The Bottom-Up Revolution Is...Using Media To Build a Better City
Justine Underhill is an elected city council member in Falls Church, Virginia, and an award-winning video journalist and independent filmmaker. She’s worked for international and domestic news organizations, created an award-winning docuseries, and started an educational YouTube channel.
Justine joins Tiffany to discuss how media can be used to connect with the general public and drive change.
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Tiffany Owens Reed 0:00
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the bottom up Revolution podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany Owens Reed. This is one of three strong towns podcasts, and it's a show where we have conversations with ordinary people who are taking steps to improve their communities in a bottom up, grassroots fashion. I personally feel like one of the most exciting aspects of being part of the strong towns movement is seeing how it attracts people from all walks of life with various skill sets, professions, interests and even political beliefs. We've encountered urbanism professionals and non professionals alike, people running for office and others advocating for bike lanes while raising small children. A key part of growing this movement is finding those people, but that also means informing them, helping ordinary people understand the challenges facing the American city as well as possible solutions. But that means that we have to find a way to tackle a big challenge. How do you get this information in front of ordinary people who might not otherwise ever think about urban design or urban planning? Well, the rise of urbanist content creators, as I'm calling them, has emerged as a bottom up, organic solution to this challenge. Creators like today's guests, are bridging the knowledge gap and helping ordinary people understand these complex issues and discover ways they can begin to advocate for a better town where they live. Before I introduce today's guest, I want to tell you that I'm going to be having today's guest as well as possibly two other people coming on the show who are also content creators, and I'll be having a conversation with them on a panel at the strong towns national gathering. So you can consider this a little bit of a preview to that conversation, and if you're at the National gathering, then I hope you'll come check our panel out. Today's guest is Justine Underhill. She's an elected city council member, member, sorry and Falls Church Virginia, and an award winning video journalist and independent filmmaker on her YouTube channel, she explores urbanism and housing, using storytelling to educate and drive change. Previously, she worked for both international and domestic news organizations, including Yahoo Finance, as an on air host, reporter and producer. She also created a docu series that earned recognition for excellence from multiple outlets, including the telly awards Justine. Welcome to the bottom up Revolution podcast.
Justine Underhill 2:24
Thank you so much for having me. So we have a lot to talk about,
Tiffany Owens Reed 2:28
and I'm excited to jump in, but I want to start off with sort of like your origin story. How did you come to think and care about urban design? Maybe there's a story you can share of how you came to see the built environment through this urbanist lens, and how that kind of set you off on this adventure.
Justine Underhill 2:45
Yeah, it's it's funny, because for me, there really was this one sort of light switch moment where everything just completely flipped. I grew up in DC, I lived in New York City for several years, and then when I was in New York City, I met this lime scooter executive. And I remember I was kind of playing around. I tried to push his buttons a little bit, and I asked him how he felt about the fact that scooters were taking up all this space from on the sidewalk and making it really difficult for people to walk around. And what he said to me really, really stuck with me. He said, People are framing this issue completely wrong. People are upset about the scooters being left on the sidewalk. But he asked, Have you ever noticed how much space is being dedicated to cars? This is in one of the most dense cities in the world, and if you look at the space between building and building, you know, I'd say at least a good 70% of it is dedicated to cars and to roads and lanes. And he said, you know, why is it that you're upset about the scooters taking up space on the sidewalk and not the cars taking up space from the people? And it was so funny, because hearing that, I couldn't go back and walk the streets of New York City the same way, again, like everything looked differently, and it was almost aggravating a little bit. You know, my old way of thinking was pedestrians and cyclists versus cyclists versus scooter riders, all taking up space on the sidewalk and thinking that the space that was dedicated to cars was their rightful space and not and like we couldn't do anything about it. And then suddenly I started thinking, hey, maybe we should do something about it. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 4:30
maybe this is not this. Maybe the status quo is not really what should be normal, which is so wild that just when you really think about how deep the, I don't know the word, but how deep the the messaging goes, or like, how, like, how deeply it's like, penetrated our imagination, or just our psyche, or just our expectations of the built environment, like no one ever has to tell us, Oh, by the way, cars are normal on the street. You just grow up in this world, and it's like from the very I mean, I'm a mom, and I'm having to teach my son about cars, as much as I hate it, although I am very proud of myself that he mostly refers to them as dangerous. But it's just interesting how, like deeply saturated we are, and a certain set of norms around space and what belongs where, and who belongs where, and what's normal, and what your expectation, what the expectation is for you in a car and outside of a car, and it's and it takes moments like that, where someone has to say, did you ever think about this and all of a sudden, the world looks totally different?
Justine Underhill 5:33
Yeah. You know, I even think about when I was in New York City, they had already converted times square into a pedestrian space. So I wasn't there for that transformation, but I can't imagine anybody now saying, oh, we should go back to having that being filled with cars. It's so much nicer and so much more pleasant now. And so I think a lot of these like street transformations, once you do do it, people really come to enjoy it, but you don't really question how things are. It's just it's so entrenched, it just sort of expected to be that way. And so yeah, when you actually realize, Oh, hey, we can reclaim this space, and hey, we can do something different with it, is really powerful to just
Tiffany Owens Reed 6:18
piggyback on your comment about how it kind of ruins things once you start to look at the city as built environment and think about all these layers. I was watching The Secret Life of Pets yesterday with my son because he was sick, and so we were just cuddling up and watching a movie, and it's based in New York City, which is really fun. But of course, the whole time, all I could think about were how much work was, how much work they had put into making sure that every single scene that involved them in the city involves a ton of cars on like parked along the streets, or navigating traffic, or navigating the Brooklyn Bridge, or driving like, at one point, the animals drive vehicles. They drive like a New York City bus, or they drive like the pound vehicle, the impounding vehicle. And so it's like, even in New York City, even a movie for children, even a movie with non human characters, they have still found a way to incorporate like cars, busses, driving traffic, like clothes, you know, almost having accidents like and then, of course, animals driving a bus would just be absolutely like chaotic and like disastrous, but it's like, even still, we have, like, so much about the story revolved like, if you know to look for it, you'll see, like so much of this still revolves around vehicle or traffic. To some degree.
Justine Underhill 7:33
It adds a sense of danger to the movie. I think you know so. So the the cars, whether it's the animals driving chaotically. And like cars literally, are very dangerous things. And so I do think that, you know, having the cars around them sort of adds a sense of urgency and danger and stakes to the film that they utilize, actually, quite well. But
Tiffany Owens Reed 7:56
also, but also, they they're creating, like what they consider normal. It's like this is a normal world. It's like, oh, this is normal. There might just come a bus being driven by random tattooed pigs slamming into you at any minute, and on the Brooklyn Bridge. I mean, it's teaching the children something about the world. And it's just interesting to me how it's like, we could, I don't know. I just think it's interesting how, like, the extent to which cars or some type of vehicle or traffic or vehicle or something was still part of the story. And I was like, literally, in a city where you could literally tell this whole story,
Justine Underhill 8:25
it's normalized, yeah, actually, it was what I did some research just in the history of our streets, and it's really interesting to see how things didn't always used to be that way. So it's completely normalized now. But like, there's even this wonderful quote from a Philadelphia judge who said, you know, it won't be long before children won't have any rights at all in the streets. That was from like the 1920s it's not that long ago at all, but it's crazy to think that 100 years ago, children had rights in the streets, whereas today, that's I mean, if you watch The Secret Life of Pets, you can see, like danger the streets are danger as you're somewhat danger.
Tiffany Owens Reed 9:04
Yeah, and even you know, animals are not exempt from the expectation to drive. Okay, well, love for it. If you could share more of your journey and how, maybe a little bit more about your professional journey, and maybe even going from city to city. And, yeah, maybe layer in both like kind of the adventures you've been up to and how that led you to this place of becoming this urbanist YouTuber, and then also maybe just the different cities you've been able to live in, and how your understanding of the built environment has evolved over that time.
Justine Underhill 9:37
Sure. So I double majored in economics and theater and performing arts. And I just remember all the time people asking me, like, What in the world are you gonna do with economics and theater? And I would always say, Well, I'm gonna perform economics, right? Like, that would be the natural thing to do. And I actually ended up doing exactly that. I ended up a. Uh, working my way into journalism, and I got job at Yahoo Finance as a producer that was in New York City. I also worked as an on air reporter, and I covered topics like the federal, Federal Reserve oil and energy. I covered high frequency trading. And one of my favorite things to do was take all these like, super complex topics and then break them down into really exciting, interesting stories. And so that was sort of my storytelling performance background, mixing with the economics background. And then after Yahoo, I got a job offer at a startup that specialized in long form content and documentary making. And it was really amazing because I got to spend months researching and interviewing people on one topic, rather than the day turns that I had been used to at Yahoo, and I was covering science and tech. And if you ever need somebody to talk to about rare earth metals or senescent cells, I'm your girl. And it was great, because I got to travel the country, talk to people. I got to work with a really amazing team of videographers and graphic designers, and that set me up really well for YouTube after working at that documentary company, COVID hit. And so what decided to do during COVID Was it didn't really, you know, I wasn't working in an office anymore. It didn't really make sense to be spending so much money on rents every month in New York City. So I ended up traveling the country and spending a few months in different Airbnbs. And so some of the cities that we went to went to Philadelphia. Lived there for a few months, DC, Miami, Austin, Katy, Texas, so that's right outside Houston. I lived in Houston for a little bit. Lived in Dallas. It was a special experience in Nashville, and it was really interesting, because that's really where I started getting a taste for urban design and thinking about, you know, how where you live really influences how you interact with the with other people or the world around you. And so, you know, well, Philadelphia, it could hop on a one of their city bikes every day and bike to where I needed to go, whereas in Katy, Texas, it was, you know, if you wanted to go to the grocery store, you had to drive for 15 minutes. And then if you wanted to go to the gym, it would be a 15 minutes in the other direction. And so, and don't even get me started on the highways and merging. And actually, I think Katie has the largest freeway in the world, yeah. So that that really started, besides that experience in New York City with the lime scooters, that that also started getting me thinking about about urban design in a different way. It's
Tiffany Owens Reed 12:49
so fun to hear your story. We actually have some similar patterns. I don't know if I mentioned in our intro chat that I had, I was one class away from having a minor in economics, and then my main major was in media culture and the arts. And then I ended up getting a grant to do a journalism grant, and ended up living in four different American cities, like doing this research on, like the creative class, which was, like, a big topic back then, and then, so, yeah, kind of moving from city to city, and then went back to New York City and lived there for a while. And, yeah, seeing dabbled a tiny bit in documentary filmmaking, which I thought was kind of fun, but I totally hear what you're saying about seeing that relationship between the design of the built environment and the pattern of life that you can lead, which I don't know if you've read the Pattern Language, no anthology, not
Justine Underhill 13:40
the whole thing, but I love the pictures in it, but I've also read, I've read parts of it.
Tiffany Owens Reed 13:45
Yeah, I love so much about that book, and it's so powerful, I think, to help people draw that connection between like and I've seen some people creating content like this. I don't know if you've come across this on YouTube, where people who move from like, a European country to America are kind of making these comparative reels about this is what it was like doing my errands in Germany, and now this is what it's like. And of course, it always involves a shift from either walking or a bike to a car, massive car, as you know, or just like the really funny ones of Europeans trying to take walks in America. Think at the end of the day, it's like a really powerful way to have a conversation and kind of clear the clutter about like, this is not about politics. This is not about a conspiracy. This is not this is about like, how do you want to live your life, you know? Like, think about your life when you wake up. Make a list of all the things you would like to be able to do outside your home, like, you know, and imagine for a little bit, and then go outside your home and see what's available to you based on how your city is designed.
Justine Underhill 14:41
Yeah, you know that reminds me of, well, so I lived in Tokyo for a little bit, and how cool what you're what you're talking about, reminds me of the Japanese television show old enough where, yeah, they send three to five year olds out on their own to see if they can get to the grocery store on their own. And, you know, like a lot of places in the US, you just absolutely cannot do that. So it's a really great commentary on the urban design they have.
Tiffany Owens Reed 15:08
Yeah, oh, that's so neat. I am very Yeah. I think it'd be really fun to see Tokyo one day. So tell us how this ultimately led to you. I know there's, well, first of all, you move back home. So you move back to Falls Church. That is that where you're from. And then maybe you can tell us a little bit about how all these experiences and observations got you to the point of embarking as a content creator.
Justine Underhill 15:33
Yeah. So I wanted to move back to the DC area, just because that's where I grew up. My family's here. Falls Church is 15 minutes or so away from DC, so very close to my my family and friends. It's funny when I when I settled here, I Well, let me start with this. There's this famous XKCD comic, and it has this line in it that says someone is wrong on the internet and and it shows that protagonist being motivated by someone being wrong on the internet. And so my experience when I when I first moved to Falls Church, was I went on this walking tour to see how a street near me was going to be redeveloped. And I thought for sure, you know, everyone wanted the space to become more walkable, more human scale, more pedestrian friendly. But then when I was on the tour, they were people were, like, demanding more parking spaces. This is for a street that was already completely lined with parking. And then, you know, of course, they didn't want bike lanes. And so I had this moment of not just someone was wrong on the internet, but my entire neighborhood was wrong in real life. And a lot of the objections that they had were about how this was, you know, if we didn't have more parking, was going to kill business. And that was one of the biggest objections they had, and it was just from all the research, a lot of the research that we have, it's just not true. Reducing parking in favor of pedestrianized areas is almost universally a benefit to business and but that was like the objection that I kept hearing. And you know, if they were going to object on other things I find, but they couldn't object on that reason, and I needed some way to communicate to them. So it was then that I started on my first video on urbanism. I consider this sort of a love letter to the people on that walking tour that day. And basically what I wished I could have told them so that maybe they'd be slightly less opposed, or maybe even more in favor of a pedestrianized Street, and so it's funny I put it together. And I actually do think that, you know, there's some people I haven't been able to find the exact people on the walking tour. I don't know exactly who they were, but from some people who I reached out to, I actually have, you know, planted the seeds of getting people to change their mind and seeing things in a slightly different
Tiffany Owens Reed 18:04
way. I have been thinking about this recently, the language that can be used sometimes in the urbanism world, when people are describing like people who want one thing versus want another, and the way we use right and wrong about it, about each other's positions, and I know what you mean, about like, well, once you actually understand the research that's actually not like, the outcome you're predicting is actually not accurate. But I think it also gets used in a much stronger way, of like, oh, like, I feel like people can get villainized very easily for like, wanting bike lanes, or not wanting bike lanes, wanting more parking, not wanting more parking, it can become, like, deeply personal very
Justine Underhill 18:42
quickly. It's emotionally, emotional, really,
Tiffany Owens Reed 18:46
like, tied to a person's sense of identity and justice. And so one thing I've been challenging myself on is like, actually stopping to think about and get more get more comfortable with using the word rational. Was like, how I describe someone's position about something? Because I just realized, like, people are embedded in a built environment. They're embedded in years and years of experiences. Many people have not had experiences to give them, like a con, like a different perspective, right? So it's not like, like, we're kind of lucky. We've gotten to live in New York City, like, I've gotten to see, I'm sure you've been we've both been abroad, so we've seen cities around the world. So we almost have like these experiences that have informed our positions on things, our ability to like, articulate or identify trade offs in a different way, right? But, and so when I'm thinking about like, suburbia or downtowns or parking or driving and transportation, like all those issues, or housing, whatever it is, and then I realized, like, oh, people are going to have a position that's different for me, that I think is actually factually inaccurate. Just realizing, like, how about I pause and think about how this might be rational relative to their world and the incentive structure they've been raised in, and the messages they've heard of the stories they've heard of the experiences they've had.
Tiffany Owens Reed 25:00
Been on autopilot this whole time. Yeah,
Justine Underhill 25:01
actually, that's that's been a big thing for me, which is, it's funny with a lot of the people I've talked to, so many people, especially when I was on the campaign trail, and there's so many misconceptions or things don't, don't actually line up with reality. And so a lot of the individual conversations I've had have actually led into a lot of the YouTube work that I've done. But yes, even things people saying, oh, there's not an, you know, we need to add more lanes of of driving so that we can ease traffic. And so, you know, then, then maybe talk a little bit about, you know, induced demand. And what happens when, you know they widen the free Katy Freeway in Texas, and how that actually led to even more more traffic jams and longer commute times. And what the implications are of, you know, when you do widen the highway, now suddenly people are living in places that they might not have lived otherwise. And so all the, all the second order consequences from that, but really breaking down some of these things that aren't intuitive. A lot of things, I would say, in in this space of urbanism, of housing, is, is counter intuitive. And so it's actually breaking down some of these, you know, what happens when you add more housing? You know, could it actually be better for, you know, could it actually benefit you in some way? You know, people oftentimes think of all the the downsides, but oftentimes there, there are many upsides too. And so I think a lot of what I'm trying to do is is make sure that people see all sides of the picture, and not just, you know, jump to the fear of what, what changed. My
Tiffany Owens Reed 26:40
Isn't it funny how historic urbanism is so intuitive? Oh, you like, don't even have to explain what makes sense. But then you undo it, and you do the complete opposite, and then you have to do all this work to explain people why we should go back to the historic way of doing things. I think that's just such a funny paradox. Yeah,
Justine Underhill 26:57
actually, this is in Chuck marones Again, Confessions of a recovering traffic engineer. He talks about how all these things that we did in the 1950s in terms of designing our roadways actually led us into a false sense of security in terms of maybe you'll zone out when driving, maybe you don't think about the road so much. And so that actually leads us to take on more risk and go faster and speed more than we otherwise would. And so you know how you drive in a elementary school parking lot is going to be very different than how you're driving on a road with absolutely no trees or anything near the near the roadside. And so by making design, it's called forgiving design, by making our roadways more forgiving in terms of crashes and hitting anything on the side of the road has actually led to potentially more dangerous accidents or crashes.
Tiffany Owens Reed 27:52
So you mentioned the campaign trail, so let's talk about this other exciting part of your story, which is your decision to run for and serve on your city council. Can you share about that journey and what inspired you to run for that role? Sure,
Justine Underhill 28:06
yeah, sometimes it just takes somebody else asking you or just even suggesting you run. And that was absolutely the case for me. So I got frustrated on that walking tour that I went on, that I mentioned and so then I started working on this video about how cars and people and everyone interacts in the in our shared space. But before I made that video, I made it a presentation. And I made that I shared that presentation with our local urbanist group, and my goal was, in that presentation was mostly just to be like, Hey, look at some of the misconceptions we're hearing and how you can address it and maybe help persuade some other people. But after I did that, actually, several people asked if I might consider running for city council. I guess they were impressed with that, that presentation. And so it was funny because then, then I was like, maybe, maybe I could do that. Maybe that is possible. Um, but, you know, it's funny because, like, going on that path, like, I realized that I'm advocating for all these things, but I could actually be doing or helping push forward some of these changes that I'd really like to see. And so that's, that's sort of what inspired me. And I mean, I just want to say it's totally possible, like for anybody listening to this, like you could be on city council too. You could be pushing for things in your your city or your town, and actually running for things, or being on board your commission that can actually shape some of these policy changes in the city. I like the fact that I had been living in Falls Church for like, a year and a half before I started running, and it's a very I barely knew anybody is the best way to put it, and I was able to get on city council, I just hope goes to show that I. Really do believe that more people could do it. And like, I don't want people to have to wait until they're asked, like I was, like, you can actually just put yourself out there, and you might be surprised with what you're able to do.
Tiffany Owens Reed 30:11
So what was it like campaigning? What did what kind of approach did you take to that? And what did it teach you about what it takes to like everything we've been talking about with like persuading people to think differently about certain issues, or helping them see different challenges from a different perspective. What did you learn while you were on the campaign trial? I've
Justine Underhill 30:31
knocked on 1000s of doors, and so that was before I was elected. I was knocking on all these doors and talking to people. And then also I knocked on doors after I was elected. It's funny, when I was the advice you're given when you knock on doors is you knock on a door, you say you spend two minutes at each door, because otherwise you're never going to be able to get to all the doors you need to get to. And so people, I would knock on the door, I'd start my spiel, and, you try to try to move on to the next story, and people say, Oh, do you want to come in for some some tea or coffee? And I inside be like, ah, like, I really shouldn't, but, you know, it just was, like, it was so nice that people would invite me in. So I every time I was invited and I went in, and I would spend 30 minutes, sometimes even there's a few people I spent a few hours, which I shouldn't have, but that's fine. I got to know them, and it was a ton of fun talking to people and understanding what they cared about, their fears, concerns about things going on in the city. And it really gave me a chance to deeply understand some of the concerns about, you know, you know, things like accessory dwelling units came up. We hadn't yet passed that in the city, things like bike lanes or parking or all these other things. And so that actually gave me a chance to listen to people and then also figure out ways to that actually helped address their concerns. And it was funny, because, like collecting all this information, it was the same things over and over again, and I realized, like, be so much more efficient if I could just put the stuff into a video and get it out there. So that, that was another thing that that helped motivate me to do some of these, these videos. But even after getting elected to City Council, I still go door to door, especially if they're things like road design changes and something really important that I've learned. And maybe it seems obvious, but I really would like other elected officials and other advocates to understand is that people really want to be heard. And you know, there have been a bunch of times in during my time as an elected official where city council or city staff has failed to reach out to residents about a change and and then, no surprise, residents got up in arms about what was going on. And what I found is that if I personally reached out to people, and again, this is not super scalable. This is not a super scalable strategy. But when, when I did personally knock on doors and talk to people and explain, here's what we're considering doing, here's what we're considering doing it. Can you tell me what you think about it? And how can we do this in a way that you could be on board with and so far, that's been one of the most effective ways that I've found to actually pushing forward some of the changes that that we want to see in the city. And it's a difficult strategy to scale up, but I think it's really effective when when you have a lot of community buy in, because I think a lot of people immediately go to when they hear about something, it's why weren't we told about the sooner and and how can I stop this? And you know, here are all the downsides that it's going to bring to me, rather than, Oh, maybe there are some potential benefits that I could gain from this. And so I do think having, you know, a kind face at your door, talking to you about some of these changes actually helps, I guess, get people thinking in a in a bigger way than you know, all the all the negatives that could come to them.
Tiffany Owens Reed 34:08
Well, I think what you're getting at is that part this is my grand philosophical psychological theory as someone who's neither philosopher or a psychiatrist, but I think humans have, like, a little civic part of their brain, you know, where it's like, we want to be part we actually want to be part of our communities. We want to be part of our city in the sense that we want to collect, we want to participate in shaping what that city is, right? And I think this is something we've we haven't lost on a intuitive level. I think it's still in our DNA as human beings. But I think the way our cities have been handled, they've been handled as almost like portfolios, you know, like investment portfolios, a very inhuman kind of, like, detached, sort of like, oh, leave it to the experts kind of way. But at the end of the day. The you know, I don't know if you've read any of Louis mumford's work, but, you know, you read big, old, thick book. I haven't read it all, but it just you read about the city in history. It's the name of the book over time, and it becomes really clear that the city or the the polis or the community or the neighborhood or the gathering or the village, wherever it is, the town, right? It's not just an efficient organization of human bodies. You know, it's not just this thing, this that that kind of exists simply for market or economic reasons or simply for efficiency reasons. There's something deeply like meaningful, and I think there's something deeply, I just think people want to be part of shaping their town like. I think it's part of what it participating in that civic life, participating in those conversations, participating in the conversation about, What will our city become like? What do we value? How do we spend our money? Actually think that's more than just like, something to do when you have time. I think people deeply long for that type of participation. We've just sort of designed it out of like our I think modernity, in some ways, has sort of and even the way we've designed our cities has even designed it out. But think about like, how people you know how transient our culture is, and how we move from place to place. So I think that feeling of like you can have a bond with your place, and you can be part of shaping it, and that being a very important role for a human being to inhabit, I think the way we've constructed our modern world has kind of erased that or eroded that, but I think people still feel it, and I think that's what you're getting at when you're going door to door, is you're almost kindling that all over again, where it's like, yeah, people might say like they're doing the cost benefit analysis on the surface, but what's actually Beneath that is this feeling of like people want to have civic agency, and they want to be a part of a polis, to use ancient word,
Justine Underhill 36:56
yeah. You know, I think that it's funny, because this is something that I've been struggling a lot with recently, which is, you know, people really do want to be part of shaping the city that they live in. But then, on the other hand, and I would actually say that, you know, since the 1970s or so, a lot of city governments have become much more responsive to citizen uprising. I think about Jane Jacobs and and her role in New York City in terms of, you know, blocking the highways going through the Manhattan and so, and how that sort of citizen uprising actually did change the landscape around them. But then, you know, more recently, reading Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's abundance, you know, what happens when there's there's so much community input that things don't get done? You know, I think about congestion pricing in New York City. I mean that that took a very long time, very, very, very long time to roll out. And so, why does it take so long for us to do certain things? Why does it cost so much for California to build a high speed rail system? Why is it that, you know, something has to go through so much environmental review when it's public transit like that is way more environmental than anything else. Why does it cost so much to do these things like we're one of the wealthiest platelets. We have some of the wealthiest cities in the world. Why is it so difficult for us to get some of these things done? So with
Tiffany Owens Reed 38:28
this too, I've been reading this book on the history of downtown, and basically he just marches you through, like, several cities wanting to have a subway, and it just being shut down because one interest group got so loud and powerful and they didn't want and it was based on really short term limited thinking, right? And, like, not really being able to understand, like, what you're saying about second I can't remember second order effects, yeah, or even long term effects, right? And it's so frustrating to read, right? Because you're like, ah, people should be part of the conversation, but at the same time, you're like, look at what they can do, and they're part of the conversation Exactly,
Justine Underhill 39:05
exactly. So there's, there's definitely like this that I've been struggling with, but that's where I really do think, you know, what I think is bad is sort of the, I call it the mob mentality, where you have this gigantic town hall and then people are yelling at each other, and they're really angry. And I've, I've seen my fair share of that, what I think is far more effective is litter. Is the going door to door strategy to talk to people in a calm way and have individual conversations. Because I think you actually, and again, it's super time consuming, but I've found it to be far more effective in terms of being able to get to a place where a lot of people can can agree and be happy with the path forward, rather than just everybody being unhappy. What would
Tiffany Owens Reed 39:47
you say has been, like, a key lesson that you've learned about, like, how cities work and just like, if it's like decision making, or, I don't know, I just, I feel like this is such a i. Yeah, it's such a big question mark for people I've, I've had a few conversations about this recently, like how hard it feels, or how complicated it feels to really understand how city governments make decisions and, yeah, just how all of that works when it comes to making, you know, helping your city achieve certain outcomes. What would you say you would want people to understand about the value of local government, or just something to understand about, I don't know about how local government works in general. I think,
Justine Underhill 40:30
I think people are surprised to realize how much local government decides like about things regarding your life and what you interact with. Like it's actually probably far more than you're getting from from the state or the federal level. Like, you know, it's, it's all of your stop signs and roads and schools, it it keeps going. I mean, it's so funny, your sewer system. I've, when I was on the campaign trail, I kept getting questions about all these different things. I was like, Oh my gosh. How am I going to understand all of this. You know, I got a question about whether gravel should be treated as impervious surface, because we tax people for the amount of impervious surface they have. I've never thought about that, but it turns out that humans, oh no. I was like, wow, this is amazing. So now I got to learn about gravel. And it turns out it actually does compact so much so that it can be fairly impervious. So anyway, we don't treat it as read your answer,
Tiffany Owens Reed 41:22
ladies and gentlemen, if you ever wanted to know
Justine Underhill 41:26
then, anyway. So yeah, what I would say is you there is, there are so many decisions happening right now that will affect your life. And one of my frustrations is I wasn't involved in local government like in the year leading up to and being in Falls Church in the year and a half leading up to me running for city council, I didn't I wasn't paying attention. I didn't know much, and I regret that, because there was so much that happened that I could have been a part of, and I could have shaped like our some of our bike plans and some of our pedestrian plans and some of our sidewalk and streetscape plans. There's so many things that happened that I wished I had been part of, and you literally can make a difference. It's It's surprising, and this is for better or worse, how much you as an individual have the power to change in your city, even in large cities, the people in charge do listen to constituents. And so if you're frustrated about something, it is 100% worth speaking up about it, because you'd be surprised what sort of impact that can make in the long run. It was only in the past few years that we've had people in Falls Church speaking up about biking in the city. This is, I would say, within the past maybe five years or so, and that's led to a very significant shift in how our city operates. So if I could give any piece of advice, it would be, please speak up. And I don't, there's probably a newsletter or some way that you can find out about things that are coming up in your city. And it's, it's worth getting plugged into that, because you might be surprised with with all the things that are actually going on.
Tiffany Owens Reed 43:06
Before I forget, I want to ask you about how your work on city council, or just kind of being part of this community. How does it shape your creative process as a YouTuber like, how do those two talk to each other?
Justine Underhill 43:19
A lot of my video inspiration comes from things that I've heard during council meetings, and it also comes from things that I wish because council meetings are not particularly great for having personal discussions. Um, it's, you know, you're I'm sitting up on this diocese, above people, and then people are giving public comment, and it was only, like, terrified, shaking in their boots, yeah, and then, and there's no real place to respond and, like, anyway, so, or maybe you can, but it's only for like, a minute or two, and it's very formal. And so I've actually found that a lot of the my video work comes into play in what I would like to be able to say to people that I'm not able to say up on the diocese, or that I'm not able to say during during a council meeting. And so this is almost a different way of getting the message out. And then the other thing is, you know, when you're talking to people, or even when I was going door, door to door, you know, I'd be talking about urban design or urban ideas, but being able to show it in the videos is far more impactful and far more persuasive, because I can actually show people the vision, rather than just sort of saying, like, oh, this will be a lot better. It's like, you can see how it is, like, a lot nicer and a lot more pleasant and a lot more safe to walk around in. And so actually showing examples and showing transformations, I found is particularly powerful, and a lot of that, a lot of that those ideas come out of frustrations or things that I'd like to share with people that I hear during that council meetings. We started
Tiffany Owens Reed 44:54
this show talking a little bit about the secret life of pets. I'm curious if you can tell us a little bit about this. Secret Life of YouTube creators. What? What has it been like learning how to do this? Like, what do you wish people understood behind the scenes? Because your videos are fantastic, but they I can also tell from the little dabbling I've done in film work that they are a lot of work. So what has that been like for you? Kind of mastering, like, you know, you have ideas for content, but then actually putting them together, producing them and like, keeping a time a good pace with how often they come out, and all that. Yeah,
Justine Underhill 45:26
it's funny, because I almost feel like I was cursed in a little bit of a way. So I have a slight what I would consider to be impediment, which was that, because I had worked at this documentary company, and I had this team of graphic designers and artists and audio people and videographers and editors, I then got a taste for what I like, what I wanted to do, or like, what sort of quality I wanted. And so think a lot of people aren't held back by that when they start out on YouTube. Whereas I was very I was like, you know, this isn't perfect, and this doesn't feel right, and the audio is off here, and, you know, and so I spent a year. It took me a year to make my first video, and that was working. I was wasn't working necessarily every day, but it was working a ton in my spare time. And then the next video took another year. And it's so funny because it was an offhand comment of somebody saying, This was about accessory dwelling units. They said, You know, why? Why are we doing this? They're not going to be affordable. And so then that, like, spurred a little bit, I don't know, I always get like, this moment of, like, a little spark. I'm like, oh, I need to respond to that. Like, it's okay if these, you know, accessory dwelling units aren't like, you know, they're $400,000 which is a lot cheaper than the $1.6 million house that already exists in Falls Church. So it is more affordable. $400,000 isn't like, you know, super cheap, but it's also like, way better than the other options. And so that's not a really good reason to say no to these, these units, anyway. So that that sparked something in me, and so then I set out to make the next video, and then that that took another year. And so what I've started doing recently is is outsourcing a little bit more. And so I now am working with a video editor, and so I'm not editing everything myself, and that makes things go so much faster. I'm now working. I have a friend who I worked with before at the documentary company, and he's doing some of the audio engineering, and so it's just everything is like moving so much more smoothly. Now I'm not, you know, it takes me a while to do the research and to write the scripts and all these things, but I'm now getting into a rhythm that, you know, hopefully I can start making videos every one to two months. But, you know, it's still, it's still a ton of work to get there, especially on top of everything else, like the city council, yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 47:55
how do you I'm just curious, how do you interpret the media landscape right now, the con, the tick tock, the YouTube, the reels, everything when you take a when you step back. I'm asking this because especially as someone who cares about excellence and quality, and especially as someone who wants to tackle complex topics, do you feel like the platform still reward that, or do you feel like there's kind of this race to the bottom of like, the most entertaining, short, funny, shareable, viral, you know, it I feel like sometimes the world is going towards like, Haha, Look, someone slipped on a banana peel, and then we're all happy, because that easily satisfied with that, rather than, you know, enjoying work that is of excellence, that people have actually invested lots of time in creating to inform us is something, how do you how do you interpret what you're seeing right now, especially as a creator? Yeah,
Justine Underhill 48:46
I think there are a few ways that I look at this, at least in the urbanism space. I think there's a ton of space for all sorts of different types of content, and the more content, in my view, the better. Because I think one, at least, my opinion, is that some of the most the best ways to persuade people is actually, it's, unfortunately, it's not having the best argument all the time. It's, it's repetition. And so I really do think the more people, you know, making tiktoks. And it could just be like a short little thing about urbanism, or it could be a YouTube short about, you know, street design or whatever else. I think those people seeing this over and over start to then get in their head like, oh yeah, we could be doing things differently. Like, why aren't we doing things differently? And so I think, you know, some of this, like, reaches the masses. And then, you know, once they get sucked in and start thinking about this more, then maybe they'll go for the longer, 30 minute quality video. But in the same way that we were kind of talking about how people, you know, some people have a taste for, like, you know, high density cities. Some people have a taste for medium density, and then some people really want to live out, you know, on their ranch in the middle of nowhere. I think people also have the same thing for the content that they consume. And so. Yeah. I personally am not competing with the people that make the, you know, super short content. That's like, yeah, what I would say, like, low quality, yeah, content. But I still think, especially in the urbanism space, it's useful and it's good to have. And it's funny because my friend, we were talking, and one of my friends said, you know, who watches 30 minutes on on YouTube anyway? And my other friend laughed. She goes, so many people watch, like, 3060, 90 minute videos on YouTube, like, especially, like some of these higher quality videos, there is, like, a huge audience for that. Like, she even, this is funny. She even watches videos of people watching Lord of the Rings for the first time because she just enjoys seeing their faces. So anyway, I mean, I don't know there's like, room for all sorts of content. And so like my one friend, on the one hand, will watch people just watching other movies that you know for hours. I, like my other friend, will only watch tick tock videos. And anyway, so like To each their own. And I think it's, I think it's fine. And so there, there's still a fairly sizable audience for what I believe to be long form, high quality content. And I think that the shorter Tiktok things can actually sometimes, and the YouTube shorts can bring people, yeah, that longer content. I
Tiffany Owens Reed 51:17
mean, every time I look at videos like yours, and then I look at the number of these, and I look at the number of comments and how thoughtful a lot of the comments are, it's kind of encouraging. And I'm like, Ah, there's, there's plenty of reason to be hopeful that, you know, despite all the evils of the internet and the smartphone and everything, like people are still thinking about these things, or they're still interested in these things, and they will sit down and watch a well made, longer form video on this topic. So I think, I think there's plenty to be hopeful about. Yeah,
Justine Underhill 51:46
actually, it's funny. I've usually the comments on my videos are like, are super interesting and nice, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback. What's funny? I'll just tell a quick story. There was somebody that was leaving some pretty nasty comments on my on my video, and so I their their YouTube name was their actual name. And so I looked them up, and I found them on LinkedIn, and I reached out to them, and then we started, we started a conversation over email, and was funny. So this is somebody who just like, really hated what I was doing. And then by the end of the conversation, they said, you know, Justine, you have a beautiful voice, and I'm excited to see you. Let it shine. I don't know, just like to see how far and that just goes to the power of the individual conversation we were talking about before, where, you know, sometimes like actually having those that one on one discussion, because this was about about housing and what happens when you don't allow more housing to be built. It was actually a very effective conversation, I would say, to actually get somebody to open their mind a little bit more so speaking
Tiffany Owens Reed 52:56
of housing and kind of navigating, like people's different positions and how like, how tense it can be. You, I feel like you can understand this particularly well because you told me in our intro chat that you actually used to you had an experience years ago where you were advocating against housing, and I kind of come full circle. How do you process that experience looking back on it like today, and how does that inform you when you're talking with people about these topics, that can be somewhat like touchy and emotional? Well,
Justine Underhill 53:27
first of all, I'll say I have a ton of cognitive dissonance. Yeah, I you some might be able to, well, you might be able to call me a NIMBY, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put labels on it like that. This was about 10 years ago. There was a proposed condo project in my old neighborhood and middle it wasn't a huge building. Was a gentle increase in density, maybe adding about 20 housing units. But what I loved about that street was just, there was all these, like, beautiful early 1900s townhomes. They went up three or four stories. And I guess I just really loved the I mean, this is where you can say, I love the character of the neighborhood, and I wanted to preserve that. And so that was the main reason that I ended up getting involved and fighting this project. And it was really just because I thought it was ugly. It really just came down to esthetics. It's funny though, because once I started on that path of fighting it, then, like that was my, my primary goal. I remember somebody saying, Well, do you think we could, like, help, you know, talk to the developer about, you know, ways to change the outside of the design to be a little bit more esthetic. And by that point, I just like, No, I didn't want this project at all. And so, yeah, it's funny, because at the time, I. Was a good person. All the neighbors I was working with were good people. In some ways. It was like, you know, this neighborhood coming together to stop, you know, the small neighbors fighting this like evil developer that came in from the outside and was trying to ruin our neighborhood. And it's taken the past 10 years for me to, like, really reflect on on what was going on and what happened, and I will say, like, now I still care about esthetics, like, so that hasn't changed. Like, I haven't changed that much. I still care about how things look, but my values have. I'm a little bit more aware of all of the values and what's involved. So what I started thinking about is, what happens when you block people from living in a city, what happens when you block people from living near where they work? What are the consequences of that? So that gets to the second order, consequences. What happens when you ban new housing and you have population and city growth, and so, you know, there are consequences that I care far more about Now than, let's say, the exterior design or the esthetics. And it's funny, because, like all the people that I grew up with in DC, had to move away from the neighborhoods that they grew up in. They had to move away from being close to work because it was too expensive to live there. And at the time, I hadn't completely connected me opposing new housing to my friends have to live far away from me. And now coming full circle, I realized, you know, nobody's, I mean, this gets to your comment earlier about like, right and wrong. Nobody's bad or handful here for the developers,
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:45
we'll let the developers be bad. That's
Justine Underhill 56:48
funny. There's no it's so funny because it's like, with the developers, though, it's like, they're they're literally building new housing, like the house that I'm in was built by a developer. Every single person lives in something that was built by some developer somewhere, like and you can call them actually, it's funny. There's even studies that show you use the word home builder, not developer. People feel a lot better about home builders than they do about developers, even though they're the same thing. And so yeah, they weren't, they were these, like evil masterminds. They were just
Tiffany Owens Reed 57:22
even with that, it's like, the more I've learned about everything that goes into become like functioning as a developer again, I have to check myself, because I'm like, why am I? Why is it so easy to use this, like, good per this hero, villain framework, when, in reality, it's like, if I stop and pause and think, like, okay, are these all to some degree. I'm not saying everyone's exempt from any kind of moral responsibility, and I do think there is a lot of extraction in the way that city development works, which I think is a whole nother conversation when you're looking at it from kind of the fiscal side. But I think, you know, just pausing for a minute to say, like, could there be a situation in which every actor here is responding to a particular set of constraints or incentives or and they're behaving rationally, even though we don't like the outcome. There could be a way of looking at what they're doing from like and interpreting it as like given what they're working with. This is a rational behavior. It may not tell the whole story. There could also be, you know, moral let down of some degree or some questionable decision making, right? But I think even having the option to say, like, do we have to frame this as good and bad person, or can we, is there another way of looking at what's going on? And I think that can just really help to really understand the true complexity of the city and the true complexity of the problems we're facing and the solutions we need and the options that are even on the table. Yeah,
Justine Underhill 58:45
I It's funny, because now, in from, from my my vantage point, when I'm thinking about, you know, when people are concerned about new development or changes, or whatever else, I do try to think back to where I was, let's say, 10 years ago. And you know what my motivations were, in terms of, terms of blocking it. And then also think to to now, which is especially for like, you know, when you were talking about developers like they they're responding to a certain incentive structure, but part of that incentive is there are a ton of new people living in cities, or there are a ton of new jobs that exist in cities. And so they're responding to an incredibly high demand. It's not how much our cities have grown. And I think, you know, close to by the year 2025 close to 90% of the population in the world is going to be living in cities. And so what happens when we don't allow for for new development, like, is it okay for people who what you touched on? And maybe this is a discussion for another time. Is who, who should or who could make money from the. Developing land. Like, is it okay for developers to make money from from developing new housing or building new housing, but actually, like, or, you know, a lot of times, if somebody sells their house, like, do they deserve to get so much money for a house? You know, that went up by like, let's say, a million dollars over the past few years when they did nothing to, like, make it worth a million dollars more. There's a lot that's embedded with land values and property values, and who deserves the money that I think really riles people up. And I can understand that, because sometimes it just doesn't seem fair how our system is set up to reward people who, frankly, didn't necessarily do much to deserve the windfall that they got. But then, on the other hand, their nest egg might be wrapped up in in that in that housing. So anyway, it's a really but I think
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:00:53
what you're getting at too is something that I think can be helpful for strong towns, you know, people who are part of the strong towns conversation, and that, and the sense that, I think there's always room to pause when you're when you're thinking about any particular outcome, right? And I think it's okay to have a moment where you're like, Okay, here's what I agree with about this, and here's what I don't right? Instead of everything having to be immediate, bike lane, we support it immediate, you know, whatever it's it's like, Well, does, is it strong pounds? Then yes, you know, it's like, Well, I think it's okay to have ranked goods and, like, ranked priorities and conditional approach, like a conditional attitude, about like, well, this could be good under these conditions, right? Or this could be helpful if navigated in this way. So like, Jane Jacobs, I think she gets at this when she writes about cataclysmic change, right? People don't want their neighborhood or their city, whatever to change at such a high like, like, like, I think waco briefly was thinking about, that's where I live. They've been this massive, super tall tower, um, and that would have been an example of cataclysmic change, right? So I think, as strong towns advocate, you know, I could say, you know, I'm in favor of putting land to more productive use. I'm not in favor of cataclysmic change that could have like, massive ripple effects on this neighborhood. So I don't have to, you, I don't have to immediately support every new development project that puts land to productive use. I can be a little bit conditional or nuanced with like, how I navigate that right?
Justine Underhill 1:02:24
And that's something that I've been trying to be very clear with people, even even for bike lanes and other things, it doesn't necessarily make sense to put a bike lane everywhere. And frankly, yeah, doesn't even necessarily make sense to put a sidewalk or pedestrian infrastructure everywhere. And so, you know, it, I've been trying to be very clear that I'm not advocating for, you know, like to try to upend everyone's world and force everyone to bike everywhere. I don't want bike lanes at IKEA. Well, I don't know. Maybe, maybe it's possible. Maybe it's fine. Maybe I should be dreaming better, bigger,
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:02:57
like a really fast highway type of road, you know, I don't really want sidewalks there, honestly, yeah. And
Justine Underhill 1:03:04
so that's where, like, I like, I don't think it makes sense to put that investment absolutely everywhere. But there are certain places, especially like downtown cores and major cities, where it does make sense to do those sorts of things. And so you're right in the in having that sort of conditional sense where it's not just like blanket, like you have to accept all change, because not all change is good, but being being able to understand what the trade offs are. And so that's what I've seen my role as doing, especially as I was going door to door, to explain to people maybe you might lose some parking with these bike lanes, but you'll still have parking nearby. And then maybe this will also help slow cars down from that are driving on your street with all the the narrowing and other improvements that we bring. And then on top of that, it'll just make it a much more pleasant, enjoyable place that's that's more connected, because there's evidence that shows that when you have cars going slower on your street and not such a busy thoroughfare, it actually helps neighbors get to know each other more. And so go going through all of the trade offs and understanding all the benefits and all of the the potential negatives, and making sure that we're totally transparent about what can happen. So
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:04:23
in this world of like facilitating conversation, or just like advocating for making your city better, you're also part of another effort in this arena under the organization Falls Church forward. Can you? Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing at that organization as we wrap up here, and what you guys are working on? Yeah,
Justine Underhill 1:04:43
so this is a new group, I guess. Yeah, organization group, but it's very informal. But we are actually now at 500 members, which is exciting, but just started a few years ago, and we've really been, I'm working with a team. Of five other people to really build this urbanist organizations, very similar to a lot of the strong towns, local groups, and we've been doing everything from creating a welcome kit and a neighborhood ambassadors team so that we have people on the ground in each neighborhood to, I mean, hopefully what we'd love to build it into is a way to filter information up to city government and as well as a way to filter information down to the neighborhoods. So if there's something that's coming to your community, we can then contact the neighborhood ambassador, and they can be someone who's who's in touch with people in the neighborhood, and also be there to welcome new people. We recently hosted a civics boot camp with over 100 attendees to learn how local government works. And then we've been doing everything from crosswalk painting and street painting. We have a lentil potluck, we host Halloween bike rides. We've just been doing a lot of community building activities and trying to combine our five pillars, which involve housing, welcoming, culture, people, first places, community, business and one more Hold on. Let me think, well, I'll cut you go, go to the website to oh man, oh, housing, housing for all that's the other one that's really important, and so we'll we're trying to find ways to activate people on those topics. And so like, we had a food biking tour of the city, and so then people were able to explore the pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure and figure out what needs to be improved, as well as supporting community businesses. So we're finding ways to sort of combine all of these different pillars and try to advocate for for them through fun, fun events.
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:06:51
So I pulled up your website for you, and you have bracing a housing for all mentality, nurturing local community businesses, designing streets and public spaces to be for car for people, not just cars inviting green spaces and a welcoming culture. Yeah, that's Yeah. I think that just goes back to what I was saying about I think people really do want to be part of shaping the vision and the look and the feel and the direction of their cities. It seems like this, this is giving you a chance to give people that opportunity, more of that opportunity, and
Justine Underhill 1:07:26
it's really a positive way to do these things. Because, you know, sometimes people go to City Hall and they're very angry and, you know, they they're upset about whatever's happening. This is a different outlet that's that's very positive and and allows people to get to know each other and hang out and also, but also doing things that are that are good for the city and community building. And I strongly believe that when people more people know each other, that leads to a stronger local government and stronger community ties. Oh, Justine,
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:07:58
you keep bringing up more interesting topics that we can't talk about because now we're out of time. This is the story of my life. Unfortunately, all good things must come to a close. So on that wonderful note, I will ask you to share with us a little bit about your town and a couple of places you like to recommend people go to get a slice of local life. Okay,
Justine Underhill 1:08:20
so this is hard. So Falls Church has become very much a foodie scene recently. We have a ton of new restaurants that have recently opened. I'm gonna recommend at least one restaurant, which is a place called Pan seair, and it's an Afghan restaurant with the most amazing pumpkin dish. So if you go there, get the could do. That's my favorite. It's funny, I even looked up could do online, and what came up was the restaurant, not not a recipe for could do, but the other things that I love about Falls Church, like on Saturday mornings, we have the farmers market, and so just walking around there, and then right next door, we have Cherry Hill Park, and then you can walk over to the old farmhouse that we have, and then down to the library and get a book. That's one of my that's that is my perfect Saturday. And then obviously, well, you have to go by the W no D Trail, which is our old trolley trail that was converted into a bike trail. And over 2 million trips happen there every year. And it's just one of the most amazing places to take you from from city to city in Virginia and explore some of the local life in different places, but definitely fun in Falls Church,
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:09:31
when I spent a lot of time on the road, traveling or just writing, or especially in New York City, I always needed to know where to find a good coffee shop. Do you have a favorite coffee shop or pub, yeah,
Justine Underhill 1:09:41
okay, well, I'm gonna, man, I'm gonna list three, because I can't pick one. North Side social is super cute, and it's right in, like, the heart of Falls Church cafe, Kindred is this, like, cute little sport? Excuse me, British cafe, coffee shop. And then I. My other favorite one is Godfreys, which just opened, and it's great example of adaptive reuse, where they took an old building that was falling apart, they completely fixed it up, they turned it into a hotel. And this coffee shop, and it's just been booming. It's amazing. You can't even it's hard to find a place to like, you know, squeeze in there to find a table. It's become so popular, but it's well worth it. I'm
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:10:22
just curious if our world over, like overlapped, did you have a favorite coffee shop in New York City? Oh,
Justine Underhill 1:10:27
man. Where did I go in New York City? Um, I was, I was living in Times Square. So what was I doing for coffee? I was blue
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:10:41
bottle opened. Oh, down there. Yeah, something with a dog in it. Gray. Dog, black. I don't know. There was always
Justine Underhill 1:10:49
interesting. I definitely had there was, there was a space around the corner for me, but it was like one of those hole in the wall places, and I don't even know the name, that's where it went. But again, this was Times Square. So I don't, know. I don't know if I recommend people going there.
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:11:05
Well, Justine, this was a lot of fun. I'm really glad we got to have this conversation, because I know how panels go. And you just, you have to split the time up among several people, and there's always so much more you want to talk about. So I feel like this is like the extended version of the of the panel before the panel even happens. So it's just really nice and special, and it's been wonderful hearing your perspective. We will put links to the recommendations, but more importantly, to Justine's YouTube and website around the organization she mentioned, so you can learn more about her work. But Justine, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking with me. Thank you
Justine Underhill 1:11:39
so much, and I'm looking forward to actually seeing you in person. I used to
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:11:44
live in Providence, and it'll be fun. Yeah, I'm so excited to see it again, and just all the memories really special place. So yes, if you're going to be at the National gathering, come say hello to me and Justine at our panel. Thank you for joining us for another conversation. I'll be back soon with another is another conversation, and the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.
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Tiffany Owens is the host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, she is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.