Urban planning YouTube has a HUGE problem.
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2024
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This might be a little out of the ordinary, but I had to get it off my chest.
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Second channel? Wouldn't it be the (n+1)th channel?
I've spent the last 5 years watching a man advocate and work hard yet be completely stonewalled by the political processes and corporate interests in his way. I hope you have better luck than Rossmann, mate.
YES! Just a little north of you in Lakewood, we have a city council that is ready to get stuff done, and the development of a new comprehensive plan. Battling the NIMBYs is going to be long and grueling. I will be your #1 fan.
@@NelsonBrown Touche...
@@pcwarehouse8606 My goal is more to provide an open textbook so that others can advocate where they are based on what I know here. There are going to be things that people will need to translate, but I think it will be meaningful enough that you can use it as a toolset to do your own advocacy.
You've articulated many of the issues with online planning circles that I've been frustrated with for awhile. I find most videos boring and annoying by others now especially when they're like
"wow America bad, car lanes bad, Europe so good"
I don't always do it, but generally I try to send people off of my videos into a direction where they can make their voices heard, or link to a local advocacy group. But you did hit the nail on the head when you said that this shit is boring, it's hard in the first place to get people/algorithms to pay attention. Sometimes I bite the bullet and make a video about the boring topics, but I know are important politically (Cincinnati Southern Railway for example).
NJBs (Jason) I find to be the most frustrating, his content noticeably got dumber after the doomer tweets, and because I criticized him for it he has cut off all communication with me. Disappointing is an understatement.
The boring content like planning commission and DOT meetings get no engagement. NYC as you mentioned in one of your videos is doing major rezoning changes that'll affect almost 9 million people and streams of the planning meetings get
I think we may be finally coming off that hump and moving in the direction of more positive and useful content whose goal is to encourage people to actually get outside, touch grass, and make a change.
At the end of the day, all this urbanist stuff is still very niche. The average person has simply never heard of it so repeating the basic messages is all some of us can do to spread the message. It is the beginning, like said in the video, of planting trees whose shade you’ll never enjoy.
As for boring, well, I watch UA-cam videos about boiling water so my subjectivity on the matter is moot.
This video and Alan's presence as a big-platform transit UA-camr are incredible and refreshing. I agree that NJB has just felt much more bitter and defensive as of late, all while living further and further from the reality he criticizes. Severing communication seems to confirm that. In fact, I find it a little ridiculous that he's continuing this rhetoric: instead of being happy that he moved to what he frames as urban utopia, he continues to fuel the fire of urban slacktivism.
There's a ton of momentum behind online urbanism, though, and a growing market to utilize it. I'm optimistic about it being put to use: it's our turn to take what we've learned, and go out and really talk to the people in our towns and make some damn allies.
Keep doing your thing, funny train meme guy.
Yep, I'm a local parkland and transportation advocate here in TX and I see a lot of people get turned off when they catch a glimpse of what is required for real change (criteria manual and zoning codes anyone?) or the timeline involved (decades in the case of TX). My method is give people some basic tools to have their voice here. Sometimes just sharing my talking points at a council meeting that they can use for their own citizen comment helps. I also walk the walk (literally), for example I was on the transportation master mobility plan rewrite committee and I rode my bike to walked to EVERY meeting and also arranged an biking infrastructure tour of the city and got the mayor and a council members to join to see for themselves the good and the bad.
The problem with saying "Go to your local council meetings" is that 9/10 they happen when people are at work. NIMBYs can go to every meeting because they're old and retired or rich or both.
That’s odd. All municipalities I’ve ever looked into have meetings in the evening to accommodate people’s work schedule (and sure there’s people that work in the evening, but it’s certainly not 9/10 people).
@@TheNisgi I sent a letter instead of attending the meeting about killing homeless people today: because I had to work.
This is right here!
Telling people to go and flood the meetings is not a thing the average urbanist (working class) can do on a whim. I use to be a bus driver for the city and my routes always ended at 8pm-1am. I’d have to be in that career for 15+ years to get seniority to get an early route.
Now, I can attend those meetings, but I’m the only person in my age demo, of my class, of my urbanist mindset to attend these things. And I’m always being shouted over by richer folks my age and old NIMBYs. Trying to organize others is a steep uphill battle with all the contagious apathy being spread around by a lack of any meaningful demonstration of learning from past mistakes.
I wonder if those meetings even exist outside of the US. I never heard of one here. They have some opinion polls and suggestion boxes but then they just ignore the feedback and do what they wanted to do in first place.
@@fresagrus4490 I mean that is the point of voting. We decide who we want making these decisions when we vote. While it is nice for them to ask us our opinion, I think most of the time it should be ignored. There may be a time and place to take an opinion poll seriously, but when we are talking about if we should put in a bike lane or not we should not care what the NIMBYs have to say.
In my hometown they recently re-did the main road to add greater traffic control methods to prevent left turns at non-controlled intersections. This is objectively a good thing, but it does inconvenience drivers so obviously people will not be happy about it because people are thinking about how inconvenient it is not how having it will reduce accidents by 50% (or whatever the reduction would be). Even I had a negative reaction when I first found out what they were doing. The truth is the complaints were rightfully ignored because it is the correct thing to do,
This is the kind of critique that comes from a place of love. A couple asks, if it isn't too much...
1) Please point folks in the direction of people you see doing this right (if you see this at all).
2) Please continue making content like this. It was a breath of fresh air.
He already pointed - go to your local city council and speak with them directly. Figure out who actually runs the public infrastructure where you live and become involved with local groups and local politics. This is the part where YOU have to go and make a change.
@@Siethon1 Did you even read the first question
@@nictheperson6709 Yes, and it seems you didn't read my answer either
As much as this video is kind of anti-Strong Towns, they have a big map of Local Conversation groups on their website. It's a great place to meet up with people near you who share this passion and are working to actively do something about it.
@@delanib1701 didn't he touch on this? he specifically mentioned them in the video, said that they're a good thing, but don't have the reach to make *major* things happen. You cannot get a new bike lane installed as a small conservation group. That can only happens through the city. That's his point, going through the city is something that should be talked about as a way to make change. You as an individual *do* actually have a say within this system, if you make the choice to learn and know how to do so.
Immediately after watching this video, I went on to my city's website to look at the 2024 budget. I found they were doing a survey to find out what people wanted prioritized in the budget. I took the survey. Thank you for prompting me in the right direction!
My city built 12.23 miles of sidewalk in 2022, and aimed for ≥10 miles in 2023 and 2024. The budget for transportation (33.5m) and planning (15m) combined is 48.5m.
Since discovering urbanism I have taken so many city and state surveys I would have had no idea existed before. They really suck at getting those out there, haha.
Yay thanks
did the same!
My city is Sydney, Australia and we have an urbanist UA-camr, Building Beautifully, who recently made an appearance at a parliamentary inquiry into public transport in Western Sydney, a region that is comparatively underserved
Underserved yet the fastest growing.
Same with Chris Topher (also from Sydney), he's made videos with the intention of advocacy in mind (Streetification of Vic Road past the Iron Cove Link)
Sorry, but Sydney was beyond repair 21 years ago and is MUCH worse now. I spent almost a year living in a very mediocre French city and I can honestly suggest leaving Sydney, the only way to fix it is to depopulate most of it, burn gaps wide enough for any of cars/bikes/people, and rebuild further back. Actually, my Grandmother remembers when many of those were goat tracks, though she is nearly a centenarian.
I'm more annoyed with the place we moved too being destroyed by the same practices of localised overpopulation, with every chance to not fuck it up given when it was built and that it was planned. No, you're fighting a losing battle. But you do you...
yewwwww sydney
He did really well, I thought.
Here's what I love about Urbanist UA-cam: the explosive growth recently is a sign that the audience is getting bigger, or as Strong Towns would say: a bottom up approach. The biggest reason why I ultimately decided to not pursue municipal city planning is because I no longer believe top down is the best way to do things. Instead, I run a bike repair shop out of my garage. By helping more people get on bikes, the cycling infrastructure will have to follow.
More people being aware of the problems is good, especially when they start making their voices be heard.
I think you need both approaches: top-down and bottom-up. In the same way top-down thinking got us car dependency and suburbia, it can also bring us comprehensive bike networks that make people want to buy bikes. I would ride my bike a lot more often if I didn’t have to puzzle out how to get places safely
getting people to see BOTH an alternative AND that it is both "workable" and truly a BETTER outcome - for ME it was the episode from NJB about DRIVING and how GREAT it was BECAUSE they prioritized NON driving modes to the point that those who MUST drive can without major traffic issues to deal with traffic that is created BY DESIGN
If you only focus on the bottom-up approach, some NIMBYs will focus in the top-down approach and get cycling banned on major streets and get police to enforce it so that people stop cycling. Bottom-up only goes so far.
@@NthReview You are correct. There is a world of difference when you have sympathetic people at the top verses someone antagonistic. Having people who dismiss you can be hard to deal with for some people. You just don't take it personally and continue on.
@@NthReviewThe two-pronged attack. Genius.
The biggest misconception I hate from urbanist youtube is that planners are empowered to improve their communities. A planner's urbanist vision is only as strong as the political willpower of their planning commission and city council. Showing up to those meetings and providing public comments to projects and policy proposals is the best thing you can do. In my local subreddit, I like to share upcoming city council meeting agendas when there is an item that should have more attention. NIMBYs involve themselves in the political process why shouldn't we as well?
This is the only good comment on here, and yet the op hasn't liked it. Sigh. It's really not complicated, you just need political willpower. (I'm a transit planner by profession)
Amen to this! I am a city planner and it's so depressing when people don't get involved until it's too late. Projects of all sizes and impacts don't just magically get rubber stamped. They typically have two or more public hearings. To another point cities scramble to find people to serve on these boards. Sure it's volunteer, but there is a definite need across the US.
I totally agree. We don't need more planners.
NIMBYs?
@@nicholauscrawford7903 "Not in my backyard" - people that protest any nice thing getting built in their town no matter how many other people would benefit from it (housing, bike lanes, etc.)
Local Conversations and advocates are doing *such* important work in their communities. They’re running for office, coordinating with transportation professionals, organizing review panels to analyze unsafe streets, joining committees, attending meetings and so much more.
We made a film about removing parking minimums in Fayetteville and the neighborhood revitalizing local developer scene in South Bend. Read the inspiring comments. The video you clipped footage from helped connect over 300 people to begin taking action.
And yes, sometimes they’re meeting at Chipotle, because getting to know your neighbors-some very important people you’ll be working with while you build a strong town-is a powerful and accessible first step that anyone can take. We’re here to support them and celebrate their work, so we’re bummed to see it diminished this way.
If demonstrating the effects of eliminating parking mandates in Fayetteville, AR isn’t "doing something," we don’t know what is. If painting crosswalks in Sioux Falls in partnership with other orgs and the city to demonstrate potential permanent improvements isn’t "doing something," we don’t know what is. If it isn't "doing something" when the the city administrators, mayors, and planners who we highlight fight to revitalize their downtowns, we don't know what is.
We have serious admiration for these doers. And any non-cynic who has seen videos you reference will, too. Their results speak for themselves. We’re not mad you made this-we agree that people should be actually doing something. We’re just a bit disappointed you misrepresented the very impactful work of local conversations.
💯
I appreciate your reply and I'm bummed it somehow got chewed up along the way.
I understand that Strong Towns as an organization has a strong, passionate and growing grassroots effort, but I find the UA-cam offerings to be lacking. The feedback on this video and the DMs I've received in the past few days AFTER the algorithm scooped it up, validate the notion that urbanist UA-cam is leaving people behind on the steps needed to actually engage in the process. Like, read the comments in here, tons of urban planners and government-related folk are wondering why the hell people aren't coming to them and interacting with them directly.
UYT has spent dozens of videos talking to us about eliminating parking minimums and why it's important, so it's neat that you get to move about the country and show off some winning examples of what's changed to improve a city. But the lack of civic engagement covered within the UA-cam-isphere, where most people ingest this content, is really apparent.
I realize Strong Towns' UA-cam channel is essentially a "marketing" arm for the nonprofit and not a means in and of itself. If Strong Towns taught everything it knew in video format, it would be easy for people to not engage with it at all beyond ad interactions and YT engagement. From comments I've read elsewhere, I know the easy recommendation is to just say "well, go to Strong Towns, they'll show you the way!" but I want to teach to a world where Strong Towns doesn't exist, not as a negative, but as a "teach people how to fish" series of self-actualization. The fact that people don't know basic literacy on how to engage and interact with their local governments or why state and federal interactions are important as well, is, again, something lacking in urbanist UA-cam here. The goal should ALWAYS be self-actualization.
Organization is really important too, but setting aside ST's influence on modern urbanist content, if it didn't exist, what would urbanist UA-camrs need to teach? What would be their call to action?
It's cool that individual efforts are going strong with you guys, but we all know how big cities are and there are a lot of them. As I point out in the video: bottom up activism only goes so far when it comes to the complexities of a city.
Fayetteville got rid of parking minimums in 2015. You made your video about Fayetteville 2023.
You trying to take credit for Fayetteville getting rid of parking minimums is beyond disingenuous. It's credit stealing that Elon would be jealous of. Shame on you.
Nth was right to call you out.
You didn't paint the crosswalks either. What is it that you actually do?
@@hfbdbsijenbd ST talked about and showcased Fayetteville, they didn't take credit for it. Also making a video about something like that years later provides very useful information that showcases the longer term effects that doing something like that has.
As an organizer of a local group in Austin TX (Rethink35), we have gotten many volunteers from City Beautiful & NJB videos mentioning us. Their work is very important and has led to meaningful change within our campaign. Also, this video is inspiring me to make some more TikTok content about policy and how to be politically involved to get urbanist wins! :)
What your group has produced with showing options to the I-35 canyon proposed is very much in line with the next level of content we’re ready for. The videos and plans may actually be 3rd level, but certainly getting people up to speed is a valuable resource and contribution that I think is reflected in the premise of the video: we’ve got lots of content about the problems; how do we understand the options, possibilities and process to bring about improvement. Keep fighting the good fight!
Rethink35 is an inspiration for us all. Keep up the good work!
your an organizer for rethink 35??? as a born and raised austinite, i really appreciate the work yall are doing. I hope we can somehow delay or stop the expansion of 35 through downntown, and although its probaly too late, i wish we could get some sort of rail in north austin instead of just expanding 183. the traffic up here is god awful and the construction for yet another lane is only making it worse..
Don’t bother. You’re never going to get enough people to join your cult to make any significant change, and thank God for that.
@@danieljohnson2005 it’s not a cult lol, did an oil exec write this comment?
Thank you! As someone who has been thoroughly orange-pilled since before urban planning UA-cam became much of a thing, I've always wondered what the step 2 is. It's great to know the history behind what happened to our cities, and I think there is a good use for convincing people otherwise on the fence (e.g. NIMBYs, actual city planners, etc.), but once enough people are convinced, what do you even do to transform a car-centric city into a more livable city? How do you turn a suburb of mcmansions on cul de sacs into the kind of community you want to see more of (preferrably without razing the entire city and starting all over)? What even is the plan moving forward?
I worry at times that this whole movement could just turn into, sort of like you mentioned, people just spouting the same slogans into a system no one really understands, and nothing really being done-- or something *is* done, but it's one walkable neighborhood impossibly far from town where everything's crazy expensive (i.e. urbanism as a trend).
Okay that was a bit rambly, but TL;DR I think urban planning YT is great for building awareness and convincing people, but we need more focus on what us average folk can actually do about it, aside from just moving to Europe, which is more difficult than it sounds (trust me, I've done it before)
Simple; resort to buses, vans, and private and public ridesharing while making bike lanes, then make low-rise apratments, while making apartments single-staired so A. you dont need as many plots of land to buy from property owners, and B. famlies can actually have enough space to live in one, as building codes, and annoying, false-positive smoke alarms, are usually responsible for stopping fires.
"How do you turn a suburb of mcmansions on cul de sacs into the kind of community you want to see more of?" See this way of thinking is wrong. Suburban towns are not the issue. The issue with American cities is the urban zones, not the suburban zones. The suburban zones are response to urban zones being undesirable to live in. If you want the change you want you have to embrace gentrification as the good. If you make the urban core with the higher densities desirable to live in the multimodal transportation will become the natural next step. You fix urbanism in the US inside out not outside in.
@@evancombs5159That’s actually a really good point about inside-out rather than outside-in, but I’d be careful about the gentrification argument. I still agree with you, but as a resident of Portland and a former resident of DC, I’ve basically only ever seen gentrified developments kicking people out in favor of super expensive developments. I agree with you, inside-out is the answer (as some cities already are doing) we just need to make sure livable spaces aren’t built to be unaffordable
That's why urbanism has to be complemented with socialism, meaning public housing, rent controls and public transit or public e-carsharing and finally intercity rail.
@@KhAnubis the cost of housing has more to do with demand. Between unnecessary regulations and NIMBYism it is not economical feasible to build anything else.
I like the overall point. One thing that I want to emphasize for people who haven't yet crossed from UA-cam urbanist rabbit hole to real world Council meetings and politics is that you don't need to know everything about historical context and zoning documents in order to start attending meetings, speaking or otherwise engaging. If you are going to a public meeting, you can just give your opinion as a member of the public.
You can say "I saw that Edmonton eliminated parking minimums and wondered if we had thought about that here." Or "I wondered why there isn't a sidewalk here." It can be good to have some research, but "I think that this is a good neighbourhood for low-rise apartments," is legitimate feedback even if you don't know what zoning code that would fall under. It's the job of the planner to take that feedback and use their expertise to evaluate what is possible, how it fits with everyone else's feedback and, of course, the budget. Just be open to feedback and you can learn as you go.
The biggest goal is to create a political environment where these things become more possible because planners and councillors hear that people want them. I assure you that most NIMBYs don't know the zoning code or historical context of the area and they aren't shy about speaking up!
As for advocacy-focused UA-cam content, I agree that the topic can be a bit dry (although it is surprising how spicy meetings can get sometimes). We'll keep working on it. Video editing and graphics are much harder skills to pick up than speaking at meetings.
CityNerd did bring up the "you don't need to know everything" and I guess my point was a bit vague. You don't NEED to know everything, but through natural exploration and advocacy, you wind up knowing more and more and more about how things work to become a more effective advocate. So many people want to come in and just say "BIKE LANES PLEASE" not realizing what process comes from understanding that, who's involved, etc. The goal is to avoid just becoming resentful if something isn't happening that you want, which you can't do if you're not engaging and understanding your city/county/whatever.
@@NthReview Maybe I don't understand, but if enough people come in and say "BIKE LANES PLEASE" admin can only ignore that for so long, no?
I know at our local council meetings NIMBY shouts of "No Fourplexes" has had a real (negative) impact on how our city is being managed, despite their lack of knowledge on the subject. My city turned down real and substantial federal funding only because it had the requirement to open the city's zoning up to fourplexes. I understand that one-note urbanists might be annoying to someone in the system because you know how difficult the process can be to get the thing done; however, if all that these UA-cam vids manage to do is make that happen more, I still think its a good thing that they exist for that alone.
That said - the "urbanist bubble" creators *have* had greater impact then just sending a couple one-note people shouting about bike lanes. They are the gateway for further interest, which is only ever going to capture a small percentage of the viewership. Specifically, I think this vid did Strong Towns a little dirty, because they have had many tangible successes both from the bottom up efforts and effects on real policy, but the vibe was dismissive.
I think you ascertained what the main reason we don't see specific civic engagement tutorials though: its boring. Capturing interest in urbanism topics is still an important priority, and city council meetings aren't going to get people interested. Further, I wonder how useful a vid could be on the subject, because I imagine the actual processes are going to be significantly different from one state, country or even city to the next. I think this content would practically be better handled by local people, rather then from the bigger content creators.
All that said, I do agree that certain urbanist content creators could make a bit more effort to make tangible calls to action. I enjoy NJB videos overall, but the tone of defeatism has begun to grate on me as well, so I understand where this vid comes from. His vids about North America have started to feel less like constructive criticism, and more like a dogpile on the struggles we have; and his vids about Europe have started to feel less like shining a beacon on what could be, and more like bragging about how much better they are inherently. At least those are the vibes I'm picking up - the intention might be different. It is shortsighted, I think, to encourage the idea of just moving to somewhere that has already figured it out rather than sticking it out in the trenches, although I understand that not everyone has it in them to work for it.
Anyways, this comment of mine has been a semi-cathartic shout into the void.
Well said. I attend my neighborhood meetings in my city which usually only have 20 people attend, mostly retirees. But thanks to Urbanist UA-cam, there are more fellow millennials attending. Since these meetings are poorly attended, it doesn’t even take that many people change things. I’ve been at meetings where out of nowhere 15 yimbys show up to vote and were able to eliminate parking minimums.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
That’s awesome! Where do you live if you don’t mind me asking?
wish we had a slice of that kind of local democracy in the UK. The idea that a local government is bound to carry out what citizens specifically vote for. I hear these stories of an American cities population being specifically asked on a ballot if they want a metro system built to a specific plan or not. In Britain, council areas or government bodies come up with a proposal and its fate is almost entirely in the hands of central government's treasury minister and prime minister - if it benefits too many poor people, the project gets slowly deleted - or if it makes money for the development firms they are shareholders of, it's gonna happen whatever the local consultation concludes (and you bet they're gonna cancel the second phase where all the affordable-priced housing is)
Thank you for this! I've started asking myself these same questions about Not Just Bikes. As someone who has lived car free in Phoenix for over 10 years, I needed ideas for how to help make these changes in a place synonymous with ' sprawl'
You put your finger on a really important point. And the guy at 13:00 is basically me, I'm guilty of being the one-note urbanist: just this week, I skipped a city meeting because there weren't any roads-related items on the agenda. I'm so glad you made this, please keep pulling on this string.
I mean I think that's fine. You don't have to be engaged in all politics all the time.
When you play your note well and effectively within a group of other one-notes of complimentary sound, you can still create an impactful presence! Just engage with the others even if they don’t have the same interest.
@@perrondenais684 Yes, ultimately, everything is roads related as everything in some way benefits from the roads, but it's unreasonable to expect most citizens to be at every council meeting and registering an opinion on everything. That potentially can work for very small municipalities, but it breaks down as the city gets larger and completely breaks if you've got a large country.
@@perrondenais684Not all the time, but the reason NIMBYS are so effective is because they are heavily engaged.
it is ok to not be engaged in subjects that you don't understand quite well or is not interested, if you can, fine, but I don't think you should apologize for that.
I think the main takeaway from any urbanist channel should be to educate their viewers on WHY things need to change instead of simply contacting local government. The thing about Strong Towns, Alan Fisher, CityNerd, and many other urbanist channels is that they take the time to explain why something is bad and back it up with statistics and logical reasoning. Urban sprawl is a bad thing not just from a public health perspective but from an economic perspective too which is sadly what many local governments care about more, and these channels encourage viewers to think about these sort of things rather than just regurgitate "car bad, train good!" I think it mainly comes down to us to make the effort after looking at this information and deciding for ourselves if we want to go full force and that reasoning could help when it comes to making the decision to get active in local government.
I guess there is the idea that they could do more, but how do you really direct people to get involved with these sorts of things when everyone has different processes, and those processes are notoriously slow to change? I think the purpose of these channels is to open the door to the viewer to make the choice to get active by giving them the information they need to accurately describe what the problem is in their community- by that I mean identifying what the problem is weather that's a "strode" or a lack of density or a city not investing in infrastructure to accommodate development whether that's transit or pedestrian-oriented infrastructure.
This exactly. What these channels are doing is more valuable than simply telling people to email their city officials about potholes or attend mind-numbing planning meetings. These channels are creating a culture around urbanism, fostering a greater awareness and understanding of these principles, and genuinely getting people interested and energized. That’s huge, but it’s not the kind of change that’s going to happen overnight. It takes time to build and sustain a movement
well said, I agree
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK
What we *don't* need is for urbanist spaces to devolve into the "holier than thou, I'm more progressive than you, I do more praxis than you, etc" cesspool that so many progressive/lefty spaces end up becoming.
If you don't think someone else is doing 'enough', stop wasting time posturing about how 'they can/should be doing better' and go out there and FILL that role you want to see filled!
I'm not against critiquing people who you'd ally with politically, but these sorts of critiques end up doing little more than creating drama and giving political adversaries fuel to dismiss your cause.
"You expect us to listen to those yuppie urbanist social media bozos? They can't even agree amongst themselves! It's just a bunch of pretentious college grads doing circlejerking about how bad America is. Pay them no mind."
Like, my friends, we DO NOT have time for bickering amongst ourselves about who's doing activism better/more correctly/more effectively.
If you think the cause is lacking in some way, you can BE the person that fills that void, without publicly tossing shade at your fellows, who may not do everything exactly the way you want it, but are otherwise fighting for the same end goal.
Shouldn’t better transit contribute to sprawl?
Well said and agreed!
I don't think NJB ('s style of urbanist content) nor this video are wasting their breath. TNR gives good advice here, but NJB provides the hook, giving good info and the motivation to make that change in the first place.
No one's gonna push for change in any way if they're never given the knowledge and desire to do so.
As one of those activists who goes to city council to ask for better sidewalks, more transit funding, and a complete bike lane network, I can say that there are times when it seems futile and other times when it seems like we're making progress.
Example 1: transportation planning in my city is entirely focused on moving cars, and we can't fathom any change which reduces the number of car lanes on a street. We have BRT plans which actually involve replacing an old 2 lane bridge with a new 6 lane bridge (4 lanes for cars 2 for BRT)
Example 2: After significant public support, the city doubled the budget for snow clearing on sidewalks, and purchased the equipment necessary this past year.
I look to places like Paris, or even Montreal, and I feel hopeful that with the right leadership, my city could see rapid change, but then I see our transportation master plan for 2050 and I feel like moving away.
ah, silly me. I was told that urbanists only want choice! Any yet....here you are lamenting that you can't remove car lanes....good evidence for my arguments up top, thank you!
@@charlesc3734It's not just removing car lanes, though. It's adding other options. When those options are available, people will use them, and you're welcome to keep using your car if it turns out you prefer it that much.
@@MeredithDomzalski
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1 min ago
“I support giving free cars to homeless people and free Uber Rides (in cars) to people who otherwise can’t drive. I oppose all forms of public transportation.”
Either irredeemably uneducated or an incredibly dedicated troll. Just as a psa for anyone trying to make any use of this comment section: ignore that guy. The next comment claimed cars as a “moral good,” which I figure just means “”freedom,”” but I don’t wanna know.
Most Transportation Master Plans are updated every 3 to 5 years and can be amended! Be ready for the next update or amendment opportunity!
Don't feel discouraged. If you move somewhere else, you're only leaving someone else to fix the problem, and moving to a place that will have zero progress instead of the prescedent for progress. Hold the line, for your children and your children's children all the way down, will feel the effects of your time and effort.
I am the plubic works engineer for my county and I took my job because of what learned watching urbanist youtube. They were not my only resource of course but the reason we have an AT plan is because I called a meeting with the county planner and trails manager and wrote one. The reason we have been building out complete streets is because I designed them that way. I also had my doomerism time, it's a very normal place for those who care deeply to find themselves. I had to get miserable before I started working on making change and it was city beautiful, city nerd, and not just bikes that showed me how!
I’m a garden variety private sector civil engineer. Awesome to hear you became a county public works engineer and then did what you could to improve things. I always assume that county and city engineers and public works directors are extremely busy.
So, beyond anything else
I work in govt and I really want to point out my respect for yours willingness to understand how slow and annoying the process of getting anything changed can be.
Any asshole can paint a crappy bike lane into a road but I like anyone who at least is willing to admit how getting it permanently installed into an area is a challenge.
Absolutely! We actually had an experimental bike "demo" loop in a distant portion of our city, completely disconnected from what bike network we had several years ago, and after taking over a lane (the road was an arterial with plenty of right-of-way and putting up bollards to protect the bike lane, they ripped it out pretty quick after the neighbors protested. It was one of Mayor Suthers' first huge efforts. Even in its best-case implementation, it was a bad idea, which really set bike lanes back. When we started adding them downtown, people roared about it, but they're so freaking great as a bicyclist.
@@NthReviewYou inadvertently pointed out a challenge that is not well understood: many politicians are afraid of doing something new, especially if it’s important and will impact future opportunities, unless it’s perfect. Since retrofitting and even building from scratch is rarely perfect, we need to change the paradigm to an iterative one where we actively monitor and make adjustments based on both objectives from the beginning, as well as observations after each iteration, as new issues or opportunities may present themselves. This is the challenge and opportunity!
They're challenging, yes.
Building an electrical network was challenging.
Building a highway system was challenging.
Running telegraph cables through the Atlantic Ocean was challenging
Building piping systems that bring water to every house was challenging and I can go on and on.
The point is, many things we consider normal today, were very challenging in their implementation, yet people made it happen.
'It's challenging', is not an excuse.
Maybe if you all in gvt werent sl incompetent shit would get done faster
That's probably one of the best answers in this video. I mean, yes, anyone can paint a bike lane in a road. Making it safe it's chchallenging. And it's not drivers' fault for existing. It's just because you do need a lot of knowledge to make stuff safe, even without drivers. As, how wide should a bike lane be in a corner, and if it's even possible or useful
Excellent work!!!! As an urbanist civil engineer working in public transit, I deeply thank you for making this video. Attending public meetings can be kinda exciting, especially when you can research the new issues discussed, give feedback, and you can take new transit lines to get there!😁 I would love to see some kind of “public meeting survival guide” video‼️
"Urbanist civil engineer"... I thought being an urbanist disqualified you from being a civil engineer... I mean, I'm glad you found a way to hide that character strength from whatever review board it is that ensures that only the most carbrained people on the planet become civil engineers, but I kind of assumed that you couldn't do your job with any understanding of urbanism.
@@smileyeagle1021 It’s possible😁! Anything at all that people see built in the urban environment (from bicycle lanes to rail lines) must be designed with the help of multiple engineers, planners, and architects.
What can we do to make these city meeting better? You can just get on the planning zoom and chime the public comment period while making dinner. As a person on these boards, it can be painful, but exciting to see who is trying to do what, and how planners' hands are bound to rules and fair practices.
@@smileyeagle1021 have u talked to any civil engineers? lmao. everyone I work with is an urbanist (i’m a civil transportation engineer that works mostly on sidewalk, trail, shared use path, and bike lane projects). most of the time our hands are tied because we have to adhere to AASHTO, DOT, and local guidelines. The guides we have to use often prioritize driver safety, and as a consultant we generally just have to do what the municipality/developer wants. Don’t really know where you got this idea since literally every piece of infrastructure (urbanist or not) requires civil engineering design
@@smileyeagle1021Ildefons Cerdà, literally the guy that invented the word "urbanism", was a civil engineer, and tbh I'd say civil engineers have been the ones bringing the most rational approaches to the subject in comparison to architects or other professionals lol
I think there's value in what NJB does. Getting people aware and angry is one spoke of activism. Then you have Oh The Urbanity and Uytae Lee who take the opposite approach and strike a reasonable, conciliatory tone. Those channels demonstrate the political potential of these ideas and I would bet they have made an impact (the government of British Columbia straight up hired Uytae and have been pretty much checking off an urbanist policy wishlist these past few months!). But you are right that there lacks a focus on civic engagement specifically. Only perhaps Paige Saunders has gotten into the weeds of how to realistically make things happen.
Nimesh in Los Angeles gets pretty in the weeds too. Actually so does Shifter and Propel.
@@casperornadepentagonsfrogp5352 thanks to both of you for giving me a few new names to look up.
He is right . This video is a joke
NJB is angry, but he also shows something of a platonic ideal. Something we can point to that is done. The problem has been solved generally, and the specifics necessarily have to be solved locally.
Nth here, brings up some great points and nails the process part of the daily making the sausage of municipal decision making. Although I don’t think it is valuable to point the finger at NJB or other urban advocacy UA-camrs. If people are not engaging in their communities it is on them alone. The most impactful way to create change for the average person is to vote and vote with your wallet. The policy solutions are known, there is no secret to increasing car alternative options and transit ridership. In the US we live in a society where big businesses dictate how a city evolves far too much because the tax dollars are hard to wane ourselves off of even if the alternative improves the well-being of residents. We are often more afraid of change than the positives created on the other side.
NotJustBikes was my introduction to Urbanism and I still watch his videos, but they bum me out now, because he just talks about the problems and doesn't seem to believe in solutions.
Thank you SO much for addressing this! I've been attending city meetings and it's amazing how few people show up. Imagine if all us urbanists flooded them!
You know, just the other day, he posted a notice on his community page for a local referendum in Haarlem (NL) on expanding paid parking zones in the city center, so he certainly does believe in community engagement and practical solutions. I think it's more the case that he recognizes the easiest way he can change the world of urban planning at scale, as a somewhat popular UA-camr, is to inform people about urbanism and get them to think about their living spaces in ways they haven't before, rather than pushing for a really specific audience which is already deeply invested in urbanism to attend local government meetings.
This is an age-old problem in activism and advocacy: you need a lot of people who are well-informed and engaged on the topic, but deep knowledge about something is basically at odds with widespread appeal, so it's necessary to strike a balance. If only 0.5% of people who are interested in urbanism end up being truly active (as political activism takes a lot of time and effort), then it's probably easier to create more highly-engaged urbanists by increasing the total number of people who are informed about urbanism than by telling those who are already informed to be more active.
His “solution” is to move to the Netherlands, which is such a defeatist and privileged view that it all but removes his credibility.
He blocked me on Bluesky and I take that with a badge of honor.
@@patrickhealy2954 It's perfectly valid to point out issues without having a concrete, feasible solution. The lack of such does not invalidate his criticisms, which I believe is what you're implying when you say "removes his credibility". Unless you meant something else and I've misread!
I find his videos so frustrating because he never acknowledges the differences between cities. He implies all cities in Canada or USA are like where he lived. But I live in a community that is not all concrete and has a different set of problems.
Transitional or activism youtubers need to fill this gap between seeing the issue, envisioning, and how to create the change. The struggle for Netherlands change was really extraordinary. It was true masses of people protesting.
As a Dutch person, it's always telling when someone overly praises Dutch urban planning. In the Netherlands we face the same issues as everywhere else, there is massive amounts of NIMBYism and in most places, while there is a focus on multimodal transport, it generally still is car dependent.
My point is that people seem to forget that you can't just have the idea, the romantic picture of what an ideal city would look like, cause even their perceived ideal has a lot of problems.
That's what I keep saying! (I'm not Dutch)
I made a similar comment. I live in Sweden by the way. I work in the railway and the trains here are in a precarious, disgusting state, you absolutely cannot rely on them for important stuff. Prices are obscene, every decent project is watered out until it is irrelevant. The biggest issue with trains exactly is that Sweden has a deregulated railway system (something that is partly mandated by the EU, countries are not free to run the railways as they wish) where every aspect of running trains is split and different companies bid for it, with a drastically underfunded and incompetent state agency maintaining the tracks. Every region will have their own company subcontracted to operate the trains, which will be a different company from the other region, they don't talk to each other, they bicker, etc. The maintenance of the rolling stock is outsourced to yet another company, which might be a different company from the other region, but you use the same train, but you cannot...
You probably got at this point. It is a big damn mess, a system that was only fully employed in UK and Sweden, and you are probably aware of the issues with British railways too. It is essentially corruption, the same thing we have in third world countries but in a more complex and fancy way. The government doesn't stop to think about why all the companies that bid to operate such trains are state owned themselves and in their own countries they don't allow that mess to happen.
This is so, so more important than bike lanes.
@@fresagrus4490 In New Jersey a lot of the bus routes are run by private operators but they have strict performance standards they have to adhere to. Basically the state sets the schedules and operators who don't perform lose their contracts. But that's for buses, not trains. The state still owns and operates all of the trains.
My husband and I lived in the Netherlands during the 2000s. We loved many things about it, but were also aware of some issues that tend to not be mentioned by people who have a "Europe Good - US Bad" attitude, which I find misleading/misguided. I haven't kept up with what's been going on over there lately (though we still have friends there who complain occasionally, as people do), but even during the decade we were there, public transport prices, for instance, went up significantly, while the quality of the services deteriorated noticeably. The housing situation overall was not good. We had to rent privately, but most of our Dutch friends were on waiting lists for years to get a couple's apartment, or a family apartment, or to move to the city where they'd been working for years, which, among other things, did not help with decreasing car usage. Bike theft was also very a very common problem at the time.
I'm not saying this to complain about the Netherlands, or to imply that the same issues that were present two decades ago are present now, but just as an example that nowhere where human beings live together is perfect, and every place has its unique challenges. Just as an example, we now live on a mountainous city, which, as opposed to flat lands, cannot be easily or commonly traversed via bike, or how my husband could not commute via train for several years due to the pandemic.
We all do the best we can with our particular circumstances, and I don't believe that telling people that there is a place where all the problems have been solved is the right thing to do, just as I don't believe in giving up on improving things locally.
@@unfilthy I mean, all those issues do still exist. The housing crisis has been a major political campaigning point for years now and public transport prices are the highest in all of Europe
Thanks for making this video and I wholeheartedly agree. One surprise for myself, is just how many people in positions of power, like city council or the traffic engineering department, are already fully aware of the right thing to do. They know we need better designed roads, more bike lanes, more transit, etc. But the system is preventing these things from happening. The city budget is preventing these things from happening. Many times, those comprehensive plans include all the things urbanists want to see in existence, but they are planned for 10 years in the future, with funding that may never come. There's so much work to be done, and it seems like knowledge of what to do is rarely the problem.
Absolutely. Also: a plan goes forward that does implement new urbanism principles and then NIMBYs are the ones who show up to mitigate or cancel it, not advocates.
It's all tradeoffs. And there are limits you can't just spend 2x the money and have twice the work done the number of workers in a field is limited the bureaucracy will take it's time. Even if it's better overall there will be people who suffer from it at the very least in the short term. Don't forget corruption as well not just from NIMBY's or oppositional groups but just boring old corruption will cause problems and slow things down.
Plus it's very hard when people often proposing and pushing stuff want huge expansive flashy stuff like talking about HSR all day, instead of boring things like bike lanes, and local metro systems.
In the USA at least from what I've noticed bike lanes are getting more and more common...some bad, some good but it's becoming more normalized at least. While city metros are still struggling and a lot of that is many Americans even those who talk about wanting public transportation when I ask them if I take it are completely unaware of what their city even offers that would be convienent for them.
Also self driving cars will probably shake things up again in 20-30 years, and city planning is a thing done over decades if not centuries so I could see hesitation as well from that end on making 10-20 year plans that could be outdated by the time they come to pass.
I often get ‘why don’t I move somewhere else?’ But I say I’ve always replied with ‘my goal is to make my place better.’ I’m 17, but I’ve got my career in mind to become an Urban Planner. I’ve always loved maps and walking around exploring my city and my grade 2 teacher, before I even knew about Urbanist YT, said ‘you may like Urban Planning, it could be a cool thing for you’ that has stuck with me to now and discovering CS content and later RMTransit, City Beautiful, etc 4 years ago has affirmed that quote. I’ve met my local MP’s, I’m studying economics at school and I’ve spoke with urban planners in Australia (where I live). To conclude, thank you for this video, greatly appreciated.
That’s been my prediction lol. That urban planning will increase In popularity because younger generations are getting fed up with our current infrastructure. Thanks for planning to take that step! Us Gen Zers might see our bleak outlook turn into action just yet.
@@Window4503 would be nice not getting nearly ran over trying to bike it to college
I think it's a fair point that the conversion rate of watching urbanism videos to showing up a city council meetings is very, very low. My only counterpoint would be that showing up to council meetings is a thing a small pool of passionate weirdos engage in (for basically any topic); online urbanism has been reasonably successful at generating a pool of passionate weirdos who like cities (anti-city weirdos exist by default)
anticity weirdos will never win because cities are the economic engines of every state and country in the world.
Ancient philosophers and normal people from Athens would say idiots are those who don't involve themselves in politics.
@@michalandrejmolnar3715ancient philosophers didn't have to work 40 hours a week and maintain homes concurrently.
For the average folk, we have so many demands on our time. It's ok to not be a perfectly politically activated urbanist; just being on board DOES provide value.
@@whynot131313Yeah. Especially if you point other people to urbanist stuff; they might be able to do more than yourself, or themselves spread the word to those who can. Even just watching the videos helps them reach more people, thanks to UA-cam's algorithm. Spreading the word is not the full story, definitely, but it's far from a wasted effort.
I'm an urban planner myself, working at a Canadian municipality. I enjoyed this video and I've been enjoying this channel for a long time.
To be honest, I rarely watch urban planning videos anymore. I generally don't disagree with the broader brush strokes of such channels. However, day-to-day planning is mostly about nuance, working through policy, and hearing out interested parties. Planning (like engineering) is largely about balancing tradeoffs, yet online content often veers into overly abstract or generalized notions. Meanwhile, much of the online discourse fixates on blaming someone or something, which I've found to be increasingly tedious. In particular, the "dumb American" trope has become incendiary hack comedy.
As this video states, although transit is important, most urban planning is not about transit. In the real world, planning is contextually complex and for the general public, mostly boring.
I was about to comment something similar. I'm not an urban planner, but I do have a masters degree in urban planning so I have a little bit of experience, and I'm an architect so I often brush up against urban planning issues on lager projects whenever the local council gets involved.
It's easy to talk about these broad sweeping ambitious goals but once you drill down to trying to solve specific problems in your specific area it's gown to be a lot less flashy and cool, and way more nuanced and moderate, bound by countless restraints from the social to the geographic.
The frustrating part is that most of these channels are just urban planning themed entertainment, which is fine in isolation, but they keep being taken as serious education by a lot of people.
Yet they managed to level entire cities and build giant freeways and parking lots. But then when someone wants to add a bike lane we have to pretend that building is so complex we might as well be building a nuclear reactor. If everything is that complex then there would be no cars since they are orders of magnitude more complex to build for.
@@fdssd1736 Complete misnomer. This is exactly the sort of thing that is so frustrating that I mentioned in my reply to OP.
Is adding a single bike lane a big deal? In isolation, no. Is the proposed road wide enough for it without making it unusable to one or both lanes of traffic? If not, then it's a non starter. Suppose yes the road's wide enough, but does it have any connections to other convenient cycling routes elsewhere in the city? If not then sure add the lane but nobody is going to use it because it's inconvenient. Is the road actually perfect for a bike lane? If yes, then great, add the lane.
But.
A single bike lane is not going to have a measurable impact. If you want to see change you need to consider the whole picture, taking everything into account from public transport to convenience of all commuters in the area. It's a lot more complex than just a pithy remark of "Oh so building one bike lane is so hard? lol no." and leaving it there.
Also residential zoning and parking standards lead me to think that zoning and TOD ( or people oriented design ) is important. We could require developers to add greenways or slow streets. All this can be codified and could take less nuance out of the situation. I actually liked the "build the lane" UA-cam who said the Dutch just ripped the regulations down and simplified it. It's an old set of standards that got the US to where we are now and we should rethink how we allow subdivisions - strip malls, and 4-lane roads to get built. --- You are a designer and I am on the planning commission in my little town. I want to hear more about what I can do to support this.
In the real world? Seriously? Hello from a transit planner btw we're definitely out here. Tf
As someone who took the orange pill and decided to switch majors into urban planning. This has heavily frustrated me as even in my own classes ive yet to see a professor address this. Im in my junior year and my classes are still stuck on the same doomsday speech about how everything sucks and theres people trying to destory things and how its bad. Maybe its because I’ve looked into urbanism so much in my freetime but ive gotten so bored in my actual classes as its always the same song and dance. I’ve even dabbled with the idea of starting a channel just to address this very thing but rent comes first.
Try and speak with your faculty and head of department
i took the orange pill after my brother graduated with an urban planning degree. unfortunately he hasn’t been able to find a job in the field since he graduated 2 years ago (he lives in seattle) :/ so i just kept it to an interest and to not pursue an education in it. but i truly wish you luck!
My takeaways from starting as an activist, graduating Built Environment in the Netherlands and returning to work as a mobility planner in my home country in Europe: (1) activism and public interest are vital. After decades of disinvestment into the neighbourhoods of my city, most neighbourhoods now have their own activist groups. And now they even have elected officials. And the municipality now proactively involves these groups. Positive change finally is happening on the ground. (2) You need educated, passionate professionals in the municipality (and design bureaus). The main reason anything good happens, is because now there are professionals interested in it, working even after working hours, to get things done and to argue with the old-school specialists. Without this, nothing can be achieved. (3) Activists should try be respectful, where possible. Municipal workers are just human, and it's easy to make oneself unlikeable and not taken seriously. Of course, this won't always work, because for some old-school specialists there is no reasoning to be had. Then the best way may be to pressure the political powers and make them want the change to happen. (4) It's exhausting to be a municipal worker. You spend all your energy and passion trying to create the best you can within the system. And in the end activists will still call it sh**, because it's not perfect. So your work gets dunked on by both sides of the population. After 3 years, I burnt out and quit.
Start a channel!
I think it depends on your school and program. For example, the school I'm at allows for students to get directly involved with community projects and organizations as soon as second year.
When I was 17 years old, there was a long rural road with a 35mph speed limit I drove most days to pick up my friend and go to practice for county honors band. It was super rural, paved, and had very few houses or intersections. I felt it was silly that it was 35mph and should be 55mph. I wrote to the local county official (it was a county road) and to my utter shock, within a month the speed limit was raised to 55mph. This was hugely formative for me about local issues and politics. You really can affect things at the local level.
Policy is dictated by those who show up
You're right. The problem is, that educating yourself a little bit while watching an entertaining youtube video ist fun and even relaxing after work, for example. Going to an extremely boring council meeting during your work hours, reading trough hundreds of pages of extremely boring and complicated city codes and regulations or founding an officially recognized association for better urban planning, that might even get public funding, is a heck of a ton of arduous and annoying work.
As a content creator, if you incorporate that part into your videos, lots of people watching are not in the US. So many of the practical steps to take action don't apply where they live.
Counterpoint: I don't think it's possible to have a UA-cam channel that delves into *how* to change all neighborhoods around the world because it's simple. Show up to community and board meetings, vote, and run for office. Beyond that, the barriers to better urban design vary from city to city, so you can't reach a broad audience and might not be that helpful by assuming that every city has the same path to improvement.
The problem is when big channels like Not Just Bikes say don't bother, give up, just move.
CityPlannerPlays in contrast is always encouraging people to show up and get involved, and he's got a ton of perspective on aspects outside of simple transit.
Sure, but his perspective might not accurately apply to cities outside of his own city. The intricacies of local government aren't always exactly the same, and neither are the laws around new construction.@@Franimus
@@karikling6751 Are you saying that because some local governments around the world are static, corrupt, or otherwise unable to be affected, that no one should try anywhere?
I would argue that is really not THAT easy, like he said it is incredibly technical and boring. I feel like "just showing up" makes for the one-note urbanists he talked about.
Lol, no. I have no clue how you got that. I'm saying you don't need to make videos about how to do it because how I need to correct the situation in Philly might be different than how you need to correct it where you are. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, and you can pretty easily figure out how to change things in your area by joining a local advocacy group. Those groups have most of the information you'll need, and they often have the means to get the information they don't already have.
@@Franimus
While it does not immediately lead to direct participation and involvement in municipal politics, it’s worth acknowledging the value of general advocacy that popularized videos (especially from channels like NJB) provide - even if there is no direct action or solution.
Just a few years ago, urbanism was not very popular with the general public. Vox and other channels made explainer videos for the general public, but their reach and effect was limited. I was in that same boat- somewhat aware but apathetic to it. It was NJB’s videos that made me start caring about it fiercely- specifically his video on office parks that got me fired up and pushed me to do something.
Now I’ve gotten involved with a local urbanist group, read some books, attended a community consult session, and plan to continue getting more involved. For me, a “contact your councillor” at the end of a video would not have been as effective as the rant at the end of the office park video 😅
I do agree with you that the community can do more to encourage direct actions for people to take, but think that can be done in addition to other content.
I think general education is extremely important. At the same time, now that the scene has had time to develop, it's become clear how many creators are just repeating what others are saying with kind of a superficiality. It's trendy to complain about car dependency but it lacks the "I go to a monthly meeting with my city's traffic planners to talk about it and see if they're even on the same page.". It's a lot of learning about how bad the smell of smoke is in your house and basically zero "what should you actually do if your house is on fire and here are best practices."
See my biggest issue with the video and continued in this comment is how general and sweeping your statements are.
My local strongtowns chapters biggest thing is local advocacy in city planning, but how you tell it I would just assume they are surface level non profit.
You say these popular urbanist channels are being overly general while yourself painting them with one brush.
@@Velocity-RaptorYes! They’re all painting with a broad brush as UA-cam is a very broad platform. A significant challenge is that not every issue or city is going to be able to be improved in the same way as every/any other, which makes the process messy and complicated! Hopefully he will do follow-up videos on what he has done in COS and share lessons from it that others may be able to replicate of the process, not necessarily the outcome. Welcome to the complexity of politics, bureaucracy and humanity!
It's interesting to me that it's the office parks video that got you fired up, because that's the same video that made me stop watching Not Just Bikes and unsub for good, because it really highlighted for me how he was boiling things down into a "North America Bad, Europe Good" narrative which just didn't fit my personal experience or, you know, the fact that North America is big and certainly DOES have places with decent urbanity. I lived literally a block from the office building where I worked for several years, and a quarter mile from most of my errands and a trunk line bus stop - in a suburban town of 80k! They were just too negative and too self righteous for me to enjoy, and I had plenty of other places to learn from.
I agree to an extent. But urbanist youtube has gotten so big there's nothing new to learn from it. Any new members can just watch the multitudes of existing videos. Its time for the next phase of actually engaging with the processes.
This seems a bit harsh. Urbanism UA-cam really only needs to be surface level and an outlet for frustration at the state of thing.
The mechanics of being an activist is country and city specific and requires a huge step up in engagement. It's boring, slow and frustrating.
NJB has motivated me to attend city council meetings, regularly contact my representatives at all levels of government, submit issues to local councils all over my city, and attend local urbanism groups and protests.
The progress is always frustratingly slow and frustratingly stupid. The wins are small.
The funny/frustrating thing is you actually said what Jason ACTUALLY said in his twitter thread. It isn't that advocacy isn't useful or that change cannot happen, it is that WE will never get to enjoy the fruits of such work. It is a multi-generational project fixing North American cities. If we want to live in good places in our lifetime, if we want our children to grow up in such places, the ONLY option is moving. So yeah, that's a privileged choice for many, but the point remains. So yeah, there is no reason not to be advocate but be realistic about it, fight to make the city better for your grandchildren, because as an advocate you will never live in a good city.
As for advocacy, I think a lot of us (or at least in the city where I lived in Canada) were advocates. We went to meeting and wrote feedback, we talked with council, and eventually we all got burned out because we spent years fighting for a bike lane, only to have the whole thing fucked over because a single person came to council and cried (yes, literally tears) about parking. And I was willing to put up with that for myself. But then I had kids, and I didn't want them to grow up in such a place, I didn't want them to risk their lives just to get around, so I moved.
I will say, this is the perfect video to preface what I myself am doing today. I may be a guy posting videos on the internet about public transit, mostly centered around the Philadelphia area, but I am engaging with the machinery in my own way tonight, visiting my first meeting of the Transportation Committee for my home town of Media, PA. I expect the proceedings to be dull as dishwater from a layman's perspective, but I genuinely want to make my town and metro area better, especially since living in this town for 15 years and seeing how good it really is (being the last true streetcar suburb in America, with a dense urban fabric, almost the entire town being walkable, and most importantly, it still has a streetcar line that serves it, as well as a regional rail line and busses). It can definitely be better, and I want to help make it better, and that's what me and my friends are starting to do tonight. It's good, but can be better, largely again due to complacency in the way things are, even if it's complacency in a town being good. It can be great, and regurgitating Strong Towns and NotJustBikes verbatim will only get so far. Everywhere needs a solution that is tailor-made for the situation that a town or city finds itself in, and that's what I want to help find in my own way.
I found the Strong Towns video about joining a group to go paint crosswalks demotivating. Not much gets done other than some feel good moments.
Your video about actually doing the boring stuff actually more motivating. It may not be fun, but it's part of what we need to do.
That's why I'm not on the "increment little bit by little bit, block by block." Some things have to be done as a full system, from the top-down. That doesn't mean you don't accept feedback from the bottom-up and stakeholders and that.
A full system top-down solution is ideal but easily the most difficult change to implement. Gradual changes are done because they are easier to swallow. I've seen many "full system" proposals in my city end up dead in its entirety or spend the next couple years in "discussion" hell only to end up implementing maybe 20% of the original goal.
Whereas attempting the marginal 20% goal would have had the work completed years sooner without all the wasted time and resources to get there.
@@NthReview In Strong Towns defense, bottom up grass roots interventions can be rather effective. The City of Hamilton Ontario was subject to a series of tactical urbanism interventions a few years back such as vertically delineated curb extensions, among other things that alerted the city's senior Public Works officials. A couple of years later, after being ridiculed, the City has established a rather impressive network of protected bike facilities and are now one of the leading municipalities IMO in Ontario for safer urban streets.
We definitely need both approaches.
@@38snipshow I completely agree, I think the strong towns approach is excellent for small immediate changes that can help with getting the ball rolling when it comes to local support for change in urban design. It's also a great resource in getting connected with the local urbanist movement like simple programs such as benches for bus stops but is limited in the scalability of this approach. Both approaches have their merits and when used together they can really make a difference in how we think about cities.
@@NthReview I take your point about sometimes needing a full system overhaul, but a feature of the block by block approach is that you're actually generating a mass of people who *will* be willing to show up at city council meetings. All politics is local!
I think you miss the point that this is exactly the part that Urbanist UA-cam is helping with. Changing the politics. I get the whole NIMBY council meeting, but when more join the movement and you find others in your community with your same passion, then you can get things done and push politicians to adopt or campaign with YIMBY ideas or become politicians yourselves! The issue with NJB is his attitude of "There is no hope in North America" when in reality our attitude should be that change is not only possible, but acknowledging things aren't perfect is patriotism. As well as appreciating the urbanism that already exists in different places in NA, whether it's Philly, Montreal, Vancouver, or somewhere smaller! When I watch Alan Fisher, Oh the Urbanity, CityNerd, and Strong Towns, they bring up realistic solutions, solutions that unify, to work to make people's hometowns better and advocate.
Of course changes need to be made, but it's not like there isn't already walkable environments and transit that exists in the US that should be appreciated and expanded upon! Long Island is famously suburbia with a dash of trains, but even change is possible on Long Island, with Patchogue having a walkable core, building TOD near its station and bus hub, and introducing bikeshare! In Jersey City, Jersey City has implemented Vision Zero for safer streets and eliminate traffic fatalities, pedestrianizing downtown, bikeshare, densifying outside downtown like Journal Square around its major transit hub, and the Hudson-Bergen Light-Rail that opened in 2000 paved the way for lots of development!
Wait, you're an urbanist too?! My suspicion that you must somehow be a long-lost twin is strengthening.
You really think youtube videos change or have a say in anything that involves real money? Lol
This is an excellent video! Directing that energy is something I really need to do better on!
How ?,
I think the challenge is the problems and the priority in dealing with them vary not only by city but literally down to the neighbourhood level. We were able to identify a specific problem in one neighbourhood and specific approach that may lead to a solution (which even that may not work) which is reflected in the latest video on my channel. The same issue may be irrelevant somewhere else and the approach might not work somewhere else either. Still you raise a good point, we need to do more to give people more tools in the toolbox.
I think you nailed it, the conflict between UA-cam’s global reach vs. local issues is a big reason urbanist UA-cam doesn’t address civic engagement very well.
Municipal government and politics is so local, it’s impossible for a creator to give tactics relevant to their whole audience. So to do well on UA-cam, they have to be generic
Wrong actually
Yeah, I think urbanist UA-cam is serving exactly the purpose it should - introducing these ideas and concepts to a broad audience, including many people who otherwise may have never thought about these things before. The value of that cannot be understated, and I argue this is more important than simply telling people to attend local planning meetings or whatever. Creating a movement is to take esoteric concepts like urbanism and make them every day kitchen table conversations, and that’s what these channels are helping to do. This kind of change takes time, but it feels like something big is in motion, and that’s exciting
@@jacksmith-mu3ee kind of a lazy response, don’t you think? Care to explain exactly what you think OP got wrong and what you think would be correct? If you’re going to join the conversation, at least make an effort to offer something of value
Exactly. How is a Canadian UA-camr supposed to teach Muricans or Germans about local political processes? That would be at best shallow and reductive. It's there to spread awareness, if you want to join a party or show up in a meeting that's on you.
@@Alias_AnybodyWell, on most places in the world traffic is planned by some kind of local authorities and politics. Shure it does vary from country to country, but if you at least live in a democracy there are ways for the ordinary citizen to influence the processes.
NJB often says in his videos that the problem is the "boomer traffic engineers". Instead he should do the same as this UA-camr: encourage people to get active locally.
Urbanist UA-camrs create conversations and get people thinking, for that alone they have served a purpose…even if you don’t like their tone.
Is it not upon the professionals and the more knowledgeable on the subject to carry that torch instead of complaining what other YT creators are not doing?
Reno is not my hometown, Denver was.
Anyway, great video.
Cheers! Thanks!
And your departure has left a massive void to fill in Reno. The only two urbanist voices on our council are at their term limits, city staff are actively hostile against anyone not in a car (our city engineer even point blank admitted in a council meeting that her department would continue to put the convenience of motorists over the safety of pedestrians and cyclists), and even having the backing of the Reno/Sparks Chamber of Commerce, the city's own Citizens Multimodal Advisory Committee is nothing but a futile gesture of public involvement.
I don't blame you for leaving, we're going to lose the fight. I do kind of wish you could do more comparison videos though, between Seattle and Reno, since Seattle does have some success stories that can at least be used as a template to show what can be done so that we can at least slow the city's decline.
@@smileyeagle1021 If I do make a comparison, it would just be to encourage people to abandon places like Reno, not to help slow its decline. In 20 years, Seattle will have expanded Link Light Rail to Tacoma, Ballard, and West Seattle. In 20 years, Reno has freeway revisions to look forward to. The quality of life gap is massive, and it will only continue to widen, so people should jump ship sooner, rather than later.
I have considered making a video on Not Just Bikes' controversial statement, but I honestly find myself agreeing with the sentiment. I don't think we should give up on all of North America, but places like Reno are so far gone that advocacy feels like a fool's errand. Either you can advocate for change, with no guarantee that it will actually happen, or you can move somewhere that actually understands and respects your values. When it comes to places like Reno, the ladder option is the only one that leads to a better quality of life.
Advocacy would be a lot more effective somewhere that actually has the building blocks for good urbanism and a population who cares about transit and micromobility, anyway.
@@YetAnotherUrbanist "somewhere that actually understands and respects your values" has to include a charter school that can accomodate my special needs son (that the school district in as many words said they wouldn't be able to appropriately serve). There is a lot more about deciding where to live than just how urbanist a place is.
Trying to fix Reno's urbanism feels less futile than starting over on finding a good school for my son.
@@YetAnotherUrbanist I see some merit to what you are saying. If possible and reasonable, it can be better to start with the easier places. These places can prime examples for places that are harder achieve change or think "But we aren't Europe". Yes, they are right but when we have more prime examples across North America, they can no longer legitimately say that. Now, I am not saying abandon those harder places, because that's not possible for everyone. But a continual push for change is needed to slow the decline until the course of action can be reversed.
CityPlannerPlays was an active city planner until just this yr when he had to make a choice between working as a planner or a content creator on UA-cam/Twitch, he choice content creator.
Forgot to mention, another hurtle with urban change ' Americans for Prosperity ', a non-profit whose sole intent is to block mass transit or remove what is already there.
I take it he’s more into the gaming and entertainment side of things? I see great potential in gamifying the urban design and planning process to learn about one’s own area and what the possibilities and challenges are so I’m going to check him out
legal brib- err sorry, "lobbying" has to be one of the most ridiculous things to ever be allowed.
@@FenthuleI’m sure many things you support have lobbying organizations backing them. They have lobbies; we have lobbies; whole thing is just too complex for me to really understand.
Is that the same AFP the Koch brothers founded that’s done all that other limited-government, pro-oil lobbying?
That group is behind many of the political ads that will be on TV and UA-cam in the coming months.
Important to note that in the US outside of the northeast and particularly New England, NJ and NY, a lot or most of the land is unincorporated and falls to the local county for governance/decision making. A lot of what seem like actual towns/cities are just census designated place like Bethesda in Maryland.
Also because turnout is usually pretty low, getting a couple of YIMBY friends together to crash a town meeting might actually be a good strategy. The NIMBYs are great at using the system and we need to beat them at it.
It all comes down to money, though. Your community has to work with what it has and can get, and have EVERYONE on board or else you could end up cursing your community with tax rot. You can hate on the NIMBYS all you want, but if they are the principal source of taxes in your community and you are not, you have no real say in how things are done even if you think you do. Those who carry the water decide where it goes. Those who do not, drink from the pail but can only whine about the color of the pail.
@@starventure I have seen this argument before and research/case studies, particularly by StrongTowns strongly suggest that the opposite is true and that NIMBYs are the ones deeply subsidized. Multifamily housing generates a disproportionately large amount of tax revenue by acre compared to single-family homes, while also being cheaper for the municipality to service and maintain. I have yet to see any convincing evidence to the contrary and intuitively it makes sense that if you have more people/acre, then the costs spread per person will be less and you will likely still have more in revenue. Additionally, with people clustered closer together they require less pipage and yards of electrical wiring than if they were spread out by zoning regulations, making those dwellings comparatively cheaper to maintain.
Thanks for putting this together. I share your frustration. I too have been infuriated by the urban planning attitude by many a UA-camr who basically say "wanna lose weight-- eat right and get exercise". Duh. They are over-simplistic and condescending. I agree we need pragmatic approaches to improve our (insert buzzword here) built environment.
As someone who keeps seeing the same-ahh comments over and over, your comment and the way it mocks them gives me a breath of fresh air.
?
“Eat right”
“What if the right food isn’t easily available or prohibitively expensive? I sure wish I lived near a grocery store that offered a variety of healthy foods, but-”
“Not my problem figure it out yourself”
[problem still unsolved]
This is a great rally cry for the second tier advisor to decisionmakers. I used to think like this, too. Both the ineffective leaders making bad decisions and the uninformed activists who showed up to be angry annoyed me. Here I was, going to the meetings, working hard, taking all the lumps, and these idiots didn't make good decisions because these other idiots showed up and complained or preached. I was angry and frustrated (go read Strong Towns circa 2009).
Fortunately, I moved beyond that phase and recognized three things. First, elected officials reflect the public -- you can change their mind, but not the overall direction, by focusing on them. We need to surround them with a different conversation. Second, people advising elected officials are very unlikely to drive change broadly. Yes, there are some great people there, but work in a world that rewards conformity and process - they aren't going to lead, let alone eagerly participate, in a revolution.
But third, and most important, nothing elected officials or technical advisors do will broadly matter, or amount to anything more than superficial changes here and there, unless the broad public disposition towards the purpose and goal of public investment, infrastructure, growth, development, and city-building in general shifts dramatically. Yes, a byproduct of that might be that a few zealots show up and annoy public officials (we train our Local Conversations leaders not to do this, FWIW), but oh well.
Millions of people read Strong Towns every year. Millions more watch our videos, listen to podcasts, and interact with us on social media. This strategy is broadly shifting public sentiment. There are many more cities today where NIMBYs showing up at public meetings run into people there ready to challenge their views, and that number is growing.
I acknowledge and appreciate the frustration expressed in this video, but it feels off the mark to me. Or, to say it a different way, it seems small compared to the frustration broad swaths of people have with the insensitivity and lack of urgency our vertically-oriented, process-driven local governments have with the way they are delivering city building. Anyone who wants to change that, inside or outside official government positions, I'm ready to welcome.
I appreciate your response, Chuck. I think it's fantastic that Strong Towns and other promoters of Strong Towns ideologies are flourishing and organizing and all that. Some in other replies have said that Strong Towns has been THE main proponent of that and I haven't quite seen the data to quantify that.
Many cities have disinterested governments that don't even have, like my city does, effective advisory committees. We have a strong-mayor form of government that's a decade old and our committees represent the work of the mayor's office as well as city council, so it does have some good faith representation there. It does allow us to untangle complex issues as far as legality and what-have-you.
You are correct that local politicians reflect their population and if the population isn't down for better urban planning, certainly the leadership won't. I'm thankful my city councilperson is receptive to urban needs, although the next guy over is dramatically less so. However, ignorance is not bliss. Even if you aren't showing up to city council meetings, hoo boy does it help to know who those people actually are. Hoo boy does it help to understand the trajectory of your locality, something I know Strong Towns tries to do.
But at the end of the day, you can lay down all the prep work you want, host workshops and all that and that's fantastic and warm and fuzzy and what-have-you, but those know-nothing politicians and city staff are ultimately the ones who have to flip the switches and turn the knobs. Knowing what you're fighting for is one thing, knowing how to do it is another and that is something I see strongly lacking across these UA-cam channels, even Strong Towns' own videos, even if they talk about it elsewhere. UA-cam may be peoples' only interface for this kind of content, so it helps to be effective and complete here, too.
Obviously, I'm not alone in thinking this.
Cheers!
I help organize Strong Towns Lincoln and we are meeting this coming Monday to discuss what steps to take to lobby our city government for the actions we want.
Step One was finding out what people were passionate about in our Local Conversation and step two was learning how to lobby. We were very fortunate to have a lobbyist for the state government join the group and suggest how we go about lobbying at the local level. We are looking to expand our network into the city government and show up to key meetings in order to lobby for better infrastructure.
We largely wouldn’t have found a way to do this without meeting over our mutual frustrations. I view the current UA-cam videos as the propaganda we need for people to not oppose us as we lobby for a better city.
@@samotte8279 what’s interesting is you shouldn’t need a lobbyist, you should BE the lobbyist. You should have a relationship with city employees yourself. I know Chuck has this view of government as this monolith, but that’s off the mark. They’re a group just like you with their own passions and interests
I hold no such view of government, especially local government
@@chuckstrongtowns right, Strong Towns likes lean and efficient local efforts and regularly opposes bigger structural efforts from higher levels of government. As someone who lives in a city that has leaned (almost) exclusively on its small, underfunded and “nimble” local governments, it sucks.
Thanks for this video. As yet another urbanist UA-cam channel 🙄I can appreciate your key points and they are a good reminder for me to continue profiling the people who are actually getting stuff done in their communities (advocates, activists, elected officials, and even city staff members.) And yeah, to your point, it's often pretty boring stuff, hehe I nearly spit up my coffee laughing with your clip on what it's like to actually attend city council (and other such) meetings. I sincerely appreciate the amazing content my fellow urbanist content creators are producing, as I do hear from new viewers and listeners (yes, mine is also an audio podcast) that they found their way to Active Towns because they are fans of those other channels. Thank you for rolling up your sleeves and doing what you can to make a difference in Colorado Springs. Keep up the good work. Cheers! John 😎
Supporting hyper local youtubers citizens with a synthesis of what planners are doing and when its most effective to show with links to videos about why that meeting is important. I am now probably going to start doing that also.
As a dutch person I have my reservations about NotJustBikes. He's often black and white when he talks about my country. He makes it seem like there are car people and bike people, but in the netherlands almost everyone who has a car also bikes regularly. Besides that even in the netherlands it is often times faster to go with car than with public transport, especially if you do not live in the big cities. He also doesn't come back on his videos when a project fails, like when they shut down a major road in Amsterdam. I talked to some people in that area and everyone was complaining about the situation. Often times he just comes across as an american/canadian observing dutch society but not living in it.
Also about changing your city counsil. As far as I know we had demonstration in the 70s but I'm not sure how our urban planning came to be exactly, I wonder about that sometimes.
Definitely a lot of good points here!
Interestingly, I have kinda a weird perspective on this, since I actually have followed through and gotten on my local City Council! To be fair, I have been reading Strong Towns long before the UA-cam craze hit, so I was already fairly prepped. It's possible that's part of the slowness here, in that the urbanism subculture is still a bit young, many of them born during the pandemic, after all. It takes some momentum for people to become confident enough to make a difference.
And for what it's worth, all these UA-cam videos have a pretty wide reach. Just yesterday, one of the other members of my City Council sent an email to our planning and zoning head linking the About Here video on 3-6 story apartment building staircase requirements, asking if we might consider similar reforms here. So they do have impact!
As for the Strong Towns Local Conversations bit, I didn't realize it before, but I think their recent video on them misrepresents them a bit. They definitely chose to focus on the more exciting tactical urbanism stuff, but they definitely do more than that. I run my city's local conversation, and I'm tapped in to a Discord channel for all the LCs across the continent, so I hear a bit more of what they are up to. Lots of them are speaking at council meetings, doing advocacy and education events, and promoting policy. And, in fact, a big reason that program exists is so that people can get together at their local city level and come to terms with things on the ground in their own cities, like you suggest. It's still a fairly young program, though, so once again, it's kinda a momentum thing.
Incidentally, I just posted this video on that Discord channel, since I do think you make a ton of good points! Not to mention lighting a fire under us! I hadn't thought about it before, but you're definitely right that the current conversation focuses way more on transportation than on other important topics, like land use. There's info out there for that, but it's definitely way less digestible, so it's certainly something to work on.
At the end of the day, we're still very early in this fight. Most people are still unaware of the real issues facing our cities simply because they've lived with them for so long, so even simply pointing out the problems does a lot. And to be honest, most people aren't going to be well suited for running for public office anyway. Just getting informed at all may be all they can do, but that still helps move the needle. And the bigger this gets, the more chances that folks who may be more suited for making an impact come around. Still, good on you to help in keeping the train rolling!
Yes! All excellent points. I do see contemporary modernism as "new" in terms of being a faddish trend to hook into because it's easy to understand the pain of car dependency and suburbia and dead malls and stuff like that, but it is, as I put it, frustrating that more people aren't applying screws to bolts and it becomes so easy to set up a new sock puppet to parrot what everyone else is saying and already enraged about. It's that next step that's so vital...
Strong Towns sounds to me like the sort of organization that, if it was around in 1900 or so, Theodore Roosevelt and your average Senator from Nebraska would have endorsed.
@@DiamondKingStudios That sounds like an awfully strong endorsement to me!
@@Descriptor413 I said that to sort of say that it seems like a transplant from the Progressive Era and all the Good Roads and City Beautiful movements and all that. Probably would have been endorsed by the Farmer-Labor and Progressive parties of the Midwest and all that. On its website they even talk about how the movement unites all parts of the political spectrum and stays fairly nonpartisan.
Is there an easy way to get tapped into the Strong Towns LC discord, or similar networks, or is that something a little more behind the scenes/restricted? I've been meaning to look into it for my local area since I've been getting more aware of this stuff. This video made me wonder if that's really worth it, but your comment made me intrigued once again.
It's called voting. That's the extant that 99% of society wants to get involved with civic engagement. Most people don't want to go to town hall meetings because that takes time, energy, and effort that most people don't have much of. This type of educational outreah _can_ be succesful enough to have a real impact. But I do agree that more active, involved efforts are even more likely to achieve success.
In most countries there isn't actually a proper choice in the ballot and you end up with the same public policy regardless of who forms the government, you just get a different logo. It is frustrated and the interest of large companies to profit is a dogma and actually enshrined into law in many cases. It is frustrating. I don't blame people for being demotivated.
But yes, "democracy" doesn't start and end with voting and the engagement you mention is important. My country simply does not have the meetings you mention (see, Europe is not better at every thing), activism has to start from the very very rock bottom. Once again, I really applaud people who manage to overcome this, but you might understand why some give up in the way and end up just moaning.
I have noticed that Not Just Bikes had a strong tone of arrogance. I'm about as pro-bike as one can be - but sometimes realism dictates that you need car access for some things. Listening to him talk, I get the impression that he would be thoroughly satisfied if everyone who drove an automobile got jailed for 10 years for not using a bicycle, and its just a huge turn off. He's not a likeable guy.
"Not Just Bikes". One would think he's all about bikes.
something you people may actually start thinking about: how urban planning youtube is absolutely US/NA centered, i am french and watch youtube content in about 5 languages daily (French, English, German, Spanish, Japanese), Content that would appear as "urban planning" i could find in other languages (and so countries) are just nothing compared. Actually it is more content about public transports, or cycling, and sometimes they mention the basics of urban planning. And these are also kinda a niche into a niche. Urban Planning in France is only a topic on internet when it is about Paris, and is driven by the will of adapting to climate change, so it is mostly focused on bike lanes and greener places.
All of this to say, i think at the source of urban planning youtube problems, there are bigger issues, like the fact that US Politics are absolutely failing, and most US citizen are actually totally depolitized to a very very concerning point. With more politized citizens, you are more aware of what you are facing when fighting for common properties, but most importantly, it's also less pyramidaly and more horizontal, which actually makes it easier to makes changes, even if you have tons of safety and accessibility requirements
Wonderful watch. I’m in Boulder right now, and had a very similar aversion to most urbanist content after seeing how nuanced and difficult actually participating in local politics is. The issues are generally so specific that knowing the urbanist buzzwords doesn’t really get you anywhere (though they can act as a high concept “vision”). I saw your conversation with Chuck from ST (among others) in the comments, and I think both approaches, direct action & involvement/advocacy, and general education to shift public opinion are necessary, and it seems to me your video is only calling out how urbanist UA-cam often leaves the advocacy part out, not necessarily critiquing those who provide educational content. Thank you for your balance take, and good luck in the Springs! It seems like 2024 will be a big year for statewide housing & transportation.
Thanks!
EDIT: I would certainly never say that education and advocacy is unnecessary, but as I point out, that only gets you so far. Sometimes it just makes you a self-righteous internet jerk, especially when you do eventually interface with educated professionals.
@@NthReviewI often wonder if many people promoting education and advocacy actually understand what they’re doing and how it is working. “Education” has often become an idea for telling you how we want you to view the issue(s), rather than informing about them, how it impacts others, and how what they’re seeking and asking will improve the situations for those they advocate on behalf of. Same with advocacy: it often comes across as Liberalism, where people in privileged positions are trying to do to and for their advocacy population rather than supporting them in taking care of themselves, in a supportive and authentic way, not in a faux-empowerment way.
You articulated my frustration with the urban planning youtube space very well. As Civil Engineering Graduate who works in transportation engineering it's sometimes disheartening to see so much content about your field of work that is just complaining about the same problems everywhere but very few offering solutions and encouraging people to engage with the process.
As someone who is not a civil engineering graduate, which of my solutions would you like to hear first?
@@xIQ188xSeek to understand, then to be understood. Acknowledge that you have just received a huge amount of theoretical and conceptual knowledge that is useful in the real world, but does not reflect it. Go out in your neighborhood and community, with your new-found knowledge, observe what works and doesn’t, then use that knowledge to formulate questions for the engineers in your city. It’s great to have suggestions and solutions, but recognize your limited view of the total situation! Those two letters are also huge, so go for it: PE
Forgive my bluntness, but with a username like "surburbanite", I somewhat doubt that you have any interests in fixing the problems that people are complaining about.
Also, you have to understand, those of us on the ground advocating for these changes have had to face people in your field who will tell us to our faces that driver convenience is more important than our safety as cyclists and pedestrians. We've had to face people in your field recommending to our city council that $5 million is too much to spend on protected bike lanes, then turn around and enthusiastically support $50 million to extend a freeway merge lane by less than a mile. If you don't want people in urbanist, transit, cycling, and pedestrian spaces thinking that engineers are our enemies, you can start by being an engineer who isn't our enemy.
You are disheartened that people complain about your field of work, we are rightfully concerned that your field of work could get us killed. Which side do you think needs to do more to listen to the other?
I twould be great if you made a very small youtube channel that simply reports on opportunities for people who want to support these things but do not have the time to research and do much more than a couple hours a month.
The advice for UA-cam I always hear is be the thing you notice is lacking. With your background, document the process you went through to become an advocate, and share your projects with people!
Do show what works and what doesn;t in reality. Share examples of places where change happened and how it happened.
This is a giant issue not just in Urban Planning, but in almost all left leaning youtube activism. It's really easy to explain concepts to people willing to listen and think critically. They might even challenge your ideas and make them better! But actually doing things is harder than watching a video on your lunch break and more complicated than a 12 hour lore analysis video, so they don't engage with that. I don't mean to say that these youtubers are bad people, but that systemic forces push against them and they don't have the tools to push back, so here we are.
And to not fall into the same trap myself, my strategy to slowly fight this as I can is constantly advocate for small group community building where people regularly talk about how to do things and build from there.
This is an excellent critique of the Urbanist community. I love Urbanism and have been interested in human-scale urban planning even before the pandemic. I even want to make my own Urbanist content on UA-cam but I didn't want to make the same cookie cutter talking points that we've heard over and over again. I want to stand out and create something that separates me from other urbanist channels, yet couldn't really think of a way to do so. Also I relate to your reaction to NJB's posts on Bluesky. I was incredibly disappointed to see one of the largest Urbanist channels on the platform just completely giving up on activism right as the movement he kind of started was gaining traction.
Thank you for this video. I hope this video spreads within the Urbanist community.
Good luck!
I’d recommend making videos specifically about your city. Like what new infrastructure has been built, or interviewing your local officials. That way your content is unique, and I having a personal stake in your own city would be good too I think. Good luck!
I really needed this video, as a graduate student I haven't really had time to sit down and think "okay i've watched all these urbanist videos, what do i actually DO with this information?" I live in downtown Honolulu and I don't have a car, so I use my bike to get everywhere. There have been multiple times where I say to myself "how is there not better bike infrastructure? who decided to make using bikes on the sidewalk illegal and then erased all the bike lanes?" without ever really following through with that thought. I'm going to actually follow through now, because I know advocacy is the way forward!
Adam Something does just that. They don't split urbanism from politics. Go join a ecology friendly collective. Unionize. Start mutual aid.
Thank you for making this video! I have an interview too join my local community board soon! You explained this so well and thoughtfully. I'd love to see more videos of yours showing your experiences with advocacy or teaching more about civic engagement.
I think the main issue is that public engagement is a very local matter and every municipality does it differently - a general urbanist YT channel can't get too much more specific than "get involved, go to your city council meetings, etc." People need local information and honesty to further engagement, YT is not sufficient enough, a Facebook page or something is more appropriate for outlining events and meetups for a particular locality but it needs a dedicated team of people with the flexible schedules to attend these city hall meetings and voice their concerns. Now one could make a YT channel specifically about their city - I've considered doing one for mine but work and personal life takes too much of my time and energy. But I'll still attend events when I can and donate to urbanist causes when I can't do direct action.
This video is a triumph. A great critique of the urbanist video ecosystem and a necessary call to engage in all of the hard work and incrementalism needed for improvement. Some of the enthusiasts online will need to take the risk to make the leap to becoming advocacy professionals and do all the networking and fundraising that entails. It's increasingly happening, and thankfully the developers and real estate people with the money to fuel such a movement have finally gotten urbanist principles themselves after being an impediment for so long. I'm more optimistic than I've ever been but it'll be my children and grandchildren that will reap the benefits, likely not me.
Popular Urbanist UA-camrs could definitely focus more on organising and strategy, although as you point out yourself, it's all very locally dependent, they can't give much advise on countries they're not familiar with. And I do have the feeling that UA-camrs like RMTransit and CityNerd do at least tell their audience to organise, weather in the videos and as remark to comments. Also as you pointed out that there relatively little videos on how to practically communicate with local governments, why not see it as an untapped opportunity ;) .
There's also an idea that solutions are delivered whole, from the enlightened planners onto the unwashed masses. It's the idea that you can do Jane Jacobs urbanism the Robert Moses way. The reality is, if your idea of the planning process is coming up with grand ideas and then asking Joe Public for his signature, they're going to hold out. It's why someone needs to figure out how to teach urban planning departments how to do basic consultation with the public: what are the actual felt needs? What are the real inconveniences? What are the places they actually want to ride bikes?
as a student and local elected official in DC, this video is so inspiring. I literally sit through 4 hour meetings every month with my colleagues where we enact real change in Georgetown...but there's no one there!! Thank you for making this video, it distills a perspective I couldn't put into words for a while.
Holy shit! Why am I seeing this just now? I would love to join you guys! I just moved to the DC area, (Georgetown, in fact) and I would love to help as much as I can.
@@Roma_eternaShow up to our Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E (ANC) meetings! Would love to see you there.
@@josephmassaua5486 what’s the address? Or can I just look it up?
@@josephmassaua5486 I just googled it. Looks like it’s virtual, so that’s easy enough.
Great video! After getting into urbanist channels on youtube I did actually get more involved with contacting my city's leadership about improving bike and pedestrian infrastructure. In general my city seems to be moving in a good direction on it's own but no doubt they need public support to continue. Even if it's only a simple e-mail.
I'll vent that Jason's tweet really pissed me off. He's only getting to enjoy his urbanist paradise because of the protests and hard work the people committed to in the 1970's where he lives now. If they just gave up it would be another car dependent hellscape that they were very well on their way toward achieving. You validating that people should engage with their local officials is very refreshing. I hope since deleting that tweet Jason changed his mind. I haven't watched any of his videos since.
Your experience working with city officials might be more useful than if it were coming from an actual urban planner. You have the perspective of getting involved to make changes as a normal citizen like most of us. Rather than an employee such as an urban planner already working for a city who we can't relate to quite a well.
Unfortunately, actual urban planners and city employees tend to be under the slab of a city's communications department and can't speak freely unless it complies with city messaging, especially in bigger cities where the lessons are more valuable because of the larger challenges.
@@NthReviewPlanner speak is filtered by these legal limitations, and can be incredibly frustrating!
Grew up and lived in Colorado Springs for tbe past 15 years. Over the past year I had the chance to live abroad in Japan near Osaka. Coming back to Colorado springs was the most depressing thing I've ever seen. The city is hopelessly ugly because of the stroads and parking lots, reeks of weed the second you take 2 steps downtown, and it's incredibly inconvenient to get anywhere. I'm interested in getting involved in advocacy to fix this place so I'll definitely check out that new channel!
I mean, let's be honest with ourselves here. Online advocacy communities of all kinds skew young, introverted, and anxious. That's why we're terminally online in the first place. And the rest of the people are normies who aren't super engaged. So as a result, the overlap between "People who are informed because they watch UA-cam urbanism videos" and "People who are willing to do boring, slow, confrontational, public speaking-related work in real life" is slim.
Also people online want easy, fast, and unambiguously perfect solutions to issues. And when they learn that these solutions are very rare, difficult to enact, or complete nonsense, they just disengage.
That being said, I agree with everything you said, and just because it's hard, doesn't mean UA-camrs shouldn't be encouraging their audiences to do more. And it doesn't mean that the audiences themselves shouldn't be doing more. I don't like doomerism either, since it accomplishes less than nothing.
This is really important and I hope this gains significant traction, I hope and suspect your 5th point is the significant stumbeling block. People can't know what they don't know, and can't do what they don't know. We need a school of UA-cam that discuss the in's and outs of advocacy not just for urbanism but to empower people with the tools to discuss and promote the ideas they care about but feel imptent to implement this is a space I want to become active in
To be entirely fair, it would be pointless for the majority of viewers for any urbanism channel to go in depth to local advocacy because youtube by it's nature is not local. Jason is in the Netherlands, Oh the Urbanity has been in 2 or 3 Canadian cities at this point, City Nerd has been in Nevada, Portugal, and I think he's in Portland now? They can introduce the basic urban planning concepts to people, but it is on each person to figure out the specifics of how to get involved locally. At best, some urbanist channels like Nimesh in LA will focus on their hometown and are a great resource for people who want to learn about advocacy. Jason has also made the point in his videos that other people should do the hard work of starting their own channels to be the local expert on their towns, and he does amplify those channels where he can.
I understand why you would be frustrated about the direction of urbanist YT, but I think it's a bit unreasonable to expect the large channels to do anything but large scale concepts. Maybe they can make more content about their own journeys as activists, which could give those afraid to start a roadmap of what to do, but realistically the only way to for UA-cam to work as an urbanist platform in the way you want is to have local people flooding the platform with content tailored specifically for their town. Which would be awesome and I'd watch a ton of it, but I know I'm not going to make and I don't think most advocates would have the time to add managing a YT channel into their already busy lives.
It’s less that every creator is somewhere different, it’s that these creators can describe their interactions with locals and that can create a base that activists can borrow from and use. We may not need the minutiae of how Montreal does their lanes, but simply having those conversations on a regular basis is more useful than just original research about why specific features are better
The impact I expect the UA-cam urban transit design channels to make is in shifting the Overton window. For elected officials to strive for better urban and transit planning, the electorate needs to demand candidates support such policies.
Take it from somebody who was part of the transit/urbanist communities from Usenet to Wordpress and Blogger: don't expect the internet to do anything.
Shoutout from Durango down in the 4 corners of Colorado.
Love your content, and it's really cool to see someone in my home state is making thoughtful content like yours.
Ironically, the first group to recommend joining a city board or commission to me was... Strong Towns! But not via their UA-cam channel, it was during the Q&A portion of their new member orientation.
you're right... trying to get traffic calming installed in my neighborhood was a shocking learning experience on how to effectively advocate at a municipal letter...
Great insight.
Critics towards NJB is fair, but he is a kind of stepping stone. I got into urbanism by him. A 1000 step journey starts by doing the first step. Also, despite him giving up on North America and his 'doomerism', there are well made and important videos there, like about the SUVs, car noises.
One of the big issues that goes hand in hand with your points is the and the belief that European style urbanism is the only way to achieve good urbanist outcomes. When NJB says North America is doomed, what he really means that most of North America will never have the "street wall" style urbanism common in European cities. And that's ok. America has had dozens of walkable colonial suburbs before Amsterdam ever even considered adding bike lanes. Getting back to that style of development should be the goal of North American urbanism.
I'm absolutely one who has been "orange-pilled," and that's likely why YT suggested your video to me. I've had a desire since a very young age to see better infrastructure in my city, but seeing NJB and the other urbanist channels the last couple years has helped demonstrate what it things could look like and given me more perspective on the topic. I've watched virtually every YT video from both City Beautiful and NJB in addition to many vids from other urbanists. I try to watch channels by engineers (and the like) more these days since they'll know better (City Beautiful, City Nerd, Strong Town's Chuck Marohn, Build The Lanes, you get the jist) although I do still find value in channels like BicycleDutch that observe things working together. I personally love studying diagrams showing plans, and thanks to my high school engineering classes, I actually have some idea of how to read that stuff. Overall, I gotta agree that most these channels don't talk much about how to actually fix the problem; I have some basic semblance of such things, but I'm probably an exception in the viewer base. I'd love to go to the public meetings about the projects, but they almost always are at dinner time on weekdays--like the worst time for me to be able to go. I do what little I can to at least interact with the public forms asking for public opinion, but even with those, I don't always find them until it's technically too late (or it is too late), and that has happened to me once recently. PS - As someone who lives in Cheyenne, I wish any passenger train existed between Cheyenne and NoCo. I'd totally use it and do look forward to the day that finally happens... It's a shame it'll likely be a minimum of 10 years before one will run up to Cheyenne.
as someone who lived in FoCo and Loveland, definitely, just built the front range rail now
I’ve never been to Colorado and am probably and out-of-touch Easterner, but if I were ever to travel around Colorado, these would probably be the main passenger corridors I’d want to see for transportation throughout the state and into neighboring ones:
North-south from Cheyenne, Wyoming though Denver via either Fort Collins or Greeley (maybe one runs faster trains than the other), then south though Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Trinidad to either the Santa Fe mainline or southeast to Fort Worth
East-west from Nebraska through Denver to Grand Junction and Utah
East-west from Kansas through La Junta and Pueblo and uniting with the prior east-west line west of the Continental Divide
Maybe a line from Kansas to Colorado Springs with a branch to Denver from Limon
Then perhaps add service to marginal lines in scenic areas or secondary connections (Julesburg-Denver to alleviate passenger traffic from the main Nebraska-Denver line or more connections from Kansas City)
Electrify and you have Switzerland. With the railroad lines that have existed I could see seasonal excursion specials to Rocky Mountain National Park if a branch is made on the Denver-Fort Collins line going to Lyons unless the line is extended twenty more miles to the west and touches the entrance.
Awesome video. Vocalizing a lot of what I’ve been thinking and giving great additional information. Kansas City native, desperately trying to get my peers to engage the system instead of giving up or moving.
What is causing them to consider moving?
I think creating awareness and demand is the far more important step. Not everyone needs to attend and participate in council meetings to influence what their government is doing; this is why we have voting. People running for office are going to campaign around what they thing will appeal most to their community, and if that's better urban planning that's what they'll do.
That's not to say that getting involved with your city council isn't valuable and moves things along quicker, far from it, just that if people are interested in that they will seek it out just like you did. If NJB or other similar channels went over civil proceedings in their videos far less people would have been interested, so it would get recommended less, so less people would watch, so it would get recommended less... Heck, maybe you never would have found him and gotten involved yourself.
exactly
I think awareness and demand is important. I think organization is important. But I think the next thing is to actually channel that into something that isn't commenting on videos on UA-cam, but directing that energy toward municipalities, even if it doesn't mean showing up for meetings in-person. Words are important, actions are better.
@@NthReview Ahh, your video just sounded to me like you weren't helping the cause unless you showed up for council meetings. In your opinion, asides from being vocal and spreading awareness/understanding, what other actions can be taken?
Also, I feel like commenting on youtube videos and taking action aren't mutually exclusive. Just sayin'.
NJB (and Climate Town, and CityNerd, and...) and the broader urbanist UA-cam spurred me to apply to grad schools for urban planning - because showing me what's broken about US city planning made me want to do my part to fix it. I appreciate that Climate Town especially focuses on a call to action in each video, something small that you can feasibly do to make a positive difference. "It's fine to know the lingo, but it's better to show up" is exactly the right message. Thanks for this video, and I hope the conversation around urbanist UA-cam/urbanism content creation continues in this direction.
Thank you! I feel like a lot of advocacy from grassroots non-profits and NGOs suffer from the same issue: preaching to public rather than to those with authority to make the changes they desire. Urban planners working for your area can't possibly know what you want if you don't attend a public city meeting; guerilla tactics like painting your own bike lanes are not a long-term solution. I also noticed that with the "orangepill" comes with a lot of snarky, passive aggressive behaviors - it can be a bit offputting to those who would otherwise be interested.
I agree that the civic engagement side of things has a long way to go, but there are lots of cities and towns that are adopting some of the policies we all talk about (abolishing parking minimums, transit oriented development, upzoning, infill, slow streets, etc.). It IS happening in some places, so the civic engagement is having an effect... but nimbys and carbrains have too much power in many other places.
Imagine if more people who knew that civic engagement was a priority actually engaged civically to accelerate the process?
@@NthReviewI’d love to see follow-up videos of your experience and lessons learned, from the perspective of what you got from the process, that others could relate to and use in their locale. Because so much of this is local, what may work for one in one city may not work for everyone in every other city, but the lessons may be transferable.
I’d encourage to observe what the NIMBY’s are saying, what the decision makers say about the issue, and how you can minimize the NIMBY statement and strengthen yours. Consider if they’re bringing an data or if it’s all emotional (primarily fear), unsubstantiated complaining that you can address with data (personally observed or city collected). Decisions makers need to know that their decisions will be supported by the people that got them into their position, so if an elected official feels that there’s enough voters to support the improvements, there’s better chance of movement.
This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time and it’s nice to have someone articulate my frustrations with feeling completely lost on where to even start in order to address these issues. Thank you
Well if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to my second channel, Nth City!
We in Scandinavia are equally as car dependent as north America, the thing is that UA-camrs only travel to the bigger cities (usually the capital) and say all is good here. Not all of us live in the capital.
I live in Norrland. You are absolutely right. Maybe not as USA, but in the same direction. The thing as well is that those "american style suburbs" exist here as well and a lot, the things are absurdly far from each other because boomers need their house with a huge yard and a forest between a neighbourhood and another.
That's just completely untrue lmao. Do a tiny bit of research before you tell lies on the internet
Have you ever been to a US city that's not New York City or Washington, D.C? Most people who live in US cities drive their car everywhere. Not just people who live in the suburbs, literally _everyone._
I have been to US once and it was Washington D.C and NYC so no@@APaleDot
I have quite good understanding about how car dependent my family, friends and relatives are thanks. @@opalexent
Hank Green has a video on something he called the "Sad Gap", which is described as the space between learning that a problem exists and making measurable progress on it, a space that is usually plagued with hopelessness and depression, hence the "Sad Gap". Climate change, racial justice, geopolitical conflicts and humanitarian crises, etc. all have their own "Sad Gap", and it's terribly easy to fall into that on all the topics, which is precisely what social media is most effective at: introducing problems to people and dropping them right into the Sad Gap. It requires the least effort and gets a lot of engagement from the people it angers and upsets.
In a follow up video, John Green responds with ways he thinks we can cross our Sad Gaps, from nihilism to noticeable improvement, and it mainly boils down to 'going deep on a select few topics'. By having a social circle of people who go deep on a diverse set of topics, everyone can become 'experts' in their area and share their ideas for action with others, thus enabling more people to cross the sad gap on more issues.
And so it was super interesting to hear your term "Slactivism" paralleling these ideas, i.e. activism in all but action, a sad gap!
I love how you put this!
I think, all these urbanist channels play another, much more basic role: Showing people, that designing cities in another way is even possible and has lots of advantages (even for people still driving a car!). Many people even in Europe, but especially in North America think, that cars are the only "real traffic" and everything else is irrelevant or just shouldn't exist. Others know, their cities suck outside a car, but can't really imagine anything else.
This also explains, why advocating for better cities in the US (slightly less in Canada) at the moment feels to be a waste of energy: You still run into so much opposition against basic things like "pedestrians have a right to life". Also from a European standpoint (of for NJB somebody being used to European roads) the vast majority of "improved road safety" and "Dutch style intersections" in North America still feel decades behind current design standards.
Thanks for highlighting this. I’m in the process of leaving the Springs, and although I’ve found a much better place to live, I never took any real steps to try to improve it. I’ve never been to a city council meeting, never bought a bike, never done any form of local advocacy. It’s just easier to give up and assume these ideas will never gain traction, especially out in the suburbs where NIMBYs rule with an iron fist. Thanks for actually putting in the work and trying to make a difference.
I'm a 30+ year transportation planning professional. One of the key things I learned through experience is that all change is incremental. Over the years I've seen so much change in the engineering and planning professions. For example, big changes have come in the content of the many manuals and guidelines that frame what can be constructed using public money. And they all took time because change occurs over time. Amsterdam wasn't a "utopia" because it was planned that way from the start. It took decades of pushing to achieve the success it has now -- and yet, still isn't perfect.
To your overall point, it also took a number of us to challenge the "standard" way of doing things. No one was ever fired (from a government job) for doing their job the way it was already being done. There are many professionals in engineering and planning that pushed for projects built around a new - or sometimes "rooted in traditional principles" -- idea. Some came to fruition, others did not. But we keep pushing... and there are positive results throughout the US.
So, thank you for pushing back against the "Doomers" on UA-cam. You are exactly right -- shouting for change is much easier (especially for views/monetization on UA-cam) than doing the hard work of implementing the change you seek. However, in the end, doing the hard work is more satisfying.
THANK YOU!!!! I have just passed my FE Exam and have been working for almost 2 years now in civil engineering! Its not just a one size fits all approach like urbanists try to do
Congrats! Serious question: do you think someone with a PE is allowed to think like a designer? If you don’t know what that means, that’s okay too😉
As someone who is currently an intern in a municipality's planning division, this is definitely a great video that shares a lot of the pain I see whenever I see people talk about cities and drop buzzwords around. It's definitely clear that so many people online see the urbanist youtube videos but are missing the link to actual achieve something compared to the many business owners, property owners, and nimbys that my colleagues or I talk to (or have to endure) when things are being developed/proposed in cities. I truly think the meat of your argument (while fairly complex and really dependent on each municipality) should be encouraged for urbanist youtubers to focus more. One thing of note that I would have added (which might interrupt the flow of the whole video and really deserves its own video) would be speaking about things that limit attendence to planning commision/council meetings such as how time (especially for those who are parents or people that have to work) and accessability affect attendence (although even then theres online recordings, mail in comments, and other ways of access). Great video overall.
I’d like to address those concerns in a new video… on a new channel…
Great video! Thank you for articulating this! I look forward to doing more research about urbanist advocacy :)
THANK YOU!! NJB's newest video on Montreal had some good points but overall really irritated me as someone who loves montreal and wants to live there AS IT IS because i LOVE THE CITY enough to do that and to engage with urban planning in a practical way to enact change
I will say, I don't blame people who move to more YIMBY-friendly cities. I hate the idea that people should feel an obligation to their hometown just because they're from there - some cities just have genuine bad quality of life due to their planning practices, and it's unrealistic to ask people to sacrifice their own happiness to stay and fight back against it.
At the same time, it’s also unrealistic to pack up and move somewhere better. Especially when better places are usually more expensive, crowded, and potentially harder to find work/housing. But yes, I agree that we shouldn’t shame people for moving. When we all want the same thing(better city design and quality of life) and aren’t contributing to the problem, then we need to band together instead
While I agree with many of the video's points, I do not think urbanist UA-camrs are uninterested in or ignorant of local government.
As someone who has talked to many urbanist youtubers and even made some videos myself, I can assure you that pretty much all of them, even the supposedly nihilistic Not Just Bikes, engage with their local municipal government. They're at the zoning boards of adjustment, the transit board meetings, etc.
So why don't they make videos about it? Is it because the smoothbrain viewers don't want to watch videos about boring bureaucracy? I don't think so. Just look at how well videos about boring zoning laws do.
I think the reason is much simpler, and you touched on it at 10:40. Every city is different so the tools for advocacy will vary.
Is your downtown a parking crater because of parking requirements or economic depression? Are the bike lanes you desire illegal or unfunded? What level of government is causing the problem? Of course, more people should know the answers to these questions for their community, but urbanist UA-camrs have to appeal to a national audience.
I *could* make a video about the builder's remedy and the Mount Laurel doctrine, which only applies to New Jersey. But it's more effective to direct viewers to Strong Towns, which can funnel them into local advocacy groups. That's why all these urbanists are plugging Strong Towns along with local activists. Not because they're lazy and don't know how government works.
I got a few people to join 5th Square in Philly with a video I made two years ago about a road diet. Would a video about city council procedures really have directed more people into advocacy?
I actually think internet urbanism has done a pretty good job getting people to engage with local government. In my experience, these obscure government meetings are some of the best places to meet other urbanists in your community. Just ask the old guard of planning bureaucracy, and they'll be happy to tell you about the new urbanist influx and its impact.
Any successful social movement has specialization. Some people can go to city council meetings, some people can run campaigns and some people can make videos. If someone wants to make videos and pass off the activisting to the activists, what's wrong with that? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I think specialization and locality are absolutely real. However, to not highlight that or activate people in those directions is a big deal. It's a clearly missing component to so many of these UA-camrs. Based on responses here, people agree.
I think people are too afraid to get into the weeds - or think they can't express the situation to the layman, that they hesitate in doing so. I think if creators gave their own stories, it would create an ecosystem of understanding instead of just "well, it's good here and bad there."
Excellent video! I wish I had more to say, but you nailed it! I am also glad to see the discourse that you've generated around your video.
I work as a traffic engineer in a mid size city. Watching channels like Not Just Bikes and reading/watching Strong Towns, as well as digging into lectures and discussions from other researchers and engineers such as Peter Koonce (Portland), Dr. Peter Furth (Northeastern), along with the small community of youtubers uploading traffic signal videos has helped me tremendously.
Not Just Bikes is more of an ideas channel for me, less of a 'how to' channel. For that role, it's fine, but I do get tired of it from times and it's created a subculture of people who take their cameras and post videos complaining about conditions in the field rather than notify us directly so we can fix or try and improve.
I think a big part of what makes our city great is that our local advocates are very active in government. They are council members, transportation commission members, members of plan commissions, etc. A few of them are also involved in research or are at least very passionate and unprofessionally educated on these matters. This is vital to success!
In the videos I upload, I try to provide practical traffic signal operations and help people speak 'engineer' language so when they ask their local traffic engineer for some operational change, they have more success.
But at the end of the day, I agree...young urbanists...get involved! Join local commissions, go to school for planning or engineering. Simply put, be the change you want to see.
Loved this video! I actually grew up in the Springs and my parents live there so I have plenty of experience with exactly what you're talking about. Keep up the good work!
Great video. Recently I was looking into how to actually doing something for my local community and I literally couldn't find a single video that explained something I could actually do. I really do hope a lot of the big creators like the ones you talk about will make videos for more specific things. Thanks for making this!
Consider that UA-cam is inspiration, not instruction or direction. I liked what Strong Towns promotes by starting with humbly observing the challenges & issues around you & your neighborhood. Find the smallest thing that you can do to improve the situation. Do it! Repeat & engage with others.
Very true, seems like a lot of channels didn't pay attention on persuasive essays in middle school. No call to action at all hahaha
Nice video, it is great to hear from someone that has been working on getting things better, not just thinking about it.
Strong Towns, the one group that actually tells people to go out and be active in their city to encourage infrastructure changes, seems to be strongly opposed to aggressive action. In my local Strong Towns slack a week or so ago somebody suggested we push for the most dense area of the most dense street in the city to be pedestrianized weekly or monthly this summer, and even that was too aggressive.
I think the reason why the UA-camrs are not making this next move is because their main purpose is to educate the population, which is the first step to work towards a solution.
Journalists do the same job. They expose issues so the society can take action. Because, as you said, urban/transportion problems are super complicated. They require a lot of people with different skills.
Well, more opportunity for me, then!
@@NthReview for sure. Go for it! If you can feel the gap and share the ways the changes can be done or led it would be fantastic. I genuinely have the interest to learn more so I can take better action in my community. I think politics and public engagement is something distant for a big portion of our citizens.
Honestly I thought the reason most Urbanist UA-camrs don't provide tips, tricks and guidelines on how to approach improving and fixing the city you're in is because of their crazy global reach. It's a bit difficult to tailor the Urbanist conversation to JUST the US and how to improve the local city there when said UA-camr is aware of their huge fanbase in (insert other country here). Take me: I'm a Brit living in a non-Prague Czech city. The challenges and benefits here are far too different!
But even if they relayed just their portion of the interactions, there a universality that can help people get activated quicker, even if every implementation is different