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

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:02
Seth Kaplan
There's the physical part. But when I look at people in my neighborhood and when they're out on the street, it's the community. That's the beauty. It's the fact that people can walk with each other or to each other. I mean, my daughter often has friends over again. She's in seventh grade, and one of the things they do is they go for a walk.

00:00:23:04 - 00:00:52:18
Seth Kaplan
They walk around. They'll come back an hour later. I don't know where they went, but they go and they talk and they walk and, they may not even have a destination. And they're doing that. And of course, they're also going to people's homes. And I never know exactly where they end up. But the point is, when you have neighbors that are friends and you have classmates that are friends, you get into the habit of living in real life, and you get in the habit of going places on foot, and that will have an impact on your whole life.

00:00:52:20 - 00:01:13:11
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Town Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Seth Kaplan, author of the new book Fragile Neighborhoods Repairing American Society one zip code at a time. It is a fascinating conversation, and we're going to get into that in just a moment. But I do have 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.

00:01:13:15 - 00:01:26:27
John Simmerman
It's easy to do. Just 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 to it with Seth Kaplan.

00:01:27:00 - 00:01:31:00
John Simmerman
Seth Kaplan, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:01:31:02 - 00:01:35:06
Seth Kaplan
It's my great pleasure. Good morning. Nice to see you.

00:01:35:08 - 00:01:42:25
John Simmerman
Seth, I love giving my guests an opportunity to just say a few words about themselves. So who the heck is Seth Kaplan?

00:01:42:27 - 00:02:23:07
Seth Kaplan
Well, that's a hard one, because then you're asking me to self-identify. I would say I'm many things, but most of all, I am obsessed by social dynamics. I'm obsessed by relationships. I think a lot about how what goes on in society affects, politics, affects the economies of countries, affects the trajectory of states. And therefore, I've spent a good chunk of the last, let's say, about 20 years focused on fragile states, fragile societies, fragile communities, how those things connect, interact.

00:02:23:10 - 00:02:36:21
Seth Kaplan
I do teach at Johns Hopkins University. I do run a nonprofit, that works in about a dozen countries. And in the last many years, I've worked on our fragile American society.

00:02:36:23 - 00:03:06:08
John Simmerman
Love it. Love it. And, of course, we're here to, talk a little bit about, that redirecting that you just mentioned there of, you know, redirecting towards neighborhoods because, as you mentioned, you're your real niche in what you've been, lecturing on for quite some time is fragile States. Talk a little bit about that journey of, you know, that you've been on in terms of, you know, you've you've had that focus on fragile societies and fragile states.

00:03:06:08 - 00:03:15:19
John Simmerman
But then something prompted you to shift your your focus to fragile neighborhoods and the challenges that we are facing in America.

00:03:15:21 - 00:03:43:05
Seth Kaplan
So let's take several chapters. So chapter one was I was a very curious college student, and I just set off to journey and see the world. And I lived in Africa. I lived in East Asia for many years, learned a couple languages. Traveled in the Middle East. Traveled in Europe. I mean, I've been in 75 countries or something like that now I lost track.

00:03:43:07 - 00:04:05:28
Seth Kaplan
But the point is, I did that. Those journeys. I was in business, actually, in my 20s. And then some point, I just was asking myself, what is it that keeps me up at night? It wasn't worrying about my business. I found business was intellectually interesting, but it was also at some point, trying to make more money or negotiate with all these people.

00:04:05:29 - 00:04:25:27
Seth Kaplan
It wasn't like the thing that I really wanted to do. So the question that kept me up every night was, why are some states working better than others? And then I did a deep dive on the learning. I got rid of my business. I looked for a way to be practical. And I it was. These are the years after 911.

00:04:25:29 - 00:04:48:11
Seth Kaplan
And I said, the best way I can be useful at this moment in time is fragile states, given my interests. So I wrote a book on fragile states. 2008 is the first book on fragile states. And from then until now, I basically have a career working in lots of countries. I've worked in about 35 countries. And so I'd be that would be the following chapter.

00:04:48:13 - 00:05:11:29
Seth Kaplan
The chapter on America comes after that. When we get to 2015, 2016, a lot of people are worried about what's going on. The United States, they're looking at the election. They are seeing things in their own country that they didn't think existed or what have you. They're just worried. And so I got asked over and over and over again, is America becoming a fragile state?

00:05:11:29 - 00:05:38:14
Seth Kaplan
And if I just come back from Sri Lanka, Somalia or Nigeria, wherever I have been, the question doesn't make any sense because great companies, great technology, government that's worked for 200 and whatever 50 years almost. And that nonprofit you got all these institutions. What are people worried about? But then when you you delve deeper into the subject.

00:05:38:14 - 00:06:04:12
Seth Kaplan
And for me, I always think about these questions relationally. I'm known for the social aspect when I deal with fragile states. I started with the social capital group, spent many years with people starting in Washington and after Covid, virtually around the country. Just asking, what is it about our country that is what's wrong with our social health? Because that's really what I put my finger on.

00:06:04:12 - 00:06:27:24
Seth Kaplan
It wasn't the politics, the polarization, the mistrust, the headline items. It's really what's going on in society because the politics in those other times are down stream. And so the deeper I went, the more I got fixated or interested in this question about the very hyperlocal, the neighborhoods and I think the reason for that is we have a lot, a lot of social problems.

00:06:27:24 - 00:06:47:27
Seth Kaplan
Some of them are we see them in politics. But you also think about, drug overdose. All the, almost 100,000 people is over a hundred thousand now. It's a little bit less annually dying. You look at deaths of despair, decline of health and so on and so forth. All of these problems, mental health, children or youth not able to start.

00:06:48:00 - 00:07:05:20
Seth Kaplan
And all of these are relational problems. So the question I just kept coming back to was what has changed in our relationships in the last few generations? And the biggest change is definitely locally in our relationships with each other. And that is why I landed on fragile neighborhoods.

00:07:05:22 - 00:07:32:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now you open up your book, you know, sort of encapsulating just that, that, you know, your, your focus has been on, you know, those fragile states and, and you do, present that, you know, that question of, you know, people are saying, well, aren't we a fragile state, too? Now we're recording this on April 3rd of the day after the tariffs, got announced, by our current president.

00:07:32:09 - 00:07:58:28
John Simmerman
And one of the things that you just said there is that we have a government that basically works relatively well. It's been around for 250 plus years, etc.. Do you do you still kind of have that that feeling that we have a government that works relatively well or are there enough checks and balances that, you know, the the character who's at the top in terms of administration, does that matter?

00:07:59:01 - 00:08:37:06
Seth Kaplan
I obviously individuals are not irrelevant individuals, make choices, whether it's politicians who are chief executives or whatever, whatever religious leaders, they all matter. And I never want to say they don't matter. But I focus on the, let's say, structural institutional elements. And I, I look at our history and I tend to think whatever's happening in the moment, I don't I don't pay too much attention to the news.

00:08:37:06 - 00:09:00:07
Seth Kaplan
I know, I know, I have students I teach, my most popular class is political risk. And it's really, really hard to get people to go from thinking about the news to thinking about some more structural issues. I literally use the iceberg as my analogy. Let's not just look at what we see on top of the water, what is actually going on underneath the water.

00:09:00:14 - 00:09:35:08
Seth Kaplan
So I mean, we could debate at length the tariff question, but for me the bigger question is how do we get here? What is going on in society that leads to these outcomes? And I tend to think, well, especially in a country as mature as developed, as institutionalized as the United States, even though the politicians change, there's some broad trajectory that both parties and whoever is in office is going to lead us towards.

00:09:35:11 - 00:10:05:24
Seth Kaplan
It might be more this way, it might be more that way, but that trajectory doesn't change. I think as dramatically as people think, there might be specific choices, there are different. But the broad trajectory of the country, I don't think, is that different. And I don't think I see anything. I also know that people in office are only there for a short time, and I don't think and I and I think the country and the institutions are much larger than that.

00:10:05:26 - 00:10:28:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, obviously, these are very traumatic times for many individuals who are experiencing, the, the pointy edge side of what is also devolved into sort of culture war issues, etc.. But, I am confident that the bedrock of democracies is good. The stuff underneath that, the surface of that iceberg is, is a good foundation.

00:10:28:22 - 00:10:53:19
Seth Kaplan
So we'll leave it. I mean, I, I live, John, if I may say, I live in Washington. So I know a lot of people are individually affected. And so there's, there's a lot of personal I mean, there's clearly going to be personal tragedies and there are going to be choices made which are not great. I mean, just think of some of the humanitarian crises around the world, for example, that we may not be addressing.

00:10:53:21 - 00:11:17:07
Seth Kaplan
And so I don't want to say anything positive. I mean, I mean, I can disagree with specific policies and I could think individuals suffer, but we if we're thinking about the big scope of the country and our society and where we're going, we need to very much divorce ourselves from these individual examples and think much more bigger picture.

00:11:17:07 - 00:11:19:04
Seth Kaplan
That's what I, what I try to do.

00:11:19:06 - 00:11:48:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Now, I reached out to you after, you had published, this piece here, as part of, after Bill. Welcome. And, Jonathan Heights, organization and sent this out. And I'm like, I got to talk to this guy. This is a fantastic article. And it gets to the heart of where, your work, your book and active towns and and you even mentioned strong towns in this.

00:11:48:25 - 00:12:32:22
John Simmerman
And I'm very close friends with, Chuck Marone, and and I know that you've recently, spoken with with Chuck. I was like, okay, this is beautiful. We need to talk about this, because this kind of really gets to the heart of a lot of what I talk about on the Active Towns channel is looking at our neighborhoods, looking at our communities and how they're built and how they reinforce, not only physical health and in terms of encouraging physical activity and getting people outdoors out of their little cocoons, whether it's cocoons on wheels or cocoons of our suburban homes, but really interacting with people and enhancing sociability.

00:12:32:24 - 00:12:45:04
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about this article and, what you were trying to, to really communicate in this. And then we'll dive into some of the minutia of what you talked about here.

00:12:45:07 - 00:13:22:05
Seth Kaplan
So, I mean, the for for those not familiar with this Substack or this, this, flow of articles related to Jonathan Height's book The Anxious Generation is all about how kids have gone from phone based, from play based to phone based childhood and all the negative effects of it. And my argument where I, where I came in and offered in addition to their argument, was that we've lost the play based childhood before the phones, and that was because we had lost the community.

00:13:22:07 - 00:13:45:23
Seth Kaplan
And so really, there's not two chapters, there's three chapters. You lose the community, then kids get inside. They're not on their phones, but they've already lost a lot of the play. And then the phones come and take over, as opposed to the phones replacing the the play, which is how they originally had it. And I don't think we restore the play without restoring the community.

00:13:45:26 - 00:14:10:13
Seth Kaplan
And that's where the physical landscape and some of the institutions and the relationships matter. So what I'm what I, what I write here and I write in these other articles, is the importance of taking this communal lens, taking this place lens, taking a very hyperlocal lens, as if you, as a parent, want your kids to go out and play.

00:14:10:15 - 00:14:30:28
Seth Kaplan
First of all, you probably are more reluctant to do so if you don't know any of your neighbors. And second, if you were inclined to do it well, you could just send them off alone. But it'd be so much easier, especially at the younger ages, if they had a neighbor that they would go play with. If they would play in front of the house.

00:14:31:00 - 00:14:52:06
Seth Kaplan
My, I have three kids, my middle kid is six, and anytime the weather is a bit warm and sometimes when it's not so warm and he's home, he's immediately looking across the street or my neighbor. We have we have kids everywhere in my neighborhood, but particularly across the street this way, and I'm probably pointing the wrong way.

00:14:52:13 - 00:15:12:12
Seth Kaplan
But then I have the neighbor. The neighbor on this side. I'm I'm pointing is if I'm looking at the front window, which I'm not. And the point is, those are like his two natural. I mean, there's be other kids, but they're a bit further away. And then there's a playground like a block away, which we let him go to or come back to, a lot, even though he's got a crisis.

00:15:12:15 - 00:15:32:03
Seth Kaplan
Not a very busy street, but the point is the immediate, the fact that, you know your neighbors, the fact that there's a place and lots of kids gather and people trust each other and don't have to be on top of their kids, it just changes the total equation. And what I'm what I'm writing here is, well, this is important.

00:15:32:05 - 00:15:50:19
Seth Kaplan
It's not it's not it's not duplicate but virtually. It's not duplicate, but simply because one family for the most part wants to do it. We got to take, collective action problem of the relationships in the neighborhoods to heart if we're going to address this problem.

00:15:50:21 - 00:16:23:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I appreciate too, that, in the article itself, you really point to an inflection point within our society. And it's it's kind of something that we talk about frequently here on the channel, is that inflection point of when we sort of allowed the automobile to overtake our built environment, because it fundamentally changed what our neighborhoods look like and how they operated and how they feel.

00:16:23:03 - 00:16:58:10
Seth Kaplan
Yeah. I think if you, I don't think it had to be this way. I mean, again, we could have built an automobile friendly society that was not automobile centric. If you understood what I mean by that, I think, I, I'm not a Luddite. I'm all for technology. I'm using Claude and and I even though I'm also I'm also wary of what it will do to our society if we don't intentionally build a community or neighborhood centric society, but doesn't mean I'm not going to use the technology.

00:16:58:13 - 00:17:31:22
Seth Kaplan
I feel like we're safe because we do have a strong community. We're much more resilient and prepared for technological change than most places. But I think the key point, and I don't think it's just cars, when I think about this problem, I think about the physical changes and I think about the institutional changes. So the physical when when you spread people out and you leave them with no center, no neighborhood identity, no commercial district, no neighborhood school, no local churches.

00:17:31:22 - 00:17:58:29
Seth Kaplan
You're driving to churches, you're driving to shopping your kids. You're driving whatever to school. And there's nothing local that actually brings people together. Well, those neighbors have no need to know each other and likely it might be initially we give them to the car, but we still have the norm and the culture of knowing each other. But then a few more years go by, and a general tune goes by.

00:17:58:29 - 00:18:20:09
Seth Kaplan
And after 25 years, we've even forgotten how to knock on the door and say hi to our neighbor. And I know so many people. They live in places and they don't. They're like, on an island, there might be a beautiful house, and they might be surrounded by beautiful houses, and they might have the green, the place to walk and to bike and to take their dog.

00:18:20:12 - 00:18:46:00
Seth Kaplan
And maybe the only place, maybe where they take their dog, because that has to be physically local. That's where you might meet somebody. But for the most part, you're not meeting anybody because there's no reason to as opposed to if we had to. So if you think about historically, if you looked at the early suburbs to pre-World War two suburbs, like if you go outside of Philadelphia, you can go outside of New York, go outside of Boston.

00:18:46:02 - 00:19:06:16
Seth Kaplan
Those were built with a with a clear neighborhood identity, like they're like the first few lines on the train. I was just speaking to somebody earlier this morning who lives in Princeton. That is a really strong community. I mean, it happens to be it's full of institutions. It has a very old identity. It's been there for hundreds of years.

00:19:06:16 - 00:19:26:29
Seth Kaplan
It it's not large. It's not really a city. And but you can find examples of that elsewhere in new Jersey. But then in most places you just have the car and you have nothing, and there's nothing local and there's no community. And you would not, you know, build a community by accident. You have to have institutions that enable it.

00:19:27:01 - 00:19:48:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. You reference in the article both, the Congress for New Urbanism and also, strong Towns and in the work that Chuck is doing there, one of the, the common themes that that we talk about, you know, within the, you know, the area of new arrivals. And in fact, let's pull up their website here.

00:19:48:05 - 00:20:38:19
John Simmerman
Is this concept that, you know, the traditional building pattern, the traditional community building pattern that we had, you know, prior to the automobile, you know, helped enhance and create that cohesiveness of communities and decrease the auto dependance and increase walkability. One of the things that that I also think about and talk about is also how architecture actually changed, like our physical built environment I'm seeing in our neighborhood here, platted in the early, in 20th century, this particular neighborhood that I'm in, the block was built immediately post-World War Two before things started go true, truly auto centric.

00:20:38:21 - 00:21:26:06
John Simmerman
And homes were were smaller cottages, front porches. The architecture actually sort of, you know, encouraged sociability and connection with people in the front yard. And then what we started to see as the auto centric design sort of took over. It influenced the architecture, and we started seeing two car garages put out front and what we call snout houses, and then three car garages, and it's almost like insert humanoids through automatically sealed metal boxes on wheels and, and eventually, you know, either the front porch just completely goes away or there's just like this token little postage stamp version of it, but nobody would actually sit out there.

00:21:26:08 - 00:21:53:18
John Simmerman
And people, you know, we're starting to see that. Re-emphasize. So it's more than just, as you mentioned, just the cars themselves. It's like so much fundamentally started to change. And, I'm even seeing in our neighborhood here where some of those cottages with front porches are being torn down and little McMansions are being built, almost sugar cube like the with again up front.

00:21:53:18 - 00:22:21:26
John Simmerman
The most focal thing that you see is, is the garage and or the carport. Insert the humanoids, you know, and then they, they dash in. They don't even use the front door per se. Do any any thoughts on that? Have you noticed any of that aspect of of work as well, in terms of how physically the the built environment is also changing in that nature and reinforcing some of the changes in sociability?

00:22:21:28 - 00:22:50:14
Seth Kaplan
So you're you're very I can talk about the individual houses. What, what I tend to think about is the neighborhood level. So for me, an obvious change is and we can just list a bunch of bullets. It used to be you built a neighborhood with a clear center, a like a commercial corridor. And that commercial corridor would bring identity and bring and produce gathering places.

00:22:50:16 - 00:23:15:06
Seth Kaplan
And you would go to the local market and you would go to the local coffee shop. Whatever it was, it was, it was it was different 60 years ago than we have now. But I grew up in one of those early 20th century towns in new Jersey. We had a floor four block downtown. Every day after school, we went downtown to the commercial corridor, the local school.

00:23:15:09 - 00:23:38:03
Seth Kaplan
If you look at any pre-war, plan of a city, I can think of Detroit, which I wrote about. I could think about where I grew up in new Jersey. I can think of a lot of places, the whole neighborhood, the neighborhood has a distinct identity. The neighborhood does have the commercial district. The neighborhood has a school and many places.

00:23:38:03 - 00:24:15:13
Seth Kaplan
The school is the center of at least a part of a neighborhood. I walk to school four blocks to school. That school was this beautiful gothic, probably 1920s building. Yeah. So so I mean, and then if you went to a church or a synagogue or whatever, you would go walking to these places. So I would say when I think about the physical changes, I think before I even think of the houses, I think about how there's a, there's a place, a fact about if you're if you're walking, if walking is the starting point, it doesn't mean that you don't have houses.

00:24:15:13 - 00:24:40:05
Seth Kaplan
You don't need know. There's not. I didn't grow up with apartments in my neighborhood. But the point is, all the things you need in your life were designed to be walking distance from you. It may be six blocks, it may be three blocks. And, and, and and now I understand efficiency. I understand the idea of going to a bigger supermarket and I mean, I use, I use Amazon to be honest a lot and all that stuff.

00:24:40:07 - 00:25:19:23
Seth Kaplan
But for neighborhoods to thrive, for community to thrive, you need lots of institutions locally. And if you build the landscape on the assumption that there's nothing but houses, that by itself, there's great damage to this idea that we need to have place based relationships. And that, to me, is a much larger effect. This idea of single, function zoning and that we shop here, we live here, and, and and we pray over there, our kids go to school over there or that whole concept to me is a much greater impact.

00:25:19:25 - 00:25:49:28
Seth Kaplan
I mean, of course, what you say about the changes and the houses, but I would also say it's sure I live, except my neighborhood is so strong and rich. When Covid happened, what did people do? Everybody just took benches or chairs and planted them in their front yard. So even if the houses didn't really have front porches, which very few of them do, people created spaces to continue the conversation.

00:25:50:01 - 00:26:20:05
Seth Kaplan
I can think of a neighbor around the corner and they have a we have carports here. We don't have garages for whatever reason. Maybe there's a few garages and Covid happened. They had the benches and Covid was still going on and the weather was getting cold. And so they set up couches in their carport with portable heaters. And so literally people were constructing on the fly ways to remain religious, ways to remain relational.

00:26:20:10 - 00:26:48:24
Seth Kaplan
Meanwhile, WhatsApp became very popular then. We didn't have WhatsApp before then. So much everybody was on a WhatsApp group volunteering to help neighbors. And so all this stuff was going on. And I think the key point is we had community and the physical landscape is good enough for community. It's not great. We do have a commercial center, we do have community schools, but a lot of people still drive and a lot of places don't have sidewalks.

00:26:48:29 - 00:27:10:06
Seth Kaplan
But you can walk from one end of my neighborhood to the other, let's say in 25, 30 minutes. And so and it's not a lot of traffic. So I would say the landscape is good enough. Not great, but it meets some. The thing is, the most important thing is all those institutions are local and it's the institutions that bring us together.

00:27:10:06 - 00:27:37:22
Seth Kaplan
And when you build the physical landscape to literally exclude the institutions, that to me is the biggest hit from how we design places. Yes, we could talk about the houses, but I think when you don't have a neighborhood lens and you don't build in all those institutions that and now allow places to flourish, then you're actually you're, you're you're systemically isolating people from one another.

00:27:37:23 - 00:27:43:01
Seth Kaplan
That to me is the biggest problem with how we've thought of our landscape. Yeah.

00:27:43:04 - 00:28:06:17
John Simmerman
And I think that I guess defaulting over to the architecture was, a shortcut to also talking about how so much of what we have done has changed to support the assumption that everyone will drive everywhere for everything. It it influences our landscape.

00:28:06:18 - 00:28:15:13
Seth Kaplan
Even worse, I would say we've actually we have done over decades not only drive. I would say that we wouldn't do everything alone.

00:28:15:16 - 00:28:16:00
John Simmerman
Right?

00:28:16:06 - 00:28:49:28
Seth Kaplan
Yes. That to me, that to me is yes, that we drive. But even more critically that we've designed our physical landscape to be alone, to isolate, to disconnect. And then we wonder now why we have that result. And again, it's the physical landscape. It's also the way we've designed institutions, because again, I like to think of institutions a lot because we meet through institutions, the physical landscape decides what kind of institutions are possible, but it's the institutions that matter.

00:28:49:28 - 00:28:59:01
Seth Kaplan
But I would say if you designed both to isolate and disconnect, that is the result that you will get, and that is the result that we have.

00:28:59:03 - 00:29:27:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And and we've also codified the like the, the building of said institutions through parking minimum mandates to say, oh, if you want to, to, to build a church, if you want to build a cafe, the other thing that you have to do is you have to cordon off a huge amount of parking to be able to support that.

00:29:27:09 - 00:29:47:29
John Simmerman
Whereas, you know, before, in the past, many of our institutions, many of the places, the desirable destinations that we would go to in our traditional, community pattern that literally existed for thousands of years until the automobile, you know, you would they would be within walking distance, they would be within easy biking distance, and you would get to them.

00:29:47:29 - 00:29:55:09
John Simmerman
And there was they were very much a part of the community, but part of the neighborhood.

00:29:55:11 - 00:30:27:01
Seth Kaplan
So I would say it's not until we got to automobile, it's until we got planners trying to zone or create rules for the automobile. But it's not the automobile that brought this about. It's I mean, I mean, we have, in my neighborhood, we have, we do have local, churches and synagogues. And as far as I can tell, they are not burdened by lots of, parking.

00:30:27:01 - 00:30:48:10
Seth Kaplan
They have some parking, but it doesn't mean they can't be between houses and whatnot. So I don't know the rules, but if someone had required them to have whatever 100 spaces, they would have need to tear down 3 or 4 houses. I could think of one one. I can think of two, two houses of worship, the two newest ones in my neighborhood.

00:30:48:12 - 00:31:17:08
Seth Kaplan
And they literally have a small square where they have a building and one has no parking. Maybe they use the parking of something nearby and one probably has parking. That space basically become like with a tent. It should. There's literally neither has regular parking on site, so something allowed that to happen. But, I can think of I could certainly think that in some other case, they would have had to take up a lot more land, and that would have been somewhat self-defeating.

00:31:17:14 - 00:31:39:00
Seth Kaplan
And the same thing for schools. I I'll give a very good example. We have a wonderful I mean, we have a local public school like two blocks away. And I have to say, and I don't think there was as a mandate for parking, but it was in the mind of the planners. They completely tore down the school and they rebuilt the school.

00:31:39:07 - 00:32:02:09
Seth Kaplan
And to my I have to use the word disgust, they there was a huge field behind the old school, and now the school is in what was the field. And there's still some field on the side that's smaller. And they have taken, it looks like to me almost half of this large property and turned it into a parking lot.

00:32:02:12 - 00:32:22:28
Seth Kaplan
And I'm and I don't think there's a mandate for that. I don't I frankly, I have no idea why they did that. Maybe for the convenience of drop offs and teachers. But for the most part, there's a huge parking lot on what used to be a field, and it's not used, to, to a full extent. So I'm baffled by that whole choice, to be honest.

00:32:22:28 - 00:32:25:03
Seth Kaplan
And that happened within the last few years.

00:32:25:06 - 00:32:34:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, it would be interesting. I would do I would encourage you to dig in. They may have been mandated to, to provide a certain number of minimum parking spots. Yeah. It's hard to say. Yes.

00:32:34:15 - 00:32:37:16
Seth Kaplan
It's incorrect. It's incredible. It's incredible actually.

00:32:37:18 - 00:32:59:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. I'm going to come back to this this image. The it was part of this article. And one of the things that you had talked about, as we were giving the introduction to this article, was, was was play and play based and that sort of it. Do I understand correctly that you have some connection to Utrecht in the Netherlands?

00:32:59:14 - 00:33:21:00
Seth Kaplan
I have a PhD from Utrecht. Actually, I, didn't get my PHC when I was, 22 or 25. I got it after 30 and, I actually was not looking to get a PhD, but someone offered it if I wanted to write a book and I didn't have to attend classes. So that sounds like a good formula for me.

00:33:21:07 - 00:33:35:26
Seth Kaplan
So I took it and I got paid students a very good school. But Utrecht is a beautiful city. The old part, if you want to look at it, really like like we don't have those cities in America. Very pretty old city.

00:33:35:29 - 00:34:13:07
John Simmerman
So I'm very familiar with Utrecht. This past summer, I spent the better part of three weeks there. And, one of the things that I love about Dutch culture and cities like, like Utrecht in the Netherlands is, is that they really take childhood independence to a whole new level. And, and we really see this manifestation. So we see, you know, going back to this, this image here, this photo here, and we had mentioned, we referenced the, you know, the, the how the play had sort of changed and morphed over these years.

00:34:13:09 - 00:34:42:19
John Simmerman
And one of the things that I love about that Dutch environment and the built environment, how it supports childhood independence is, you know, really seeing in real life how, you know, the children are able to grow up. There's a rich, rich environment for them to be able to, you know, develop a sense of efficacy, self-efficacy and, and confidence of being able to navigate in their cities.

00:34:42:21 - 00:35:12:14
John Simmerman
And they do. And it's it's really wonderful to see, you know, packs of kids, you know, oftentimes many, a little bit older than this, but really getting around their community and understanding their community and that, that very, very important stage of sociability as well as maturity and becoming more fully functioning adults because they haven't had helicopter parents over the top of them.

00:35:12:17 - 00:35:34:10
John Simmerman
And I have to think that a big part of that is the neighborhood designs, is the community design, is the cultural, you know, approach to like encouraging that they they literally want their kids to to be develop that self-confidence and self efficacy of being able to get out and explore.

00:35:34:13 - 00:36:05:27
Seth Kaplan
So I have not raised a kid in the Netherlands, so I could not give you a personal story, but I do think you can surely find many cultures in which, there's much less control of kids and there's much more, freedom. I do think what's interesting in a place like the Netherlands, because I have had some interaction, is there is a greater, greater awareness of the importance of neighborhoods.

00:36:06:00 - 00:36:32:11
Seth Kaplan
I've seen that in Denmark, I've seen that in the Netherlands. And I don't know if it's because of the, culture the size of the country. I do think you also see it in older cities if you go to and I mean, it's hard not to go to an Italian city and there's the neighborhood park, there's a neighborhood church, there might be the neighborhood civic or government building and, the neighborhood school.

00:36:32:13 - 00:37:01:17
Seth Kaplan
And this is all built into the physical landscape. I mean, I don't know what they're doing now, but they because these countries are old and because they were they literally were built around neighborhoods. It surely must have a longer, legacy or a longer impact. But of course, there's also the culture of just, giving your kids a bit more freedom than we do here.

00:37:01:17 - 00:37:25:29
Seth Kaplan
I, I tend to think Americans tend to be extreme in this way or that way. It just seems to be in the culture. Sometimes it's for the better, sometimes it's for the worse. It just seems to be our past time to, do everything to an extra degree. So it's not bad to worry about your kids. But I would say if you don't let your kids grow up.

00:37:26:02 - 00:37:50:06
Seth Kaplan
And I think one of the points I made in this article was we don't let our kids grow up in real life, but unreal online, where we're letting them interact with lots of information and people and ideas as if they were adults. And that's backwards. And what we really ought to do and growing up is that you don't turn a switch at 18 and you grow up.

00:37:50:08 - 00:38:13:24
Seth Kaplan
You have to literally practice it. So I'm my oldest is almost 13, and I find myself trying to be very intentional about giving her practice. How do you practice doing a little bit more every year? I mean, go buy something for us. Go, go disappear for the afternoon. Well, tell me where you are. I'll pick you up at at whatever, 8:00 you can call me then.

00:38:13:29 - 00:38:38:05
Seth Kaplan
And she doesn't have a phone or when she gets just a bit older, I'll take her to some events I go to. The whole point is, you want your kids to grow up and you have to give them the chance to practice. And it's gradual. And the problem with phones, it's even if you try, it's much harder to control and have boundaries and have that incremental progress.

00:38:38:05 - 00:38:43:06
Seth Kaplan
And as a result, I think we're doing a great disservice to our kids.

00:38:43:08 - 00:38:57:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And and it's not to say that the Dutch are Luddites. I mean, yeah, these, these kids, every single one of them, for the most part. You know, from what I can tell, they all have phones, you know, they they are they are plugged in as well.

00:38:57:27 - 00:39:25:03
Seth Kaplan
But they have their phones too on. I would say they do have phones to. I am not a fan of giving kids phones. Until I was telling my daughter, when you get a job, you can have a phone. And then we might not get a smartphone. I mean, we are I don't I, I, I realize that there's a lot of benefits of I mean, she has her own Chromebooks and she does use technology, but the phone is different.

00:39:25:06 - 00:39:45:22
Seth Kaplan
And, the Chromebook, we don't give her a universal access to everything she has. Whatever websites she needs. Another website. We at it? We're we're we're we're being open. But this is something that takes a process. And for me, actually, I would say one of the I would say, if you look at our education system, this is a little bit of a tangent.

00:39:45:25 - 00:40:11:06
Seth Kaplan
We tend to think of education today in terms of tests, in terms of vocational learning and in terms of careers. And that's actually not that's a very narrow way of thinking about schools. If you thought about schools historically, it'd be about character building. It'd be about getting independent, it'd be about community building. It'd be about learning the social.

00:40:11:09 - 00:40:50:04
Seth Kaplan
And so there's a lot of things in schools, and as far as I'm concerned, learning the relational part is just as important as learning the vocational part. And I literally what I think about my kids, I'm happy to compromise. Not completely, of course, but make some compromises on their vocational or they're they're more academic side in favor of giving them a chance to learn more about relationships and sociability and giving them the chance to have the freedom, but also keeping them off the phones and living in a community, which is an intentional choice that we have made over and over again.

00:40:50:06 - 00:40:54:08
Seth Kaplan
All of this plays to that, to that, to those things.

00:40:54:10 - 00:41:30:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. What's interesting. Yeah, you referenced the fact that, you know, many of these places that we point to, like in Europe, the Netherlands, the Denmark, etc.. Yeah, many of them were well established as cities, you know, long before the advent of the automobile. It's encouraging for me to see, especially like in Utrecht, if we want to stick with Utrecht, them building out brand new communities, you know, brand new neighborhoods that will be housing in upwards of 20,000 people.

00:41:31:00 - 00:41:58:20
John Simmerman
And they're striving to create and duplicate, a car free car light lifestyle in these new communities. And so they are seeing the, you know, the they kind of went through exactly what every place went through. I think, when in modernity is that, you know, we started to see many of the cities rebuilt in the model of drive everywhere for everything.

00:41:58:20 - 00:42:47:07
John Simmerman
And so especially in the case of Rotterdam, they rebuilt after World War two based on modernism and the car. And then several decades later, they realized, oh, this we have dead sterile environments here. And now they're going through a three decades long process of trying to reverse that auto centric, car dependent design and create more livable places. Other cities, throughout Europe, are going through that same process where they they sort of reamed out many of their cities and focused in on supporting the car, and then saw that societal sort of erosion of of that, the connections between we just weren't able to have that social cohesiveness that used to exist.

00:42:47:07 - 00:42:57:24
John Simmerman
And so now when they're building new cities, they're saying, okay, we've learned our lesson. Let's try to lean into creating more people oriented places versus car oriented places.

00:42:57:27 - 00:43:28:25
Seth Kaplan
I mean, I would just say that when I think about the disconnection in America, I definitely believe that the vastness of the country is underrated, characteristic. And so when you compare, like the Netherlands or Denmark, these are countries that are really compact. They're very dense. They have deeper historical roots. And being mobile means you're moving an hour or two hours away from.

00:43:28:27 - 00:44:04:27
Seth Kaplan
I mean, there are people who work in Utrecht and live in Leiden, or work in Amsterdam and live in Utrecht, you know, or a new The Hague or whatever. Or, the thing is, these are they have a lot of cities. They're very horizontal in terms of not concentrated and, but the, the fact that they're dense and they have this history, I think the United States being a country that even though I think it's over, celebrated the fact that you just get up and you do something completely different than your than where you came from and you move far away.

00:44:04:27 - 00:44:46:22
Seth Kaplan
And we do that. But I would not underestimate beyond the car that simply the vastness of the land, how much that affects people's mindset. And so I think we would never be we would never design a country quite like they do in Europe, simply because of the different history and the different geography. And I personally, I live in a suburb that's relatively compact and is car centric, except because it's built in a way, and that there is institutions that allow us to celebrate the place joined together in the place.

00:44:46:27 - 00:45:10:00
Seth Kaplan
And so I do think you could get a lot of hybrid solutions that would satisfy a lot of people, and that would lead to much better results, and that we don't all have to look like Savannah, even though I love Savannah is being one of the great examples of what we might call old urbanism. And I often think that New Urbanism is simply old urbanism and a new form.

00:45:10:02 - 00:45:38:06
Seth Kaplan
And so I love that, and I'm happy to live in that. But I do think we can come up with some hybrid solutions that are relatively compact, even if they're they allow the allowed perfectly good use of the car. And that allows people to have their own properties, their own yards and all that stuff. But the thing is, it's built around local institutions that local connectivity and that that would, that would change the equation dramatically if we could.

00:45:38:08 - 00:45:58:04
Seth Kaplan
Again, you have a range, you have a range, but we need a lot more of hybrid solutions, and they're probably easier to create given how suburban, how suburban we are. Then to go back to the very dense form that we that that's the ideal. But I think harder to create given how spread out we are already.

00:45:58:06 - 00:46:28:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. And you do you do point out you know that correctly that, you know, we are relatively spread out of a massive, massive, nation in terms of size. But even given that when we look at the number of trips that, that people take and we look at the average distance of, many of those trips that people take, it's ultimately inherently bikeable distances, some 40% are five miles or less.

00:46:28:08 - 00:47:12:01
John Simmerman
And with the advent of electric assist bikes and cargo bikes, we're starting to see that these are very doable distances, so long as they're safe infrastructure for people to be able to walk and bike to meaningful destinations. And so we're starting to see that. Oh, yeah. If if many of these trips are actually relatively short and that may not be the commute for it, maybe the commute service is a 20 minute drive, but when we look at some of these other trips that we're taking care, taking trips and trips to meaningful destinations in the community, we're starting to realize, oh yeah, that park that we want to go to, that school that we want to

00:47:12:01 - 00:47:48:04
John Simmerman
go to is actually bikeable distance, maybe not walkable distance, but bikeable distance. If only there were safe facilities to be able to encourage that, you know, protected bike lanes, separated pathways, things of that nature. And so we're starting to see that in enhanced awareness and seeing that built into community design so that we, quote unquote, get the best of both worlds, where we get that single family home, we get that backyard, we get the front yard, we get the, the, you know, the the model that seems to be popular for a subset of the population.

00:47:48:07 - 00:48:11:26
John Simmerman
But at the same time, you know, creating the connectivity and the cohesiveness with active mobility. You mentioned in your article that one of the key things to is, is making sure that, you know, we do start embracing more dense neighborhood designs so that we can have more people within reasonable walking distance to meaningful destinations.

00:48:11:29 - 00:48:50:25
Seth Kaplan
I mean, I, I, I'm appreciate the bicycle, the movement on bicycles. I think walking is far more likely to get traction than bicycles for many people. I think there's a much larger audience for walking in my neighborhood. The people who bicycle are the high school kids, and they might bicycle to school or bicycle to each other's homes. But walking them, you're talking at least 1520 times as many people who are delighted if they can walk to each other's homes, walk to the commercial district.

00:48:50:28 - 00:49:21:09
Seth Kaplan
Walk to some local institution. And I, I think, I think the idea that we again you have place has to have an identity. Place has to have those that place to to shop, that place to gather those restaurants. It has to have it has to have lots of things, schools and everything local. And then and, and then people will walk much more.

00:49:21:09 - 00:49:40:10
Seth Kaplan
I mean, it helps to have the sidewalk. Not every story that every street in my neighborhood has a sidewalk, but there's not a lot of traffic. So actually, I find the lack of traffic meaning it's safe to move on that street to be actually more relevant to the sidewalk, to be very honest. And we have probably half sidewalks, half now.

00:49:40:13 - 00:50:10:13
Seth Kaplan
So I appreciate the bicycle argument, but I would say I'm much more of a fan of making things dense enough and local enough that we walk, because I think you have a much bigger audience when you talk about, moving, like to go shopping or something that's not local. Where I live, mostly everyone has kids, so the bicycle, you're there walking or you're driving the bicycle works.

00:50:10:13 - 00:50:33:03
Seth Kaplan
If you're like a your kids are older and you're going together. But there's a lot of people on what's your you're going to have the. And so I would be so yes to the bicycling. But I'm much more like let's walk. Let's make things local and if you have to get in your car, let's, let's make sure that those few ways out are easy to get out.

00:50:33:03 - 00:50:34:24
Seth Kaplan
That's how I would look at it.

00:50:34:26 - 00:51:06:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. But when we look at active mobility, we know that our walk shed is around around a quarter mile to a half mile of a reasonable where people are going to be like, okay, it's if it's within that sort of sweet spot, I'm going to do that. And that's where the Dutch really have done quite well, is they have an overlaying of the different mobility networks of where the pedestrian network overlays with the bike network, overlays with the transit network, overlays with the motor vehicle network.

00:51:06:03 - 00:51:28:21
John Simmerman
It's not like they're anti card. They're not. There's just an overlaying of all the different networks. And so they work well together cohesively. And so that's where you know the power of the bicycle over there really works well because they can get anywhere that they want to go. And if it's within a reasonable distance they're like, oh, this is less than ten kilometers.

00:51:28:24 - 00:51:59:14
John Simmerman
Naturally I'm going to jump on the bike and go. It doesn't make sense for me to get in the car. And so your point is very well taken that the vast majority of people in American society would probably be like, oh, is this a within walking distance? And if it's a particularly enjoyable walk and safe walk, I might even stretch that out to a mile, maybe even a mile and a half, because it's it's truly something I feel like I can do reasonably and have a good time doing that.

00:51:59:16 - 00:52:19:27
John Simmerman
And I talk a lot about habit formation in the sense that if it's truly enjoyable, then you get that, you know, reinforcement in the brain that, you know, establishes that, hey, this was an enjoyable experience. I want to get, you know, do this again. And so that's where we start to see habit formation. And so we're doing that.

00:52:20:02 - 00:52:47:15
John Simmerman
So I certainly appreciate what you're saying on the walking side. And I want to reinforce that one of the great things that we can do in our society, since we are more spread out, is lean into making our environment more bikeable as well, because because of our natural spread out, aspect that is our, you know, sort of secret weapon is that we can actually get to many of our, destinations.

00:52:47:15 - 00:53:10:03
John Simmerman
There's a nine fold increase in the bike shed compared to the watershed. And so there is, but we have to make it safe and inviting so that you as a as a family member with young kids, feel like, oh, yeah, we want to get to this destination. It's probably a destination that we would normally drive to, because it's not far enough or not close enough for us to walk to.

00:53:10:03 - 00:53:19:11
John Simmerman
But you know what? We've got a safe, inviting route to be able to bike on. Let's put the family on bikes. It's a beautiful spring day. Let's do it.

00:53:19:14 - 00:53:39:09
Seth Kaplan
I mean, I would just say that, it makes more sense of my kids are older. I have a two year old, and, I and, so I so I have neighbors that love to bicycle. I would say I'm, I'm the walker. And if you said a quarter to a half a mile, I mean, I would.

00:53:39:13 - 00:54:06:03
Seth Kaplan
I walk a mile, I probably walk a mile to the subway. It's probably more a mile and a half. When I go downtown. I'm always taking the subway. The subway is 30 minutes walking. I don't think it's it's totally not designed for me to walk. I have to walk through the woods. I have to take some shortcuts. I over people's cut, over people's front yards, cut across a busy street with no, no way for me to get through.

00:54:06:05 - 00:54:37:27
Seth Kaplan
But I, I almost in any weather, any time of the year, I'm walking. I don't walk home because by the end, it's like the end of the day and I'm, I'm taking a Uber, but I almost always walk to the subway and I enjoy it. It's like a challenge. And you go through some very nice. And I think the point you made there about the beauty and the enjoyment, I would say there's the there's the physical part, but when I look at people in my neighborhood and when they're out on the street, it's the community.

00:54:37:29 - 00:55:00:26
Seth Kaplan
That's the beauty. It's the fact that people can walk with each other or to each other. I mean, my daughter often has friends over again. She's in seventh grade, and one of the things they do is they go for a walk. They walk around, they they'll come back an hour later. I don't know where they went, but they go and they talk and they walk and, they may not even have a destination.

00:55:00:26 - 00:55:22:13
Seth Kaplan
And they're doing that. And of course, they're also going to people's homes and I never know exactly where they end up. But the point is, when you have neighbors that are friends and you have classmates that are friends, you get into the habit of living in real life, and you get in the habit of going places on foot, and that will have an impact on your whole life.

00:55:22:15 - 00:55:46:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And you do talk about this a bit in your book as well, as well as in the article that, you know, being able to establish and reinforce the sociability of these environments. And, you know, it. The challenge that I oftentimes have here on the channel is to even know your neighbors. Have you gone out of your way to even get to know them?

00:55:47:02 - 00:56:11:05
John Simmerman
And we saw this in our neighborhood here is that, two major events really enhanced our ability to get to know each other within our community. The first was, of course, the lockdown in 2020. With the pandemic, it's like we, you know, suddenly found ourselves walking in our neighborhood and, you know, checking in on each other. Are you doing okay?

00:56:11:05 - 00:56:33:03
John Simmerman
Okay, great. That's wonderful. Of course, it was a little weird for, like, standing at distances, you know, as we're conversing in the middle of the street. The second was, about a year later where we had a week long, power outage because of a freak, winter storm that, you know, you know, for us in Texas, we're not used to to deep snow.

00:56:33:03 - 00:57:06:25
John Simmerman
And so we got, you know, 8 to 10in of snow and below freezing temperatures then, and our power was knocked out. And so everybody was, you know, in dire straits trying to come together. And so as a neighborhood, as a community, we started to check in on each other. How you doing? Okay, etc.. What's interesting is the lingering effect in the community from both of those, you know, instances is that we, we have a closer connection, a closer, closer amount of cohesiveness with each other.

00:57:06:28 - 00:57:26:25
John Simmerman
And then we see that spread out blocks away from us, where we're noticing that more people are walking in the neighborhood and conversing with each other and, and checking in on each other. And you see familiar strangers. You see people that you don't really know, but you recognize them and you say hi, and and you have that connection with them.

00:57:26:27 - 00:58:08:04
John Simmerman
And I'll say this too, because we talked a little bit about the circa when these, neighborhoods were developed. We also have no sidewalks. And so we're literally sharing the street space with the automobiles. And since we're out there in numbers, it's it's creating a traffic calming effect as well with the neighborhood and with the drivers to close us out, talk a little bit about that side of it, because you do touch on it in the article and you do touch upon it in the book of how important it is to have that neighbor sort of cohesiveness and understanding and getting to know who your neighbors actually are.

00:58:08:06 - 00:58:38:05
Seth Kaplan
Well, I would just say that, you know, a lot of people are unhappy, depressed, their whole mood is affected because they they use politics for them as like a spectator sport, or they're worried about what's happening in the world or, and, and I think on, on, on, on something that we don't talk about is if you're isolated from people around you, what do you fixate on?

00:58:38:05 - 00:59:01:04
Seth Kaplan
So I, I live in what I would call a joyful neighborhood. I walked out on the street, I go whatever direction I want to go in, and I know who's behind the doors. I can say hi to the people. I mean, I went for a walk this morning. I saw one of my neighbors, and she was in front of another house because her mother lives a couple blocks away.

00:59:01:04 - 00:59:18:03
Seth Kaplan
They were getting a delivery or what have you. And and I take another walk, another block. And I saw someone going to I saw some, someone getting in the car to take his kids to school. They have to drive a little bit to get to school and so I know that family, and I've been in that house before.

00:59:18:03 - 00:59:39:11
Seth Kaplan
And the point is, and I was in that woman's house before, I've never been in her mother's house, but I've been in her house. She's actually down the street. The point is, I walk around, I know hundreds of my neighbors. I mean, I know them very well. Some of them I know pretty well. A lot of them. I just know I've been in the house of dozens of my neighbors, if not more.

00:59:39:13 - 00:59:58:12
Seth Kaplan
I know how many kids they have. I know where they go to school. My wife could tell you what she doesn't like about their interior design and and why why they did this to their kitchen versus that. You know, we have all these discussions. The point is, we have a level of intimacy with our neighbors that most people don't.

00:59:58:15 - 01:00:24:13
Seth Kaplan
And when you have that level of intimacy, it does a few things. One, it makes me feel that I live in some sort of security blanket. So I know people have my back and I have their back. Last time I'm on the call, I'm a little tired. My kids have to get to bed, and they're. I'm on the call for 75 minutes because I'm on the board voluntarily of a local organization.

01:00:24:13 - 01:00:44:20
Seth Kaplan
That's the one I get most involved with. And I know many of those people pretty well because I see them maybe once a month, and we have to be virtually sometimes it's in person. But the point is, I have the security blanket. I have all these relationships. If I need something, my, my wife had to go take care of her mother.

01:00:44:25 - 01:01:04:17
Seth Kaplan
I needed help with my kids. Two mornings into evenings for a different neighbor. Stepped in just as an example. And I can give so many. Another thing is, is because I know them. My kids are bored. I say, okay, you run over there. It's a lot easier being a parent when my kid is frustrated and there's other kids around.

01:01:04:19 - 01:01:21:25
Seth Kaplan
They don't want to play with each other to be honest. They want to play with other people. Buy some, wants to play sports. My daughter wants to go talking to someone. My baby, well, she's not quite ready for that. But the point is, it makes my job as a parent easier. I would also say it gives me a reality check.

01:01:21:28 - 01:01:45:24
Seth Kaplan
I have neighbors that are Democrats. I have neighbors that are Republicans. I have neighbors that that love the new president. I have neighbors who hate the new president and I know them all. I also have if I'm having problems like in like with one of my kids or in my relationship, you know, I have neighbors that I can actually hear their story and realize that my problems aren't so great, where I might get some practical advice.

01:01:45:27 - 01:02:00:20
Seth Kaplan
The thing is, it's a source of information. It's a source of support. It's a source of joy. And that is why I'm so big on the importance of neighborhoods for our well-being and every way we can possibly think about it.

01:02:00:22 - 01:02:15:09
John Simmerman
I love that, and I love that you channel joy as a big part of this. Seth Kaplan, author of the book Fragile Neighborhoods Repairing American Society one zip code at a time. This has been such a pleasure. Seth, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

01:02:15:11 - 01:02:17:14
Seth Kaplan
Thank you so much, John. My great pleasure.

01:02:17:19 - 01:02:32:20
John Simmerman
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Seth Kaplan. 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, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring that notification bell.

01:02:32:27 - 01:02:54:27
John Simmerman
And again, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Again, navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Hey, patrons, do get early and add free access to all my content and every little bit helps and is very much appreciated.

01:02:54:29 - 01:03:18:24
John Simmerman
Again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers! And again, just want to send a huge thank you to all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel financially via YouTube memberships YouTube super thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and joining my Patreon, every little bit adds up and is very much appreciated.

01:03:18:29 - 01:03:20:11
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much!