WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.660 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are tackling 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:06.780 a subject that is, well, it's literally all around 00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:08.980 us right this second. Unless you're listening 00:00:08.980 --> 00:00:11.660 to this in, I don't know, the middle of a pristine 00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:14.759 forest, in which case, lucky you, you're likely 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:17.719 sitting in, standing on, or moving through the 00:00:17.719 --> 00:00:20.280 built environment. It's the background noise 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:23.079 of our lives. The thing we're so immersed in 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:26.230 that we... We rarely even stop to analyze it. 00:00:26.289 --> 00:00:28.629 We really don't. I mean, we argue about politics. 00:00:28.710 --> 00:00:31.070 We stress about the economy. We obsess over the 00:00:31.070 --> 00:00:33.829 latest tech gadget. But we rarely stop and ask, 00:00:33.929 --> 00:00:36.070 you know, why does my suite look the way it does? 00:00:36.149 --> 00:00:38.149 Or why does that specific office building make 00:00:38.149 --> 00:00:41.109 me feel completely drained at 3 .0 p .m. every 00:00:41.109 --> 00:00:43.189 day? Right. But when I was going through the 00:00:43.189 --> 00:00:45.899 stack for this deep dive. one statistic chest. 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:48.859 It completely recalibrated my sense of urgency 00:00:48.859 --> 00:00:50.640 here. I have a feeling I know which one you're 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:52.700 looking at. It's the big one, isn't it? It's 00:00:52.700 --> 00:00:54.359 the big one from the UN Global Status Report. 00:00:55.579 --> 00:00:57.659 I think if you stopped the average person on 00:00:57.659 --> 00:00:59.579 the street and asked, what is the biggest threat 00:00:59.579 --> 00:01:02.700 to the climate? They'd probably say cars, right? 00:01:02.780 --> 00:01:05.700 Or maybe factory smokestacks. Sure, transportation 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:08.359 and industry. That's what comes to mind. And 00:01:08.359 --> 00:01:11.079 they wouldn't be wrong, exactly. But the data 00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:14.280 says that buildings... Just the operation and 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:16.260 the construction of the structures we inhabit 00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:19.840 account for 37 percent of global energy use. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:23.640 37 percent. And then if you tack on the manufacturing 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:25.939 sector that's used to create all those materials, 00:01:26.140 --> 00:01:30.900 the steel, the concrete, we are talking 39 percent. 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:34.340 global co2 emissions it's just a massive slice 00:01:34.340 --> 00:01:36.599 of the pie I mean to put that in perspective 00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:39.760 for you the entire aviation industry every single 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.159 plane in the sky which gets so much heat for 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:44.500 being carbon intensive is usually responsible 00:01:44.500 --> 00:01:47.219 for about two to three percent of emissions Wow 00:01:47.219 --> 00:01:50.719 so buildings are an order of magnitude more impactful 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:53.140 it's not even in the same lead Okay, so that's 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.680 the context we need. I mean, we might shame someone 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:57.579 for taking a long -haul flight, but we don't 00:01:57.579 --> 00:02:00.200 think twice about the giant glass office tower 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:02.019 they work in. When that tower might be doing 00:02:02.019 --> 00:02:04.640 far, far more damage over its 50 -year lifespan. 00:02:05.180 --> 00:02:08.280 Right. And that really frames the mission for 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:10.620 today. We aren't just talking about architecture 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:12.840 in the sense of, you know, is this building pretty? 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:15.569 We're talking about the city. As an organism. 00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:18.110 I like that framing. An organism, how it consumes 00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:20.789 energy, how it grows, how it breathes, how it 00:02:20.789 --> 00:02:24.030 moves people around, and ultimately how it survives 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:27.330 or doesn't. The city as organism. I like that. 00:02:27.370 --> 00:02:30.189 And to dissect this organism, we've got a stack 00:02:30.189 --> 00:02:32.830 of research that really breaks it down into four 00:02:32.830 --> 00:02:36.229 distinct but interconnected systems. So we're 00:02:36.229 --> 00:02:38.030 going to start at the, let's say, the cellular 00:02:38.030 --> 00:02:39.990 level with green building, the individual structures 00:02:39.990 --> 00:02:42.189 themselves. Then we're going to zoom out to the 00:02:42.189 --> 00:02:44.710 tissue level, which is smart growth. basically, 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:46.969 how we arrange those structures. And then from 00:02:46.969 --> 00:02:49.729 there, the circulatory system, which is transit 00:02:49.729 --> 00:02:52.169 -oriented development or TOD. That's how we connect 00:02:52.169 --> 00:02:55.169 everything. And finally, the brain, the master 00:02:55.169 --> 00:02:59.030 strategy behind it all, urban planning. Or sometimes 00:02:59.030 --> 00:03:01.949 the lack of a master strategy. Yeah, that too. 00:03:02.129 --> 00:03:04.169 You know, I used to hear the phrase urban planning 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:06.389 and my eyes would just glaze over. I immediately 00:03:06.389 --> 00:03:09.430 zoned out. I pictured like a bunch of bureaucrats 00:03:09.430 --> 00:03:12.110 in a basement arguing about zoning laws and fence 00:03:12.110 --> 00:03:14.629 heights. Sure, setbacks and floor area ratios. 00:03:14.710 --> 00:03:18.210 It sounds incredibly dry. It does. But looking 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:21.729 at the history here from Baron Houseman in Paris 00:03:21.729 --> 00:03:25.969 to Jane Jacobs in New York, it's actually incredibly 00:03:25.969 --> 00:03:28.830 dramatic. It's a power struggle. It's a fight 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:32.189 over how we live, who gets to live where, and 00:03:32.189 --> 00:03:34.409 what our daily lives feel like. It is absolutely 00:03:34.409 --> 00:03:37.409 high stakes. And the shift we're seeing in the 00:03:37.409 --> 00:03:40.389 literature right now is just fascinating. For 00:03:40.389 --> 00:03:42.610 a long time, we were in what you could call a 00:03:42.610 --> 00:03:44.780 prescriptive era. What do you mean by that? It 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:46.860 was all about just following a code. The rulebook 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:49.180 said you must use this much concrete. You must 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:51.479 have a window of this size here. It was a checklist. 00:03:51.699 --> 00:03:54.860 Now, the entire conversation is shifting to a 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:57.560 performance era. We're asking different questions, 00:03:57.620 --> 00:04:00.879 not did you follow the rules? But how does this 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.500 building actually perform? Does it generate its 00:04:03.500 --> 00:04:05.800 own power? Does it clean its own air? Does it 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:08.199 actually make the people inside healthier and 00:04:08.199 --> 00:04:11.000 more productive? So from following rules to measuring 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.900 results. Precisely. Okay. So let's start at that 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:15.580 micro level then, the green building revolution. 00:04:16.100 --> 00:04:18.420 And I want to challenge a mental image that I 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:21.060 think a lot of us have. When I picture a green 00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:24.879 building. My mind used to go to like a yurt or 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:27.079 maybe a hobbit hole. Something very earthy, right? 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:29.660 Cob walls, straw bales, that kind of thing. Exactly. 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:32.139 Something low tech. But then on the other hand, 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:34.579 I also picture the classic city of the future, 00:04:34.740 --> 00:04:37.699 you know, the sci -fi version. And that is always 00:04:37.699 --> 00:04:40.500 sleek, it's silver, and it's completely covered 00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:43.500 in glass. The crystalline tower. Right. But the 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:45.519 research we looked at suggests that our obsession 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:48.040 with the glass skyscraper might be one of our 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:50.620 single biggest environmental mistakes. It's what 00:04:50.620 --> 00:04:52.879 some are calling the glass skyscraper paradox. 00:04:53.319 --> 00:04:55.680 And to really get it, you have to go back a little 00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:58.180 bit to the modernists. Think about someone like 00:04:58.180 --> 00:05:01.240 Mies van der Rohe in the 1920s. He drew these 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:03.420 incredible sketches of what he called skin and 00:05:03.420 --> 00:05:06.379 bones architecture. Zero glass skins. Yeah, these 00:05:06.379 --> 00:05:09.379 crystalline towers. And at the time, it was revolutionary. 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:11.879 It represented transparency, openness, democracy, 00:05:12.220 --> 00:05:14.420 lightness. It was the complete opposite of a 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.120 heavy stone castle. And let's be honest, it looked 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:19.779 cool. It looked incredible. It still does. But 00:05:19.779 --> 00:05:21.899 technologically, it was a disaster just waiting 00:05:21.899 --> 00:05:25.420 to happen. The problem is physics. Glass, even 00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:28.699 the best, most advanced glass today, is a terrible 00:05:28.699 --> 00:05:31.800 insulator compared to a properly insulated opaque 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:34.819 wall. In the industry, we measure insulation 00:05:34.819 --> 00:05:38.160 by its R value. A standard, well -insulated wall 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:41.379 in a new house might be R20, maybe R30. And a 00:05:41.379 --> 00:05:43.860 single pane of glass is like? It's like R1. Even 00:05:43.860 --> 00:05:46.680 a really high -tech, triple -glazed, argon -filled 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:50.279 unit is maybe R4 or R5. You're just leagues behind 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:52.439 a solid wall. So you're essentially building 00:05:52.439 --> 00:05:56.050 a tent. very fancy, very expensive tent. You're 00:05:56.050 --> 00:05:58.670 building a greenhouse. That's the perfect analogy. 00:05:59.050 --> 00:06:02.029 The sun's shortwave radiation comes right through 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:04.589 the glass. It hits the surfaces inside, turns 00:06:04.589 --> 00:06:07.910 into longwave radiation heat, and then gets trapped. 00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:10.730 So in the summer, you're just baking the occupants. 00:06:10.790 --> 00:06:13.050 You are literally baking them. So what do you 00:06:13.050 --> 00:06:16.610 have to do? You have to install massive, oversized 00:06:16.610 --> 00:06:19.810 air conditioning systems just to keep the building 00:06:19.810 --> 00:06:22.490 habitable. You're fighting the architecture with 00:06:22.490 --> 00:06:26.129 mechanics. There's that famous example from London, 00:06:26.189 --> 00:06:28.110 right? The walkie -talkie building. Oh, yes. 00:06:28.189 --> 00:06:30.949 The skyscraper that melts cars. Yeah, it has 00:06:30.949 --> 00:06:34.139 this curved... glass facade that acted like a 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.360 magnifying glass. It focused the sun's rays so 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:40.360 intensely that it melted parts of a jaguar that 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:42.519 was parked on the street below. Exactly. And, 00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:45.019 you know, that's the most extreme headline grabbing 00:06:45.019 --> 00:06:47.720 version. But every all glass tower is doing a 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:49.439 less dramatic version of that thermally. It's 00:06:49.439 --> 00:06:51.819 just a constant heat trap. Which is why the sources 00:06:51.819 --> 00:06:54.240 mentioned that some energy experts and even I 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:56.139 think it was Mayor de Blasio in New York a few 00:06:56.139 --> 00:06:59.259 years back started floating the idea of banning 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:02.319 all glass skyscrapers. They did, or at least 00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:04.019 demanding that they meet such high performance 00:07:04.019 --> 00:07:06.819 standards for energy use that the all glass look 00:07:06.819 --> 00:07:09.620 becomes functionally impossible. You'd have to 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:12.519 have such small windows to meet the code. So 00:07:12.519 --> 00:07:14.379 if we're moving away from the glass box, the 00:07:14.379 --> 00:07:16.720 term that kept coming up was bioclimatic design. 00:07:17.019 --> 00:07:19.079 This seems like, you know, just common sense. 00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:21.519 But the texts imply we basically stopped doing 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:23.680 it for about 50 years. We did because we didn't 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.139 have to. Once air conditioning became cheap and 00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:28.819 ubiquitous after World War II, architects got, 00:07:28.939 --> 00:07:32.259 well, a bit lazy. They could design the exact 00:07:32.259 --> 00:07:36.100 same glass box for Dubai, for Reykjavik, and 00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:39.319 for Singapore, and just assume the HVAC engineer 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:41.399 would figure out how to fix the temperature problem. 00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:44.680 Bioclimatic design says, stop. Look at where 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:46.680 you are on the planet. Right. Use the climate. 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:49.339 Don't fight it. Exactly. If you're in a cold 00:07:49.339 --> 00:07:51.860 climate like Chicago, you put the big windows 00:07:51.860 --> 00:07:54.199 on the south facade to catch that low winter 00:07:54.199 --> 00:07:57.300 sun for passive heating. If you're in a hot climate 00:07:57.300 --> 00:08:00.240 like Phoenix, you use deep overhangs or breeze 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:02.860 soleil, these shading devices, to block that 00:08:02.860 --> 00:08:05.560 direct hit of the summer sun. So it's using the 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:08.439 building itself as a kind of machine rather than 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:10.220 just stuffing a machine inside the building. 00:08:10.379 --> 00:08:12.699 That is the perfect way to put it. Now this connects 00:08:12.699 --> 00:08:14.459 to another concept I found really important. 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:19.360 The life cycle assessment. Or LCA. Because usually 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:21.420 when we think about a building's energy use, 00:08:21.579 --> 00:08:23.639 we just look at the utility bill. Right. The 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:25.720 operational carbon. How much electricity did 00:08:25.720 --> 00:08:28.399 we use this month? But the sources talk about 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:31.439 embodied energy. Can we break that down? Because 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:33.259 I feel like this is the hidden iceberg of the 00:08:33.259 --> 00:08:35.620 whole climate conversation. It absolutely is. 00:08:36.029 --> 00:08:38.970 Embodied energy, or embodied carbon, is the sum 00:08:38.970 --> 00:08:41.289 of all the energy required to produce a building 00:08:41.289 --> 00:08:44.129 before anyone even turns on a single light switch. 00:08:44.409 --> 00:08:47.690 So everything. Everything. Mining the iron ore 00:08:47.690 --> 00:08:50.330 for the steel, crushing the limestone and heating 00:08:50.330 --> 00:08:53.690 it to 1400 degrees Celsius for the cement, felling 00:08:53.690 --> 00:08:56.549 the trees, manufacturing the glass, transporting 00:08:56.549 --> 00:08:58.950 all of it to the site, the cranes, the assembly. 00:08:59.269 --> 00:09:01.889 All of that is embodied energy. And how much 00:09:01.889 --> 00:09:04.539 of the total pie is that? For a standard building, 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:08.360 the embodied energy can be 30 % or even more 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:10.919 of its total carbon footprint over its entire 00:09:10.919 --> 00:09:14.220 life. And here's the kicker. As our operations 00:09:14.220 --> 00:09:17.100 get cleaner, as the electrical grid gets greener 00:09:17.100 --> 00:09:20.019 with solar and wind, that embodied slice gets 00:09:20.019 --> 00:09:22.679 bigger and bigger proportionally. It becomes 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:25.080 the main problem we have to solve. And this brings 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:27.980 us right to the materials. If concrete and steel 00:09:27.980 --> 00:09:31.320 are these carbon bombs and they are... I think 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:33.620 I read that cement production alone is something 00:09:33.620 --> 00:09:37.159 like 8 % of all global CO2. It's huge. If the 00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:39.220 cement industry were a country, it would be the 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:42.000 third largest emitter in the world behind China 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:44.159 and the U .S. That's insane. So if that's the 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:46.080 problem, what's the alternative? The source stack 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:49.500 points to something that sounds almost archaic. 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:51.659 Wood. Mass timber. Right. But I have to play 00:09:51.659 --> 00:09:53.860 the skeptic here immediately. If I tell someone 00:09:53.860 --> 00:09:55.720 we are going to build a 20 -story skyscraper 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:58.740 out of wood, my first reaction is going to be. 00:09:59.049 --> 00:10:02.029 Fire. Of course. Are we just building giant matchsticks 00:10:02.029 --> 00:10:04.309 in the middle of our cities? That is the number 00:10:04.309 --> 00:10:07.230 one question, and it's a completely valid fear 00:10:07.230 --> 00:10:09.990 based on history. We all know about the Great 00:10:09.990 --> 00:10:13.090 Fire of London or the Great Chicago Fire, but 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:15.789 mass timber, and specifically a product called 00:10:15.789 --> 00:10:19.250 cross -laminated timber or CLT, is a totally 00:10:19.250 --> 00:10:21.429 different beast from the little two -by -fours 00:10:21.429 --> 00:10:23.350 in the walls of your house. So how is it different? 00:10:23.740 --> 00:10:27.440 These are massive, thick, solid panels. They're 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:29.879 made by taking layers of lumber and gluing them 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:33.059 together at perpendicular 90 degree angles. You 00:10:33.059 --> 00:10:35.379 end up with a solid block of wood that's incredibly 00:10:35.379 --> 00:10:38.000 strong and stable. How does it handle fire? Yeah. 00:10:38.429 --> 00:10:40.169 I'm still stuck on that. It's all about physics. 00:10:40.509 --> 00:10:42.370 Think about what happens if you try to light 00:10:42.370 --> 00:10:45.110 a giant log with a single match. It won't catch. 00:10:45.669 --> 00:10:48.610 Now, when a massive block of wood, like a CLT 00:10:48.610 --> 00:10:51.509 panel, is exposed to intense fire, the outer 00:10:51.509 --> 00:10:54.590 layer chars. That charcoal layer that forms actually 00:10:54.590 --> 00:10:57.009 acts as an insulator. It's a protective coating 00:10:57.009 --> 00:10:59.230 that protects the structural core of the wood 00:10:59.230 --> 00:11:01.649 from the heat. So the building maintains its 00:11:01.649 --> 00:11:03.909 structural integrity for a very long time, often 00:11:03.909 --> 00:11:06.330 longer than steel. Wait, longer than steel? That 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:08.990 seems completely counterintuitive. It is, but 00:11:08.990 --> 00:11:12.009 it's true. Steel doesn't burn, but when it gets 00:11:12.009 --> 00:11:14.509 hot enough, it loses its strength. It gets soft. 00:11:14.529 --> 00:11:17.549 It turns into spaghetti. It buckles and the building 00:11:17.549 --> 00:11:20.710 collapses. The wood in a mass timber building 00:11:20.710 --> 00:11:23.750 chars at a slow, predictable rate, but it stays 00:11:23.750 --> 00:11:26.490 standing. So it fails more gracefully, I guess. 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:30.120 In a way, yes. And because of all this testing, 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:32.559 building codes are finally changing. We're seeing 00:11:32.559 --> 00:11:35.820 buildings pop up like the Mistornet in Norway, 00:11:36.059 --> 00:11:39.620 which is an 18 -story timber tower. It's a hotel. 00:11:39.620 --> 00:11:42.240 It has apartments, offices. And the environmental 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:44.860 benefit here is, what, a double whammy? It really 00:11:44.860 --> 00:11:47.279 is. First, you are avoiding all the massive carbon 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.799 emissions from manufacturing concrete and steel. 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:53.080 That's a huge win. But second, the tree itself 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:55.399 sequestered carbon from the atmosphere while 00:11:55.399 --> 00:11:57.330 it was growing. And now you are locking that 00:11:57.330 --> 00:11:59.730 carbon into the building's frame for 100 years. 00:11:59.909 --> 00:12:01.929 So the building itself is a carbon vault. Exactly. 00:12:02.049 --> 00:12:04.789 It's a form of carbon storage. But let's be realistic. 00:12:04.950 --> 00:12:06.889 We aren't going to stop using concrete overnight. 00:12:07.190 --> 00:12:09.769 I mean, it's everywhere. The source has mentioned 00:12:09.769 --> 00:12:11.690 some pretty wild innovations, though, like self 00:12:11.690 --> 00:12:13.809 -healing concrete. This sounds like something 00:12:13.809 --> 00:12:16.610 out of a sci -fi movie. Is this real or is it 00:12:16.610 --> 00:12:18.990 just, you know, lab tech? Oh, it's real. It's 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:20.710 still expensive, so it's not mainstream yet. 00:12:21.129 --> 00:12:24.070 but the mechanism is fascinating what they do 00:12:24.070 --> 00:12:27.110 is they embed dormant bacteria usually a specific 00:12:27.110 --> 00:12:30.490 type of bacillus into the concrete mix bacteria 00:12:30.490 --> 00:12:33.710 in the concrete right and alongside the bacteria 00:12:33.710 --> 00:12:36.210 they embed little capsules of their food like 00:12:36.210 --> 00:12:38.370 starch or calcium lactate so they're just sitting 00:12:38.370 --> 00:12:41.610 there sleeping okay then when the concrete cracks 00:12:41.610 --> 00:12:44.409 and all concrete eventually gets tiny cracks 00:12:44.409 --> 00:12:49.259 water seeps in that water is the trigger it wakes 00:12:49.259 --> 00:12:51.600 up the bacteria and they get hungry they get 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.059 hungry they eat the starch and as a waste product 00:12:54.059 --> 00:12:57.120 they excrete calcite which is basically limestone 00:12:57.120 --> 00:12:59.460 so they fill the crack with their own waste they 00:12:59.460 --> 00:13:02.179 literally heal the crack they seal the building 00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:05.120 back up from the inside out it's biomimicry it's 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:07.960 mimicking the way that a bone heals itself that 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:10.539 is absolutely incredible but this brings us to 00:13:10.539 --> 00:13:14.019 the big practical problem the rub We have all 00:13:14.019 --> 00:13:15.919 these cool technologies. We've got smart glass, 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.679 mass timber, bacterial concrete, hempcrete, thermacork 00:13:19.679 --> 00:13:22.419 insulation. But whenever I talk to anyone in 00:13:22.419 --> 00:13:24.460 the development world, they say it costs too 00:13:24.460 --> 00:13:28.159 much. The famous green premium. Exactly. The 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:31.940 sources say it's about, what, a 2 % extra cost 00:13:31.940 --> 00:13:34.919 up front? On the surface, that doesn't sound 00:13:34.919 --> 00:13:37.480 like a lot. So why isn't every single new building? 00:13:38.059 --> 00:13:40.860 A green building. This is a classic economic 00:13:40.860 --> 00:13:43.200 failure that we call the split incentive problem. 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:45.539 It's a huge barrier. Walk us through that. Okay. 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:48.340 Imagine you're a big developer. You're building 00:13:48.340 --> 00:13:52.159 a new office tower. You pay the extra 2%, let's 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:54.799 say it's $2 million, to put in better insulation, 00:13:55.059 --> 00:13:58.279 high performance windows, a super efficient HVAC 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:00.559 system. You've paid the premium. You've paid 00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:03.279 it. But then you lease out the office space to 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:05.759 100 different companies. Who pays the electricity 00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:08.159 bill every month? The tenants. The companies. 00:14:08.340 --> 00:14:10.840 The tenants. Who benefits from the lower energy 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:13.460 costs that your $2 million investment created? 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.340 The tenant. Exactly. The developer pays the premium, 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.639 but the tenant gets all the savings. So unless 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:22.960 the developer can market that greenness to charge 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:25.740 significantly higher rent, which is sometimes 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:28.159 possible, but not always, they have no direct 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:31.000 financial incentive to eat that upfront cost. 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:33.740 I see. The person writing the check isn't the 00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:35.940 one getting the reward. That's the split incentive 00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:39.139 in a nutshell. But the sources also mention a 00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.320 different kind of ROI, a different return on 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:43.340 investment. And this one seems like it should 00:14:43.340 --> 00:14:45.440 motivate the companies themselves, the tenants. 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:48.500 It's about productivity. Yes. And this is potentially 00:14:48.500 --> 00:14:50.519 an even bigger deal. There's a rule of thumb 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:52.919 in commercial real estate called the 330 -300 00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:56.399 rule. 330 -300. Okay. In a typical office building 00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:59.379 over a year, a company will spend about $3 per 00:14:59.379 --> 00:15:02.600 square foot on utilities, energy, water. They'll 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:05.620 spend about $30 per square foot on rent. And 00:15:05.620 --> 00:15:08.279 they'll spend about $300 per square foot on pay. 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:10.340 payroll for the people sitting in that space. 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:13.320 So salaries are by far the biggest expense. By 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:17.659 a factor of 10. So the argument is this. If you 00:15:17.659 --> 00:15:19.960 can use green building principles to improve 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:22.659 the indoor environmental quality. Better air, 00:15:22.820 --> 00:15:25.559 more natural light, fewer toxic chemicals off 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:28.539 gassing from the carpet. And you boost the productivity 00:15:28.539 --> 00:15:32.759 of that $300 bucket by even 1%. That completely 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:36.139 dwarfs any savings you'd get on the $3 electric 00:15:36.139 --> 00:15:38.259 bill. It completely erases the extra construction 00:15:38.259 --> 00:15:40.940 cost. We have study after study showing that 00:15:40.940 --> 00:15:43.419 high CO2 levels in meeting rooms, which happens 00:15:43.419 --> 00:15:45.399 all the time in these hermetically sealed glass 00:15:45.399 --> 00:15:49.080 boxes, makes people cognitively sluggish. It 00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:51.379 impairs decision making. We are literally making 00:15:51.379 --> 00:15:53.679 ourselves stupider with bad architecture. So 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:55.600 the sales pitch shouldn't be save the planet. 00:15:55.679 --> 00:15:58.360 It should be stop sedating your employees. That's 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:00.360 the pitch that wins in the boardroom. OK, so 00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:03.500 that's the building, the cell. But a perfect 00:16:03.500 --> 00:16:06.259 self -healing carbon storing timber building 00:16:06.259 --> 00:16:08.720 is, well, it's kind of useless if you put it 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:12.169 in the wrong place. If you build a... LE'd platinum 00:16:12.169 --> 00:16:14.990 headquarters in the middle of a cornfield where 00:16:14.990 --> 00:16:17.929 5 ,000 employees have to drive their SUVs an 00:16:17.929 --> 00:16:20.730 hour each way to get to work, you've failed. 00:16:20.889 --> 00:16:22.970 You've completely missed the point. You've built 00:16:22.970 --> 00:16:25.149 what some people call a green sprawl building. 00:16:25.429 --> 00:16:27.649 You solved one problem while creating a much 00:16:27.649 --> 00:16:30.029 bigger one. Right. So let's zoom out. Let's move 00:16:30.029 --> 00:16:33.190 to the macro level. Smart growth and the fight 00:16:33.190 --> 00:16:36.690 against sprawl. I think we need to define sprawl. 00:16:36.909 --> 00:16:38.809 carefully here because it's not just, you know, 00:16:38.830 --> 00:16:41.230 suburbs. People hear sprawl and they think of 00:16:41.230 --> 00:16:43.289 their nice suburban neighborhood. No, it's not. 00:16:43.450 --> 00:16:46.470 Suburbs can be fine. Sprawl is a specific and 00:16:46.470 --> 00:16:49.570 often destructive pattern of development. It's 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:53.149 characterized by a few key things. Very low density, 00:16:53.350 --> 00:16:56.070 a strict separation of uses. Meaning houses are 00:16:56.070 --> 00:16:58.409 over here, shops are five miles that way, and 00:16:58.409 --> 00:17:01.049 offices are 10 miles in another direction. Exactly. 00:17:01.309 --> 00:17:04.089 And the third and most important is total and 00:17:04.089 --> 00:17:06.480 complete car dependence. It's a landscape that 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:08.619 is hostile to the human body. You cannot live 00:17:08.619 --> 00:17:11.299 in it without a car. It's development that expands 00:17:11.299 --> 00:17:13.680 across the landscape much faster than the population 00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:16.160 itself is growing. And the sources bring up a 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:18.740 really controversial point here. I think most 00:17:18.740 --> 00:17:21.220 of us tend to think sprawl is just, you know, 00:17:21.220 --> 00:17:23.359 what people want. It's the market at work. People 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:25.940 want the big yard and the white picket fence. 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:29.680 But the subsidy critique argues that sprawl is 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:32.259 actually a massive government -funded project. 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:35.240 It absolutely is, whether we intended it to be 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:37.980 or not. And one of the biggest hidden mechanisms 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:40.980 is how we price our infrastructure. Specifically, 00:17:41.259 --> 00:17:44.099 something called average cost pricing. Okay, 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:46.119 can you walk us through that? Sure. Let's take 00:17:46.119 --> 00:17:49.039 two people. We'll call them Alice and Bob. Alice 00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:51.500 lives in a downtown apartment building. Bob buys 00:17:51.500 --> 00:17:54.000 a brand new house in a subdivision 10 miles out 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:56.380 at the edge of town. Okay. Alice in the city. 00:17:56.730 --> 00:17:59.849 Bob in the excerpts. Right. Now, to get electricity, 00:18:00.089 --> 00:18:02.930 water and sewer service to Alice, the utility 00:18:02.930 --> 00:18:05.450 company just has to patch into the existing grid 00:18:05.450 --> 00:18:07.190 that's already running down her street. The pipe 00:18:07.190 --> 00:18:09.349 is right there. It's cheap. Makes sense. To get 00:18:09.349 --> 00:18:11.869 those same services to Bob, they have to run 00:18:11.869 --> 00:18:15.349 miles of new pipe, new wire, maybe build a whole 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:17.569 new electrical substation. The cost is, you know, 00:18:17.569 --> 00:18:20.190 10, 100 times higher. It's incredibly expensive. 00:18:20.549 --> 00:18:23.549 But when Alice and Bob open their utility bills 00:18:23.549 --> 00:18:25.759 at the end of the month. They pay the exact same 00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:28.279 rate per kilowatt hour of electricity or per 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:32.039 gallon of water. Alice and all her dense urban 00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:35.799 neighbors are effectively overpaying to subsidize 00:18:35.799 --> 00:18:38.599 the massive infrastructure cost of Bob's sprawling 00:18:38.599 --> 00:18:42.000 lifestyle. If Bob actually saw the true cost 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.599 of running that power line to his remote house 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:47.200 on his monthly bill, he might decide that the 00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:50.440 big yard isn't worth an extra $500 a month. It's 00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:53.150 a hidden subsidy for the suburbs. That's a provocative 00:18:53.150 --> 00:18:55.150 way to put it. But from an economic standpoint, 00:18:55.549 --> 00:18:58.769 yes. We socialize the long -term costs of the 00:18:58.769 --> 00:19:01.089 infrastructure, but we privatize the short -term 00:19:01.089 --> 00:19:03.829 benefit of the cheap land. That's what fuels 00:19:03.829 --> 00:19:06.730 straw. So smart growth is the antidote to this. 00:19:06.910 --> 00:19:09.349 And when you boil it all down, the core principle 00:19:09.349 --> 00:19:12.150 seems to be mixed use. Right. It's about breaking 00:19:12.150 --> 00:19:13.869 the model of what's called Euclidean zoning. 00:19:14.369 --> 00:19:17.210 Euclidean, like the geometry. Exactly. It was 00:19:17.210 --> 00:19:19.890 named after a Supreme Court case involving the 00:19:19.890 --> 00:19:23.869 town of Euclid, Ohio, back in the 1920s. And 00:19:23.869 --> 00:19:26.289 that case enshrined the idea that you had to 00:19:26.289 --> 00:19:28.410 keep uses separate. Residential here, commercial 00:19:28.410 --> 00:19:30.809 there, industrial way over there. And that's 00:19:30.809 --> 00:19:32.750 what gave us the city where you can't have a 00:19:32.750 --> 00:19:34.990 corner store in a residential neighborhood. Right. 00:19:35.289 --> 00:19:38.289 Smart growth looks at that and says, please build 00:19:38.289 --> 00:19:41.069 the corner store, build the cafe, the daycare, 00:19:41.109 --> 00:19:44.759 the pub. If you can buy a quart of milk or meet 00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:46.779 a friend for coffee without getting in a car, 00:19:46.940 --> 00:19:49.619 you have fundamentally changed the carbon math 00:19:49.619 --> 00:19:53.019 of your daily life. But here's the paradox. I 00:19:53.019 --> 00:19:55.240 found this part of the research really counterintuitive. 00:19:55.259 --> 00:19:58.099 It's called the paradox of intensification. My 00:19:58.099 --> 00:20:01.140 assumption has always been more density equals 00:20:01.140 --> 00:20:03.819 less traffic. Simple. It's a tricky one. It's 00:20:03.819 --> 00:20:06.609 a matter of scale and how you measure it. Density 00:20:06.609 --> 00:20:09.369 absolutely means less driving per person. If 00:20:09.369 --> 00:20:11.849 you live in a dense, walkable neighborhood, you 00:20:11.849 --> 00:20:14.109 might drive five miles a day on average instead 00:20:14.109 --> 00:20:16.589 of the 30 miles you'd drive living in a sprawling 00:20:16.589 --> 00:20:19.069 suburb. So individually, your impact is much 00:20:19.069 --> 00:20:21.609 lower. That's a huge win for the planet. However, 00:20:21.910 --> 00:20:24.490 because there are 10 ,000 of you packed into 00:20:24.490 --> 00:20:27.750 that one square mile, the local roads in that 00:20:27.750 --> 00:20:30.410 specific area might be more congested than the 00:20:30.410 --> 00:20:33.049 sprawling suburb where everyone drives 30 miles, 00:20:33.150 --> 00:20:35.410 but they're all spread out over 100 square miles. 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:38.759 So the local lived experience is the traffic 00:20:38.759 --> 00:20:40.420 here is terrible. Yeah. Even though the global 00:20:40.420 --> 00:20:43.690 reality is as a community. We are driving dramatically 00:20:43.690 --> 00:20:46.589 less. Exactly. And that makes the politics of 00:20:46.589 --> 00:20:50.250 density incredibly difficult. People vote based 00:20:50.250 --> 00:20:52.849 on their daily experience of being stuck in traffic, 00:20:53.009 --> 00:20:56.269 not on per capita vehicle miles traveled statistics. 00:20:56.670 --> 00:20:59.109 The Portland example in the sources was fascinating. 00:20:59.289 --> 00:21:00.990 They're famous for this. They set up an urban 00:21:00.990 --> 00:21:03.509 growth boundary. Right. A literal line in the 00:21:03.509 --> 00:21:06.450 dirt on the map saying the city stops here. We 00:21:06.450 --> 00:21:09.069 will not extend services beyond this line. And 00:21:09.069 --> 00:21:11.579 they densified inside the line. Transit use went 00:21:11.579 --> 00:21:13.759 up. Biking and walking went up. It was a success 00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:16.880 story, right? In many ways, yes. But traffic 00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:19.059 congestion inside that boundary still got worse. 00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:21.799 And it increased faster than in comparable cities 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:23.799 that didn't have a boundary because they were 00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:26.180 cramming more and more economic activity into 00:21:26.180 --> 00:21:28.119 a fixed amount of road space. So you have to 00:21:28.119 --> 00:21:30.500 be honest with people. The goal isn't necessarily 00:21:30.500 --> 00:21:33.619 to make your car commute faster. The goal is 00:21:33.619 --> 00:21:35.759 to make the car commute irrelevant for more of 00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:38.319 your trips. If you are still trying to live a 00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:41.039 car dependent life in a smart growth city, you 00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:43.640 are going to be miserable. The design is trying 00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:46.480 to send you a message. And that message is get 00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:48.940 out of the car. Get out of the car. Which segues 00:21:48.940 --> 00:21:51.380 perfectly to our third pillar. Yeah. If we're 00:21:51.380 --> 00:21:52.880 getting people out of their cars, where are we 00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:54.579 expecting them to go? That's transit oriented 00:21:54.579 --> 00:21:57.819 development or POD. The circulatory system of 00:21:57.819 --> 00:22:00.859 our city organism. And the golden rule here that 00:22:00.859 --> 00:22:03.920 I saw over and over again is the walk shed. Specifically. 00:22:04.650 --> 00:22:07.109 The half mile circle. Why a half mile? Is that 00:22:07.109 --> 00:22:09.390 just an arbitrary number someone picked? It's 00:22:09.390 --> 00:22:11.789 not arbitrary at all. It's based on behavioral 00:22:11.789 --> 00:22:14.990 psychology. Urban planners and transit agencies 00:22:14.990 --> 00:22:17.869 have done countless studies, and they found that 00:22:17.869 --> 00:22:20.690 for most people, a 10 -minute walk, which is 00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:24.650 about a half mile or 800 meters, is the psychological 00:22:24.650 --> 00:22:27.339 limit. A breaking point. Yeah. If the train station 00:22:27.339 --> 00:22:30.339 is an eight -minute walk away, people will walk 00:22:30.339 --> 00:22:32.480 without even thinking about it. If it's a 12 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:34.599 -minute walk, they start to perceive it as too 00:22:34.599 --> 00:22:36.640 far, and they'll get in their car and drive to 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:38.480 the station, which defeats the whole purpose. 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:41.380 So you have this hard 10 -minute radius to work 00:22:41.380 --> 00:22:45.319 with. So the entire goal of TOD is to pack as 00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:47.559 much valuable stuff as possible, apartments, 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:52.059 offices, shops, grocery stores, inside that 10 00:22:52.059 --> 00:22:54.130 -minute circle around the transit stop. That's 00:22:54.130 --> 00:22:56.769 the whole game. In Arlington, Virginia, they 00:22:56.769 --> 00:22:58.690 call it the bullseye approach. They have the 00:22:58.690 --> 00:23:00.910 highest density, the tallest buildings right 00:23:00.910 --> 00:23:02.990 on top of the metro station in the center of 00:23:02.990 --> 00:23:05.190 the bullseye. Then it tapers down as you move 00:23:05.190 --> 00:23:07.089 away until you get to single family homes at 00:23:07.089 --> 00:23:08.890 the edge of the circle. Let's look at the success 00:23:08.890 --> 00:23:10.670 stories because, you know, in the U .S., we're 00:23:10.670 --> 00:23:13.609 generally pretty bad at this. But Curitiba, Brazil, 00:23:13.869 --> 00:23:16.690 keeps coming up in the literature as this incredible 00:23:16.690 --> 00:23:19.210 model. And they did something really clever with 00:23:19.210 --> 00:23:22.640 buses. Curitiba is the poster child for what 00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:25.720 you might call frugal innovation. Back in the 00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:28.160 1970s, the city was growing incredibly fast. 00:23:28.299 --> 00:23:30.519 They knew they needed a mass transit system like 00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.299 a subway. But subways are expensive. Unbelievably 00:23:33.299 --> 00:23:36.400 expensive. Digging tunnels can cost literally 00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:39.940 a billion dollars a mile in some cities. Curitiba 00:23:39.940 --> 00:23:41.920 didn't have that kind of money. So the mayor 00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:44.140 at the time, an architect named Shami Lerner, 00:23:44.180 --> 00:23:47.099 asked a brilliant question. How do we make a 00:23:47.099 --> 00:23:49.579 bus act like a subway? And the answer wasn't 00:23:49.579 --> 00:23:51.349 just... you know, painting a red lane on the 00:23:51.349 --> 00:23:53.410 road. No, it was much more holistic. The key 00:23:53.410 --> 00:23:56.230 innovation was the tube station. If you think 00:23:56.230 --> 00:23:58.529 about a normal bus, why is it so slow? A big 00:23:58.529 --> 00:24:00.650 reason is because everyone has to climb up the 00:24:00.650 --> 00:24:03.589 steps, fumble for change, pay the driver one 00:24:03.589 --> 00:24:06.349 by one. It's called dwell time. Lerner's idea 00:24:06.349 --> 00:24:08.930 was to build these elevated glass tubes on the 00:24:08.930 --> 00:24:11.609 sidewalk at the bus stops. You pay your fare 00:24:11.609 --> 00:24:13.789 to enter the tube before the bus even arrives. 00:24:14.359 --> 00:24:17.059 When the bus pulls up, its doors are at the exact 00:24:17.059 --> 00:24:20.220 same level as the tube floor and massive doors 00:24:20.220 --> 00:24:22.740 open like on a subway and everyone just walks 00:24:22.740 --> 00:24:25.279 straight on. So the bus dwells at the stop for 00:24:25.279 --> 00:24:27.740 15 seconds instead of two or three minutes. Exactly. 00:24:27.839 --> 00:24:30.700 They got subway -like speeds and subway -like 00:24:30.700 --> 00:24:33.440 capacity for about 5 % of the cost of digging 00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:36.480 a tunnel. And then, and this is the crucial part, 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:39.099 they use their planning power to zone for high 00:24:39.099 --> 00:24:41.839 -density skyscrapers strictly along those dedicated 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:45.079 bus corridors. The transit and the land use work 00:24:45.079 --> 00:24:47.799 together. Then there's Hong Kong. And this one 00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:49.380 is fascinating to me because it's a financial 00:24:49.380 --> 00:24:52.319 model. The MTR, their transit system, makes a 00:24:52.319 --> 00:24:55.500 profit, a huge profit. Here in the U .S., every 00:24:55.500 --> 00:24:57.440 single transit agency is perpetually begging 00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.039 for tax dollars just to keep the lights on. What 00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:02.049 is Hong Kong doing differently? They utilize 00:25:02.049 --> 00:25:04.670 a model that's often called rail plus property. 00:25:05.309 --> 00:25:08.130 In most cities, the transit agency is just a 00:25:08.130 --> 00:25:10.190 transportation company. They run trains. That's 00:25:10.190 --> 00:25:13.170 it. In Hong Kong, the MTR is also one of the 00:25:13.170 --> 00:25:15.460 biggest real estate developers in the city. How 00:25:15.460 --> 00:25:17.200 does that work? Well, because the government 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:20.180 owns almost all the land, when they decide to 00:25:20.180 --> 00:25:22.539 build a new subway line, they give the MTR the 00:25:22.539 --> 00:25:25.400 development rights for the land on top of and 00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:27.920 around the new stations. So the MTR builds the 00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:29.960 station underground and then they also build 00:25:29.960 --> 00:25:32.819 the 50 -story condo tower and the shopping mall 00:25:32.819 --> 00:25:35.839 right on top of it. Exactly. And they sell those 00:25:35.839 --> 00:25:39.000 condos or they lease out the mall space for a 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:42.460 massive profit. That profit then cross -subsidizes 00:25:42.460 --> 00:25:45.180 the cost of running the trains. system called 00:25:45.180 --> 00:25:48.039 value capture value capture the transit system 00:25:48.039 --> 00:25:50.460 itself creates an enormous amount of real estate 00:25:50.460 --> 00:25:53.759 value in new york or london when a new subway 00:25:53.759 --> 00:25:56.339 stop opens all the private landlords nearby see 00:25:56.339 --> 00:25:58.440 their property values triple overnight they get 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:01.599 to pocket that wealth in hong kong the mtr creates 00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:03.980 the value and then captures it to fund the system 00:26:03.980 --> 00:26:06.500 it's why their transit is one of the few profitable 00:26:06.500 --> 00:26:08.960 systems in the world that seems incredibly smart 00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:11.940 why doesn't every city do that Because in most 00:26:11.940 --> 00:26:14.880 Western democracies, the land is already privately 00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:18.039 owned. A transit agency can't just seize all 00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:20.480 the land around a new station and become a developer 00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:23.859 without massive, protracted legal and political 00:26:23.859 --> 00:26:26.599 battles over eminent domain. Hong Kong had the 00:26:26.599 --> 00:26:28.460 unique advantage of government land ownership 00:26:28.460 --> 00:26:31.779 to begin with. Right. That makes sense. But now 00:26:31.779 --> 00:26:33.400 we have to talk about the dark side of this, 00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:36.500 the unintended consequence. Because when you 00:26:36.500 --> 00:26:39.920 build these beautiful, walkable, transit -connected, 00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:42.299 desirable neighborhoods. Rich people want to 00:26:42.299 --> 00:26:45.160 live there. The G word, gentrification. It's 00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:47.380 the central challenge of urban improvement today. 00:26:47.599 --> 00:26:49.779 And specifically, the sources call it transit 00:26:49.779 --> 00:26:52.990 -induced gentrification. It feels like such a 00:26:52.990 --> 00:26:55.490 cruel irony. You build a subway line to help 00:26:55.490 --> 00:26:57.650 working class people get to their jobs more easily. 00:26:57.789 --> 00:27:00.430 But the very presence of that subway makes their 00:27:00.430 --> 00:27:02.970 neighborhood so desirable that their rents skyrocket 00:27:02.970 --> 00:27:05.690 and they get priced out. It creates what sociologists 00:27:05.690 --> 00:27:09.630 call a spatial mismatch. The people who need 00:27:09.630 --> 00:27:12.730 the transit. the most low -income service workers, 00:27:13.029 --> 00:27:15.529 are pushed further and further out to the fringes 00:27:15.529 --> 00:27:18.029 of the city where the transit is worst or nonexistent. 00:27:18.529 --> 00:27:21.089 Meanwhile, the people who can easily afford a 00:27:21.089 --> 00:27:23.910 Tesla are the ones living in the fancy condos 00:27:23.910 --> 00:27:26.109 right next to the train station. So how do we 00:27:26.109 --> 00:27:28.750 solve that? It feels like an intractable problem. 00:27:28.990 --> 00:27:32.250 The sources hint at policy tools, but what actually 00:27:32.250 --> 00:27:34.569 works on the ground? Well, the one thing we know 00:27:34.569 --> 00:27:36.410 is that you can't just leave it to the free market. 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:38.940 The market will always serve the highest bidder. 00:27:39.119 --> 00:27:42.220 You need aggressive, intentional policy. The 00:27:42.220 --> 00:27:45.640 most common tool is inclusionary zoning. Which 00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:47.480 means what exactly? It means if a developer wants 00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:50.680 to build that new luxury TOD tower, the city 00:27:50.680 --> 00:27:53.920 says great. But as a condition of approval, 20 00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:57.079 % or 30 % of the units in your building must 00:27:57.079 --> 00:27:59.480 be set aside and rented at permanently affordable 00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:01.819 rates. Not just affordable for the first year 00:28:01.819 --> 00:28:03.920 and then it goes to market rate. Permanently. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:07.160 Deed restricted. Other tools include things like 00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:09.980 community land trusts, where a nonprofit organization 00:28:09.980 --> 00:28:12.559 owns the land under the housing to ensure it 00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:15.220 stays cheap forever. But the key is you have 00:28:15.220 --> 00:28:18.339 to bake equity into the plan from day one. If 00:28:18.339 --> 00:28:20.480 you wait until after the neighborhood is already 00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:23.859 gentrified, it's too late. This brings us perfectly 00:28:23.859 --> 00:28:27.440 to the final overarching layer, the brain of 00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:31.700 the operation, urban planning. The master strategy. 00:28:32.099 --> 00:28:35.200 And the history here is really a battle of competing 00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:37.660 ideologies. It's the God's eye view planners 00:28:37.660 --> 00:28:40.279 versus the street level activists. That is the 00:28:40.279 --> 00:28:42.839 perfect way to frame the last 150 years of city 00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:44.720 making. So let's start with the ultimate God's 00:28:44.720 --> 00:28:47.339 eye planner. Baron Haussmann in Paris. We all 00:28:47.339 --> 00:28:50.500 have this romantic image of Paris. The wide boulevards, 00:28:50.500 --> 00:28:52.819 the cathedrals, the uniform stone facades. It 00:28:52.819 --> 00:28:55.359 feels beautiful and organic. But the sources 00:28:55.359 --> 00:28:59.509 describe his methods as, well. It was urban warfare 00:28:59.509 --> 00:29:01.869 in a way. It was stump pulling, as one historian 00:29:01.869 --> 00:29:03.670 called it. You have to remember what Paris was 00:29:03.670 --> 00:29:05.829 like before housemen in the mid -19th century. 00:29:05.950 --> 00:29:08.549 It was a medieval maze, a labyrinth of narrow, 00:29:08.670 --> 00:29:11.390 winding, dark streets. Now, it was dirty. It 00:29:11.390 --> 00:29:14.230 was unsanitary, yes. But it was also rebellious. 00:29:14.490 --> 00:29:17.450 The citizens of Paris were famous for their uprisings. 00:29:17.490 --> 00:29:19.710 They could throw up a barricade across a narrow 00:29:19.710 --> 00:29:22.009 street in 10 minutes and hold off the army for 00:29:22.009 --> 00:29:25.930 days. The emperor, Napoleon III, did not like 00:29:25.930 --> 00:29:28.230 that. So the famous wide boulevards weren't just 00:29:28.230 --> 00:29:30.950 for fresh air and sunlight. They were for cannon 00:29:30.950 --> 00:29:34.470 fire. They were designed to be too wide to barricade. 00:29:34.730 --> 00:29:36.630 and to allow for the rapid movement of troops 00:29:36.630 --> 00:29:39.869 to quell any unrest. Haussmann cut through the 00:29:39.869 --> 00:29:41.910 heart of the city like a surgeon with a machete. 00:29:42.069 --> 00:29:45.089 He demolished entire neighborhoods and displaced 00:29:45.089 --> 00:29:47.529 tens of thousands of poor people to the outskirts. 00:29:47.829 --> 00:29:50.809 He created a beautiful, sanitary, and easily 00:29:50.809 --> 00:29:53.490 controlled city. It's the classic example of 00:29:53.490 --> 00:29:55.569 planning imposed from the top down. And that 00:29:55.569 --> 00:29:57.569 top -down philosophy seems to have carried right 00:29:57.569 --> 00:30:00.430 into the 20th century with figures like Le Corbusier. 00:30:00.589 --> 00:30:02.769 Oh, absolutely. Le Corbusier, the great Swiss 00:30:02.769 --> 00:30:05.170 -French modernist architect. He looked at the 00:30:05.170 --> 00:30:08.069 chaotic, dirty industrial city of the early 20th 00:30:08.069 --> 00:30:10.109 century and said, this is a failure. This is 00:30:10.109 --> 00:30:12.569 irrational. His vision, which he called the Radiant 00:30:12.569 --> 00:30:15.349 City, was to knock it all down. Start over. Start 00:30:15.349 --> 00:30:18.930 over. He wanted to build giant, identical, cross 00:30:18.930 --> 00:30:22.349 -shaped skyscrapers set far apart in a massive 00:30:22.349 --> 00:30:25.690 park. Segregate the cars onto elevated highways, 00:30:25.890 --> 00:30:27.950 keep the people neatly stacked in their towers. 00:30:28.089 --> 00:30:31.309 He called it a machine for living in. It sounds 00:30:31.309 --> 00:30:34.319 orderly. But it also sounds kind of like a prison, 00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:37.220 sterile. It felt like one to many people who 00:30:37.220 --> 00:30:39.480 ended up living in the places inspired by his 00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:42.380 vision. The most famous and tragic example in 00:30:42.380 --> 00:30:45.160 the U .S. is the Prudity Go housing project in 00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:48.000 St. Louis. They built it almost exactly to Le 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:51.680 Corbusier's principles. 33 identical 11 -story 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:54.039 towers in a park. And what happened? It was a 00:30:54.039 --> 00:30:55.839 social catastrophe. There was no street life. 00:30:55.960 --> 00:30:58.799 The long, empty corridors became dangerous. The 00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:00.980 elevators were constantly broken. The park was 00:31:00.980 --> 00:31:03.779 a windswept, dead zone that nobody used. It became 00:31:03.779 --> 00:31:06.539 a symbol of architectural failure and was famously 00:31:06.539 --> 00:31:09.019 demolished with explosives just 20 years after 00:31:09.019 --> 00:31:11.039 it was built. And leading the charge against 00:31:11.039 --> 00:31:13.900 that whole mindset was Jane Jacobs. This really 00:31:13.900 --> 00:31:16.440 is the David versus Goliath story of urban planning. 00:31:16.680 --> 00:31:19.470 It really is. Jane Jacobs wasn't an architect. 00:31:19.809 --> 00:31:22.089 She wasn't a planner. She didn't have a PhD. 00:31:22.369 --> 00:31:25.410 She was a journalist, a mother, living in Greenwich 00:31:25.410 --> 00:31:27.769 Village in New York City. And her Goliath was 00:31:27.769 --> 00:31:30.789 Robert Moses. Robert Moses, the master builder 00:31:30.789 --> 00:31:33.430 of New York. He was the most powerful, unelected 00:31:33.430 --> 00:31:35.809 official in the state's history. A true disciple 00:31:35.809 --> 00:31:39.230 of Le Corbusier. And Moses wanted to ram a 10 00:31:39.230 --> 00:31:41.809 -lane elevated highway, the Low Manhattan Expressway, 00:31:41.910 --> 00:31:44.170 right through the heart of Soho, Little Italy, 00:31:44.309 --> 00:31:45.970 and Greenwich Village. He would have just wiped 00:31:45.970 --> 00:31:48.269 them off the map. Completely. He saw them as 00:31:48.269 --> 00:31:50.990 outdated, inefficient slums that needed to be 00:31:50.990 --> 00:31:53.650 cleared for the progress of the automobile. But 00:31:53.650 --> 00:31:55.730 Jane Jacobs argued that these so -called slums 00:31:55.730 --> 00:31:58.690 were actually incredibly complex, highly functioning 00:31:58.690 --> 00:32:01.170 urban ecosystem. You talked about the sidewalk 00:32:01.170 --> 00:32:04.369 ballet. The sidewalk ballet, the intricate, constant 00:32:04.369 --> 00:32:06.309 dance of neighbors watching out for each other, 00:32:06.410 --> 00:32:09.069 the mix of the butcher, the baker, the family 00:32:09.069 --> 00:32:12.190 living in the apartment above the shop. She argued 00:32:12.190 --> 00:32:14.250 that safety in a city doesn't come from empty 00:32:14.250 --> 00:32:17.049 green lawns between towers. It comes from eyes 00:32:17.049 --> 00:32:19.609 on the street, from a constant, vibrant public 00:32:19.609 --> 00:32:22.809 life. And she won. Against all odds, she won. 00:32:22.930 --> 00:32:26.190 She won. She organized her neighbors, she protested, 00:32:26.190 --> 00:32:28.170 she got arrested, and she stopped the highway. 00:32:28.529 --> 00:32:31.230 And her book, The Death and Life of Great American 00:32:31.230 --> 00:32:35.049 Cities, which came out in 1961, effectively killed 00:32:35.049 --> 00:32:37.049 the Le Corbusier school of thought and planning. 00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:40.180 Today, almost every smart growth principle we've 00:32:40.180 --> 00:32:44.420 discussed, mixed use, walkability, density, is 00:32:44.420 --> 00:32:47.160 basically just us trying to recreate the things 00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:49.380 Jane Jacobs loved about her Greenwich Village 00:32:49.380 --> 00:32:51.660 neighborhood. So how do we ensure that we have 00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:54.220 more Jane Jacobs and fewer Robert Moses figures 00:32:54.220 --> 00:32:57.660 in our cities today? The text mentions a framework 00:32:57.660 --> 00:33:00.339 for this, Sherry Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen 00:33:00.339 --> 00:33:03.119 Participation. Yes. This is a great mental checklist 00:33:03.119 --> 00:33:05.319 for any listener who's ever been to a community 00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:07.940 meeting about a new development. The latter has 00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:10.099 eight rungs and it starts at the bottom with 00:33:10.099 --> 00:33:12.539 manipulation and therapy. Which sounds bad. It 00:33:12.539 --> 00:33:14.359 is. Right. That's when the city holds a community 00:33:14.359 --> 00:33:16.039 meeting. That's really just a one way lecture 00:33:16.039 --> 00:33:17.779 to tell you what they've already decided to do. 00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:21.380 It's the decide, announce, defend strategy. We've 00:33:21.380 --> 00:33:23.910 all been to that meeting. We have. Then you move 00:33:23.910 --> 00:33:26.210 up the ladder to consultation, where they might 00:33:26.210 --> 00:33:28.170 listen to your feedback in a survey, but they 00:33:28.170 --> 00:33:30.789 make no promises to act on it. The goal is to 00:33:30.789 --> 00:33:33.869 get to the top rungs, partnership and ultimately 00:33:33.869 --> 00:33:36.569 citizen control. This is where the community 00:33:36.569 --> 00:33:38.869 actually has a seat at the table and helps co 00:33:38.869 --> 00:33:40.470 -design the plan for their own neighborhood. 00:33:40.769 --> 00:33:42.549 And we have new tools for this now that seem 00:33:42.549 --> 00:33:45.789 pretty powerful. Digital twins. I made a joke 00:33:45.789 --> 00:33:47.650 earlier about the matrix, but this seems like 00:33:47.650 --> 00:33:50.150 a serious upgrade from the old cardboard models 00:33:50.150 --> 00:33:53.369 on a table. It's a huge leap. A digital twin 00:33:53.369 --> 00:33:56.329 is an incredibly detailed, data -rich virtual 00:33:56.329 --> 00:33:59.450 replica of the entire city fed by real -time 00:33:59.450 --> 00:34:02.289 data from thousands of sensors. So real traffic 00:34:02.289 --> 00:34:05.630 data. Energy usage from buildings, wind patterns. 00:34:05.849 --> 00:34:08.289 All of it. Planners can then use this model to 00:34:08.289 --> 00:34:10.969 run simulations. What happens if we rezone this 00:34:10.969 --> 00:34:13.610 block for a 40 -story tower? What does that do 00:34:13.610 --> 00:34:15.650 to traffic at 5 p .m.? Does it create a wind 00:34:15.650 --> 00:34:17.809 tunnel at street level? Does it cast a shadow 00:34:17.809 --> 00:34:19.829 over the nearby elementary school playground? 00:34:20.250 --> 00:34:22.489 So you can fail in the simulator instead of failing 00:34:22.489 --> 00:34:24.750 in real life, which costs billions of dollars 00:34:24.750 --> 00:34:27.659 and ruins people's lives. Exactly. And you can 00:34:27.659 --> 00:34:29.440 make it accessible to the public. You can show 00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:32.039 the community, look, here is exactly what the 00:34:32.039 --> 00:34:34.480 shatter from this proposed building will look 00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:37.860 like on your apartment on June 21st at 4 p .m. 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:41.119 It brings real data to what are often very emotional 00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:44.300 arguments. So we've done it. We've synthesized 00:34:44.300 --> 00:34:45.920 the building, the neighborhood, the transit, 00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:48.119 and the master plan. But I want to end on a kind 00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:50.039 of philosophical note that came up in the conclusion 00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:52.380 of the source deck. We always seem to be looking 00:34:52.380 --> 00:34:54.780 for the next high -tech fix for our problems. 00:34:55.099 --> 00:34:58.139 Smart windows, AI -driven traffic lights, drone 00:34:58.139 --> 00:35:01.719 deliveries. But the expert commentary suggests 00:35:01.719 --> 00:35:05.400 the future of the city is the past. That is the 00:35:05.400 --> 00:35:07.559 central irony of all of this research, isn't 00:35:07.559 --> 00:35:09.539 it? We spend billions and billions of dollars 00:35:09.539 --> 00:35:11.800 developing these incredible new technologies, 00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:14.679 but the most energy efficient, sustainable, and 00:35:14.679 --> 00:35:16.739 often the most beloved neighborhoods in the world. 00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.039 They look a lot like the ones we built in 1900. 00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:22.739 Walkable. Medium density. Built with local materials 00:35:22.739 --> 00:35:25.679 like wood and brick. With passive cooling from 00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:28.519 courtyards and windows that actually open, I 00:35:28.519 --> 00:35:31.420 mean, this 15 -minute city concept that everyone 00:35:31.420 --> 00:35:33.519 is buzzing about now as if it's some radical 00:35:33.519 --> 00:35:36.940 new idea that was just called a city before 1950. 00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:40.639 We're effectively spending trillions of dollars 00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:43.179 to reverse engineer the common sense that we 00:35:43.179 --> 00:35:45.280 lost when we fell head over heels in love with 00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:47.099 the automobile. That's a very humbling thought. 00:35:47.539 --> 00:35:49.960 We don't necessarily need a technological miracle. 00:35:50.059 --> 00:35:52.039 We just need to remember how we used to live. 00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:54.940 There's a phrase I think is useful. Location 00:35:54.940 --> 00:35:57.659 is carbon. Say that again. Location is carbon. 00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:59.960 Location is carbon. You can change all your light 00:35:59.960 --> 00:36:02.519 bulbs to LEDs. You can recycle every plastic 00:36:02.519 --> 00:36:04.320 bottle you use. You can buy an electric car. 00:36:04.579 --> 00:36:07.099 And those are good things. But the single biggest 00:36:07.099 --> 00:36:10.000 environmental decision any of us makes is where 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:12.699 we choose to live. If you choose to live in a 00:36:12.699 --> 00:36:15.539 big drafty house 20 miles away from your job, 00:36:15.699 --> 00:36:19.260 you have baked in a massive carbon footprint 00:36:19.260 --> 00:36:21.960 for yourself that no amount of recycling can 00:36:21.960 --> 00:36:24.920 ever fix. If you choose to live in a smaller 00:36:24.920 --> 00:36:27.139 apartment, That's a 10 -minute walk from the 00:36:27.139 --> 00:36:30.400 subway and the grocery store. You've done 90 00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:32.739 % of the work before you even get out of bed 00:36:32.739 --> 00:36:35.400 in the morning. That really puts the ball firmly 00:36:35.400 --> 00:36:37.699 in the listener's court. It's not just about 00:36:37.699 --> 00:36:40.619 what the city planners decide to do. It's about 00:36:40.619 --> 00:36:43.360 the market signals we all send with our rent 00:36:43.360 --> 00:36:45.679 and our mortgage checks. Absolutely. We vote 00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:47.960 with our feet. This has been a massive topic, 00:36:48.059 --> 00:36:50.659 but I feel like I see my own street completely 00:36:50.659 --> 00:36:52.719 differently now. I'm looking for the thermal 00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:54.599 leaks in the buildings. I'm looking for the density 00:36:54.599 --> 00:36:56.699 or lack thereof. I'm looking for the eyes on 00:36:56.699 --> 00:36:59.139 the street. Once you see the city as an organism, 00:36:59.320 --> 00:37:02.000 you can't unsee it. Thank you for guiding us 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:03.659 through the blueprint. This has been fascinating. 00:37:03.920 --> 00:37:06.559 It was my pleasure. And to our listeners, thanks 00:37:06.559 --> 00:37:08.800 for taking the deep dive. Next time you're out, 00:37:08.860 --> 00:37:11.179 go for a walk in your neighborhood and ask yourself, 00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:15.219 is this a machine or is it a habitat? We'll see 00:37:15.219 --> 00:37:15.699 you next time.