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

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:24:21
Ray Delahanty
I kind of feel like that's been kind of the kind of the catalytic thing is, is housing affordability that's really brought the urbanism issue to the forefront and in this case, in a lot of ways. And so I kind of feel like I kind of started my channel at a fortuitous time where that was emerging as something that people cared about.

00:00:24:24 - 00:00:52:16
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman. And that is the one and only The City Nerd, Ray Delahanty with the City Nerd YouTube channel. I'm super, super excited to share this conversation with you. We're going to talk a little bit about some of his most popular videos and some of his biggest surprises that he has seen as he's been traveling around the globe, profiling various cities, urbanism and all sorts of really cool stuff, mobility perspective as well.

00:00:52:18 - 00:01:03:17
John Simmerman
Hey, let's get right to it because it's a long one. Let's jump into it with Ray... Ray. Welcome.

00:01:03:19 - 00:01:04:12
Ray Delahanty
Thank you.

00:01:04:14 - 00:01:08:22
John Simmerman
Or I should say welcome, City Nerd.

00:01:08:24 - 00:01:09:24
Ray Delahanty
Welcome to City nerd.

00:01:09:25 - 00:01:11:12
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, well.

00:01:11:14 - 00:01:31:25
John Simmerman
It's a real joy and honor to have you here on the podcast. You and I got to share a platform stage at The Strong Towns, a national gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, back in May. And that was a hoot. A lot of fun. But why don't you just take an opportunity to introduce yourself to the audience? I'll give you the floor.

00:01:31:27 - 00:01:54:13
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. So I'm Ray Delahanty, otherwise known as City Nerd. Actually, somebody did me at a restaurant up in Seattle a couple of days ago and said, Are you the city nerd? So I've never heard the city nerd before, but I guess I'm the city nerd. Anyway, so I started a YouTube channel called City Nerd back and I guess July of 2021.

00:01:54:13 - 00:02:14:02
Ray Delahanty
So a little over two years ago now, as kind of like a sabbatical project, I thought I was going to take like six months off of work and, and, you know, doing some YouTube stuff was part of what I wanted to do with my time off. And it kind of quickly got traction and started growing as a viewer base.

00:02:14:02 - 00:02:25:06
Ray Delahanty
And it got to the point where I thought, you know, probably just keep doing this and delay going back to work a little longer and it's kind of continued to grow. So that's kind of my new job.

00:02:25:09 - 00:02:27:29
Ray Delahanty
I ran a YouTube channel.

00:02:28:01 - 00:02:50:18
John Simmerman
It's so funny that you get a July of 2021 is kind of your your jumping off spot. It's kind of my jumping off spot for the YouTube channel as well. It did exist a little bit prior to that, but it was really when I had Jason Slaughter from not just bikes on the channel, you know, doing an interview just like this, and that was July of 2021.

00:02:50:18 - 00:03:19:13
John Simmerman
And that really just kind of catapulted my presence both on this this platform as well as out on the audio only platform, which is kind of unique. I'm able to produce this these conversations and and I love having it in the video format because then we can pop over and have visuals and and I think what a lot of what we end up talking about here in this you know, sort of mobility and urbanism perspective is very visual in nature.

00:03:19:13 - 00:03:31:12
John Simmerman
So I love the ability to to to bring in the visual because it's I love podcasts and I love listening to them. But I'm oftentimes wondering is like, Oh, man, I wish I had a visual of that.

00:03:31:14 - 00:03:32:05
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:03:32:06 - 00:03:51:00
Ray Delahanty
And that was part of the reason I think I started the YouTube channel, because I was carrying around a notebook for quite a while with topics that because I was a transportation consultant before I went on sabbatical and I had a bunch of ideas that were like, These are all things that I'm really interested in and nobody's ever going to pay me to research.

00:03:51:03 - 00:04:09:21
Ray Delahanty
Like no client is going to hire me to talk about these things. But if I ever get a chance, I'll blog about them. But as I thought about it, I thought, you know, these are all very visual and it would lend itself really well to YouTube. So that's why I decided to do it as YouTube instead of a blog, or I hadn't even considered a podcast, honestly.

00:04:09:22 - 00:04:17:02
Ray Delahanty
But but yeah, yeah, but the things we talk about are, I think, best explained visually.

00:04:17:04 - 00:04:45:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. So my foray into this world of podcasting and then eventually to the YouTube channel was a really a pandemic project. I had previously been filming a documentary and that, you know, obviously the, the pandemic put an absolute stop to that. And so I was like, okay, what am I going to do now? And and so I started off with the audio only podcast and kind of move forward.

00:04:45:07 - 00:04:53:23
John Simmerman
What was kind of your story? What was what sort of prompted the desire to, you know, take a step back and have a little sabbatical and figure out what the next step was?

00:04:53:26 - 00:04:54:26
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:04:54:28 - 00:05:21:00
Ray Delahanty
I think there are a lot of us out here who did some sort of pivot during the pandemic, and I think there are a lot of reasons for that. I think all of us responded differently to like the change in work environment or the change in work demands and or maybe looking for a way to move to something different and maybe more fulfilling.

00:05:21:07 - 00:05:22:02
Ray Delahanty
And there were others.

00:05:22:04 - 00:05:40:25
Ray Delahanty
There are other kind of personal things that happened during the pandemic, or at least the early part of it as well. That really made me think, you know, if I want to do something different and talk about the things that I think matter, which I don't know, you don't necessarily always get to do when you're, you know, a professional planner.

00:05:40:28 - 00:05:58:12
Ray Delahanty
You know, that was kind of the time to do it. I just I would say it's it was kind of a catalytic time for a lot of people where if you had an idea of something different you wanted to do with your life, then maybe, maybe the pandemic was kind of pushed you over into finally doing that thing.

00:05:58:14 - 00:06:28:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it certainly was the thing that pushed me towards finally launching that podcast. I mean, I had been on many other podcasts, including Chuck Barron's Strong Towns podcast multiple times, a beating dating back a decade. And so I was like, you know, I'd always wanted to do this and I had a pretty deep Rolodex. I'm old enough to remember what a Rolodex is of, of people to call on and say, Hey, would you like to come and chat and just, you know, you know, riff on, on some stuff.

00:06:28:05 - 00:06:44:19
John Simmerman
And people were like, heck yeah, let's do it. And so I've had the opportunity to, you know, chat. I mentioned Jason, obviously, and that really got me into YouTube, but I also had the honor of, you know, interviewing people like Peter Naughton with, you know, the author of Fighting Traffic and Donald Shoup, you know, from the high cost of free parking.

00:06:44:19 - 00:07:07:08
John Simmerman
So just really it's been a special opportunity, like you said, to sort of pivot and do something a little bit different. And I hate to say that, you know, something good came from the pandemic, but in some ways, you know, it certainly caused a lot of us to kind of reevaluate what we were doing, how we were doing it and all that.

00:07:07:11 - 00:07:21:22
John Simmerman
Now, if I remember correctly, and I think you just mentioned it in one of your relatively recent videos, there was something about the geography of where you were. So you're from the Pacific Northwest, is that right?

00:07:21:24 - 00:07:23:03
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:23:06 - 00:07:29:05
John Simmerman
And so I think you had mentioned yeah, I think I might have been suffering a little bit from that season of disorder.

00:07:29:08 - 00:07:30:20
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00:07:30:23 - 00:07:33:25
Ray Delahanty
I think I did talk about that.

00:07:33:27 - 00:07:35:02
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:07:35:04 - 00:07:55:09
John Simmerman
And so and so yeah. Talk a little bit about that because you ended up, you know, I don't know if it was the next move that you meant, but maybe it, you ended up hanging out a little bit in Las Vegas, which I used to work in Las Vegas quite a bit right after I launched a firm that I was part owner in.

00:07:55:12 - 00:08:11:17
John Simmerman
And I had a project that was happening in one of the neighborhoods out by the the airport there. So but this is like, you know, this is like circa late 1990s, early 2000. What was that like to go from the Pacific Northwest to Vegas?

00:08:11:19 - 00:08:16:02
Ray Delahanty
Well, so at the outset of my channel.

00:08:16:04 - 00:08:36:12
Ray Delahanty
The first part of my sabbatical, I went to Mexico and I traveled around for like four months. And the plan was because even though I had spent, like the previous couple of decades or better part of a couple of decades in Portland, Oregon, and I'm originally from Seattle, and that's where my whole family is. And so I went.

00:08:36:14 - 00:08:36:23
Ray Delahanty
When.

00:08:36:23 - 00:08:52:00
Ray Delahanty
We come back from Mexico, or at least temporarily relocate to Seattle, we reevaluate things because we had like all our stuff in storage, we were homeless and oh, I say homeless, but, you know, we didn't we didn't have a permanent address.

00:08:52:05 - 00:08:54:16
John Simmerman
You weren't anchored in a location?

00:08:54:18 - 00:08:56:23
Ray Delahanty
No, no, it's okay.

00:08:56:23 - 00:09:02:21
Ray Delahanty
So again, like a 30 day Airbnb in Seattle and and really reevaluate and.

00:09:02:23 - 00:09:05:27
Ray Delahanty
That's over there. And December.

00:09:05:29 - 00:09:11:08
Ray Delahanty
2021 slash January 2022, and it was like, tell doesn't necessarily.

00:09:11:08 - 00:09:11:29
Ray Delahanty
Get.

00:09:12:02 - 00:09:31:06
Ray Delahanty
A lot of snow. Like, I think there are some years where it doesn't snow at all because it doesn't always get that cold. It snowed a lot and it was kind of cool for a couple of days and then it got old as and I started to remember just kind of how dreary the winter and parts of the spring and fall can be.

00:09:31:09 - 00:09:53:23
Ray Delahanty
And Seattle can be extremely beautiful a lot of the year, probably most of the year, honestly. But those those three, four, maybe five months of the year, I started to really remember how much they wore on me when when I was there, when I was growing up there. And it all made the same thing, the same Portland does the same climate characteristics.

00:09:53:26 - 00:09:54:20
Ray Delahanty
So I thought, you know.

00:09:54:24 - 00:09:57:27
Ray Delahanty
It would be kind of nice since I don't have.

00:09:58:00 - 00:10:23:23
Ray Delahanty
A job that's located any specific place. How about we just move somewhere that's relatively affordable and as warm weather and still has great connections? If I want to come back to like Seattle or Portland or travel other places and and that was obviously Las Vegas because it's still relatively affordable, at least compared to California. The weather can get too hot in the summer.

00:10:23:23 - 00:10:30:05
Ray Delahanty
But again, it was great. And like January, February, March, I'll tell you that coming out coming back from Seattle. So that initial.

00:10:30:05 - 00:10:32:06
Ray Delahanty
Moved to Vegas.

00:10:32:06 - 00:10:42:17
Ray Delahanty
Was kind of exactly what I wanted. It was like, okay, this is affordable. It's not as like bike and pet friendly as O'Dwyer, but I can make anything work as long.

00:10:42:17 - 00:10:43:21
Ray Delahanty
As I.

00:10:43:23 - 00:10:49:16
Ray Delahanty
Find the right location that's near like bike path and stuff like that. So I did that.

00:10:49:19 - 00:10:54:13
Ray Delahanty
So, you know, Adam and I have a pretty.

00:10:54:15 - 00:11:13:09
Ray Delahanty
Positive association with that year. I spent living in Vegas, basically 2022. A lot of good things happened with the channel and there's just generally a pretty good year. So but yeah, it was never going to be, I think, like a permanent, permanent move for me.

00:11:13:10 - 00:11:14:11
Ray Delahanty
Right, Right.

00:11:14:14 - 00:11:35:20
John Simmerman
So I've pulled up on screen here your, your channel and then I've sorted it based on the oldest videos. So, so these are some of the thumbnails from some of the early early works. So this is a solid two years ago. So I'm assuming these were were some of the videos, you know, that were from the era the Las Vegas era is about right.

00:11:35:20 - 00:11:38:16
Ray Delahanty
No, no. This is before that was even before.

00:11:38:16 - 00:11:43:20
Ray Delahanty
Wow. I think like the first yeah, those first six videos.

00:11:43:20 - 00:11:49:15
Ray Delahanty
I think we're all shot in Portland. When I was still living in Portland. And that.

00:11:49:18 - 00:11:50:02
Ray Delahanty
Made you look.

00:11:50:02 - 00:11:52:29
John Simmerman
A little pasty there in the in the show thing.

00:11:53:01 - 00:11:55:06
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, I learned back when I was.

00:11:55:09 - 00:12:03:22
Ray Delahanty
Still trying to figure out which of my thumbnails look like, and I still don't really know. I had, you know, you know, Oh yeah, you should, you should put your face in your thumbnails like.

00:12:03:24 - 00:12:05:03
Ray Delahanty
I don't know. I'm not I'm not good at that.

00:12:05:03 - 00:12:23:29
Ray Delahanty
I'm not good at posing for pictures. So I'm no I haven't gone back and updated those and I'm sure I probably won't because I just don't care that much. But, but that's what my thumbnails looked like early on. So I think all of those six were filmed in Portland and then probably the next 15 or 16 after that were all filmed at like different places.

00:12:23:29 - 00:12:25:11
Ray Delahanty
I was staying in Mexico.

00:12:25:17 - 00:12:36:02
John Simmerman
Oh, wow. You know, I think I remember that that era, too. I remember some of your older videos where you were you were doing the filming in in in Mexico. That was super.

00:12:36:02 - 00:12:37:11
Ray Delahanty
Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:37:16 - 00:12:48:10
Ray Delahanty
And so then the next two years worth of videos after that, we'll all be from Las Vegas, and then there will be another three months where I was just filming videos and wherever I was staying in Spain or Portugal.

00:12:48:10 - 00:12:49:19
Ray Delahanty
Because I stayed.

00:12:49:21 - 00:12:53:21
Ray Delahanty
I traveled out there in like February, March, April.

00:12:53:21 - 00:12:54:14
Ray Delahanty
Of this year.

00:12:54:16 - 00:13:23:02
John Simmerman
So I was going to see that was this year and that was freaking amazing, you know, being able to to be in that and following your journey of of some of the stuff that was sneak into, into the videos because sometimes they were relevant to where you were because you do have some of those that genre of video And then other times it's it's a video that is specific to a particular topic.

00:13:23:05 - 00:13:53:22
John Simmerman
And so when we sort this by your most popular videos of all time, you've got your absurdly undervalued list and a video and this this sucker is closing in on 700,000 views. And by the way, congratulations on the success. We started at about the same time here in YouTube. I'm currently pushing 7000 subscribers. Dude, you're you're up at over 200,000 subscribers.

00:13:53:29 - 00:13:57:18
John Simmerman
You got to be pinching yourself going, what the hell is going on?

00:13:57:21 - 00:14:02:01
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, a little bit. Well, it's funny because.

00:14:02:04 - 00:14:05:25
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, I definitely have weeks where I go, Why am I not growing faster?

00:14:05:25 - 00:14:06:00
Ray Delahanty
Why?

00:14:06:05 - 00:14:21:12
Ray Delahanty
Why are not more people not watching my videos? And I do have to kind of stop myself and think I only started this channel two years ago, like, everything's cool. Don't, don't sweat like I said, I just try not to sweat how any particular video is performing because I didn't realize the video every Wednesday.

00:14:21:13 - 00:14:22:17
Ray Delahanty
So I.

00:14:22:19 - 00:14:28:11
Ray Delahanty
If I released something, is kind of a clunker for whatever reason, and I never really know why people do or don't watch my.

00:14:28:11 - 00:14:29:07
Ray Delahanty
Videos.

00:14:29:09 - 00:14:51:18
Ray Delahanty
It's like it's not a big deal because I'm always releasing another video in like the next Wednesday. So I can just, you know, I'm on a constant treadmill of, you know, both releasing videos and then just kind of trying to learn what works and what doesn't. And what I enjoyed doing a way to enjoy doing what people responded to and what people didn't respond to.

00:14:51:18 - 00:15:03:09
Ray Delahanty
So, yeah, when you when you saw the videos by like the most viewed, that starts to give you an idea of what are like the bread and butter topics that people really like to watch me talk about.

00:15:03:09 - 00:15:04:06
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, yeah.

00:15:04:08 - 00:15:04:27
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:15:04:29 - 00:15:46:11
John Simmerman
For sure. And when you look at it again too, not to put too fine a point on it, but clearly the top ten lists are a popular part of it. In the list in general, the are a genre of video that does quite well and you do such a great job at creating these and explaining the metrics that you do, because I find it incredibly frustrating when there's quote unquote, a top ten list that gets picked up by the media and it goes around to all the different, you know, magazines and YouTube videos and other it and then you look at I go, what the hell were the metrics to this?

00:15:46:11 - 00:15:53:18
John Simmerman
And you do a really good job. I think it's probably your planning and engineering background. You have both a planning and an engineering background.

00:15:53:18 - 00:15:57:02
Ray Delahanty
Is that I mean, my my education is in.

00:15:57:04 - 00:16:16:20
Ray Delahanty
Well, a little bit my, my degrees and I have a master's in urban and regional planning, but as part of that, you can take electives in engineering over in the School of Engineering. So I actually maxed out as many electives in the engineering school as a kid because I do I do have like, I don't know, like I have.

00:16:16:20 - 00:16:18:13
Ray Delahanty
The.

00:16:18:15 - 00:16:41:16
Ray Delahanty
Quantitative and analytical capability to do engineering. I just don't always like the culture of it. And so actually, when I got into my career, I mostly ended up doing engineering work that I couldn't stand because I'm not a professional engineer. But it but the the, the who was working above me would review the work I did and give me feedback and then ultimately stamp it.

00:16:41:16 - 00:16:47:18
Ray Delahanty
So I was basically doing it engineering work, but I could never call myself an engineer because I'm not a I'm not a Peavey, right?

00:16:47:21 - 00:16:48:01
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:16:48:03 - 00:16:58:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. And the reason why I was curious about that is because on your Twitter page in the landing, the very first word there of your description is planned. Junior. I'm like, Oh, maybe he's also an engineer too.

00:16:58:23 - 00:16:59:05
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, because.

00:16:59:12 - 00:17:25:00
John Simmerman
That's kind of the origin story with Chuck Brown too, is that he was he was an engineer first, then decided, This is crazy. I need to have more of a planning background and then did the planning stuff. But what I was going to say about the, the, the list that you are creating and the, the mechanism that you go forward in creating the metrics seems like, okay, cool.

00:17:25:00 - 00:17:50:13
John Simmerman
This person is like very thoughtful about how he's going forward on this. And you know, meaningful sort of metrics to it. So I really appreciate that the way you're doing it. And I think it's a testament when you look at the popularity of these things. I mean, everybody will quibble and I know that they do. And we can talk about audience and community in a little bit, but that's, I think, one of the key, really.

00:17:50:13 - 00:18:06:12
John Simmerman
I think success stories to your channel has got to be, you know, being able to make some sense out of some of these things, put some metrics out there and say, Hey, this is why I do it. Yeah, you may want to quibble with me a little bit about why I'm doing this or that or whatever, but here it is.

00:18:06:14 - 00:18:17:24
John Simmerman
And what I love about your delivery on this is you're so deadpan and you're just like, Yeah, whatever. This is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it, you know, take it or leave it.

00:18:17:26 - 00:18:20:01
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, Yeah, it is true.

00:18:20:01 - 00:18:44:03
Ray Delahanty
Take it or leave it. And it's definitely an intentional choice to spend some time upfront and, and in a video where I'm doing like a top ten list just to explain why exactly what I considered and how I measured it as much as I can, I get like there's a limit to that because I don't want to get if I frontload the video with too much explanatory stuff, it slows down the storytelling.

00:18:44:03 - 00:18:56:02
Ray Delahanty
So there's always a balance. And I did, I think early on when I was doing these things, I got a lot of comments that were along the lines of, Man, can you just get to the point?

00:18:56:05 - 00:18:58:19
Ray Delahanty
But but I also I also got.

00:18:58:19 - 00:18:58:28
Ray Delahanty
A lot of.

00:18:58:28 - 00:19:01:01
Ray Delahanty
Comments. You know, I really, really.

00:19:01:01 - 00:19:20:28
Ray Delahanty
Really value that part. And that's what makes you different. So you should do that. And so that's kind of the way I ended up. That's the side I aired on. I still get people who, well, just paste in like the top ten in order. So and, and with timestamps so people can just go watch that piece and skip the methodology altogether.

00:19:20:28 - 00:19:44:13
Ray Delahanty
But I do think that kind of misses the point because and I've said this in a few of my videos, but I kind of like the top ten format because it's got like a built in beginning, middle and end like narrative structure to it. But it's also I've called it kind of like a like a Trojan horse for talking about principles around cities and livability and walkability and transportation.

00:19:44:15 - 00:20:05:16
Ray Delahanty
That's really what it is. It's a format where, like I'm telling a story about a top ten list, but it's really it's really a story about like, what matters. What's in your which do you pay attention to when you're evaluating where to live for where to go to visit or or quality of life. And so that always necessarily includes a lot of opinion on my part.

00:20:05:16 - 00:20:23:22
Ray Delahanty
And then I'm upfront about that. I said, this is how I measured it, because this is what I think matters, but it's not necessarily going to be the same for you. Maybe you maybe you care about there being like a great ballet company in the city. Like I don't care about ballet at all. Like that probably makes me like an infidel or something like that.

00:20:23:22 - 00:20:24:19
Ray Delahanty
But, but, you know.

00:20:24:27 - 00:20:46:25
Ray Delahanty
Different people care about different elements of city life or urbanism or urbanity, right. Or culture. And so so this stuff's endlessly fascinating. Everybody's got their own kind of matrix of of personal wants and desires. And that's what makes that's what makes like every city different because every city has like kind of like.

00:20:46:25 - 00:20:47:16
Ray Delahanty
A.

00:20:47:18 - 00:21:13:00
Ray Delahanty
Different comparative or competitive advantage. And in one way or another, like, you know, like Austin, Texas, you know, if you care about live music, like, it's going to be really hard to be Austin, Texas, for example. And there probably other things about Austin, but there's something about every every every city has some some particular thing that they're just they do more for better than everybody else.

00:21:13:00 - 00:21:16:23
Ray Delahanty
And I like to kind of tease out what those things are.

00:21:16:25 - 00:21:57:02
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. Well, I'll give my plug for Austin in the sense that we've lived here now almost a decade. We made the move from the big island in Hawaii, the island of Hawaii to here in Austin, and we love it. I mean, it's it's a very walkable, bikeable place based on where we chose. We were very intentional about what neighborhood we chose to live in and made those decisions so that we could live a car, light lifestyle and fact the the the old car that we shipped over from Hawaii hardly ever gets driven, which is, you know, part of my goal is to be able to get around the city without having to drive around

00:21:57:02 - 00:22:37:06
John Simmerman
here. How long does it take you to really go from, say, concept of you know, the ten cities that are the absurdly undervalued? You know, hey, that's what I want to do is, is, is dive into that. How long does that concept go from like idea ideation? And I know sometimes your your your fans will will send you especially out on patron will send you suggestions how long does that take to you know kind of let it matriculate a little bit in your brain and then be able to do you know get to the final product because you're you're producing once a week and it's on Wednesday right when they come out.

00:22:37:08 - 00:22:45:05
John Simmerman
Yep. And it seems to me like there's an awful lot of research that you throw into each and every episode.

00:22:45:07 - 00:22:46:06
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:22:46:08 - 00:23:13:29
Ray Delahanty
I think part of what helps with that is just because I've got like the better part of a couple of decades doing planning and engineering, I'm kind of familiar with a lot of data sources and how to how to analyze them and all the different tools you can use to aggregate or otherwise analyze, you know, census data or how housing price data or transit the national transit database.

00:23:13:29 - 00:23:34:16
Ray Delahanty
Like, I know those things kind of back, back and front. So it's easy for me to think of how I want to measure something and kind of immediately know how to do it. But it does vary a lot by the type of video. So I give myself a week to make a video and like I don't know, kind of a typical video.

00:23:34:18 - 00:24:03:05
Ray Delahanty
You know, I'll start with an idea that I already have and then, I don't know, I guess it goes differently for for different kinds of videos. But but I would I would basically start on Wednesday and finish on Wednesday. And so Wednesday, Thursday and Friday maybe research in writing Saturday. AM either like taping what I call my role, which is me talking to the camera mostly off of a script, but it, it varies a little bit.

00:24:03:05 - 00:24:26:27
Ray Delahanty
And then like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday is editing everything together and bringing in images and footage for like maybe your own and my zero if I need it, and then reviewing it and exporting it and doing all all the metadata and probably happens on Tuesday. So I'm really working on deadline all the time.

00:24:26:27 - 00:24:27:15
Ray Delahanty
I know.

00:24:27:18 - 00:25:00:09
Ray Delahanty
I know a lot of people are like the advisors, you see, you should always have videos done well in advance. So it's in case you get sick or like something comes up, you'll still have a video to release. And it's like if I get sick, I just won't release a video that week. That's that's kind of my philosophy dynamic, extremely deadline driven person like that that my creativity in as much as I have any comes from having a deadline like like if I didn't have a deadline if I hadn't decided to put out a video once a week, I'd like it just wouldn't happen.

00:25:00:11 - 00:25:20:29
Ray Delahanty
So and also, like, I kind of do everything myself. Like if you have a big team and you have to send something off to the editor or you have a graphics person, then yeah, you do need to start a lot further in advance so that those like those people have the lead time. They need to give you something back and you give them give them comment.

00:25:21:03 - 00:25:27:01
Ray Delahanty
I don't know, like I'm used to that workflow from, from the consulting job I had and I'm just kind of tired of it.

00:25:27:01 - 00:25:28:12
Ray Delahanty
And again.

00:25:28:14 - 00:25:51:02
Ray Delahanty
I know it's very limiting to what I can do, but I really like doing everything by myself. I may change my tune eventually, but but it's one of the great joys of, of doing what I'm doing right now is that I can just and it's not that I'm like a real control freak, although that's probably true. I just I just like, I just like doing the whole thing myself and not having to get feedback from anybody.

00:25:51:04 - 00:26:25:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of the same way. The only difference on on my standpoint from at least for the podcast episodes, is that I do tend to record them in advance. So for instance, this is being recorded on September Fridays, September 22nd. This will go live on Friday, October 27th. And so I know exactly when you are, you know, sort of scheduled into the whole release platform, but I actually won't touch any of this video and I won't do any editing on any of this until Monday of that week.

00:26:25:16 - 00:26:45:02
John Simmerman
So it's a very similar type of of timeframe in terms of I won't turn my attention to producing this and getting it out. And, you know, an advertising that there will be a live premiere, by the way, there will be a live premiere of this being released on that date of Friday, October 27th. I think I've got that date right.

00:26:45:05 - 00:27:05:11
John Simmerman
But whatever that Friday is that we got to. And so, yeah, it's a similar type of thing of where I'm kind of scrambling, where I throw a little niggle in the whole thing is that I also try to produce a second video and sometimes a third video each and every week on some other topic or some other genre.

00:27:05:13 - 00:27:29:20
John Simmerman
For instance, I've been processing all of my ride along videos from Paris the last few weeks, and so I try to put the push those out. So it's a little bit of a balance because these are long interviews. These are like an hour long conversation, whereas I try to get my other videos out somewhere in the 15 minute time frame, which seems to be a pretty magical you know, I'm looking at your your links of your videos here.

00:27:29:25 - 00:27:33:27
John Simmerman
They're all right around that 14, 15, 16 minute range.

00:27:33:29 - 00:27:53:25
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, Yeah. That's kind of a sweet spot for what I can actually get done in a week reasonably comfortably. Some of my videos where like I go to another city and I film stuff and I talk about it like I've done for like Minneapolis and Montreal and Miami and Charlotte this year and Oh.

00:27:53:26 - 00:28:15:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, let's, let's, let's actually turn our attention to Charlotte. So that's where you and I saw each other with Charlotte and you know, and so this is a video that is now in your top six of all time videos, and it's only been out there for three months. I mean, that's that's pretty freaking cool. So so talk a little bit about that.

00:28:15:24 - 00:28:24:25
John Simmerman
As you know, when you get a video like this where it's like it seems like it kind of takes off kind of cool.

00:28:24:27 - 00:28:27:02
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. And again.

00:28:27:02 - 00:28:51:06
Ray Delahanty
Like the YouTube algorithm is very powerful. Like if if people are clicking on your thumbnail and watching enough of your videos and the algorithm will spread that video further to what it thinks are the type of people who might respond well to it. And I kind of wonder with these cities specific videos, I'm sure the algorithm is smart enough to go, Oh, this is about Charlotte.

00:28:51:06 - 00:29:18:18
Ray Delahanty
We should show this to more people live in Charlotte because I got lots of comments from people who live in Charlotte, North Carolina when I did the video. I think the other thing that helped and I've updated the thumbnail since they released it, which maybe I shouldn't have, I'm not sure, but I think originally the video thumbnail said the world Capital of Sprawl or something like that, and that was probably I was probably an attention grabber.

00:29:18:20 - 00:29:24:10
Ray Delahanty
And I do like clickbait. Yeah, it is clickbait, but it is actually something.

00:29:24:10 - 00:29:25:28
Ray Delahanty
That people have said.

00:29:25:29 - 00:29:30:01
Ray Delahanty
It's actually kind of true. Kind of true, yeah.

00:29:30:04 - 00:29:50:06
Ray Delahanty
But also I don't know about I also feel weird about it because people who don't watch the video and who kind of miss the larger, I don't know, like, like the narrative of like kind of where I go with it and how the city ended up surprising me. If you only have the thumbnail on the title to go off of, you'd probably think I had a pretty negative view of Charlotte.

00:29:50:06 - 00:30:07:13
Ray Delahanty
And so I think I got comment from people who just clearly didn't watch The View at all, who thought I was being like excessively critical of the city, where I think I think the video is doing the opposite. So, yeah, you know, it's like anything on the Internet, like people don't read the article. Did they just comment on what they think the article is about?

00:30:07:15 - 00:30:08:09
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:30:08:11 - 00:30:29:27
John Simmerman
Well, one of the reasons why I gave that little plug about Austin is because just Austin, just like Charlotte, is a very, very sprawling city. I mean, we're looking at 326 square miles. And so the density grew like an amoeba, you know, through the 1980s and 1990 and early 2000 before where they were like, oh, yeah, gee, we probably shouldn't be doing this.

00:30:29:29 - 00:31:14:18
John Simmerman
But Charlotte, you know, my experience with Charlotte of, of staying sort of along the the, the transit line heading south was incredibly delightful as it was. There was a lot of really cool urbanism and you capture a little bit in here but I did a freeze frame on this particular screenshot here because you sort of point out the the challenge with the, you know, the entire city and the walk score and the fact that it is such a sprawling city and it doesn't necessarily truly capture the the subtleties of what it's like to live in one of these places because and I've got another interview coming up here with somebody from Charlotte who is a

00:31:14:18 - 00:31:33:00
John Simmerman
real estate developer that's trying to build walkable, bikeable communities in the Charlotte area. I mean, I was pretty impressed. There's obviously some pretty good stuff happening there, and I didn't really explore out into the hinterlands because I pretty much just rode my bike or walked everywhere, right?

00:31:33:03 - 00:31:55:19
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, And that's something I I've tried to get to in a few my videos because it's pretty easy to get aggregated data for cities or metro areas, but it really doesn't tell the whole story because within any city like Charlotte, for example, like you could do like an average like WAG score for the entire city and it might come out pretty bad.

00:31:55:19 - 00:32:00:27
Ray Delahanty
And it does. But within that there are still a lot of neighborhoods that are very walkable.

00:32:00:27 - 00:32:03:13
Ray Delahanty
So, you know, every I think every city.

00:32:03:13 - 00:32:18:22
Ray Delahanty
Is like that. Every city has has its particular neighborhoods or or zip codes where you can still find walkability, even if the city as a whole is as kind of a reputation as being very, very car oriented.

00:32:18:24 - 00:32:31:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. What has been your biggest surprise of, you know, the cities that you have gone out and visited to do one of these city profile videos?

00:32:31:11 - 00:32:31:29
Ray Delahanty
I mean, it probably.

00:32:31:29 - 00:32:32:27
Ray Delahanty
Was Charlotte because.

00:32:33:02 - 00:32:34:14
Ray Delahanty
I literally was because I.

00:32:34:14 - 00:33:10:13
Ray Delahanty
Was thinking in advance, because I wanted to do a little bit of advance planning for the video. It's, Oh, what's this going to be about? And where should I go to film stuff? And the first thing I kind of realized I was researching Charlotte was, Oh yeah, scores extremely poorly on all these sprawl metrics and on walkability. So it might be really hard for me to find things, things to say in a positive light on and then when I got there and it probably helps that Strong Towns is happening there in the Congress for the New Urbanism because there are lots of folks there who who are locals, who are more than happy to either

00:33:10:13 - 00:33:35:29
Ray Delahanty
tell me about or show me the areas of the city that are gentrifying or that are getting new bike facilities or, you know, which which which stops along the the transit line or are getting a lot of transit oriented development, are becoming more walkable. But but that did surprise me. I guess the other one that surprised me and it probably shouldn't.

00:33:36:02 - 00:33:45:18
Ray Delahanty
But Montreal, Montreal, which I visited in August, I guess because I hadn't really I hadn't.

00:33:45:18 - 00:33:47:16
Ray Delahanty
Really spent time in Montreal before and.

00:33:47:16 - 00:33:48:16
Ray Delahanty
I'd heard lots of.

00:33:48:16 - 00:34:11:20
Ray Delahanty
Good things and I've seen pictures and video, but it was another thing entirely to go there. And I was fortunate that a fellow YouTuber had like a a membership key for the Bixi bike sharing system they just lent me. And so I could just take the bike share everywhere. But the bike share was amazing. The bike facilities they have, they're amazing.

00:34:11:20 - 00:34:36:26
Ray Delahanty
And the best thing I think for for any bike city is that they're just a lot of people out on bikes. I mean you build all the infrastructure, but if still no one's biking, then it's not going to feel very safe and comfortable. But when they're like, I always think it comes to safety in numbers. If there are a lot of people out biking and particularly if the facilities are protected or separated, then it's going to feel like a great biking experience.

00:34:36:26 - 00:34:56:23
Ray Delahanty
And so that's what Montreal, Montreal has in spades is, yeah, as long as it's not like January and there's a ton of snow on the ground, but you can take in that. But if the weather's decent or nice, there are just tons of people out on bikes and I don't know, you don't see a whole lot of that in North America.

00:34:56:26 - 00:35:48:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will echo what you said about Charlotte and about Montreal and slightly different to I too was just absolutely blown away by what I experienced in Charlotte, mainly because I had low expectations. I didn't really expect it to be very good, but it turned out, especially since I filmed three different bike tours associated with the Congress for New Urbanism, I was able to see some of the amazing developments that were happening, some of the infill developments, and also an emerging bicycle network that was really quite impressive and integrated with their transit, which I was like, yes, this is this is this is heading in the right direction with regards to Montreal.

00:35:48:20 - 00:36:18:04
John Simmerman
Montreal, of course, is a wonderful success story in North America for folks. If you're tuning into this and you don't know the story of Montreal, get up there. I mean, they've been working at this for the past 4 to 5 decades. They've been building out and comprehend the network of walking and biking facilities with integration of transit and just some amazing features to the city and all sorts of gentle density everywhere.

00:36:18:07 - 00:36:21:16
John Simmerman
I mean, it's all reminders everywhere.

00:36:21:19 - 00:36:22:03
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, Yeah.

00:36:22:03 - 00:36:34:29
John Simmerman
It reminds me of Paris, just a couple stories shorter instead of that fourth and fifth story you've got. That third and fourth story is is kind of where you're at. They're the walk ups of Montreal are world famous. The other thing that's world.

00:36:34:29 - 00:36:37:14
Ray Delahanty
Famous behind it, but.

00:36:37:16 - 00:36:47:06
Ray Delahanty
I think the joke we were making was like in a lot of American cities or maybe most American cities, we always talk about the missing middle. Yeah, in Montreal, the middle there, everything else is missing.

00:36:47:11 - 00:36:51:20
Ray Delahanty
They took it all. Yeah. There aren't that many high rises and there's, like, hardly.

00:36:51:20 - 00:36:54:13
Ray Delahanty
Any single family houses. It's just all middle everywhere.

00:36:54:13 - 00:37:10:02
John Simmerman
If you're wondering where your missing middle is. North America and Montreal, they took. Yeah, it's. They have it. The other thing I wanted to mention about Montreal, which is was truly extraordinary or and I don't know if you experienced this or not Ray was the the alleyways.

00:37:10:04 - 00:37:12:12
Ray Delahanty
Mm hmm. Yeah. There were a million.

00:37:12:14 - 00:37:14:02
Ray Delahanty
Buried or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

00:37:14:03 - 00:37:15:23
Ray Delahanty
Tried To capture them.

00:37:15:25 - 00:37:25:12
Ray Delahanty
For my video. And I couldn't quite I don't know. I didn't have enough footage or enough well-formed ideas about what I was looking at. So I didn't really include it in the video. But it was.

00:37:25:12 - 00:37:26:04
Ray Delahanty
Something.

00:37:26:07 - 00:37:29:23
Ray Delahanty
It's something I wanted. I definitely tried to explore all I was there.

00:37:29:25 - 00:37:43:07
John Simmerman
I wish I would have known you were going to be there. I would have actually hooked you up with a tour guide, and that's his specialty, is taking people on alleyway tours by bike is super, super cool. But yeah, good stuff.

00:37:43:08 - 00:37:46:15
Ray Delahanty
I may I may be going back next year, so yeah.

00:37:46:18 - 00:37:47:11
Ray Delahanty
I'll do that. Yeah.

00:37:47:18 - 00:38:30:04
John Simmerman
Well, if you have a chance to go during their June bike celebration, the two big bike events that they have right there in the city of Montreal, highly recommended. And again for the audience here, highly recommended the tour LA Ennui, which is the Friday night bike tour that goes off right as sunset is happening. And then on Sunday is a tour de L which goes around the Montreal as an island and it's tens of thousands of people come out to ride and it's really their celebration of getting out on bikes and active mobility and celebration from a long, hard winter.

00:38:30:05 - 00:38:48:26
John Simmerman
You know, they just they, they try to soak up every little bit of sunshine in the summertime as they can. So, yeah, it's good stuff. So I was curious. I was like, okay, well, where's the next city visit on this? And I'm kind of scrolling and I'm scrolling and I'm scroll. It looks like it was.

00:38:48:28 - 00:38:50:15
Ray Delahanty
It's probably Minneapolis, right?

00:38:50:16 - 00:38:53:12
John Simmerman
It's Minneapolis is the next city visit. Yeah.

00:38:53:15 - 00:38:59:11
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, it's a turn 30. Okay. Yeah, I agree with you on this. Yeah.

00:38:59:14 - 00:39:01:14
Ray Delahanty
I didn't know that was over 200.

00:39:01:15 - 00:39:02:28
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:39:03:01 - 00:39:07:21
Ray Delahanty
Minneapolis is great, too. And that's where, like, half of my family is from Minneapolis.

00:39:07:26 - 00:39:08:05
Ray Delahanty
So.

00:39:08:08 - 00:39:28:20
Ray Delahanty
So I'm familiar with the the city. It's a it's a good US bike city. It gets cold. Yeah. Like Montreal I guess, But it has. Yeah. Has a lot of elements that I really like and that's another one that I'll probably go back to. And I felt bad because I didn't really get to spend time in Saint Paul, so maybe next time I go I'll focus on Saint Paul.

00:39:28:21 - 00:39:47:15
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. But, but it is interesting I do think. Yeah. Is this city visit things they do I think they do pick up the algorithm or maybe just word of mouth pushes them out to like more local people who might not have heard of my channel before, but not that I'm talking about their city than than they're they're interested.

00:39:47:15 - 00:39:49:13
Ray Delahanty
So yeah, that's what I would chalk.

00:39:49:13 - 00:39:50:28
Ray Delahanty
That up to.

00:39:51:01 - 00:40:19:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. Now, your channel has had a long history with with stadiums and football stadiums and your relatively recent top ten college football stadiums that don't completely ruin your city is is kind of a you know, it goes along the top ten list. But why don't you explain the other relationship that you have with sporting stadiums that existed in the early days of your channel?

00:40:19:29 - 00:40:27:03
Ray Delahanty
Joining me to just kind of walk through that made a history of doing videos about stadiums. I mean.

00:40:27:05 - 00:40:43:21
John Simmerman
It was I found it very endearing that, you know, in in those you made that comparison to your subscriber list. This is what I'm going oh the number of subscribers to stadium. So yeah, I thought that was a really you even forgot.

00:40:43:24 - 00:40:45:19
Ray Delahanty
You didn't know which way I was going on that.

00:40:45:19 - 00:40:47:27
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. No, I see. Okay.

00:40:48:00 - 00:40:49:19
Ray Delahanty
Well, first of all, like college.

00:40:49:19 - 00:40:50:29
Ray Delahanty
Football, one.

00:40:51:02 - 00:40:52:03
Ray Delahanty
Is interesting because I had.

00:40:52:03 - 00:40:54:23
Ray Delahanty
Already done similar videos on like.

00:40:54:23 - 00:40:55:17
Ray Delahanty
Kind of.

00:40:55:19 - 00:41:05:13
Ray Delahanty
Rating the urbanism of an NFL stadium and Major League Baseball ballparks and NBA slash NHL.

00:41:05:13 - 00:41:07:26
Ray Delahanty
Arenas and.

00:41:07:28 - 00:41:08:13
Ray Delahanty
Major League.

00:41:08:16 - 00:41:09:15
Ray Delahanty
Soccer.

00:41:09:17 - 00:41:28:02
Ray Delahanty
Idioms. And so it was obvious to do something around college football at some point. And I can't want to do it right at the beginning of college football season because I thought that's when there would be the most interest around and that one still has not crept over a hundred thousand views yet. That's like, Please, it's my least viewed video in the last several months, I think.

00:41:28:02 - 00:41:52:07
Ray Delahanty
But that's fine because those are ones that I know that a lot of my audience, Autumn audience, just doesn't care about sports. And I get that sports is trivial, but I also think I also think it's, you know, it can be integral to a city's identity and and it's something that brings people together and and makes them feel a shared identity with, you know, the place they live or the place they grew up.

00:41:52:07 - 00:42:09:23
Ray Delahanty
And so you can feel like whichever way you want to feel about sports. But I think it's hard to it would be hard to argue that they don't play an important role in the way like a city defines itself or the way the way people come together over like shared wins and or whatever. So anyway.

00:42:09:28 - 00:42:10:03
Ray Delahanty
But.

00:42:10:03 - 00:42:16:08
Ray Delahanty
I'm a I'm kind of a big Seattle sports fan from going way back. So anyway, I don't know.

00:42:16:08 - 00:42:18:02
Ray Delahanty
I don't know how. In fact.

00:42:18:02 - 00:42:22:28
Ray Delahanty
I think the first time I did the subscriber count thing.

00:42:23:00 - 00:42:29:04
Ray Delahanty
Was I think one of my sisters said, Wow, you have you ever.

00:42:29:06 - 00:42:32:26
Ray Delahanty
Got like 18,000 or 90,000 subscribers? And they said.

00:42:32:29 - 00:42:36:06
Ray Delahanty
Oh, you have you have enough subscribers to fill the.

00:42:36:09 - 00:42:55:18
Ray Delahanty
And I think it's called Climate Pledge Arena, which is where the Seattle NHL hockey team plays the same building where the Sonics used to play when it was called Key Arena and allow. And it created a very it was easy for me to envision that.

00:42:55:18 - 00:43:02:01
Ray Delahanty
I was like, Oh wow, all the people who subscribe to my channel would fill that arena. I thought, That's kind of interesting.

00:43:02:01 - 00:43:10:01
Ray Delahanty
Maybe I'll just turn that in that video. And I kind of knew what I did there. I was going to kind of come back and revisit it.

00:43:10:03 - 00:43:11:18
Ray Delahanty
So I actually actually.

00:43:11:18 - 00:43:31:02
Ray Delahanty
Created a master list of like all the all the arenas and different kinds of stadiums and like the major sports, not just in the U.S. and Canada, but also like the Mexican soccer League and then ultimately, I think, the different European soccer leagues, because I always wanted there to be some kind of stadium that I could say was that was the most recent one.

00:43:31:02 - 00:43:51:07
Ray Delahanty
I was able to to fill up. And it was I would always be able to add some kind of commentary about the stadium itself or like how I interface with the neighborhood or what the parking situation was. So it's been like 20 or 30 seconds on that every week. And eventually I just kind of ran out because eventually I filled the the University of Michigan Stadium, which is.

00:43:51:10 - 00:43:51:23
Ray Delahanty
The biggest.

00:43:51:23 - 00:43:56:24
Ray Delahanty
One that you can good aerial photography of. Yeah. So like not counting like India.

00:43:57:00 - 00:44:01:08
Ray Delahanty
Or North Korea. Yeah yeah yeah.

00:44:01:11 - 00:44:29:18
John Simmerman
Yeah I, I found that to be really, really cool. And quite honestly, I mean, I, I have to be very, very grateful in humble about the fact. Yeah, nearly 7000 people have subscribed to my channel. And if I in part of your visualization that you were talking about there is that a lot of people 7000. But I mean that's that's like 1.5 times the size of the little town that I grew up in.

00:44:29:21 - 00:44:54:18
John Simmerman
You know, it's like, you know, it's that is an awful lot of people. And so we're all incredibly privileged and lucky to be able to do this sort of work. And I love that you mentioned, you know, the Michigan Stadium because, yeah, it's that's where I did my graduate work was was at Ann Arbor and and U of M Stadium is just, you know, one of those fabulous you know you know places.

00:44:54:20 - 00:45:26:16
John Simmerman
My undergrad by the way also got an honor honorable mention in the U.S. there in Los Angeles and so the L.A. Coliseum which I don't think I don't I'm not sure if you mentioned it or not. But yeah, it's wonderful that there is now viable metro rail lines and transit lines in Los Angeles, you know, taking us back, you know, to the origins of L.A., My great great grandfather worked on the red car lines there in in Los Angeles at the turn of the century.

00:45:26:16 - 00:45:48:12
John Simmerman
And so a lot of people don't realize just how extensive L.A. is, streetcar line system was. And so it's wonderful to see that sort of transit coming back to the L.A. area and the fact that you can get off right there at the Expo Station, right at the Coliseum, get down to downtown, get up to where my family was up in the in the Pasadena area and all that.

00:45:48:14 - 00:46:11:06
John Simmerman
It's there's a lot of really, really cool stuff happening across the continent, around, you know, around the globe to talk a little bit about that, you know, because you mentioned that this particular video that we were just looking at, sitting at it, 99,000 people. And, you know, it's like maybe it's a sports thing. I know on my channel I'm getting a of international viewers.

00:46:11:13 - 00:46:17:26
John Simmerman
Are you seeing that, too, or is it in terms of like a lot of people tuning in from around the globe?

00:46:17:28 - 00:46:19:18
Ray Delahanty
I don't. Yeah because because.

00:46:19:18 - 00:46:21:23
Ray Delahanty
I can see all those metrics on my.

00:46:21:26 - 00:46:24:18
Ray Delahanty
Dashboard. And yeah, I actually.

00:46:24:18 - 00:46:38:04
Ray Delahanty
Did a thing. I think I've done a couple like livestreams where I did a but I think it's a fun countdown of like the top ten or 20 cities where my viewership comes from and they're.

00:46:38:04 - 00:46:43:26
Ray Delahanty
All, let's see if I do like the top 25. I think there are like.

00:46:43:28 - 00:47:08:12
Ray Delahanty
2019 of them are U.S. cities. And then I think you get Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver and you get London, U.K. and you get Sydney and Melbourne. So they're all English speaking cities. I mean, Montreal, you know, sort of they're they're English speaking, though, actually. Actually right now I think if you if you just filter for 2023, you actually get you actually get.

00:47:08:12 - 00:47:09:15
Ray Delahanty
Madrid.

00:47:09:18 - 00:47:14:28
Ray Delahanty
In the top 30 or so. But it's just because they did a lot of Yeah. Span with content early in the.

00:47:14:28 - 00:47:16:18
Ray Delahanty
Year even though.

00:47:16:18 - 00:47:27:02
Ray Delahanty
It's an English if it you know there are a lot of folks who do speak only some English or maybe fluently or or it's possible for them to get like.

00:47:27:02 - 00:47:28:26
Ray Delahanty
Subtitles. I think.

00:47:28:28 - 00:47:29:25
Ray Delahanty
So anyway.

00:47:29:25 - 00:47:30:25
Ray Delahanty
But but it's yeah it's not.

00:47:30:26 - 00:47:35:09
Ray Delahanty
Super international for, for whatever reason and I've tried to do.

00:47:35:12 - 00:47:37:28
Ray Delahanty
Mexico specific content and I.

00:47:37:28 - 00:47:59:00
Ray Delahanty
Just don't get a whole lot of views on it, which is disappointing because I really, I really think there's a lot of interesting stuff that just, just accepting the viewer base is primarily U.S. and there's a lot of stuff that U.S. cities can learn from, like Mexican urbanism if we if we were paying any attention to it. So so I do like to cover that as well.

00:47:59:03 - 00:48:10:00
Ray Delahanty
And I'd like to go further afield and I'd like to do more international travel and more filming on the location. But there are a lot of practical considerations related to that.

00:48:10:03 - 00:48:11:24
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, yeah.

00:48:11:27 - 00:48:23:26
John Simmerman
You and I spend an awful lot of time out on social media, probably more time than either of us should be spending out on social media. But I had to laugh when I saw this post from yesterday where you were like.

00:48:23:26 - 00:48:29:29
Ray Delahanty
Oh gosh, is oh, I hope I didn't put that guy on blast. It was a that's.

00:48:29:29 - 00:48:48:11
Ray Delahanty
From an Instagram story that this guy posted and tagged me and and he was just kind of letting all of his followers know. And I think I don't know how many followers he had. Not as many as I have. I guess it's just letting people know, hey, I really think this is an important video for you. It's and, you know, if you can prove to me that you watched it, I'll send you five bucks.

00:48:48:12 - 00:48:55:21
Ray Delahanty
And as I was kind of reposting that, they said, Hey, this guy's going to get you.

00:48:55:24 - 00:48:58:27
Ray Delahanty
Me, That wasn't nice or something. Maybe he thought it was funny. So I think.

00:48:59:00 - 00:49:02:06
Ray Delahanty
Oh man, that's that's hilarious. I don't.

00:49:02:06 - 00:49:25:22
Ray Delahanty
Know. It's cool when yeah, when people feel strongly about the stuff or they feel like they heard something articulated in a way that they hadn't heard it before that they thought was useful or they just learned something different, or if they're just entertained. I mean, those, those all feel good to me. So and that's it for YouTube. I'm not making like a whole ton of money or anything like that.

00:49:25:24 - 00:49:38:06
Ray Delahanty
So so it's really, really knowing that I'm like impacting someone's life in a positive ways is really probably the most where I get the most gratification. So.

00:49:38:09 - 00:50:02:23
John Simmerman
Well, let's stick with that that, that line of thought there because it is pretty gratifying that when you know somebody recognizes you on an airplane or, you know, you're out in public and somebody and says, oh, nerd, sit here as well as when people show up to ride with you. Talk a little bit about this visit, you know, to to Seattle and how cool it was to, like, have a whole bunch of people show up and go for a bike ride with you.

00:50:02:26 - 00:50:04:06
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. And this is.

00:50:04:06 - 00:50:20:25
Ray Delahanty
Something a lot of YouTubers do. They do like fan meet up or whatever, and they hadn't done that before. I mean, I met a lot of people when we were in Charlotte, but they weren't there specifically for me, you know. But, but there might be people watch my channel and get value out of it or whatever. And I went to.

00:50:20:25 - 00:50:22:27
Ray Delahanty
Sort of it was sort of a fan.

00:50:22:27 - 00:50:43:00
Ray Delahanty
Gathering in Montreal. That's the reason I was in Montreal. But it was really they're they're like six different YouTube channels represented and and and so, I don't know, like it wasn't a huge gathering. And so I decided I want to do something in Seattle because I know I have a lot of viewers in Seattle and it's where I'm from and I knew I was going to have some time to spend up there.

00:50:43:00 - 00:51:09:09
Ray Delahanty
So I got with this, you know, this urbanism blog that covers like local Seattle, like transportation and development news called The Urbanist and said, yeah, let's let's put on an event. And, you know, it can be kind of like a fan meetup but we'll run around and you know, we kind of set it up as a as a group bike ride, finishing up at a pub where we could have a gathering.

00:51:09:09 - 00:51:29:23
Ray Delahanty
And I think they set up like an Eventbrite that had 50 slots in it because that's something about like what they get for their usual meetups and those disappeared right away as they extended to 100. Those disappeared right away and then they did 250 and those sold out too. And there are still people who showed up anyway.

00:51:29:25 - 00:51:32:08
Ray Delahanty
So a lot of people came out. It was a gorgeous day.

00:51:32:08 - 00:51:52:12
Ray Delahanty
It was a perfect day for a bike ride along Lake Washington Boulevard, which is normally one lane in each direction for cars and really not hospitable to bikes at all. And like for a few weekends, the summer, they they closed it to cars. So just people on bikes or rolling or doing whatever or running or walking can can kind of take it over.

00:51:52:12 - 00:52:07:18
Ray Delahanty
And so that's just like the greatest feeling when we have these open street event and people really come out and enjoy it and use it. And so, you know, in my mind a lot of those people might have been out there regardless.

00:52:07:21 - 00:52:08:11
Ray Delahanty
But you.

00:52:08:12 - 00:52:16:08
Ray Delahanty
Know that they showed up and we all got to ride together. And I met so many people. It was very cool.

00:52:16:11 - 00:52:30:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And we've been watching some of the video from the channel that you mentioned The Urbanist, and I'll make sure that we include a link to his video here. We got we got permission from him to go ahead and show those. And so that seems cool.

00:52:30:26 - 00:52:44:16
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. And they do they do fantastic work too. I think if I want to know what's going on in Seattle, that's that's where I go. And so, you know, if you if you follow if you want to follow the Seattle stuff, that's you should go and read them and support them.

00:52:44:16 - 00:52:46:19
Ray Delahanty
If you can. I would say that.

00:52:46:22 - 00:53:05:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. So sticking with that kind of concept of, of what it means to have like a following and a sense of community dive a little bit deeper into, you know, what that's been like, you know, being able to have a whole bunch of, you know, a fan base of city nerd fans.

00:53:05:26 - 00:53:13:11
Ray Delahanty
Yeah I don't know. It's interesting because I just, you know, I didn't know when I.

00:53:13:11 - 00:53:14:21
Ray Delahanty
Started the channel and.

00:53:14:23 - 00:53:16:28
Ray Delahanty
And I guess related to.

00:53:17:01 - 00:53:50:15
Ray Delahanty
The video I put out this week which the idea around the video was just tried to define what urbanism what urbanism is and know who urbanists are and what they care about, at least from my point of view. And so so that's kind of what this week's video is about. And really the genesis of that is like when I started the channel, like the only the only context I ever heard the word urbanism or urban earth was really in the context of the Congress for the New Urbanism, which is a very specific thing that's about like architecture and urban design styles.

00:53:50:18 - 00:54:32:13
Ray Delahanty
And it's not what we really talking about when we talk about urbanism. I think in the I don't know if I might call like an activist community or an advocacy community, but it's taken on kind of a different meaning, I think in the last two years at least, probably probably more than that. And that seems to encompass a lot of things related to, you know, people, people wanting to live in cities because of all the great amenities and opportunities that cities provide and, you know, the ability to live without a car or with car light and be able to do the things you need to do using transit or walking or biking, but also to

00:54:32:13 - 00:54:58:09
Ray Delahanty
be able to do it affordably. And I kind of feel like that's been kind of the kind of the catalytic thing is, is housing affordability. That's really brought the urbanism issue kind of the forefront and in this case in a lot of ways. And so I kind of feel like I kind of started my channel at a fortuitous time where that was emerging as something that people cared a lot about.

00:54:58:15 - 00:54:58:23
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:54:58:23 - 00:55:01:25
Ray Delahanty
So it's been interesting to be, I don't know, like a little.

00:55:01:25 - 00:55:02:29
Ray Delahanty
Bit of a.

00:55:03:01 - 00:55:41:08
Ray Delahanty
Focal point or maybe a will have a little bit of a, I don't know, like a a voice or a leadership role in what I think of as a movement. And there are a lot of people, you know, Nairobi agrees about everything. So, you know, I expect everybody to agree with what I have to say. But it's been interesting to to be able to be part of that dialog and kind of kind of help maybe be someone who helps define what that is and and what we're what we're aiming for and talking about how things should be and why they aren't the way we want them to be and why our cities haven't made the

00:55:41:08 - 00:56:19:06
Ray Delahanty
same progress as, you know, like European cities or Asian certain Asian cities. So I'm somewhat comfortable with like kind of what my role is in that. I'm pretty active on social media and I talk about all these issues every week in my videos. And so I don't know, I'm comfortable with it. It's not what I expected, but it's it's it's it's been interesting and it's it's pretty gratifying just to have a voice that, you know, people listen to and and that that helps.

00:56:19:08 - 00:56:34:28
Ray Delahanty
I don't know. I got to talk about something different every week. So in a small way, I maybe like help kind of set the agenda for what people are talking about, at least maybe, maybe like 1% of that or something, which is 1% more than what I probably had before.

00:56:34:28 - 00:56:36:27
Ray Delahanty
So. Right. Yeah.

00:56:36:29 - 00:56:46:18
John Simmerman
So your pen tweet or whatever Ellen's things. Now a post is with Nebula. So this is this is relatively new for you, right?

00:56:46:21 - 00:56:47:26
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

00:56:47:29 - 00:57:07:13
Ray Delahanty
I sat down with Nebula. I think, right before I left for Spain. So it was kind of towards the end of January. And it's just a I don't know, there are a few reasons for it that they have. I mean, it's primarily a kind of like a Netflix. It's kind of like a streaming service for YouTubers.

00:57:07:13 - 00:57:08:04
Ray Delahanty
I guess.

00:57:08:04 - 00:57:38:02
Ray Delahanty
I don't want to pigeonhole it too much because they do. They do several different things, but it's kind of a place for YouTubers who work in like kind of technology and culture entertainment, and there are certain certain pieces that that nebula kind of brings together. And then they also provide a certain amount of like technical support for, I don't know, just kind of helping you improve the workflow of what you're doing.

00:57:38:02 - 00:57:56:12
Ray Delahanty
So that was valuable to me as well. And then there's like a little bit of an ownership piece in there too, like by signing on with Nebula, like I own a little piece of it. And so, so there's, there's kind of a, there's kind of like a diversification thing for me, like kind of all my eggs are in the YouTube basket.

00:57:56:12 - 00:58:05:00
Ray Delahanty
And so like, what if some billionaire decides to buy YouTube and completely change how they do business? Like, that never happens.

00:58:05:02 - 00:58:07:06
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. So.

00:58:07:09 - 00:58:32:29
Ray Delahanty
So then then the way I feel, I feel very vulnerable because that's by far my primary platform for, you know, you know, talking to people and, and, and making some income. And so, so Nebula is a way to kind of diversify that something happened to YouTube, that Nebula would be there and it would still have a platform to to to put my content content out on.

00:58:33:01 - 00:58:55:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know and for folks who are going what what really is this like you said. Yeah it's very much just like a subscription type of situation you know similar to a Netflix And so you know folks you can you can actually pay this looks like a lifetime membership is the current deal going on otherwise the super super cheap, it's like $2 or something.

00:58:55:11 - 00:59:20:08
John Simmerman
You know, this is like the ongoing kind of thing per month. That's that's a really good deal. You've got great content creators Jason Slaughter with not just bikes is out there aam transit is out there city beautiful is out there so a lot of good urbanism is out there and you know for for those of you who are primarily you know consuming our content you know especially like an hour long interview like this.

00:59:20:10 - 00:59:42:17
John Simmerman
You know it's it's nice to have another option where you don't get served up a YouTube commercial. You know every certain number of minutes. It's not as big of an issue with a shorter form content, but it's certainly an issue that I hear about with my longer interviews because that'll get interrupted multiple times. So having access to Nebulas is a super cool thing.

00:59:42:19 - 01:00:01:23
John Simmerman
I'm not big enough yet to be invited to Nebula, but maybe someday I'll keep my fingers crossed. But you know, you know, and I'll give a plug to my Patreon as well as your Patreon is that. That is one of the benefits that I'm able to provide to my patrons, is I give you access to all of this content commercial free.

01:00:01:26 - 01:00:14:08
John Simmerman
So I upload it to a completely different video platform. I load it up to Vimeo, I give you a password protected access so that you can watch this content without any of the commercials.

01:00:14:16 - 01:00:15:16
Ray Delahanty
So yeah, we love.

01:00:15:16 - 01:00:33:19
John Simmerman
It, we love you YouTube. But at the same time, yeah, we want we want to have some diversification, we want to have some options. And so that's one of the benefits that I do extend to to my Patreon supporters. Yeah. I'll talk a little bit about your community in your patrons, because I know that you do. You could shout them out every, every episode that you put out.

01:00:33:19 - 01:00:44:12
John Simmerman
And you do talk a lot about the fact that you get some of those ideas from that. So you are developing a good interactive community there in Patreon too.

01:00:44:15 - 01:00:48:04
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, Yeah, I know the patrons. Great.

01:00:48:06 - 01:01:01:05
Ray Delahanty
You know, both in terms of obviously it helps with, you know, sustaining what I'm doing. Like I, you know, if I'm not making like a certain amount of income, then I have to go back to consulting and then I can't do a YouTube channel.

01:01:01:05 - 01:01:03:01
Ray Delahanty
So we don't want that.

01:01:03:04 - 01:01:04:27
Ray Delahanty
Is the reality of it.

01:01:04:29 - 01:01:05:19
Ray Delahanty
That's what to.

01:01:05:21 - 01:01:06:21
Ray Delahanty
Obviously the patrons.

01:01:06:21 - 01:01:11:09
Ray Delahanty
Great for that. But but also it's a way of we've.

01:01:11:09 - 01:01:27:25
Ray Delahanty
Found really valuable is it's a way of kind of curating a group of people who are literally invested in what you're doing. So they obviously care enough about it to like go to a website and.

01:01:27:28 - 01:01:29:01
Ray Delahanty
Like.

01:01:29:03 - 01:01:44:15
Ray Delahanty
Patreon makes it easy. If you're already a patron somewhere else, then it makes it easy for you to become a patron of, you know, some other some of their creators. That's fine, but they have to make a decision to actually do that. And so I do find that I do get.

01:01:44:17 - 01:01:44:22
Ray Delahanty
Like.

01:01:44:28 - 01:02:08:03
Ray Delahanty
The comments and the interactions they have on my page around site tend to be like more thoughtful and and more illuminating on average than like the YouTube comments section. Not that there aren't good things on the YouTube comments section too, but I can't even read. There's just a just too much and it gets out. There's too much spam that happens to you and that that doesn't exist on the page or and so on page around.

01:02:08:03 - 01:02:25:19
Ray Delahanty
I do. I do at least one post a week where I kind of talk about that week's video and give kind of a behind the scenes look of how I thought through it and what I thought was interesting about it or what mattered and why I did this, but not that. And I usually pose a question to my patrons.

01:02:25:19 - 01:02:44:26
Ray Delahanty
And so I have like a long discussion. And then yeah, it also has it has a messaging feature I choose of people can message me and they pretty much always respond to messages I get from patrons. Although again, it can take time sometimes.

01:02:44:28 - 01:02:49:08
Ray Delahanty
But but they're almost always.

01:02:49:10 - 01:03:08:19
Ray Delahanty
I think, very valuable. They're sending me something like I haven't read before or that's interesting, or they have an idea that's interesting or they want to let me know about an experience they had that it's, I would think was funny or instructive in some way. So so I just get a lot of value out of having that community.

01:03:08:19 - 01:03:09:16
Ray Delahanty
That's great. Yeah.

01:03:09:18 - 01:03:27:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. Good stuff. Hey, to close us out, why don't you, you know, kind of look back in the last week, two weeks, month or whatever, any, any controversies, any things that kind of bubble up that you want to kind of mention and and kind of riff about controversy?

01:03:27:22 - 01:03:30:02
Ray Delahanty
Uh.

01:03:30:04 - 01:03:47:20
Ray Delahanty
Not really. Hey, I know the well said this. This is going to go out like a month later than we're talking about. But I know that a Brightline Orlando opened today, the day we're taping, and a few of my creator friends are actually out there writing the first riot It's actually did get.

01:03:47:24 - 01:03:48:27
John Simmerman
Alan Yeah.

01:03:49:00 - 01:03:50:08
Ray Delahanty
Alan Alan's out there.

01:03:50:08 - 01:04:02:15
John Simmerman
And Miles, an officer is there and he also was on that same panel that you and I were on. That's right. At Strong Towns get national gatherings. So yeah, he's been live tweeting it from this morning.

01:04:02:17 - 01:04:03:02
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

01:04:03:04 - 01:04:26:16
John Simmerman
And so yeah, that's super, super exciting. In fact, I reply him that I'm going to be in Orlando in like a week, so I don't think I'm gonna to have a chance to jump on the bright line. But yeah, talk a little bit about that. I mean, this is like it's not perfect, as he mentioned, but this is kind of big news is that Florida now has a decent train service from from Miami to Orlando.

01:04:26:18 - 01:04:42:10
Ray Delahanty
I think so, yeah. There's my pug Miles in transit. He has a smaller channel, but he's down there and he'll be I'll be doing some content on that as well. And you know it. Everybody responds differently to different styles on YouTube. I really enjoy Miles.

01:04:42:10 - 01:04:43:26
Ray Delahanty
I think he's hilarious.

01:04:43:28 - 01:05:05:00
Ray Delahanty
And so I look forward to both Alan and Miles Take on the bright line. Yeah. So the bright line folks actually invited me to come out for that as well. I had a conflict anyway. Plus, I don't know. I knew several other people are going to be out there doing. Yeah, I'm not that train focused like some of these other creators are very train focused and so that's cool.

01:05:05:01 - 01:05:23:19
Ray Delahanty
I'll go do it later. But I do think it's really important because I do you know, my very first video is about, you know, where should we be building high speed rail in the US? And there was just something had been knocking on me for years. Every time I saw that map of that map of.

01:05:23:22 - 01:05:24:27
John Simmerman
Yeah, there it is. Right there.

01:05:24:28 - 01:05:29:26
Ray Delahanty
Know that very, very first one on the upper left? That was the video that first gave me subscribers.

01:05:29:26 - 01:05:37:09
Ray Delahanty
Like I didn't get subscribers until after like my third video or whatever it came out. But that was the one that the algorithm finally picked up and said, Oh.

01:05:37:09 - 01:05:38:15
Ray Delahanty
People are kind of enjoying this.

01:05:38:22 - 01:06:01:02
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, let's put this out a little more. And so that was that was the one that really got the ball rolling for my channel. And they always come back to like, the concepts I talk about in that video are things that come back to every time I talk about high speed rail and including like when I went to Spain, I rode the RV and a couple of the other trains and I talked about it then as well.

01:06:01:02 - 01:06:22:17
Ray Delahanty
So the bright line really is like the, like kind of dedicated purpose built and it is high speed good. It's not like 200 miles per hour or I think it's like 150, but that's good in between in the segment between West Palm Beach and Orlando. Yeah, there are other segments that are problematic. It's got like at grade crossings and things like that.

01:06:22:17 - 01:06:38:12
Ray Delahanty
And I know that they have they've had some safety issues. But the fact that a private company was able to build that service and be it and be able to run it hourly between Miami and Orlando, I think is really exciting and bright line is.

01:06:38:15 - 01:06:39:04
Ray Delahanty
Is.

01:06:39:06 - 01:07:26:05
Ray Delahanty
Is behind the L.A. To las Vegas line that would be completely grade separate i think would primarily run in median of I-10. Right so so yeah, I mean with whatever problems bright line Florida has, I'd still think this is a very this is a very positive optimistic day for those of us who care about intercity passenger rail in the U.S. just kind of understanding that like if we leave it to the federal government and Amtrak, like I know like there's a lot of stuff that may not get done, but if we have private companies that see profitability and they can get it done, I don't know, like I'm not opposed to that.

01:07:26:07 - 01:07:29:08
Ray Delahanty
And, you know, hopefully, hopefully it's a.

01:07:29:12 - 01:07:52:28
Ray Delahanty
Success with ridership and then, you know, it becomes I don't know if I would say a model, but it become it becomes a data point that, you know, Texas can like and California can look at and go, oh, yeah, we need to get this thing because the you know, but the states or like Seattle, Portland, Portland, Vancouver or, you know, any of these other places where we've conceived of having high speed rail, they could get a kick start.

01:07:52:28 - 01:08:06:03
Ray Delahanty
If this becomes a really positive data point for the demand for for people to to get from city to city in, you know, 2 to 3 hours at a reasonable price point.

01:08:06:05 - 01:08:24:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And again, one of your more popular videos is in fact just from six ago at 266,000 views is is the passenger rail comparison between Spain and the U.S. and you know your subtitle is brace yourself for utter chagrin.

01:08:24:18 - 01:08:29:18
Ray Delahanty
That's pretty sad. Yeah, yeah.

01:08:29:21 - 01:08:31:26
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. I think, you know, if.

01:08:31:26 - 01:08:32:17
Ray Delahanty
You're.

01:08:32:20 - 01:08:57:11
Ray Delahanty
If you're fortunate enough to have been able to go overseas either to Europe or, I don't know, Japan or South Korea or Taiwan and and ride through high speed rail, like, you know, it'll just change your mind about things is such a completely different experience from flying. And I really do like to travel so so I can I can I can stomach flying.

01:08:57:11 - 01:09:18:11
Ray Delahanty
I just I don't know. Yeah, yeah. But the fly, the flying experience is just kind of terrible. And once, once you've once you've taken a train, that that actually accomplishes the trip faster and is actually comfortable to be on where you can like get work done or reading or, or whatever, or just walk around and stretch or have some food.

01:09:18:11 - 01:09:22:02
Ray Delahanty
I mean, it's just it's just so, so superior in every way.

01:09:22:04 - 01:09:49:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a I'm the same way. I really, you know, I would prefer not to have to fly just to get around to cities here in North America. It's, it's just not a very fun experience. I actually don't mind road trips. I mean, I don't mind long distance road trips. I I'm a good driver in the sense that I can, you know, put a podcast episode in or whatever audio book and and drive.

01:09:49:25 - 01:10:19:02
John Simmerman
I like the the quieter roads in rural environments. I don't like being on interstates so much. They're just too fast. Plus, I like seeing the little towns that, you know, used to exist when we did have rail and we did have like a little, you know, state highway types of things. So I don't mind and, you know, I don't mind the road trip and I try to do that each year, make my way up to Colorado and back just dipping my toe into New Mexico just a little bit, which is where you're at right now.

01:10:19:02 - 01:10:20:15
John Simmerman
Right. Is in New Mexico. Yeah.

01:10:20:18 - 01:10:22:03
Ray Delahanty
Yeah.

01:10:22:06 - 01:10:49:01
John Simmerman
But what I hear is that maybe, maybe, maybe, you know, the the dead option for a high speed rail option here in the San Antonio to Austin area might be coming back to life as well as some of the other Texas high speed rail options, which right now they're trying to figure out how to connect San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, which come on, if you're going to do that, you got to connect Austin to.

01:10:49:01 - 01:10:49:11
John Simmerman
So.

01:10:49:15 - 01:10:50:16
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, right, right.

01:10:50:17 - 01:10:52:06
Ray Delahanty
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

01:10:52:08 - 01:11:15:01
John Simmerman
It's tough. And I again, I'd be honored to have you come visit here in in Austin, Texas. That goes out to the audience as well. I've had several of you hit me up when you've been passing through town. I love taking people out for bike tours of the our emerging Dutch inspired cycle network. It even includes the Dutch red cycle paths, which is really nice.

01:11:15:01 - 01:11:25:04
John Simmerman
They use the pigment in the concrete slurry mix, so it's not paint, it's actually integrated into the actual concrete, which is really super cool. So one of these days.

01:11:25:07 - 01:11:25:21
Ray Delahanty
Yep.

01:11:25:24 - 01:11:26:21
John Simmerman
Come visit.

01:11:26:23 - 01:11:28:27
Ray Delahanty
For sure.

01:11:28:29 - 01:11:33:21
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been an absolute honor and pleasure.

01:11:33:23 - 01:11:34:24
Ray Delahanty
Yeah, thanks for having me on.

01:11:35:00 - 01:11:50:24
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Delahanty Varsity Nerd. And if you could 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 that subscription button down below and ring notifications.

01:11:50:24 - 01:12:12:09
John Simmerman
Bell And if you are enjoying my content, please consider supporting my efforts and becoming an active town's ambassador. There's many ways that you can do it. Just head on over to active towns, dawg, and you can click on the support button there and you can become a patron supporter. The patrons get access to all of this content early and ad free.

01:12:12:11 - 01:12:33:03
John Simmerman
You can also make a donation to the nonprofit Buy Me a Coffee is also an option as well as buying things from the active town store. We've got some T-shirts and water bottles, all sorts of good stuff. The streets of here, people schwag out there, and every little bit helps. Thank you all so much for everybody who is tuning in each week watching these videos.

01:12:33:06 - 01:12:57:02
John Simmerman
And hey, until next time, this is John signing off and wishing you which activity health and happiness cheers. And again, sending a huge thank you to all my active town's ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super. Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

01:12:57:04 - 01:12:58:11
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.