Author's Forum:Urbanism for a Difficult Future

welcome to on the Park Bench a Public Square conversation brought to you by the Congress for the new urbanism on the bark bench presents interactive conversations with thought leaders in the new urbanism and Allied Industries giving the audience an opportunity to engage in real time the webinar series is a platform to engage debate and collaborate on pressing issues of the day dealing with urbanism today we have an authors Forum part of our author's Forum series a new book urbanism for a difficult future with author corkett anaren an interviewer Hernando Pages Ruiz foreign so share your thoughts on hashtag on the park bench and register for coming webinars Tuesday November 15th that's a week from today same time join Brian Falk of the project for lean urbanism and architect and urban designer Kevin klinkenberg to discuss a recent toolkit designed to overcome the burdens faced by small Builders and investors and walkable neighborhoods uh Tuesday December 6th uh um same time Dr Jamie Creek of the physical activity policy research and evaluation network is going to discuss Research into the growth of form-based and similar land land use regulations Nationwide and Tuesday December 13th uh join author William Fulton and CNU co-founder Elizabeth mule as they discuss place in prosperity how cities help us to connect and innovate go to cnu.org resources slash on the Park Bench to find out more and register uh our author corcott anarin is a founder and principal of pelona Architects in urbanist he also teaches as adjunct in the College of architecture and planning University of Colorado at Denver urbanism resilience and development codes have been a focus of his teaching and practice his book crafting form-based codes resilient design policy and regulation was published by Rutledge in 2019 he also co-authored a book with our interviewer today and that is Fernando Pages Ruiz a developer of 30 years in affordable housing and ethnic design he is an author including architectural design for traditional neighborhoods with core cut our guests today and Fernando's developments have been recognized by the National Association of home builders including Green Building single-family House of the year and Workforce housing award recently he's been working with Andreas diwani on designing neighborhoods for Hispanic immigrants I'm Rob studeville editor of cnu's Public Square urbanism for a difficult future practical responses to the climate crisis is a guide to launching the next generation of land use planning and urbanism that will enable us to adapt and survive the consequences of climate change this book makes the case that it's too late to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change and that we need to get serious about Community adaptation he describes what community adaptation looks like and how public policy can support it first corkett will present followed by a discussion with Fernando and then q a from the audience please use the Q a function of Zoom to ask your questions as they occur to you and now I'm going to pass this along to corkett thank you Rob okay can you share my screen do you guys see the full screen yes okay first off this book even though it has my name it reflects uh contributions by a lot of people especially uh Andres Duane and Paul Crabtree uh it started with a Workshop we did in our office in Boulder three days Workshop the some of the basic ideas uh showed up there and then in different uh venues we presented and there are you know adaptation related discussions going on in several email groups uh you know I learned from those conversations a lot as well so I like to acknowledge that so with me you know these are some pictures from our workshop and then we did a presentation in the school and that was the initial version of the what we call it adaptation Village and then this framework uh on which the book depends on uh what came out of after that uh Workshop what you're seeing here is what we call Action framework that is there's the overarching objective of localization of the assassinate systems and then enabling relocating people and in terms of assessment systems Energy Water food waste Goods essential Goods production of essential Goods those are the assessment systems and we need a social organization and governmental system localize governmental system that can enable and manage the localization systems and then there are certain design principles that follow I'm just going to go very quickly uh the model and again even though this looks like a designed uh you know detailed uh Village plan we looked at this as a model that is there are certain principles here that can be applied in different contexts what you're seeing here you know there are the neighborhoods there's the center and then the end of support districts and the whole site plan is organized by items that Nest between each other you know there's a compound formed by several buildings and then several compounds come together create a block with a green in the middle and then several blocks come together with the green in the middle a quadrant and then four quadrants are located around the Village Center and there are some energy and Recycling and Foods farming support areas this is a block you're seeing formed by several compounds I'm not going to go into details you know the book explained these in very but I'm just giving you an idea of what this model is you're seeing some views from towards the center uh green of a block there's a water tower a you know meeting area commuting Gardens and then the Village Center accommodates a wide variety of opportunities for businesses and we looked at the building tribes you know some Flex Spaces by the way what we're saying is that there should be mixed use we call it hybrid meaning that users that support each other in all true especially in the uh in central area that is to say even if we're talking about a flex space or manufacturing place maybe there's a studio in the building as well for residential so mixing those supporting users are are very key uh some views I'm just again go very fast and then also the support districts provide uh depending on the context and Technology uh food production and energy production and sometimes these can be combined but the way we approach these These are actually civil areas as well it's not just you know uh chains and isolated production areas it's where amenities for you know community members to learn from and then there's a circulation system most of the uh except for the Central Area most of the streets are shared streets uh they're the what we call Muse there's this primary Muse and secondary Muse again I don't need to go into the details but what we're saying is that even the you know this is a primary news it's more like a plus a continuous Plaza but even the muse uh that are secondary and they're function more like an alley actually at the same time accommodates a social uh realm and a lot of businesses as well uh so this is the I mean uh very quickly what the model is but what we're saying is that it's this particular uh framework the action framework that is important and that can be applied in a lot of locations it can be Urban infield it can be Suburban electrofit it can be peripheral Metropolitan which is what we worked on this particular model but it's like just an example and can be real though and that's really crucial that is to say it's not what we're showing in terms of physical environment it's the principles you know these principles should be able to apply to different locations no uh you know there's a lot of discussion about receiving cities receiving regions and such uh what we're saying is that you know it's not the cities it's not the regions you don't need to the climate migration is not going to only happen thousands miles away in we did every given region there are safer places uh more risky places every given maybe 10 miles and 10 miles or let's say depending they're always exceptions but there is a relatively safer place and relatively not safe place and we need to enable moving in much more minor uh scale so how this can happen you know there is the standard Zone we learned from the past and one interesting uh event happened is the starting of the zoning it was a federal act enabled and showed the way for localization of the planning system it ended up separating the users and such and created very vulnerable Landscapes unfortunately but the lesson is still there that is to say a federal initiative or state initiative May really enable a very different planning culture in the local so that's why we're saying that adaptation enabling act I mean a lot of these things can be done by local governments and cities and counties right now but if we want to see a more comprehensive and tasked move it would really have to have a federal initiation so what is this initiation this initiation should encourage new comprehensive plans to include receiving zones and receiving zone is a zoning category to which we apply certain policies and rules we need to look at the receiving Zone as a tool as a planning tool and yes it needs to be relatively safer place and I'm going to go through very quickly four different four uh policies we suggest to apply to the receiving zones first is the protective ownership opportunities for centuries the property produce something only this Century last 50 years 60 years we created something called residential property that sucks money and not it creates nothing it creates only financial burden so this is a study you know Yuri Town Center I worked with dpz for a charit and in that shirt one of the ideas is that instead of a big Bank Mansion can we split that into two three or even four small units and still have the uh same amount of building and probably same amount of people I'll come back to that and then in my own practice we we did some zoning course this is a Golden Colorado and this is adapted actually uh where we used you know the regular Lots can have more than one building and as long as the total of those are comparable I mean the total of the building full uh floor area comparable with regular large houses these were okay uh and then you know we also went further and then said you know maybe you can even subdivide these and then another code Springville Utah which was adapter which is adapted as well uses the same idea of clusters by mixing some space is more appropriate for businesses with more appropriate for residential and then that comes back to our uh compound the important thing here is that you know in terms of density everybody talks about density and you know when you propose something like this or you're increasing the number of buildings and the way a lot of running arguments look at the residential density interestingly enough is the units per acre everything else are the density is measured by the amount of building when you come to residential for some reason we said um except for building uh building code actually the building codes too treats the residential occupancy in terms of the amount of building bigger the unit more people live there is the Assumption of uh building code we know I mean we know that that's not the case usually it's you know there are a lot of small families young families occupying large houses however something we're seeing in the Front Range especially is that since the supply of housing is all mostly Mac benches and there's a lot of demand for smaller units we see doubling up a lot of people live with parents or other friends you know that's one you know living with parents is one way because you know the young couple cannot afford a MAG Mansion nowadays and they double up or they come together with other friends and buy a house and share or they buy a big house and then rent and if the zoning allows in that particular jurisdiction but what we're seeing is is interesting that is that building code's Assumption of larger the units more people in it is becoming a truth so that's something I say to the communities you know the way you measure is natural density is wrong you know it's like you have a 3000 square feet building and a lot and then I'm saying you're gonna divide that into three thousand square feet uh buildings and the same amount of people same amount of building uh floor area uh why are we thinking that we're tripling the density because that's probably measure anyway uh long story short what we're also thinking in these compounds these are you know not only residential but it can be you know what we call it and that's also in the appendix or to build a book The use categories we created are defined there there's a cottage uh production uh Cottage retail and college farming so the these are the the preferential I'm looking at the time uh tax treatment is a very important you know the we're familiar with this policy opportunity zones that should be another uh policy that should be applied to the receiving zones tax deduction for rent very important is another policy that would change the way we look at the housing and what we're saying is that tax deduction for rent should be uh a the primary Breadwinner should live in certain proximity the second the owner of the unit should occupy the same lot meaning that we're really looking at a much large you know uh apartment complexes but really a well-mixed community that can support the local economy that we're advocating and then finally you know let's direct some of the hazard mitigation and hot money into really supporting localization of the uh or disasterness systems you know the water electricity power uh food any kind of especially in terms of the recycling sewage Power and Water you know a lot of communities may need financial support to be able to localize and be self-sufficient and again when you look at these principles and policies you realize that the application spectrum is pretty large we need to be able to really go to the urban infill as well as the Suburban retrofit and apply some of these principles the shape of the plan and the mod you know it's going to be different than what we showed as a model but that's just a model that can be applied the important thing is this particular framework so that's it now we can have I'm gonna stop sharing we can have questions and answers well very good good morning uh corkett or I guess good afternoon and so good morning to you good afternoon many in the audience but it's a pleasure to see you it's a wonderful book um it it's uh it's a mercifully short book too so it's quite readable I read it in a couple of plane rides and and more than the importance of the topic itself uh the writing and the way that you evolve the book and the arguments you make they're they're very pleasing to read uh understandable even for someone who's not a planner and I think it uh hopefully will be a very influential book now the background that you seem to um you know the background of this book is that it's inevitable the impacts of climate change and so by coincidence we're speaking on Election Day and also the second day of cop 27 the uh large U.N climate change meeting happening in uh charmel Sheikh the uh trendy and beautiful Egyptian uh Resort uh they're speaking there today and when Egyptian officials announced their priorities for cop27 they emphasized two things which you emphasize finance and adaptation and they wanted this as a new approach given that previous cops mainly focused on mitigation reducing emissions to limit climate change you make a very similar distinction in your book what is the difference between climate mitigation and adaptation thank you that has been a big discussion for years uh in the Forum uh I think the way we approach is that mitigation assumes the life continues as it is and some kind of big technology Miracle is gonna reverse to global warming and we'll be okay now there are a lot of vulnerabilities I'm just you know you start with let's say Mr Smith lives in Suburbia commute an hour to work water and energy comes from Regional systems food comes from supermarkets uh waste is sold by uh again Regional uh maybe Metropolitan system and [Music] mail order is essential Goods uh Mr Smith doesn't have a lot of time because commute and said so he doesn't know his neighbors much except for a few that he fights with uh and probably spends most of the weekends in different functions for the kids and such so in that lifestyle there are a lot of vulnerabilities if the system goes down probably in the near future Mr Smith is going to be a climate refugee lost a lot of property who knows now the planner and urbanist I look at that and I feel like it is my responsibility to produce policies to change that to give opportunities for those lifestyles to be somewhere else and because at the end of the day the planning profession created that environment for them you know we never had Suburbia 100 years ago like this you know we never depended on the external sources this much we've never been this vulnerable in another way so immediately my mind goes okay how can we introduce local sewage systems because you know in fact I explained that in the book you know there are a lot of amazing amount of failures of large sewage systems and water pollution I mean we should just start today to disconnect ourselves from large systems and create smaller treatment facilities and technology is there there are a lot of options same thing about the water if the water goes down our pollution you know we don't have any other water sources we don't have systems I mean some areas have systems but you know in the past blacks neighborhoods they have their own systems so we lost that kind of self-sufficiency so we need to start reintroducing and that's the whole story of adaptation that is to say what are the policies and tools that we can retrofit Suburbia and give more resilience to that very vulnerable lifestyle I mean that's just a and again you know then actually that brings us at another layer maybe Mr Smith's location is very risky location it's going to be flawed or storm again so we need to provide an opportunity for Mr Smith to move not thousand miles away but maybe 10 miles away five miles away to us safest way or maybe Mr Smith's location is okay and we can maybe it qualifies to be within a receiving Zone then we create that zone and really apply those policies and make that life much more assuming that's the whole story now Mr Smith uh like me enjoys a little bit of city life and I was wondering you know you I know that it's just an example you know but the example it seems very bucolic very rural You've Got 5 000 people in a 15-minute walking shed you know the Amish uh live in communities of 50 to 75 000 they're much much larger they're self-sufficient communities was there's enough variety of people to supply all the different uh skill sets that are needed in a community and I know we talked about this once and and um you gave me some ideas that I thought were were uh that are not in your book but I thought were really uh made the argument very well of how you could live within this self-sufficient Community even if it's kind of a frontier Community the one you drew in your book that's just a small community with you know the quadrants at the at the ends with with Agriculture and and uh solar farming Etc in that small of a community of that five thousand fifteen minute walking shed even if it's not close to a larger City area or it's been for some reason irreparably uh you know separated from it how can you achieve enough diversity to have like a life beyond just simply a struggle for self-sufficiency and survival you you put enjoyment as one of the characteristics important in the planning for these communities how would Mr Smith enjoy his life in this little adaptation Village yeah I mean I think the fact that our model was kind of like a village self-contained Village gives the uh idea that it is isolated it you know especially if you go into the urban infill and certain Suburban rate of its locations that's not the case the connection I mean that walking 15 minute shed needs to nest in larger sheds the whole idea however is that in case of disruptions within that 15-minute shed you can survive how is the question how can we enable that life to survive within that shed because that you know that's aggressive right you know I agree it's very kind of like whoa you know we're so dependent to Regional systems that how can we create that kind of stress efficiency that we're walking shape but when you look at the history it's there it has been done I mean even the urban environments when you look at you know late 1800s had similar nesting sheds that is to say one block can close themselves and live for a while with whatever they have I mean interestingly enough there are some communities in Colorado we're working with you know the for zoning you know up the 50s there's this Louisville Colorado there um center of the Town had a lot of the Italian workers and such it was almost zero waste it created its own food and yeah I mean that's the kind of thing we need to Aspire doesn't mean that it needs to be isolated from the region isolated from isolated from surrounding I mean life is going to continue it's just that when the consumer system fails your life becomes miserable if you depend on it if you have your own system in the you know even in the block or you know then it's a different story that's the kind of resilience we need to create right now to be able to uh handle the disruptions when they come but not necessarily separate not it's not off-grid by necessity it's not it's not isolation it's just be able to handle the disruptions when and if they come exactly one other thing we did in this that Suburbia created you know we created an environment on the residential and people live I mean sleep there part of their day I always look at that you know let's say a neighborhood of thousand people within that thousand people there's a lot of expertise and professionals imagine you use only four hours of their services within the neighborhood a week that doesn't say they have a back room they have something specially organized where they can produce if they're doctors they're not doing doctor if they are in plumbers they do the plumbing in the community that's the kind of lean economy you can create lean because it's not tight it's not really not necessarily efficient like other economies but still there's a local economy that supports life to a degree yes in our conversation you talked about the idea of two day or two day a week restaurants that various people would have and I found that very appealing I would like to have it today and I'd like to come to your house every once in a while for dinner too um now in this book uh you don't always only get into the physical aspects you know what what um what infrastructure and what buildings and such are needed but you talk a lot about Management in terms of social organization um you know economic social organization and management of this self-sufficiency you kind of went over a little bit when you were talking about earlier when you were talking about the compounds but there's two concepts that you have in this book that I found interesting and we're actually new to me uh the concepts of succession succession and subsidiarity and how that works within the context of this community foreign you know subsidiarity is let me back up you know I'm in I've been doing the study abroad taking students to Turkey Villages and especially altruistic areas and look at the way life is changing the more tourism industry comes into the shore the more people start to be isolated and they lose their autonomy they lose the control over their daily lives that kind of kept me looking at that concept subsidiarity and then when Andres was talking about it it just hit me that's very important that is to say yes we have a strong local local economies yes we can express uh our opinions and positions to our cities and such but that's not enough we need finer grain of decision making to solve some of the problems not only solving some of the problems to create the kind of lean economy I was talking about that is to say we need to really be more productive that's another uh aspect I emphasize in the book that is to say we tend to work a lot and work for one company one job and when we lose that job we're in trouble during the covet and during the 2008-2009 crisis we learned that diversifying your daily life and production is very important to survive you know a lot of us started secondary businesses you know a lot of big offices split into small big businesses split into small you know that happened and we learned that you know there's a way you can do that and especially with the code as well you know especially those businesses depending on the social interactions failed a lot and then people Diversified as much as possible very fast and that is the kind of you know that's Financial resiliency that diversification that doesn't say don't depend on one job do other things on the side that can be enabled if you have strong relations with your neighbors and you make some of those decisions in the neighborhood so much so that you know we advocate certain building permits can be issued by neighborhood it doesn't go neat to go to the City Hall and run into a big bureaucracy especially if some of those sustenance systems are local that is we have five blocks area and within the five blocks we have a solar farm we have a waste system Etc so forth so why do I need to go for my building permit to the city we can decide that it is that way in history you know those decisions made much more locally that's the kind of subsidiarity we need today uh and succession is agility of those decisions that is to say if I'm going to change my room here and do a cafe there or I'm gonna put a dentist office there that decision and renovation should be done very fast you know if we have that kind of agility in changing our physical environment we make decisions then that succession that is to say increasing relationships that support each other increasing activities within an environment that support each other that's to me succession it's not the amount of business and diversity it's how these diverse businesses and economic activities support each other that succession you go to a very uh environment then that's also the strength of the local economy so that's why that's you know it sounds like a joke you know two days the restaurants you know each thing but that's part of the equation that doesn't say if you would be able to you could be able to do that not only your life would be more resilient but also the neighborhoods right life would be more visiting well it it sounds like a uh a joke or a humorous or kind of a fun element to this neighborhood but in reality it was the one that explained to me one of your main points which I didn't really understand from the perspective of coding because you emphasize even in your coding appendix the concepts of sharing giving and enjoyment which sounds promising it sounds like a good life but this generally happens spontaneously uh in a formal sense can you co can you manage through a code and manage and enforce enjoyment I mean how do you codify something like something like that well Pursuit of Happiness you know it's an overarching principle yeah I mean hey of course you cannot enforce it but uh I think in terms of the transformation there are the policy Transformations the certain paradigms need to shift but also individually the way we look at our lives you know even the pursuit of happiness is written out there this has been a very Puritan country and pleasure enjoyment was not accepted I mean the implication of that is very important because if we're going to have a strong social relations and strong social order in the neighborhood level we need to really shift our attitude as well and that's very important because you know I was just you know this weekend I wasn't uh Urban thinkers campus and there's that argument you know yeah you're talking about neighbors but I hate my neighbor well you're not gonna have the luxury of hating your neighbor if your life depends on your neighbor and that what happens when the storm hits a lot of isolated areas if they can support each other they survive so that is very important that is we need to shift that and it happens because of the way Suburbia is organized and the way our lives are organized actually because you know there's no reason we need to be friends with our neighbors we don't need it yeah well you know if our water is coming from a water tower we share in a block then I need to really be good friends with my papers right so anyway so we got a few questions here from uh folks listening in and um Ryan uh uh Stevenson says he he loves uh the plan uh the planning does the plant design and the program uh but he refers back to your original book which I actually see as a companion to this book because in that original book you really talk about more about the structures about the uh forms and he says in your book uh crafting form-based codes uh you reference Max Weber in describing the governance of coding um but another one of your favorites marks was famous for suggesting capitalism was a result of technological disruption whereas Weber suggested that capitalism was as a result of religion so what was it about Weber that attracted you to make comparisons to his ideas in the context of coding foreign well Max Weber's way of defining what law is legal system and where it's coming from and where it's going to really embedded in our discipline of Jewish students and the way the formal system approaches to low so I'm not necessarily agreeing with him in the sense that that formal system is the future and formal system needs to be low I'm using Weber to Define what what that formal system is what basically technocracies uh and then I'm actually contrasting that saying that you know to me what Weber says is that the legal system ideally is a machine it's the traffic light and the societies are going that way what I'm saying is that no you look at the zoning the history of zoning it's the other way around we're really going to our traffic officers and making much more Dynamic and uh a system where there's much more communication in it so that's how I use Weber and that's to contrast and create that scale of formal versus informal um ecosystems and I mean in terms of religion in terms of the religion I mean that's I really believe and agree with him the fact that the Protestant ethic started and that's why I keep coming back to the Puritan the work ethic and all that stuff that really kind of prevents us to engage pleasurefully with our neighbors and do something together built for you yeah uh Stephanie Bothwell wants to know how does density work along the transect is there a maximum density that allows your concept of self-sufficiency to work I was pointing to the others or a minimum is there a maximum and how do people well uh the transect in the 15 minutes uh I mean the book assigns amount of buildings and amount of structures per uh per compound and then the Urban transect become I mean transact becomes much or Urban in the Town Center now that's the inner organization of the model of the village of course you know tensei can be applied in different contexts in differently I mean if we're doing an urban infill it's going to be a completely different kind of a traffic there now density on the other hand and what we're saying 18 people per acre is a sweet spot it's not a rule it's not like it's just a number but it's a number where you can provide 5 000 people in 15 minutes walking and that can be supported with available localization Technologies today that is to say it's very easy to provide energy for that it's really easy to provide some kind of water source and such so that's The Sweet Spot uh however what happens is that if you go a dancer those Technologies starts to fail you know you need bigger systems if you get less then you're not have enough diversity to create a strong Local Economic but again you know in it's not a black and white if you're in an urban infield situation you need to get more dense and less self-sufficient it's still okay any self-sufficiency is resilience so whatever you can do in that particular condition you should do I mean Suburbia is going to be tougher tougher ones you know it's like politically and structurally the special organizations Etc so forth but still you know you need to start somewhere and provide you know get rid of the vulnerabilities and provide more strength so that's that's a density question whereas to say the density of 18 people per acre is just a number and it's a reference number and so it's a balancing point if you have less people it becomes difficult to have the skill set the all of the uh the labor and everything you need to be self-sufficient if you have too many it's just difficult to handle all that much waste provide that much water provide enough for that massive number of of people you know and I'm just saying I I like to emphasize that though you're let's say you're in the middle of an urban environment high density there's still a level of self-sufficiency you can create in several blocks area within the walking shed I mean that's the it doesn't have to be a village out there you can create that kind of self-efficiency within the blocks of the big Metropolitan city right I mean that the more you do that the more resilient you're going to become New York used to be an example of that it isn't it is no longer but it was an example of that of the local butcher and the seamstress and all of those businesses that were within a block of wherever you live now now that's gone but so and uh and Daigle asks uh and says hi corkett great job on defining what adaptation relocation looks like did you also Define the most critical elements of analysis to choose receiver and out of bounds Legacy places where these locations prioritize in some order I'm thinking specifically of things like soil type potable water aquifer access natural habitats and existing Wetlands Forest Prairie best AG land slated for protection in other words is there a criteria for selecting these relocation areas uh great question has been a lot of discussion you know Scott Bernstein works on that very question a lot one thing I'd like to say is that uh we need to change the way we look at the receiving Zone it's not a receiving City it's not receiving region it's a receiving Zone that comes with these policies if we keep that in mind for instance a criteria like walkability becomes irrelevant because we're going to create I mean if we're really serious about these the policies we're going to create walkability and that's the purpose anyway right we say that in Walking said there needs to be these Etc and so forth so but in terms of the criteria other criteria I think Scott is doing really good job and there are others as well my recommendation is really see the receiving Zone as a zoning category and when you do that All Those Questions become very context bound that is to say it really depends where you are if you're a Florida you look at the safer receiving zones in a different way than if you're in Fire and danger California for instance or Colorado yeah I mean but what I'm saying is that every metropolitan area every County should look at their context to create those receiving zones and then criteria would come from mapping and you know a lot of good Environmental Research is out there looking at the all the soil and water and other conditions maybe it's a new aspects to the phase one analysis of a site dig into environmental analysis not just for environmental hazards and hidden um hidden hazards but rather also opportunities on the site for for Independence because now let me add to that that doesn't say you know I'm seeing these Maps you know safer areas colored in one color Etc so forth for the United States what that kind of map it's a little bit there's a danger there that is to say if we say for instance ABC cities are really safe it's almost like the way the the tour you know tourism branding works you know this is the best way to ski no our state is our city is better and then there's this competition between them and what happens gentrification you know a result of that kind of Confrontation you really get certain homogeneous groups and you lose that diversity I mean you create cities this is this is happening in ski Industries a lot you know it create cities where doctors cannot afford to live there and the fire departments I mean fire chief is living outside of the so that kind of diversity you lose that yeah yeah you're sort of hitting on um partial response to Rafiq ibrahim's uh question which is what are the challenges to shift from a land use pattern that's based on functional separation of a single use into a more mixed-use new urbanism approach and what is the role of the market well my answer is start somewhere I mean it would be great I mean let me put it this way CNU is a perfect organization to lobby for a federal act new adaptation act I mean there's that level of but you can you don't need to wait do I mean each Community can start doing something right now you need to start somewhere in terms of the I mean single use hybrid use this is the perfect arm we think we learned a lot in covet we learned that we can actually produce run business make sure in our homes and even the most conservative zoning administrator nowadays are open to the idea so this is perfect time to make that I mean that's as you know uh I'm sure in the audience there are a lot of professionals working to do exactly that every day trying to convince people that you know you need to introduce more users Etc so forth but uh yeah but we never seen that as a necessity or as a tool to create resilience in the face of climate crisis so that's why it's becoming much more important for us now probably what will help shape the market too is stories like the one that uh was just in the newspapers a lot for Babcock Ranch where the where the little uh suburb was able to survive the impact of the storm simply by having not all but some elements of uh of self-sufficiency so that may uh that may also promote the market acceptance even a market appetite for an adaptation community that has these elements because man uh floods and storms and fires can be pretty scary uh from the from a market perspective if I knew my community was blood proof and had all of these uh elements within it that I could uh handle these kinds of events I've lived much more comfortable than I do so at the market I think will the role of the market will be people want safety they want that kind of Independence that adaptation permits now uh Megan uh tenhof has a question and if you are able to answer it maybe you can hallucinate elucidate a little bit on on um whom she's referring to she asks are you familiar with Linda she at Cornell and if so can you discuss how your work intersects so if you can answer that question also let us know who Linda she is at Cornell and how it relates the name is very familiar uh is she the one who researches the the reason why people are moving and where people are moving where I don't know uh if that is the same case I mean that's a great answer to the market question that is to say it's already happening people are already asking those questions and moving to the places where you know multicellular lifestyles are offered on the uh in terms of scale there's a couple of questions uh regarding scale the compounds seem scale to operate at a three to four story maximum formed uh does this affect the density but can still accomplish complete places that depend on enough people living and working in the same place and this question is uh from um Patrick from Patty yeah hi Patty uh like I said what we did is just one model and the number 18 people per acre produces that kind of physical environment again it's not the only way to use the model and the principles of localization if you're in an urban environment probably it's going to be a completely different kind of a physical environment nevertheless the reason why we looked at this particular scalar model is that you know majority of built environment in these countries and that's good actually you know and then you go into the you know retrofit maybe there are ways to I mean Suburbia metrofit introduce some of these items and actually like I showed some of the blood types we already passed in some communities in Colorado as a zoning there we're using the regular house you know 50 by 120 50 by 140 sizes those are very common in a lot of cities and within those you can create compounds we kind of showed that and depending on if you're in a let's say commercial Corridor of a city there are a lot of them in Denver and a lot of other Frontage committees you can really create private use compounds you know a little bit residential a good production a little bit retail it's it's possible and there was a question you know where do we start we start with that as well you know start changing the zoning audiences so how would a building permit uh be issued at a neighborhood block scale if cities have staff capacity competency issues wouldn't that be exacerbated at even smaller scales uh centralized systems have the ability to become more efficient most of the time they aren't though and what what uh but they have the ability to be whereas smaller systems would seem to like the inheritability to efficiently manage the level of development review and that Society has grown accustomed to it seems that we need a lean building permitting process to make smaller scale review work efficiently this is Eric um pate and I think the overall question is how would a building permit be issued at a neighborhood block scale we need to imagine the structure of that particular neighborhood we're talking about a lot of localized system nesting with each other those localized systems are businesses as well as Technologies first we start with that that is to say you know this is there needs to be some transformation parallel to what we're saying and then you know even balder I live in Longmont it's a you know 120 000. let's say here even here the building Department's overloaded they cannot have you know they cannot really respond well what we're saying is that don't take all the load out of them it's like certain building certain you know I go into a little bit more detail of that in the book is that certain Renovations certain uh level of construction can be done without going to the city now in the book I go to in the uh there are two appendices the second one goes through some Concepts and in the nesting I say that nesting enables the small and I'll just read this largeness may a lead to excessive standardization and bureaucratization B reduce social Consciousness and the sense of personal civic responsibility and thus see weaken Democratic process even though we have really strong local democracies in our cities I'm seeing exactly this is happening people are so frustrated with the city and what's going on in their neighborhoods and lack of control that they feel completely hostile and there is no you know how to say productive democratic debate um we'll be uh we're at 12 59 it'll be one o'clock uh and uh some people will probably be leaving at that point and uh um but we can continue talking if there are more questions as long as there are and you want to continue to answer them um and those who have to sign off at one o'clock can watch the video uh when it is posted uh tomorrow um so if you want to continue on Fernando for if there are more questions yes there's a few more questions and uh if corkett's game I'm game you're enjoying this so it's part of my enjoyment uh of this virtual community um now Rick Cole asks um I assume this is uh famous Rick Cole uh your model shows tangibly how to adapt uh by building a new new neighborhoods to what extent do you see the potential to adapt existing built form including retrofit of sprawl that's a good question again if I had a lot of time and did good projects in retrofit we would be able to show the examples but it's going to be challenging uh especially in urban infill and Suburban rate of it but you know we're having some discussions even in a Mac Mansion there are ways if you change the law to include not only other I mean to include productive activities businesses and production but also ways to really remodel houses to rent and which is already happening by the way I mean by necessity people doing that so that gives me kind of a hope that is to say maybe it's Case by case you know you cannot just have a uh I mean let me put this way I see this model as like Tod translated into development model the principles are here but each query is different from each other and then the way it fits is different and this is the same kind of thing you know the aim is localization of the Southern systems and creating a locally supportive social order that can manage that following the subsidiary system uh principle so how can you do that in the Suburbia hopefully we'll see some examples soon uh more comprehensively but I have a faith that you know with the design creativity and understanding of the principles there are ways to make those places much more resilient sure what informal example um another member of CNU James Rojas talks about the um East L.A Los Angeles neighborhoods that Suburban neighborhoods where the mcmansions have been transformed by the Hispanic population into multi-family multi-family by that I mean several families but rather many members of One family living Under One Roof and it's to such an extent that the building departments have thrown up their hands and just let it let it happen because it's too many I assume there'll be some of that that simply it'll change out of necessity and the the obstacle the bureaucratic obstacles will sort of give way like uh like a dam that breaks under the force of the yeah I mean that's a great example and in those kind of cases it's not like anything goes uh a blog or a neighborhood can create their own controls I mean certain things are okay certain things but okay up to them that's subsidiary that is to say it's up to them to decide that because not everything should go to the City Hall that's the kind of thing that's the kind of regular regulation culture would fit this kind of subsidiarity well Kim Dietz kind of follows up on the same question as recall except she adds the uh the element of land prices into it and the fact that land costs are going up and up driving higher densities in the sense of you know apartment buildings and such to be able to accommodate uh uh incomes uh relative to the the cost of obtaining a reasonable rent or reasonable mortgage and the elimination of uh Open Spaces you know how do you generate things like compounds where you have Courtyards and natural areas and and Agriculture and all that when the land values are so high that uh so there's kind of a again a market issue there how how do you how do you get that to work well I assume you I assume you don't have all the answers yeah I mean location location location right that's the real estate it depends on where you are when you look at any given metropolitan area still we see majority is Suburban and the cheapest square foot per I mean the price per square foot is still in Suburbia and that creates a lot of you know social equal tissues because you know the lowest income families spend most of their income in percentage to Transportation which is not right I mean uh that's why to me Suburban rate of it in those kind of areas in the fringes in terms of markets it's going to be easier now intensity that's why I mean you go to the urban areas the density goes up you have those you know five-story four-story apartment buildings and because of the land and the construction more complex buildings the prices go up and again even in debt the idea of tax deductible rent is going to change that it's already happening for the first time we're seeing the middle class is not able to get loans for house or even car nowadays I mean it's getting really there and then we see a big increase in rental market now again it's a great time to really change that and say you know make this such that it's not only by necessity people need to rent but it's a financially good option to rent and get some event deduction and invest in another Endeavor that can produce for you so but again you know it really depends on where you are in the metropolitan area yes I mean let me put it this way if you look at receiving cities in terms of the amenities we urbanites or love you know the services walkability and such yes you're going to end up with most expensive receiving areas that's why I'm saying don't use those criteria for receiving use environmental criteria and create some mentees in the new location or in Suburban rate of it create it there and if you do a lot then the market is going to settle to that Michael zarnick has a um a question that's related in the sense that uh he's he's addressing and he's asking you to speak to the vast amounts of non-productive Agriculture by that I think he means the monoculture of Agriculture Nebraska huge fields of corn and huge fields of soybeans period unless you can live on feed corn and soybeans even though you're in an agricultural place you may be it might be tough to feed your family so how can we transition to Orchards and productive crops with smaller plots and I think this speaks to the question of the market too because relatively speaking that agricultural land is inexpensive land and maybe a lot of that transformation occurs in places like Nebraska and Iowa with huge amounts of land for receiver communities well there is you know monoculture agriculture in this country cannot survive without a subsidy it's it's a failed economic model it creates environmental problems soil gets depleted we don't create nutrition you know I need to eat three apples to get the same nutrition my grandma used to get from one apple I mean we created that so how do we transition there are a couple of things I can say one is there are really strong moments happening already transitioning you know the slow food and urban Agriculture and you know Etc but also my second answer is that we have to otherwise we're doomed I mean we don't have the luxury anymore you know yeah what happened in the coed we couldn't get certain food items I mean if it gets right we're we're not gonna find food that's that simple unless we produce in vicinity in our backyards or in the neighborhoods right yes survival is a strong Market Force hunger is a strong Market Force so I mean there's a really interesting example uh what's his name Bob the transition book talks about what happened during the second world war in England Victory Gardens yeah exactly there's a uh you know a food shortage and they really supported backyard food growing and in a few years they reduced their food dependency 50 percent wow so if you put your energy and you know National policy support to that particular aspect the trend transformation is pretty fast actually but there's so much investment in monoculture now it's it's like oil you know how are you going to stop that money so but again you need to start somewhere yeah and some of it may happen on it so now many of the examples that you cite are actually things that are working currently in poorer countries in the third world I'm thinking of my experience uh living in Ecuador for several years and the tax deductions were for you had a tax deduction for your living expenses in the sense of your rent or mortgage whatever it was you had a tax deduction for your medical expenses your food and your clothing the four Essentials shelter food clothing medicine three tax deductions that's it whatever you spent on that came right off your taxes and then uh well if you had access you paid on that excess so there are examples right now in the world that uh would be easy to look at now as a final question I've been it happens to be the last question I think yes it is it's Nancy uh Bruning and it's also kind of a good wrap-up question what's been the greatest resistance to this type of thinking what are people afraid of what are the things that people resist so it's blocking this idea oh boy the book just came out I don't know but I mean I would assume I would assume a lot of things actually you know there's a uh when you create that much of uh isolation and single-use neighborhoods you're maximizing car use and oil use gas use and it has been this country's history that that really determined and lobbied and affected a lot of decisions it's really a big Force you can it's not easy to fight against but then again scale matters you know if you start somewhere it's gonna go somewhere so I don't know that's that's one thing I see and there's also in front of us an emergency I mean it's like you know the storms are happening fires are happening floods are happening we need to really make our lives much more resilient very fast so when do you break ground on the first adaptation Village and where can I sign up for for my for a lot well let's hope so thank you thank you thank you Amanda um it's been a really interesting discussion and uh we really appreciate it thank you thank you rob enjoyed it very much thank you for this forum thank you corkett for writing a wonderful book thank you all right thank you