Transcript exported from the original video version of the episode. Note that this has not been copy-edited.
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:19:18
Nathan Allebach
Shifting that status quo is just so daunting for people. I think you can create like a funnel effect of content to really just like introduce people at the very top with a high other top general level, bring them down into like some of the more technical language to reinforce the arguments that they need to make. Then you get them organized at a local level.

00:00:19:18 - 00:00:41:01
Nathan Allebach
If you can get just even as starting with a couple like two, three, four or five people who are invested in the issue to just kind of start to coalesce language around this and to really like not focus on the rise in the NIMBYs at a local level. It's not about like attacking the people who, you know, want to maintain the status quo.

00:00:41:07 - 00:00:51:01
Nathan Allebach
Like we're saying, it's really about introducing solutions and potential and just different styles of development that can really heal our towns.

00:00:51:09 - 00:01:14:17
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that is Nathan Allebach. You may know Nathan from Tik Tok and Twitter. He has been producing some amazing content recently, diving into walkability and talking about third places and all things urbanism. And it's so exciting to see a fresh new face and voice coming into this space.

00:01:15:00 - 00:01:27:19
John Simmerman
And especially since he comes from a marketing background and really has just presented it brilliantly. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. I know you're going to enjoy this conversation, so let's get right to it with Nathan.

00:01:32:22 - 00:01:35:21
John Simmerman
Nathan, thank you so much. Welcome to the Active Towns podcast.

00:01:36:05 - 00:01:37:24
Nathan Allebach
It's my pleasure, John. Thanks for having me.

00:01:38:14 - 00:01:43:22
John Simmerman
So, Nathan, I love to have, I guess, just give a quick introduction of themselves. So who is Nathan?

00:01:44:21 - 00:02:03:27
Nathan Allebach
Yeah, So I guess I'll try to do this under 3 minutes because I have a weird background and, and how I kind of came into the urbanism or placemaking or whatever you want to call it, space online. But I'm a, I'm a marketer first. So I've been working in marketing for the past nine years for a small family agency.

00:02:04:05 - 00:02:42:08
Nathan Allebach
I kind of came into the Internet culture world through running the the brand accounts station on Twitter, and I gained some notoriety and some national media headlines from 2017 to 2021. So I kind of gained like a bit of a like a Twitter following predominantly through that. And I just kind of did like a lot of freelance writing and other engagement just through my personal accounts from during that time and got into, you know, writing about conspiracy theories and culture wars and various sort of political and politically adjacent subjects.

00:02:42:09 - 00:03:17:15
Nathan Allebach
And about a year and a half or almost two years ago, I suppose, I kind of came into a lot of like online housing discourse. Like, I think my entry way was into the yimby's on Twitter. I just I followed some accounts that had started to kind of talk about some of these issues around zoning and parking. And eventually I'm not exactly sure how its my memory's terrible, but somehow that led me in to the YouTube world, presumably through the almighty algorithm, and that brought me to some of the larger channels, like not just bikes and that kind of funneled me through strong towns.

00:03:17:15 - 00:03:42:25
Nathan Allebach
And I don't remember which came first, to be perfectly honest. But I started down this, this kind of rabbit trail of just kind of learning the language behind a lot of issues that intuitively I had at least had a surface level understanding of kind of growing up, particularly around like infrastructure and car dependency. So that was my my kind of gateway into developing content.

00:03:42:25 - 00:04:13:02
Nathan Allebach
And then in September of this past year, so 2022 or I guess it was maybe late August, I started producing some short form videos on TikTok, just about car dependency and suburban sprawl and sort of what some of the potential near-term solutions people can contribute to solving in these relative areas. So had some videos do relatively well and all of a sudden people were, I guess, considering me a content creator in the space.

00:04:13:02 - 00:04:27:15
Nathan Allebach
But I don't I don't have a formal background. I'm not an urban planner or anything of that nature. I have a liberal studies degree and I'm a hardcore hobbyist when it comes to the subjects I'm interested in. So this is one that I had a deep dive then and I'm talking to you.

00:04:27:17 - 00:04:36:06
John Simmerman
So yeah, now, there you go. Now I'm a health promotion professional and public health guy. The turn, you know, content creator myself. So there you go.

00:04:38:20 - 00:05:08:00
John Simmerman
So this in fact is your tik-tok landing page. And if we scroll down here. Yeah, I mean, we go back in time and we can see sort of a transition here. There is an inflection point that's rather easy. You just see going away from the the TikTok videos with the kitty cats. And then, yeah, you're right there, right around in that July, August timeframe, you start talking about, you know, walkability and some other interesting things.

00:05:08:00 - 00:05:43:15
John Simmerman
And I guess it's it's it's wonderful to hear that sort of origin story of, yeah. You know kind of out on YouTube went into the the urbanism whole and you know discover Jason Slaughter and not just bikes And then he did a wonderful series of profiling strong towns and the strong towns movement and and his famous Strode you know video there so it you're not the first person that I've talked to who's been like, yeah, you know, we went down this rabbit hole and then suddenly got inspired.

00:05:43:23 - 00:06:12:01
John Simmerman
But what is amazing about your content is the groove that you got in and are in in terms of producing this. And like you said, you, you had a few, you know, kind of take off. You know, we've got some, you know, 26,000, 46,000 views here. But then you get to the top and boom, 1.4 million views. Talking about third place is how how extraordinary has this been?

00:06:12:01 - 00:06:14:03
John Simmerman
This is a like a wild toes right here.

00:06:15:18 - 00:06:41:11
Nathan Allebach
And it's been tremendous for me because, like I said, I kind of I've taken interest to various cultural and political politically charged topics over the years that I've written about, like for both personal blogs and through other media outlets. So like, I've been spending some portion of my personal life on my mostly my Twitter account writing and sharing thoughts about various subjects.

00:06:41:11 - 00:07:04:29
Nathan Allebach
But like I said, the past few years, so much of my I guess you'd say my online identity has circled around my marketing work. That's just like what people have known me for, for better or worse. And it just became one of these things that, you know, I I'm obviously grateful for the work and grateful for the opportunity it led to so many incredible things that have happened to me in that that time span.

00:07:04:29 - 00:07:27:00
Nathan Allebach
But also, like I'm not a huge fan of marketing and that's part of what made my work. I think stand out in that space initially years ago was like I was very sort of like an anti marketer marketer, you know, like or is Mark like, I would speak to a lot of the issues that I found. I like a metal level while doing marketing.

00:07:27:00 - 00:07:47:29
Nathan Allebach
And so like now, you know, years later I kind of got to the point I'm like, now I have this big following. These people know me from the space, but I don't really like to spend my free time thinking about or posting about or talking about marketing stuff. So like, I would always, you know, just freely speak about whatever the issue was I was interested in at that time.

00:07:47:29 - 00:08:07:19
Nathan Allebach
So when I came across this content and started producing around it, it was a really cool thing to to start to kind of explore another aspect of my interest and kind of get more of myself out there because I never really, especially with video, I mean, you and I were talking before the show just about, you know, the importance of video and platforms like YouTube.

00:08:07:19 - 00:08:43:23
Nathan Allebach
And I had never really dived into that medium at all, and I wasn't sure how I was going to come across or how I was going to succeed because, you know, like temperamentally, people have different tastes and like, no matter who you are, like, you're not going to be for everybody. And I and I wasn't sure if I even wanted to put this part of myself out there because for years on Twitter, like I I've gotten pretty deep in some discourses that have led to some unsavory interactions that, you know, I I've I've had some issues where people have like doxxed me and attempted to swap me over my work and marketing.

00:08:43:23 - 00:09:06:00
Nathan Allebach
So like, the thought of putting my face in front of people is always a weird subject, but I'm really glad that I did. And like to your point, like the other videos have progressively continued to climb slowly and resonate more. And then that third place video was the one that really like it got like around 2 million views on TikTok and then around four or 5 million on Twitter.

00:09:06:07 - 00:09:25:29
Nathan Allebach
So it was just like everywhere for this week. I gained like in total, close to I think 70 or 80,000 followers across different platforms. And like I said earlier, like I'm just some guy. So it's been very humbling to me. It's like have people messaging me and commenting like that. They're interested in what I have to say or what I'm thinking about.

00:09:26:05 - 00:09:44:23
Nathan Allebach
So I've been trying to be really careful in creating content to make sure that I'm doing my best to kind of lean on the expertise of others and do my best to sort of curate the information that I'm that I'm researching in a responsible way, because it is is very outside of my my traditional expertise.

00:09:45:12 - 00:10:10:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. Well, and what I love about, you know, folks that, you know, are from other arenas, other backgrounds that are diving into urbanism and, you know, starting to talk about this as you talk about it and you presented in a in a different way, you leverage a lot of the strengths of your industries that you're coming from.

00:10:10:13 - 00:10:31:01
John Simmerman
And like you said, you were you're really known in the Twitter world in terms of, you know, that you know, that's that area of of of really using that platform to, you know, really just kind of bring attention and kind of blow up our brand. Why don't you tell a little bit of that story?

00:10:31:28 - 00:11:06:07
Nathan Allebach
Yeah, Yeah, sure. So in 2017, one of the clients that our agency had was the the frozen meat brand steak. Um, if anybody is familiar from like the 1970s and eighties and their, you know, legacy brand that hadn't really been relevant in a long time, hadn't had a ton of success in recent decades in terms of marketing. So through a sort of series of odd events like I was handed control of their Twitter account, which had virtually zero thousand inactive followers at the time that I jumped on it.

00:11:06:17 - 00:11:29:21
Nathan Allebach
And yeah, like there was very little oversight and a whole lot of trust with the the client that we were working with. So I was able to really just explore and test a lot of different content out. And what ended up resonating the most with people over time were these kind of like weird, self-aware rants about various cultural topics.

00:11:29:21 - 00:12:05:28
Nathan Allebach
So like talking about millennial angst with, you know, issues regarding, you know, mental illness and student loan debt and even a lot of the stuff where you would talk about the urbanism, like sort of atomization that people experience today, where I talk about misinformation and media literacy and other it just kind of like really surface level, you know, sociology 1 to 1 style commentary, just to kind of like make not not be polarizing, kind of like to depolarize, especially on Twitter or where politics tend to be really toxic.

00:12:05:28 - 00:12:33:02
Nathan Allebach
And the most outrageous or outrage bait style content tends to rise to the top. So I think the fact that it was this like really weird, deep polarizing commentary paired with the fact it was coming from a frozen meat brand made it pretty consistently go viral because of the the incentives on Twitter. Like if you're, you know, an account that that posts whatever kind of gimmick you see something like that, it's really easy to quote, tweet it and be like, I didn't have steak.

00:12:33:02 - 00:12:59:16
Nathan Allebach
I'm talking about politics in my 2022 bingo card or, you know, something like really just kind of goofy or whatever like that. So there was a lot of moments along the way that just attracted that kind of broad net. So so yeah, it was a really, really strange, strange thing that led to articles and the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today and yeah, very weird situation that I guess I'll have to live with the rest of my.

00:13:01:11 - 00:13:44:03
John Simmerman
Well, speaking of Twitter, so this is your your, your page here, your landing page here on Twitter. And yeah, I mean, it's almost strange that we're we're, you know, going to have this conversation, but we have to have this conversation just because Twitter is in such flux. You know, over the past 12 months, I mean, Twitter has been just a wonderful platform for me in terms of growing the active towns channel and the the identity of active towns and really bringing people over to the YouTube channel to, you know, check out these interviews and the other profile infrastructure profile videos that I produce.

00:13:44:14 - 00:14:07:16
John Simmerman
And it was fun to be like really feeling like there was a neat bike. Twitter, you know, group that in in an urbanism group that was, you know, you know, seeing and having dialog and communications and you were part of that because you, you know cross post a lot of your stuff from from TikTok over to here and like you said, you know, they were going viral here, too.

00:14:07:22 - 00:14:24:20
John Simmerman
That's probably where I saw you in connected with you and started following you. And so we have to talk about the elephant in the room is like, you know, what's what what's your kind of take on where we're at right now with Twitter? Because I just don't know what else to do.

00:14:25:27 - 00:14:51:09
Nathan Allebach
Yeah, sure. I'm still very up in the air with it. I mean, obviously, since Ellen took over, there's been this sort of back and forth ping pong of hysteria where, you know, he does something and people panic and they kind of panic kind of just continues to ping pong back and forth, like and I don't really know if this is the, quote unquote, end of Twitter like a lot of people are making it out to be.

00:14:51:09 - 00:15:23:05
Nathan Allebach
But I do think he has to step down or something has to dramatically change for it to maintain its its whatever integrity it has left at this point, because I, I, I don't see the magic of Twitter and it's been this way for you know, Twitter's been around since I think 2007, I believe. And there's really nothing like it in terms of of what it offers people and why it attracts public figures and anonymous users of all stripes.

00:15:23:05 - 00:15:41:26
Nathan Allebach
And I think people have been talking for a long time, like competitors, like Mastodon. And you've got like these are all a kind of server or server adjacent platforms and they just don't have the same impact. Like the way I've always described Twitter is that it's like one giant house full of rooms that all of their doors open.

00:15:42:04 - 00:16:08:03
Nathan Allebach
So like if you're in the Urbanist Room, typically like day to day, you're just kind of bantering back and forth in this room with your other buddies. And then once in a while, one of those those things you're talking about will leave the room and kind of like float in to the whole house, you know? So like, I think the ability for that to happen is both the worst part of Twitter and the best part, because obviously it leads content to reach people who it otherwise shouldn't reach.

00:16:08:03 - 00:16:32:24
Nathan Allebach
And then you run into all sorts of unsavory interactions and discourse that it isn't intended for certain audiences. But at the same time, it's also like how you amplify your reach and how you amplify discussions and how you kind of get discourse into what people call the sort of privatized public square. Nowadays, readers don't really have that same that same dynamic on really any other platform.

00:16:33:01 - 00:17:02:03
Nathan Allebach
So I think unless or until another competitor can do that, like kind of like replicate that and also somehow attract both the culture of Twitter to migrate to it and also the advertisers to migrate to it. Like, I just don't I don't see it going anywhere. I just see it kind of slowly deteriorating until the majority of people like you or I kind of just slowly stop using it as much and maybe we become more active on TikTok or Reddit.

00:17:02:26 - 00:17:09:22
Nathan Allebach
But but I don't think it'll fully go away by any means until on or unless something similar replaces it.

00:17:10:07 - 00:17:36:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's really been a fascinating study in in sociology and and you know in the technology of just kind of seeing how this thing is is playing out. And as you mentioned, you know, a lot of people are jumping ship and going elsewhere. I did start a mastodon, you know account and whatever. And I'm cross posting everything over there, too.

00:17:36:16 - 00:17:57:05
John Simmerman
But yeah, to your point, I mean, it's I loved your analogy, too, of a very, very big house with the doors open and, you know, things kind of sneaking out and that's what I love about it too, is that there's like a lot of of discussions going on, you know, and you're able to get a little bit of that cross-pollination that happens to.

00:17:57:05 - 00:18:32:12
John Simmerman
And at the same time, I hadn't noticed as toxic an environment as many people, you know, had talked about. And I don't know why, but maybe it was just, you know, the way that I chose to interact. But yeah, I mean, I'm kind of missing what it was a few months ago already, so. Yeah. But what I will say too, is that I think intentionally what I'll do be doing for 2023 is doubling down on my content creation on YouTube and really working on that.

00:18:32:24 - 00:18:56:27
John Simmerman
And, and honestly, maybe even on on TikTok too. And that's one of the things I'd love to kind of pick your brain about since, you know, you sort of pulled the trigger and made that happen in a relatively short period of time, what was that like? You know, kind of getting into that rhythm of learning about tick tock it clearly, you were producing Tick Tock with with cats for a while.

00:18:57:18 - 00:19:21:00
John Simmerman
So and, you know, and it's each platform has its own sort. There you go. Each platform has its own little rhythm and its own little dynamic to it, you know, because, you know, clearly Twitter's not like YouTube and Tick Tock is definitely not like YouTube. What was that like trying to to learn that and get going?

00:19:22:08 - 00:19:46:16
Nathan Allebach
It was really bizarre because I think in a lot of ways I approached TikTok in a different way than most people approach. I probably approached it closer to a YouTuber would in the sense that I was I looked at the landscape of content creators on the app, and I should say specifically the content creators that talk about walkability urbanism, placemaking, all these these subjects.

00:19:46:16 - 00:20:13:17
Nathan Allebach
And the there's a lot of great folks, a lot of talented folks that are leading discourse on there. But what I noticed was there wasn't there weren't a lot of what I would consider, I want to say high quality, but like there wasn't a lot of scripted content and there wasn't a lot of evergreen style content. Like a lot of people, most people treat Tik-tok the way they treat Twitter, which is there is sort of these are drops in the river and, you know, every week is a different week.

00:20:13:17 - 00:20:45:20
Nathan Allebach
Every day is a different day. I'm going to post about this one issue that I just saw today in the news or something recently. And that's going to be and the video is going to be gone in a month. Nobody's gonna be scrolling to that video. So who really cares, right? Whereas like my approach to was a bit more evergreen, or at least attempting to be more evergreen where I wanted to make videos that were less like, you know, you need to see this on December 22nd, and if you see this two months from now, it's just not going to feel relevant.

00:20:45:20 - 00:21:13:07
Nathan Allebach
Like I wanted to kind of pick relatively top level subjects and then, you know, build semi scripts around that, which took definitely more time per video. And there's a lot of times where the algorithm, for whatever reason, because the algorithm is a fickle thing, sometimes it punishes you for like longer videos or more produced videos. So it can be challenging to kind of figure out that balance, like bringing up the third Places video I did.

00:21:13:15 - 00:21:35:03
Nathan Allebach
I believe that video is almost maxed out, if not fully maxed out to the time parameters on Tick Tock. Like I think it's a three minute video and that's, you know, that's my most viral video. So like that's it's a long video for TikTok but but it performed really well whereas I'll do another three minute or two and a half minute video and the algorithm is just treating it like, oh, is this too long?

00:21:35:03 - 00:21:57:28
Nathan Allebach
Like we're not going to give it a bump for people. And that's something I discovered about a month or so into making content. It's really, really bizarre and and temperamental. Like sometimes if you get enough of an initial boost, like from your followers, like interacting with you at the post, the, the algorithm will think that it's more viral than it is and it'll give you some additional like a snowball effect.

00:21:57:28 - 00:22:17:17
Nathan Allebach
But otherwise it can be difficult to predict. So that's, that's why I think it incentivizes the type of content it does where people kind of just grab their phone, go into selfie mode or whatever they're doing. And it is kind of like, you know, run through a really quick stream of consciousness and then hit post with like minimal editing.

00:22:17:17 - 00:22:48:18
Nathan Allebach
So my approach was definitely a little bit more time consuming, like I probably would once I got into the groove, I probably started spending like anywhere from 1 to 3 hours writing and editing each script. And then I would span that additional 1 to 3 hours shooting the videos because what I would do is I would I mean, you could see from the like was on the screen, like I would kind of walk to certain locations and then walk around filming them, but I would film it like a one take stream of consciousness.

00:22:48:18 - 00:23:12:08
Nathan Allebach
I would kind of go each take as if it's a frame in a video and try to find like interesting or at least the most interesting backgrounds I could come across, position myself in them and then do a couple takes so that I had options depending on like how the different sections would transition with one another. So I really just like and then obviously you have it, you add on an additional maybe 1 to 3 hours of edit in that.

00:23:12:08 - 00:23:32:18
Nathan Allebach
So like really a lot of these videos ended up taken for anywhere from like 8 to 10 or so hours to fully produce. And it's it's interesting because it definitely paid off in a lot of ways. Like I think this is like a different approach to the medium, just generally speaking. Like there's obviously people who produce pretty high level stuff on Tik Tok.

00:23:32:18 - 00:24:12:16
Nathan Allebach
But again, just speaking more specifically to the the urbanism subculture and but yeah, it's it's a really time consuming approach and toward I start making videos or at least as frequently about a month and a half ago because my wife and I just had our first baby. So we've taken a little break recently and I'm trying to kind of consider a a new approach or at least, you know, altering my approach a bit when I get back into it, because I'm thinking if I'm going to do this level production, I might start shifting it to YouTube and then using Tik Tok for a bit more of that quick spontaneous style that it's most known for.

00:24:12:27 - 00:24:41:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, I suspect that that's probably how I'll end up using it if I do dip my toes into it is, you know, to do some, you know, the shorter takes that really point to the, the more produced you know profile videos over that you know live over on YouTube. I think it'd be fun to actually you know watch one of these and and give the audience a little bit of a taste especially if they're they're not used to you know haven't yet sampled it and seen it.

00:24:41:21 - 00:24:46:00
John Simmerman
So let's let's queue up the benefits of walkable communities So.

00:24:46:00 - 00:25:05:12
Nathan Allebach
I've been annoying friends and family over my obsession with walkable communities and often get asked why I care so much. I stumbled into the New Urbanism movement just over a year ago and spent months reading the research behind it all. In doing so, I found that car dependent suburban sprawl was at the root of so many of our social issues, and that walkability can solve for a lot of them.

00:25:05:12 - 00:25:33:19
Nathan Allebach
If we reform zoning and parking laws, then incentivize dense mixed use development in downtown districts. The nature is healing meme can become a reality. Our carbon emissions drop from less car travel and more services done in proximity between people and places. Legalizing multifamily housing makes housing more affordable for everyone and gives people more freedom of movement. Social inequality decreases as low income earners are able to afford housing and to live without cars, which are the second highest expense.

00:25:33:19 - 00:25:48:24
Nathan Allebach
Many of us have accessibility increases for seniors and disabled folks by adding more sidewalk features and having more proximity to services, all with less cars on the road, meaning less congestion for those who still need to drive. Our infrastructure costs go down from building less, sprawled.

00:25:48:24 - 00:25:49:19
John Simmerman
Out roads.

00:25:49:19 - 00:26:14:04
Nathan Allebach
And sewage and power lines. Culture becomes more rich when different people live closer to one another, resulting in better restaurants and R and innovation and relationships. Economic prosperity skyrockets from building sustainable mixed use towns. This also means less people feeling lonely or atomized by living so far from one another. Less cars means less traffic deaths and injuries, less noise pollution and less diseases like asthma.

00:26:14:04 - 00:26:37:24
Nathan Allebach
The more people who actively walk on a street, the safer that street is, not only from cars but from crime. Not to mention just the health benefits of walking, which cuts down on rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and cancer. All this and these goals are attainable by individuals at the local level. If you can get a small group of people, you can develop relationships with public officials and local stakeholders to make these policies happen.

00:26:37:24 - 00:26:50:08
Nathan Allebach
Making places more walkable again helps everyone. It's relevant right now with the housing, energy and climate crisis. It has bipartisan support and you can make a difference. So yeah, that's why I care about making places more walkable.

00:26:50:21 - 00:27:15:28
John Simmerman
I love it, you know? And what's so cool is that was like a an action packed couple of minutes of amazing hot takes and I mean and and some of the stuff that I see on Twitter are literally like a line from that. And like, folks, there will be like a whole long Twitter, you know, thread going of diving deeper into just one aspect of that.

00:27:15:28 - 00:27:29:21
John Simmerman
And it was just one after the other after the other. And I love, like what you were saying from the editing perspective is every like shift and train of thought was a new scene. So yeah, I can. Yeah, that took a while to produce.

00:27:30:21 - 00:28:05:06
Nathan Allebach
Anyway, it's our ADHD brains now. It's like, you know, it's for better or worse, probably mostly for words culturally, TikTok and platforms like it, you know, it's just kind of creating this really, really short attention span for people, especially young people. So I really I try to talk as fast as I can without slurring my words, try to talk really clear and do as many cuts as I can, because I know, like as soon as you go past the ten or 15 second mark, you're starting to lose people and it starts to feel luxury or or mundane.

00:28:05:13 - 00:28:24:27
Nathan Allebach
So it's like anything to kind of keep the eyes moving and having to do work to follow along. So it's a really it's interesting. It's like it's it's kind of sad that we have to kind of think about gaming our attention spans this way. But it's it's just part of how you know, demand for content has changed.

00:28:25:10 - 00:28:48:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I just sort of navigated over to YouTube channel as well. So we do have a YouTube channel there. You're starting to build a little bit of the audience, so that might be something for the future of like you said, is maybe, you know, especially if we do start diving into some stuff that where you're able to develop that idea in that content a little bit more.

00:28:48:07 - 00:29:27:05
John Simmerman
I see a lot of parallels between the type of work that you're doing with the type of work that Jason's doing and really diving into a subject and and really doing this edutainment sort of thing. It's education and but it's also informative and it's also entertaining. And people like they enjoy it because it's quick, it's happening, but it's also really helping to dispel a lot of myths and explain things at a level that hopefully gets out of what I call our active transportation and urbanism echo chamber.

00:29:27:07 - 00:29:31:22
John Simmerman
The bubble that we're in, where we're all just talking to each other.

00:29:31:22 - 00:30:10:21
Nathan Allebach
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned this earlier, and I think it's an interesting point about how there there's so many new people kind of coming into this space from different corners of the world and obviously, like I'm coming at it from a marketing angle and something I found just from kind of going through the different channels, both on YouTube, TikTok and other platforms, is like there is a lot of I won't say jargon, but like it's definitely it's a high level subject and I think obviously not just Bikes has kind of created a gateway in a lot of ways for people to enter in to this the space and it's accessible because of how well or how

00:30:10:22 - 00:30:31:03
Nathan Allebach
talented of a presenter he is. And he uses a lot of like original footage. He's got a great voice, he does a great job condensing subject matter and also adding a little bit of like a sass to his voice. You can tell like this is like and hitting him at home, like when he talks about like the anger that like, like cars make him feel.

00:30:31:11 - 00:30:52:05
Nathan Allebach
So I think like it's a great window for people. But a lot of the content, including a lot of the stuff he talks about, it's like it's a couple steps down the funnel, I would say in terms of like a mass audience, you know, like I think like a person coming into this this area without any prior knowledge about zoning or parking or urbanism or walkability.

00:30:52:12 - 00:31:12:18
Nathan Allebach
There's a lot of terminology and a lot of like forms of presentation that feel a bit academic ish. I would say. So part of like my thinking coming into this, like knowing that there's going to be times like, I'm not even trying to present myself as as close to perfect or objective with this. Like, I, I still use a lot of this, this, this jargon as well.

00:31:12:25 - 00:31:30:15
Nathan Allebach
But part of my like thought process has been trying to bridge that gap a little bit because I just you know, it's it's something that I've been passionate about in my personal life, trying to communicate to friends and family. And it's the thing that always kind of is the biggest roadblock with them is that it's just a boring topic.

00:31:30:15 - 00:32:06:12
Nathan Allebach
Like it's not it's not even, you know, you know, like it's it's gotten somewhat heated at certain specific times when like housing prices or whatever make the news. And like, everybody's kind of mad about that for a time being. But it's not like it's not like race issues or gender issues or immigration or guns. Like there's so many topics that just naturally generate that polarization and entertain them because people have such strong stances on them and they impact so many different intersecting parts of everyday life.

00:32:06:12 - 00:32:37:19
Nathan Allebach
And I think this is one of those areas that should have a similar effect where like you think car deaths and all the issues that car dependency creates around like, you know, injuries that people experience or diseases from like emissions or obviously like environmental issues around like the like the the impact of cars, Like there's so many different things that in theory should allow for like a more of like an entertaining subject matter to kind of like rope people on at that top level.

00:32:37:19 - 00:32:56:23
Nathan Allebach
But once you start talking about like zoning and parking or forums, it's like I think people just think like, Oh man, this is like not how I want to, you know, invest my my time or my energy. So I think there's got to be new ways for us to communicate this at a very high level or very top level, I should say, to to folks.

00:32:56:23 - 00:33:26:11
Nathan Allebach
And I think different groups have done a great job of that. And I think the the subreddit F Cars has done a good job at galvanizing people who are already maybe on the fence with this. I mean, obviously that type of rhetoric isn't great for winning over somebody who loves cars. So like, like it's not it's not for everybody, but there's like different smaller groups like that, I think, that are using the language of politics or culture wars to really try to spread this message.

00:33:26:11 - 00:33:52:15
Nathan Allebach
And for me, like I talked about earlier with the stake threads, a lot of like my approach to politics and culture has kind of come from this polarizing position where, like, I want to understand and study conspiracy theories and like what makes us politically separate, like in these kind of different realities and information. So a lot of my approach has been that more kind of boring, moderate, I would say.

00:33:52:15 - 00:34:24:06
Nathan Allebach
But I think there's different ways to communicate and like how you communicate versus how Jason communicates versus me or anybody or there's a Allan Fisher I know there's a lot of like heavy handed transit content on YouTube and he's he's even more aggressive than Jason. So I think, you know, there's all these different approaches and I think for me it's just about figuring out like where like you as an anybody listening to this could fit into that puzzle and like kind of communicate to an audience in a way that other people like myself aren't able to do as well.

00:34:24:17 - 00:34:53:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, and I reached out to you about a month ago when this after this particular article came out, Lauren Fisher with Strong Towns, did a little profile and what did she do? She profiled both you and Jason, and it was a neat, neat opportunity to sort of come full circle for you. I'm sure it's you probably had to pinch yourself and say, wait a minute, within a year, I've like sort of really dove into this stuff and started producing content.

00:34:53:26 - 00:35:14:21
John Simmerman
And the next thing I know I'm being featured in an article along with Jason, and he's relatively new to this too. You know, he and I talked about that. It's like it's so refreshing for me having been, you know, sort of talking in this space as a public health guy, looking at the built environment. But I've been in it for like 15 years now.

00:35:14:21 - 00:35:22:27
John Simmerman
I've, you know, in you know, in my career for over 30 years. And so it's I mean, what was that like? Was that a little surreal?

00:35:24:15 - 00:35:52:20
Nathan Allebach
Super surreal. And I think just a testament to just what we were just talking about. I mean, I think there's just there's still so much room in this in this area, this subculture to this space for new content creators and new styles of rhetoric and new mediums for for content delivery. And I think, you know, it's fascinating because yeah, like I like I said, there's so many other talented accounts on TikTok.

00:35:52:20 - 00:36:16:06
Nathan Allebach
There's this guy, his name's Paul, his his username is Talking Cities on Tik Tok and he does work for the organization Cul de SAC or like they're kind of they're built in that walkable city in Arizona from scratch, you know and super super talented guy and he's he's temperamentally he's he's a bit more quiet. He kind of has an NPR tone to him.

00:36:16:07 - 00:36:37:26
Nathan Allebach
And that really led to a lot of success. On Tik Tok. He's got like, well, I think over 200,000 followers or something like that. So super, super talented guy. And I remember seeing his videos before I started and I realized that he had stopped making them a few months prior to when I jumped in, I was like, man, like, he's probably like one of the most talented people on this app and he's not making them anymore.

00:36:38:04 - 00:37:07:09
Nathan Allebach
Like, there's there's so much room here. Like, it's not it's not like a deep pool. It's not like people who talk about gender or race relations or comparable issues where there's just like a million YouTubers and a million Twitter accounts and a million podcasts, all breaking this issue down. Like there's really just so much space, especially, I would say, for for women and people of color, like there's this is still, you know, like, like a lot of political issues, like it's very male dominated.

00:37:07:09 - 00:37:36:13
Nathan Allebach
So you like a lot of the YouTube pages and TikTok pages like it's a lot of like we were just joking before before going on like, you know, two dudes chat about an issue and like, that is a it's a, it's a common, you know, approach that people see. But I think if anything like what I've I've been able to, I guess do in the couple of months that I've been making content like I would hope you know yeah I am another dude on the on the platform There's still so much space for newer people to get involved and to start posting.

00:37:36:13 - 00:37:54:06
Nathan Allebach
Like even in the time that I started posting at least three, if not four or five people that followed may have reached out and been like, Hey, I started making videos because of this. And like, I know like I've heard Jason Slaughter say this about tons of people as well. Like, oh, like we watched you're not just Blake's series on this.

00:37:54:06 - 00:38:20:03
Nathan Allebach
And now I sort of make my own YouTube videos. And I think that's to me, that's like the most important and is cool aspect of all of this because it is like, like the folks like you like, you know, pretty much everybody in these communities from the strong towns team to the folks that not just bikes to, you know, the Dutch cycling people like there is there's all these like different kind of subcultures and communities within the space.

00:38:20:03 - 00:38:26:15
Nathan Allebach
And I think there's a lot of room for new people to join. And so that's been a cool aspect of getting to do this.

00:38:26:27 - 00:38:47:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And I'm going to pop on over here to your, your beacons. I a page here and you're just scrolling down here and taking a look at all the stuff that you have. And this is a really nice little landing page for people to go to too, to access all your other things so that you can just kind of click on through and take a look at this.

00:38:47:15 - 00:39:09:18
John Simmerman
But as I'm kind of I'm scrolling through this and then I'm realizing you're a busy dude, then you're producing music, you've got all sorts of stuff going on. Yeah. And now you've got a kid too. So yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. You know, trying to make sure that you have life balance and prioritize, you know, time for for the family.

00:39:10:11 - 00:39:13:23
John Simmerman
You know, something's got to, you know, kind of shift around a little bit there. Yeah.

00:39:14:09 - 00:39:31:02
Nathan Allebach
Yeah. You talked about my Tick-Tock transition. I think it's really funny because a lot of people a lot of people have pointed that out over the months being like, man, it's been funny to watch his account go from like a cat account to a, a walkability account. And, and that's been it's funny because I come from a marketing background.

00:39:31:02 - 00:39:54:25
Nathan Allebach
I'm obsessed with branding. Like I love helping both like companies, nonprofits and individuals, like, just brand themselves in ways that, you know, can hopefully improve their approach to whatever it is that they do. And I've always been so bad at branding myself just because, like, I've just never really cared to look. I'm aware of it like, I know what you're supposed to do.

00:39:55:03 - 00:40:19:00
Nathan Allebach
I just I like I said, I've always kind of been hesitant to really stamp myself like that. And now it's kind of been forced on me because I've just had these this viral third place video where I've gotten, like I said, tens of thousands of people now following me and they're expecting a certain kind of content I've had to really like take a step back and think like, man, I, you know, all the way back from the stadium stuff to now.

00:40:19:06 - 00:40:39:18
Nathan Allebach
I've really made an effort to just not care about that. Like you were just on my YouTube page for a second. Like years ago I did a podcast. It was all audio. So I used to just kind of like haphazardly upload the episodes to that page because even years before that I was a songwriter. So that's how, you know, that's all the are all the content that I produced.

00:40:39:18 - 00:41:11:28
Nathan Allebach
So that was where the all these pages mostly originated from, almost from that background. And now I'm doing this stuff and I'm just kind of like, you know, do I, you know, do I need to start like a new, like brand name channel and kind of like, start from scratch or or do I just kind of keep doing what I've been doing under my name because, yeah, like, I think that's it's interesting and I'm not entirely sure as somebody with a day job who has always just done this kind of stuff as Hobby is on, I'm not sure if I'll reach a point where I'm ready to kind of make a break from that and

00:41:11:28 - 00:41:36:01
Nathan Allebach
really try to brand myself in such a way that I can monetize this type of content. I do love it and it's something I'm like passionate about and I'm really glad that all the kind of pieces of a line to to bring me again into this space talking to folks like you. But it is it's certainly strange and I know you've done a great job like branding the Active Towns podcast and like yourself in this space.

00:41:36:01 - 00:41:55:22
Nathan Allebach
And, and yeah, it's definitely something I think about, but I don't to, I don't know, like I've seen it happen to a lot of folks who are like, it's really easy to kind of lose yourself in your brand, you know? And I've always just been somebody who just posts whatever I feel like posting on any channel, not really thinking or caring about being consistent and having an audience and all that.

00:41:55:24 - 00:42:06:23
Nathan Allebach
And so now it's a whole new layer of of wrestling that I've been trying to deal with and sought out. So I'm sure you'll kind of see that unravel over the next year or so.

00:42:06:24 - 00:42:46:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and what I think is really cool about the content that you're producing out on TikTok is it is your face. It is you, you know, talking to your audience and bringing them along, which really is a completely different genre, you know, compared to what Jason's doing, where we rarely see his face I mean, pretty much you don't you just hear his voice and he does a really, really good job on the production side of, you know, pulling together, as you had mentioned, some, you know, original content that he shoots as well as historical stuff and then, you know, content that others help help him create or help him collect

00:42:46:23 - 00:43:23:26
John Simmerman
and so, yeah, I mean, you're in a really interesting situation where, yeah, you have now branded your name. Your name is now branded as, you know, this Mr. Walkability, this Mr. third place is this Mr.. You know, hey, we need safer streets and and to your point, I mean, it is interesting because you mentioned it earlier, is that these topics, these, you know, safer streets and, you know, car dependance just doesn't kind of resonate the same way that, you know, other hot button issues do.

00:43:24:21 - 00:43:48:29
John Simmerman
But arguably, they probably should. I mean, when you look at the fact that nearly a jetliner worth of people die every single day on our roadways, you know, somewhere around 110 to 115 people per day, not to mention thousands of of serious life altering injuries occur on our roadways. But it's sort of a ho hum thing. We don't as a society really even think about it.

00:43:49:29 - 00:44:17:04
Nathan Allebach
And that's been like. Absolutely and and obviously Jason, Jason Slaughter calls that taking the orange pill which has been great Brandon great brand on his part and I think that's that's that's part of the kind of fascination and and challenge of this time period of the of the movement because obviously like New urbanism and similar areas have been kind of for decades.

00:44:17:04 - 00:44:41:03
Nathan Allebach
But it's really been in the past couple of years that you've seen this explosion of interest on a national level. You've got a lot of mainstream media outlets are covering it. You've got these massive Facebook groups and YouTubers and you got GMB on Twitter. It's like a whole there's all these like intersecting groups and discourses that are happening and kind of raising the the general awareness of these topics.

00:44:41:11 - 00:45:05:26
Nathan Allebach
And I've, I know I've personally seen it like among my own friends and family where it's like once you see this stuff and you have the language to to understand it, it's like it radicalizes people and like they can't unsee it at this point. Like, I even my coworker made a comment just yesterday about walkability because my, my, my one coworker was walking to work and they were they're just like bantering about like how cool that is.

00:45:05:26 - 00:45:28:17
Nathan Allebach
And I'm like, no, almost nobody can walk to work except for this person. So it's like, it's interesting because I think it's just stuff that like, yeah, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a thought, I think because the way the status quo of any issue works, it's like, Well, yeah, we just accept that 40,000 plus people die a year in traffic accidents or 2 million are injured a year in traffic accidents.

00:45:28:17 - 00:45:54:14
Nathan Allebach
And you have all these cases of asthma and, you know, atomization where people, people especially children and disabled and elderly people can't get around without a car like you have. All this stuff is just always it's just become the norm for decades. And until you really start to, like, unravel it and give people the language to understand like one, it was not always this way and to it's within our power to change it again.

00:45:55:02 - 00:46:24:05
Nathan Allebach
I think getting that across is it's obviously easier said than done, but once you can kind of open up somebody's eyes to that, it does have the power to become a culture war issue similar to, you know, those other issues we talked about like race, gender and so on. I mean, obviously it's not it's not as much of a identity based issue which which that's an advantage that a lot of political and even even issues around like guns, you know, like guns in America are essentially an identity issue.

00:46:24:05 - 00:46:42:08
Nathan Allebach
You know, people who who really identify with being a gun owner or identify, you know, as being like anti-gun, like, I think it has potential to kind of like ease and to some of those spaces. But it's it's certainly tough. And there's a lot to a lot of things to consider when you especially as the national awareness grows.

00:46:42:08 - 00:47:12:05
Nathan Allebach
We saw this a little bit with Trump talking about their claim for the the suburbs. It was like like this is like an attack on the suburbs. So like, there's obviously a propensity for for turning like zoning into a culture war where you have the ability to activate order typically in more white and wealthy property owners who are nervous like they are, they're nervous to see their investments go away and the demographics around them change.

00:47:12:05 - 00:47:50:03
Nathan Allebach
And obviously, like, I don't think the demographics issue is a valid concern, but I do see did the fact that like we've built our our housing structure in the US and North America at large around it being like an investment versus something that like we just provide for people like that is a really tricky topic to navigate because when you talk about, you know, the potential for someone's property value to be impacted by like new development, whether or not it's real, like whether or not it actually happens from new townhouses or duplexes or whatever, it's something that people feel at a visceral level, like it hits them in their wallet.

00:47:50:03 - 00:48:08:29
Nathan Allebach
So like it's a good it's going to be interesting to see, like how these subjects evolve into the national stage in the coming years and how urbanists and people who are going adjacent to urbanists like approach that. Those topics rhetorically when it comes to like political messaging and, and content creation.

00:48:09:18 - 00:48:40:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I have to wonder too, I mean, does it have to be a hot button button cultural war type of thing? I mean, is that the only way to, like, start gaining attention? Do we have to like create an us versus them dynamic something? Because one of the things that I try to point out is that strong towns, active towns, these are these are concepts.

00:48:40:04 - 00:49:01:18
John Simmerman
These are places that across the political spectrum you should want to support because it's I mean, is it good? Is it good for the environment? Yes. Is it good for the economy? Yes. Is it fiscally conservative? Yes. You know, you see, what I'm saying is it's like it doesn't need to be an us versus them.

00:49:02:29 - 00:49:35:05
Nathan Allebach
And this is and that's what attracted me to this movement in the first place, was that it was finally a subject that I could kind of coalesce a lot of my personal interests and passions around in terms of like what I want to see in the world when I think of of political change. Because, yeah, like it's one it's a deep polarizing issue that you can rally people of all stripes around like you have people who can come into it with a libertarian, then with a socialist band, with a conservative band, with a liberal band, all for their own self-interested reasons.

00:49:35:12 - 00:50:13:17
Nathan Allebach
And it makes sense cohesively because like the idea of building a better, smarter, stronger and more active towns is is it It helps everybody in all these different ways. So like, I think it's beautiful in that sense and I'm I'm with you again rhetorically. I'm of the opinion that it's always worth the fight to kind of try to maintain that level of of of just kind of like big tent movement and trying to be like as polarizing as you can and try to be is like this is for you know all Americans or all people like however you want to frame it just as as big as you can frame it.

00:50:14:08 - 00:50:40:08
Nathan Allebach
But I do think it does. It's the kind of crappy reality that I mean, we're in an era where everything is a culture war and everything is like hyper driven by the most extreme fringes of a movement, like even even when you look at urbanism content on Twitter, not all the time, but a lot of the time it's the most deranged and angry discourses that rise to the top.

00:50:40:08 - 00:51:14:26
Nathan Allebach
You know, it's like it's it's people. And whether that's anger is righteous or otherwise, it's just it's it's what gets people riled up and and I think, you know, even going back to mentioning the YouTuber, Alan Fisher, I think that's part of what makes his content appealing. He has kind of this angsty socialist vibe to him where it's like, you know, if he's integrating his frustration, you know, capitalism and, and all these other issues in a way where you're hearing it like it's coming out in a visceral way through like through language and his tone.

00:51:15:02 - 00:51:50:26
Nathan Allebach
And I think people really like that stuff. Like, I'm not I don't think it's the only way, but I think, like, that type of approach tends to rise to the top, really in any subculture or movement. So like I would say, like for for folks like you or the guy, the people at strong towns like or even myself, like, yeah, like I think it's worth to continue to kind of do what we do, bring as many people and, and talk about these issues and obviously not an objective way, but in such a way that really aims to include the interests of as many people as we can and raising awareness to that so that people,

00:51:51:15 - 00:52:22:10
Nathan Allebach
no matter where they're coming from with their own self interest, they can feel like they're part of the of the movement. But I do think as it becomes more and more politicized and hits more and more national headlines will constantly rush into that issue where, you know, the fringes of the group will kind of unfortunately be be a vocal minority that that maybe attracts some some rhetorical and and some topics that that aren't necessarily representative of the whole movement necessarily.

00:52:22:24 - 00:52:47:25
John Simmerman
Yeah yeah well and you're absolutely right. I mean it's when when you look at the you know what trends on in social media oftentimes it's it's you know the things that kind of get people riled up and excited and whatnot. And I pulled up just a tweet here from not too very long ago, what, a couple days ago or in in really.

00:52:49:15 - 00:53:20:08
John Simmerman
But at the same time, if we can like try to, you know, shake somebody into consciousness and think about stuff and say, you know, yeah, hey, childhood independence was destroyed by car dependent, you know, infrastructure and suburban sprawl and many people are like, what? What is this guy talking about? And so it's I always try to to to default towards putting more a positive spin on it and profiling the positive things that are happening.

00:53:20:18 - 00:53:50:21
John Simmerman
But I do inherently know that sometimes it's the snarkiness and sometimes the the negativity and sometimes the a slap across the face to try to get somebody attention to say, dude, look, seriously, this is destroyed childhood independence. And and and so I, I struggle to try to find that balance within my own content of trying to not get too jaded and not get too negative.

00:53:51:05 - 00:54:19:10
John Simmerman
Because I know that blaming and shaming doesn't really ever change hearts and minds. But, you know, pulling together a creative approach is something like your TikTok videos that, you know, sort of says, you know, gets people going, What? What's this? And it's trending and, oh, wait a minute, this is kind of cool. And they start kind of, you know, learning about, you know, the topic and the subject.

00:54:19:10 - 00:54:42:16
John Simmerman
And I think that's I hope that that's the direction that will continue to, you know, see, you know, in our respective platforms is people having, you know, that you mentioned the ADHD having enough attention span to to at least get hooked to the point where they can get curious and then, you know, learn a little bit on it.

00:54:43:15 - 00:55:09:03
Nathan Allebach
Yeah, it's actually ironic and funny that you write that that tweet example because it was me probably most of even catch it. But I was just me man of like the the old Ben Shapiro's style YouTube videos or would be like Ben SHAPIRO destroys college student with facts and logic and it's just silly. I mean, it used to be like sort of viral style of YouTube content and then it's just like a funny movie.

00:55:09:03 - 00:55:43:12
Nathan Allebach
But I mean, it is to your point that I think there is a lot of opportunity to to kind of shift the the commerce to shift the discourse away from trying to otherize maybe individuals as much and really kind of create a an enemy in the abstract. So like and I think that's where like the whole terminology around car dependance or suburban sprawl have been pretty useful because like it kind of kind of leverages the, the language of populism where it's like it's us common people against this elite enemy of some type.

00:55:43:17 - 00:56:10:17
Nathan Allebach
But instead of it being like, you know, an a person group, you know, like the Jews or Muslims or whatever it might be, it's actually just like this kind of intangible of issue that we can all point to and be like, you know, it's not that we're saying cars are bad, we're saying car dependance or auto dependance or auto oriented development where, you know, everything is centered around cars leads to these other problems.

00:56:10:17 - 00:56:34:14
Nathan Allebach
I think, you know, finding terminology and messaging like that can be just a really great, great way of reaching people while still using some of that more kind of populist rhetoric, which is powerful. It's undeniably powerful. And and I do think, you know, one of the the advantages, I guess, that this whole area has is that we have the facts on our side.

00:56:34:14 - 00:56:57:13
Nathan Allebach
You know, it's like when you talk about all these issues that impact people, it's like it is a big tent movement and there is a lot of empirical data to back up, you know, all these areas around health and social issues and economic issues, like it's really there's a whole lot of data on our side. So that's made me feel a lot better.

00:56:57:27 - 00:57:33:14
Nathan Allebach
I mean, obviously, like, you know, you still got to be careful with confirmation bias and all that kind of how you analyze data. But I still feel pretty good about going into making content about this stuff because it's not something that, like I went into feeling a certain way and then it was just like, Oh, like I'm just kind of using whatever information is at my disposal to kind of create a narrative like it really is dominated by, you know, language and or studies and research that that really quantifies the damage that car dependance has done to towns just in all these different areas.

00:57:33:14 - 00:58:09:02
Nathan Allebach
So I think that's, you know, a great tool that people can leverage. And and like you said, I think it's really easy across these platforms to do to use the other eyes in populist language to focus on problems, which is always going to be a strong tool that people use. But to me, and it's something I've always tried to do as a kind of hook with all the tiktoks that I make is to really end it with here are the solutions and like, here's how you can get involved, because I'll for a lot of other political issues, you talk about, you know, police violence, it's like, okay, we've got pro people protesting nationally.

00:58:09:02 - 00:58:34:19
Nathan Allebach
Police violence. Okay, Well, police policing is largely a localized issue. So like when you protest it at a national level, there's only so much like the federal government or even the state government can do. And you're talking about like localized police departments. And I think similarly, but on the flip side, with this, it's like, you know, it's a way we talk about walkability and urbanism and building better places.

00:58:34:26 - 00:59:06:15
Nathan Allebach
It's really a way to activate people at that local level to be like just like with policing, Like if you really care about building better places, you do have the power and the opportunity to get involved and can make a pretty big impact by doing or I should say, an outsized impact buy, buy, buy doing so versus like national or state level issues where, you know, you talking about health care reforms and things like that, it's way bigger than any individual person can really do.

00:59:06:15 - 00:59:32:24
Nathan Allebach
But each individual person can go to a city council meeting and they can go ask their mayor to get lunch, and then they can go and get to know local business leaders and stakeholders to talk about these types of issues. And I think there's a lot of power in that for people, especially young people who have become politically activated and they're seeing problems in the world and they're they're trying to figure out like what difference they can make.

00:59:33:01 - 00:59:59:15
Nathan Allebach
This is like a very tangible way to plug those people in versus the kind of like, oh, I'm just going to like, vent on Twitter all day and talk about how the system is bad and not really do anything. And it's very disempowering. And an amazing to feel like, you know, if the boogeyman you have is capitalism or consumerism or big tech or big businesses, big pharma, it's like all these things.

00:59:59:15 - 01:00:28:29
Nathan Allebach
It's like you could spend your whole life posting about these issues and never have any direct impact on changing them at all. Like, I'm not not saying you not to. You physically can like you can still organize protests and all those things, but I think it's really easy to get overwhelmed at those macro level issues. Whereas when you talk about these issues around building better places, it's like very localized and it plugs people into where they live and how this impacts them, their friends, their family, their friends.

01:00:28:29 - 01:00:44:06
Nathan Allebach
And it's just a it's just a really great way, I think, to to to reengage people in their communities. And the facts are on our side. So that's like super cool and a very rare, rare thing to have when you talk about like political and cultural wars.

01:00:44:20 - 01:01:12:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. And as you mentioned, you know, some of the things that we can inspire our audiences to actually do is talk to your neighbors, you know, start communicating. You know, you mentioned go, you know, reach out to the mayor and the politicians and yes, yes, do those things, too. But start off by literally having, you know, dialog and communications and talking about these types of issues with within your own communities.

01:01:12:24 - 01:01:40:04
John Simmerman
And, you know, because ultimately, when you talk about trying to change how the environment is built and land use codes and all of these types of things, these are big challenging things. You know, actually changing the design of a street is a big thing. But the way that it really does happen and Chuck talks about this a lot is there's got to be a bottom up movement and you have to start having those conversations with your neighbors.

01:01:40:10 - 01:02:05:23
John Simmerman
And guess what? It's cool that you can also say, Oh, by the way, there's this really cool ticktock, dude, that's got this content that makes it easy to understand. And oh, by the way, you know, there's this active Towns channel and this not just bikes channel and they dive deeper into these, you know, these items and these issues and have these conversations to be able to learn more and more and more.

01:02:05:23 - 01:02:38:09
John Simmerman
And so and one of the things that I really like to emphasize is that we do need to act with a sense of urgency. We meaning society. We do need to it as a sense of with a sense of urgency, especially at that local level. But then we also need to hold our elected officials accountable. And the way that we do that is by a making sure that we're communicating clearly what the issues are and what we as a community are wanting to see change.

01:02:38:19 - 01:03:22:23
John Simmerman
And then, you know, really getting their commitment, you know, of saying, do you understand that this is an important issue for us. And it is, you know, a very important issue for us because of all the reasons that you just outlined. And bottom line, if if they are not on board, then we need to, you know, find people to run against them or we need to step up and and run for office and and basically, you know, that's how we hold elected officials accountable, because ultimately, as Chuck, you know, points out, you know, it's it's that's the body that then pushes that down to, you know, the directors of transportation and the planning directors and

01:03:22:23 - 01:03:28:22
John Simmerman
start shaping what our cities and towns and streets look like from a design perspective. Yeah.

01:03:29:20 - 01:03:49:15
Nathan Allebach
Yeah. It's like just shifting that status quo is just so daunting for people. I think, you know, like you're saying, if you can create like a funnel effect of content to really just like introduce people at the very top of their top general level, bring them down into like some of the more technical language to kind of reinforce the arguments that they need to make.

01:03:49:26 - 01:04:25:14
Nathan Allebach
And then you get them organized at a local level. I mean, you really most towns don't have like organized like when you talk about like NIMBYs or like, you know, people who are otherwise, you protesting or angsty toward new or different development styles. These tended to be like individual property owners that are typically older, typically retired, wealthier, have a lot more time on their hands, and they're just kind of going to their city council meetings because they don't have much else to do or they have invested interests like through different property investments and so on.

01:04:25:22 - 01:04:47:28
Nathan Allebach
So like if you can get just even to starting with a couple like two, three, four or five people who are investors that in the issue to just kind of start to coalesce language around this and to really like not focus on all the rise in the NIMBYs at a local level, it's not about like attacking the people who, you know, want to maintain the status quo.

01:04:48:04 - 01:05:13:25
Nathan Allebach
Like we're saying. It's really about introducing solutions and potential and just different styles of development that can really heal our towns that are, you know, just having their infrastructure just falling apart and finding their downtowns in disrepair. And there is there's all these very tangible near-term solutions to changing those styles, but there's not a lot of willpower within those municipalities.

01:05:13:25 - 01:05:45:06
Nathan Allebach
So I think, you know, showing those towns and those those people who work within them that there is a thirst for for change can really start what may end up being a five or ten or 20 year process of redevelopment. But it's something that has to start with a few really dedicated people, and it's been cool to start to see a lot of these like zoning and parking reforms in recent years, especially in some of the larger cities like you know, across California and Oregon, parts of Florida.

01:05:45:06 - 01:05:51:20
Nathan Allebach
You know, it's been really cool to see the that hunger and thirst for for change to take off with people.

01:05:51:20 - 01:06:02:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. I love it. I love it. Nathan, thank you so much for doing what you're doing and thank you so much for joining me on the Active Sounds podcast. Been such a pleasure having you.

01:06:03:04 - 01:06:13:13
Nathan Allebach
Yeah, thanks so much. John is a great guy and I appreciate the work you did better than watching your interviews the past couple of weeks and super honored that you thought of in the. Yeah, I hope to have a chat soon.

01:06:13:23 - 01:06:41:10
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Nathan all back. And if you did, please remember, 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. I'll just click on that subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell and just click all notifications so that you can be alerted to when new content comes out and when we're going live on livestreams, which hopefully we're going to do some more of that.

01:06:41:10 - 01:07:01:15
John Simmerman
Again. Thank you all so much for tuning in. It's always wonderful to have you along for the ride. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active tones. Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron. Buy me a coffee Super. Thanks.

01:07:01:22 - 01:07:20:16
John Simmerman
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. Thank you all so much.