 4 or 5 of the trailers around a picnic table with a little play area and a campfire, and after a traumatic experience, you're sitting around a table.

01:03:16:09 - 01:03:39:15
Ross Chapin
What are you going to do? You're going to share your stories. You're going to listen. You're going to be around the kids that are playing and laughing, and that's going to be that's the first step in healing that trauma. And it's done by the geometry and the scale of trailers coming together around a picnic table. What does that cost?

01:03:39:18 - 01:03:42:27
Ross Chapin
Nothing. Right? Right. No difference. Yeah.

01:03:42:29 - 01:04:16:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. So the point is, is it doesn't have to be these beautiful, intentionally planned things. But you do have to have some intention in terms of organizing and thinking about, are we creating and fostering sociability and cohesiveness or are we through it? You mentioned it earlier. Are we prioritizing cars and the movement of cars and fast movement of cars and storage of cars, or are we prioritizing people and people coming together?

01:04:16:29 - 01:04:40:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, that is so beautiful. That is so beautiful. I want to end by going to your website and, and highlighting, the fact that, yes, this is a tremendous resource that people can have. So if you've been inspired, folks, by this conversation and you want to learn more, head on over to the website. Again, the website is Ross Chapman.

01:04:41:01 - 01:04:52:01
John Simmerman
And again, there's a tremendous number of resources out there. Ross, you also, how how many years ago was the book published?

01:04:52:04 - 01:05:12:09
Ross Chapin
It was 2011 when it came out. Wow. And, last, last year I checked in. I don't know where it is now, but when I checked in on Amazon, it was, at number 16 on the Urban Planning and Design group. I went, what? It was all time. Yeah, well, know about all time. That was just that snapshot.

01:05:12:15 - 01:05:13:06
John Simmerman
That snapshot.

01:05:13:06 - 01:05:15:19
Ross Chapin
Okay. Got it. Got that of that moment.

01:05:15:21 - 01:05:35:18
John Simmerman
It is. It is a beautiful, beautiful book. And I really highly encourage everybody to get this. If you want the most up to date stuff, and, and and go to his website, go to the website Ross chap Incom. But if you don't already have this book and you're really, really inspired by what we're talking about, there's so much good information here.

01:05:35:21 - 01:05:59:28
John Simmerman
Obviously, go watch that video that that Ross and I produced back in 2017. And, and we got back out onto the YouTube channel back in 2021, 2022, really, really good stuff. And, yeah, reach out to us. This is how you find him. You got his his website there. Your your your active, out on LinkedIn a little bit as well.

01:06:00:01 - 01:06:04:23
John Simmerman
Ross, any final thoughts? Anything else that you'd like to leave the audience with?

01:06:04:25 - 01:06:34:02
Ross Chapin
We touched in on? I think so many, so many goodies. You know, I think walkability, is so important, but walkability without sociability is incomplete. We focused on, you know, getting people out of their cars. But what, when we walk to somewhere or when we coming from somewhere? How are those places? How do those help us connect with others?

01:06:34:05 - 01:06:55:01
Ross Chapin
So, you know, I just think that we're creating the conditions, for which we can have active neighborhoods, some neighborhoods. We can active neighborhoods, larger neighborhoods and towns. I think it's all connected. And it's all part of, of a continuum. Yeah. Fabric.

01:06:55:03 - 01:07:18:20
John Simmerman
Well, I'll I'll put this out there. You mentioned one of the criticisms that you hear back is that, Ross, these places are so popular and they're so rare that they're so expensive. I shared with you that I'm seeing more of these concepts being built into some of the more progressive, newer, New Urbanism inspired communities. I've seen some in Salt Lake City area.

01:07:18:20 - 01:08:07:05
John Simmerman
I've seen some in the Denver area, I've seen some in, in even Austin, Texas. And so the concept of creating these pocket neighborhoods is starting to be adopted and adapted. Sometimes well, sometimes not so well, but they're being adopted and adapted. But one of the other things that one of the other criticisms that come up that I leave in Levy is even just in general on community design and even new Urbanism community design is that they can sometimes be built in areas that then become incredibly car dependent, in other words, so for people's lives to be able to to get to meaningful destinations, for the kiddos, to get to school for,

01:08:07:07 - 01:08:25:08
John Simmerman
people to, you know, get a loaf of bread and, and, and a carton of milk, if that's what they're needing. It's like, oh, gosh. Yeah, we got to get back in the car. You just mentioned it because there aren't meaningful destinations within easy walking and biking distance. Tacos.

01:08:25:10 - 01:08:51:01
Ross Chapin
Well, it's just the fabric. The structure of community is not individual elements. It's the fabric of of elements all together. We talked about your neighborhood where you could slip out the, a pathway at the end of the cul de sac to get into other places, to get in other places. You can probably travel all around the, the area as a kid safely or as an adult safely.

01:08:51:03 - 01:08:59:29
John Simmerman
And intentionally making sure that those pathways connect people to their meaningful destinations. The part the school, the church, the you know, whatever you need to get.

01:09:00:00 - 01:09:28:06
Ross Chapin
Exactly, exactly. I think if we're looking at, this the New urbanist world, Congress for the new Urbanism, this is what they're about completely all through their, incremental development alliance is looking at how do, neighborhoods, develop here in a little elements that are at a scale that you can more easily build them and they help repair the fabric of a neighborhood bit by bit by bit.

01:09:28:08 - 01:09:34:00
Ross Chapin
So you can have big plans and you can have small incremental changes. They both go together.

01:09:34:02 - 01:10:05:06
John Simmerman
I'm really, really glad that you mentioned the incremental development group. It's it's one of the things that just drives me nuts is that, communities are like, oh yeah, we the only opportunity for us to create housing is to do greenfield development way out in on the edges, etc.. It's untrue, but it takes a whole different set of imagination, maybe even funding mechanisms.

01:10:05:06 - 01:10:23:07
John Simmerman
And so the incremental development group, don't you talk a little bit about how they're you're helping them sort of think about, okay, for incremental development, for infill development. This is how we can embrace some of these concepts that we've been talking about here today. How does that work? What does that look like?

01:10:23:10 - 01:10:46:26
Ross Chapin
There are some really amazing people who are involved in in this, looking at how do we actually create, buildings that, serve a neighborhood where the builder developer doesn't lose their shirt in the process. And I think the emphasis in many ways is on, how do we actually build them? How do we get them?

01:10:47:03 - 01:11:22:14
Ross Chapin
Get them done? My piece that I'm bringing in is, yes. And let's widen that to say, what is the quality of the places that we're creating? Do we have what I call the patterns, as in Christopher Alexander? Do we have the patterns, of connectivity that helps support this? And so when we're creating small incremental buildings clusters, how do we how are we aware of this fabric of community and adding to that at large?

01:11:22:14 - 01:11:26:02
Ross Chapin
And so I'm bringing in the the why to this.

01:11:26:04 - 01:12:07:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. And what I love about this too. And, and, and this whole process and this particular slide, or website that I've just pulled up is the Incremental Development Alliance organization. Is this the organization that you were working with, with some of the webinar help and support? Fantastic. What and the reason why this is so important and so relevant to this conversation into active towns is that gives us the opportunity to be more creative about creating more housing, high quality housing, sociable housing under the tenants that we've been talking about in areas that are inherently walkable and bikeable, they're within those areas.

01:12:07:10 - 01:12:36:09
John Simmerman
The distances the proximities are there, we need more of these type of high quality housing opportunities that promote sociability, promote. So, neighborliness and all these wonderful benefits and active mobility, being able to get to meaningful destinations based on our proximity perspective. We're not building something 20 miles outside of town because that's where we could afford to do it, because that's where the development opportunity was.

01:12:36:09 - 01:13:06:14
John Simmerman
We're trying to create incrementally incremental development within infill opportunities within these urban environments, where those meaningful destinations are already there. Now, that's just proximity. You still have to have a walkable environment, a bikeable environment. You have to have all ages and abilities, infrastructure in place so that it's not just all car sewers and traffic sewers. It has to be, in this case, to the it's human.

01:13:06:17 - 01:13:11:08
Ross Chapin
Humane, human scaled infrastructure is absolutely, absolutely.

01:13:11:11 - 01:13:11:26
John Simmerman
And that's the.

01:13:12:00 - 01:13:12:10
Ross Chapin
That's the.

01:13:12:10 - 01:13:31:24
John Simmerman
Marriage. And that's the marriage right there. That's of action and and pocket neighborhoods. We need to create more housing within easy walking and biking distance. And then we need to have that overlay of is this an environment for all ages and all abilities to be able to get to those meaningful destinations under their own power?

01:13:31:26 - 01:13:58:00
Ross Chapin
Yeah. And workplaces, play places, recreation places, together. Connected. Yeah. If people want, if they go to the incremental development world, I think if you're a member which doesn't take that much, like it's that expensive. I did, they asked if I would be interested in taking part in a, book club. I've never done a book club.

01:13:58:02 - 01:14:14:07
Ross Chapin
But we did a series of four and, over four weeks that's just been published recently, and I think they're recorded. I know they're recorded and available. So people want a deeper dive. Of the book and of the topics in the book. They can go there to get that.

01:14:14:10 - 01:14:34:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. And they've got wonderful training programs. And, these are folks that I'm very familiar with. I love these folks. I've been, brushing shoulders with them over the past decade or so, as part of the Congress for New Urbanism. So, definitely go check out, the ink dev folks. Russ, thank you so much. This has been an absolute joy and pleasure.

01:14:34:28 - 01:15:00:20
Ross Chapin
I, I we we we we got the nugget here. This is good. Yay! Now, this conversation, I'm always, I enjoy, a back and forth joy of when we hang out and enjoy when other people come in and we really engage this which I think people can now use this to bring to their neighbors and to their planning groups and whatever, and move this forward.

01:15:00:20 - 01:15:03:07
Ross Chapin
We can see this come to be.

01:15:03:10 - 01:15:08:22
John Simmerman
And folks, that is your call to action. Do just that again. There you go. Thank you so much, Russ.

01:15:08:29 - 01:15:10:28
Ross Chapin
There you go. Sounds great.

01:15:11:00 - 01:15:27:13
John Simmerman
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Ross Chapman. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and be sure to ring that notification bell.

01:15:27:19 - 01:15:44:16
John Simmerman
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01:15:44:22 - 01:16:05:16
John Simmerman
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01:16:05:16 - 01:16:20:21
John Simmerman
Again, I couldn't do this without your support. Thank you all so much. Mahalo Neue lower and again, thank you for tuning in. I really appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha.