Diane Alisa: How To Restore the American Village
Diane Alisa is an author and founder of the nonprofit End Car Dependency. Her nonprofit helps support families by making it easier to get around safely without a car, build strong support networks, and empower children to be part of their communities.
Diane joins this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss the impact of car-dependent design on families and the importance of building integrated communities (or “villages”).
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Tiffany Owens Reed 0:06
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the bottom up Revolution podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany Owens Reid. This is a show where I talk to ordinary people who are working in an organic, bottom up, grassroots fashion to improve their community, making it safer, more beautiful and more resilient. Jane Jacobs has this quote that I I really find thought provoking. She says, cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because and only when they are created by everybody. I think at the first at first reading this is one of those really aspirational quotes that everyone finds really inspirational. They want to put it on posters and on their notebooks and on their websites, and rightly so, it is quite inspirational. But I think if you stop and really think about it, it becomes clear that it's also a diagnostic statement that can help us describe what's gone wrong and how we've approached city building in America for the past 100 years, specifically the fact that they are not built by everybody, and as a result, they actually don't work for everybody, I would argue. And I think today's guest would agree with me that many of our cities don't work specifically for families, specifically, even more specifically for moms and children. If you really take a look at the design of our neighborhoods, our roads, our third spaces, it will quickly become obvious that moms and kids were definitely not part of the design process, and I think as a result, that these spaces really don't work for their they don't work for them. They don't meet their needs. They don't take into account some of the particular ways that they move through the built environment. Today, I'm going to talk with someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about this, and someone who is working to help more people become aware of these limitations, and to suggest that perhaps it's time that we rethink this. Diana Lisa lives in Utah with her husband and two sons, through her writing and nonprofit work at end car dependency, she advocates for Urbanism that supports families by making it easier to get around safely without a car, make it easier for them to build strong support networks and that empower children to be part of their communities. Diane, welcome to the bottom up Revolution podcast.
Diane Alisa 2:23
Thank you. I am so excited to be here. I've listened to this podcast before, and it was part of my urbanist journey, so it's amazing that I'm here.
Tiffany Owens Reed 2:33
I love to hear that. I feel like we have so much to talk about before this, and I think we're both a little bit nervous because this could become a runaway conversation, the one podcast that lasts for two hours, and I get an email from all my editors, like Tiffany, what happened? I feel like you've got two moms on a podcast to talk about moms and children and cities. We couldn't, we couldn't. Okay, so we have a lot to lot to cover today, but let's, let's start off talking a little bit about your story. So you have an interesting background in the performing arts. You study theater in college, and now you're a writer. You've written a book called A love letter to suburbia, which we're going to talk a little bit more about later. And you're also a grassroots urbanist, and you're really, really trying to get people to rethink suburbia. But I would love for you to just start off telling us the story. How did you discover this world of urbanism, and how did this become so important to you?
Diane Alisa 3:32
Yeah, so I did study theater, which I thought, I think is really important to my journey, because all of that major was trying to understand the world, the cultural aspects of the world, political aspects of the world, because you can't tell a story if you don't understand those things. And so that was a stirring pot for me of trying to figure out how I fit in and what I thought about things. But when I graduated, I just found a Jason slaughter video, which a lot of urbanists find, horns built by him. But I actually before that, I think there was a slow burn. I have this very distinct memory of a history professor in my junior high years. And I don't remember a lot about junior high, but I remember exactly what this professor said. He he said, I hate Utah traffic, and why don't we have roundabouts everywhere? Roundabouts are so much better than stoplights, and it was just this random tangent that he went on that I literally just kept within myself without any context for a long time, and so like these things about the world, I they just stuck with me. And then I have this beautiful memory of coming home from a vacation with my husband in my early years of marriage, and we weren't driving in a car. We were driving in, or we were in a train, and I remember sitting in the very early mornings of the hour, and we were just sitting on our our luggage and laughing and chatting the whole way home, even though we were so beaten, tired, and so I I have been thinking about these things for a really long time, but when I had my first baby, I simultaneously found this Jason slaughter YouTube channel, and I was orange pilled so badly I the first video was why I won't let my kids grow up in the suburbs, and everything that had Just been bubbling in me that I was so frustrated about clicked and I realized that had a lot to do with environment. Of course, you know, our environment affects us quite a bit, and I had just been ignoring that, as though the given environment in my life was just the status quo and there was nothing wrong with it, and as soon as I became orange built, I was like, well, there's actually a lot wrong with it, and it's not really working for me at all.
Tiffany Owens Reed 6:10
Can you tell us about some of those frustrations that you feel like you had been sort of noticing along the way that this video gave language to or helped you articulate better. So
Diane Alisa 6:23
it really came down to my first baby. There's so much contention around motherhood, and I was really trying to avoid it. And I bought everything. I felt so prepared. I had been researching for several years. I I had everything in my tool belt, and I even, you know, planned around my car, because my car was this big part of my environment, and so I was gonna, like, put specific things in my car for my baby. And he came into the world, and he absolutely was. He hated driving for one, like day one, putting him in that car seat on the way home was so physically painful for me to hear him scream on the way home, and I couldn't feel right about that, and and then he just hated being home as well. He wanted my 1,000% attention, like he was so social. He didn't want to just be with me. You know, he just really pushed me into this community driven idea of like, I need other people in my life. I actually can't do this alone. He needs other things than just me, and so that was the catalyst where I started thinking about the way that we raise children and the way that our environments support us raising children, and they really don't. They really don't. And I think that's why there's so much contention around motherhood, because so many people are lacking that village community support, and we talk about it in a superfluous way, like you need a village, and yet we're not even building them in our own environments. And so how can you have a village you have to put immense effort, and what if? What if you don't have that family or friends nearby? What do you do then? And I think a lot of women are just suffering, and so are their children.
Tiffany Owens Reed 8:14
Yeah, I am used to joke. When I was about to have my first son, I went to a birthing center close to downtown, and I used to joke that I was briefly contemplating i If I could walk, if I could incorporate some kind of walkability, just since sheer protests of the fact that my son's first experience with the world would be being pushed being like, strapped down in a car seat and driven around. I actually was it really bothered me, actually, like it. It really bothered me that that was, that would be his first quote, real world experience. And, yeah, there were these moments he still screams. Sometimes I have to work really hard to, like, distract him, or get him to think about like we've adopted this cat in our neighborhood, sort of. And sometimes I have to, like, distract him with talking about, like we're gonna go see the cat, or we're gonna go do the same, just so that he just doesn't focus on the fact that these things drop down again, or we would do long drives to Dallas or whatever, and the screaming and just hating being back there not being able to see us, yeah? So there's so many moments like that, and it is easy, I think, to just be like, well, this is just how everything is. He'll get used to it,
Diane Alisa 9:29
yeah, but that is the idea that they just have to get used to it. And I'm, I'm adamantly opposed to that. I don't think babies should get used to being stuck in a bucket.
Tiffany Owens Reed 9:38
No. Honestly, I look at him and I'm like, I'm so sorry. I hate this too. I know you hate this, you know, and I don't, I don't think it's normal for children have to be detached from their parents, strapped down, unable to move, staring at the, you know, boring gray leather paneling of the seat in front. You know, it's why is it a thing that a child? That a baby should have to get used to,
Diane Alisa 10:01
yeah, and that's just for infants too. I mean, the sedentariness of our lifestyle continues just that's the first moment that they're in this very low, stimulated place, looking at nothing and not being near a parent, right?
Tiffany Owens Reed 10:20
So continuing your story a little bit. How did this go from becoming an interest to becoming a I'm not sure what the next word would be. I don't want to say obsession to becoming. Let's just graciously use the word obsession. I'm not saying here. It's
Unknown Speaker 10:36
on the verge,
Tiffany Owens Reed 10:39
it's on a bird, to becoming something that shaped your sense of vocation. How did that unfold? Because that all of this is eventually translated into you writing this book, and then starting your nonprofit and car end car dependency. So yeah, can you tell that story a little bit? But how this all translated into how you think about your sense of vocation and the world,
Diane Alisa 11:01
yeah. So I my, I have this very purist view about infants, and I didn't want to let my baby cry. And so my life basically ended when I had my baby, because I couldn't take him places without him screaming all the time, and and that was really hard. I was like, alone in my house, feeling like I was carrying the weight of this brand new baby on my shoulders, and I felt so sad for the mothers around me, like I was suffering, and so I knew they must be suffering too, because I felt like I had a lot of social support, even. And it was still hard, and I just thought, What about women who don't have that, you know? So I immediately decided that I was just going to transform Utah. I started my organization and car dependency, which wasn't a great name, by the way, because all they heard was end car, and they forgot about the dependency part. They didn't critically think about that part. But we started advocating to like politicians, and we found a bunch of urbanist groups, and there was just so much conspiracy. I remember going to my first planning or it was a city planning meeting in another city nearby my mother's house, and I heard that a huge group of people were coming to oppose any type of walkability because they didn't want any new world order, big government entity coming in and taking over their cities. And I was like, wow, this is a problem. Like, I can't even, I can't even put decent trails in because there's so much conspiracy around walkability. So I just felt like the politicians and the residents were really a blockade to my mission, and I felt that was less so with planners. I felt like planners understood walkability a little bit more and and so the end car dependency kind of took a really fast halt because I was hitting a brick wall. And I was like, Well, I'm not gonna just hit my head against a brick wall. The brick wall has to come down. And so we ended up pausing that my husband still does a bit with that, but I started my book after several blogs that I had been writing that was piquing people's interest. But I was like, it's just not enough. I have so much to say, and I need these people on my side. I can't the planners. They are trying to get things done, and nobody will let them, and I'm not going to be part of that. I'm going to be a part of the group that helps people understand why this is great and why it doesn't have to be scary, and why it's actually a local effort and not an international effort. And so all of my focus went right into writing my book and and that's how it really started. But I do have a project within car dependency, which went sour. We're still trying to work through it, but it's just the people around me don't understand, and they don't really want it, and so I just, I wanted them to want it, and that was what the point of the book was. Let's
Tiffany Owens Reed 14:34
keep talking about the book. There's so much in the book. I ordered it, let's see. A couple days ago, so I've been working through it bit by bit so you cover so many different themes. I am very, as I told you, I'm very impressed at how you were able to take so much research, you did a lot of research, and compress it and make it really accessible and easy to understand. Unfortunately, we don't have time to go into all of the themes. Things today, in this conversation, it's impossible. We can do a bottom up revolution, mom's version marathon. I
Diane Alisa 15:08
it took my mother a year. I talked to my mother about this for a year. So I just tell people, I'm like, You got to read the book, because I have tried to have conversations with people about this. And there's a lot to talk about. There's
Tiffany Owens Reed 15:20
so much to talk about. Um, you've told us a little bit about about the backstory. I would like for you to go into a little bit more detail about who your audience is. You've kind of started to, kind of help us understand who your target audience is, and what are you hoping to persuade them of?
Diane Alisa 15:39
Yeah. So the audience is basically me and the people around me that I feel are deeply suffering, and they don't understand how environment is impacting them. In that way, they're focusing on very ethereal things like politics and cultural issues that they feel like they can't solve, that are out of their control, and a lot of it ends up on social media, because we'd have no local communities to talk about. And so it's, it's a broad, scary conversation, and I was one of them, you know, I, I was trying to solve issues in that way, but I really found that the physical structures of an environment are what propel people into healthy conversations, healthy change and healthy communities. And if those don't exist, then we are going to find ourselves in this out of control world where we're there's a huge top to bottom approach where we feel like people at the very tippy top are controlling all of our lives and and so I I wrote it for me in the people that were living in this way that didn't realize how those environments were affecting us. I remember BYU, I went to Brigham Young University. They created a new walkway with a very narrow street, and I, as a driver, was so annoyed that they were putting in bike lanes, separated bike lanes, because it was impeding my ability to get to school as fast as humanly possible, and I feel completely different about it. Now, I do think the design has serious flaws, because it is in a car centric design, but I understand why it was put there, and so my goal was to help these people realize why the infrastructure needs to change in a different direction, and why it's a good thing. So from my perspective, now, I'm like, oh, yeah, of course, we need separated bike lanes if anybody's going to get to the college on a bike, you know, let's not put the people who are trying to bike to school in danger. And then it goes so much further than just road design, but I needed them to realize that living in a walkable value system is going to benefit them, culturally, politically, economically, their family lives are going to thrive better. They're just going to have all of that wholesome culture that they've been yearning for that just isn't going to exist in a car centric space. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 18:23
it seems to me like a big part of what you're trying to do is help people draw the connection between their values, their lifestyle, and the design of their environment, and help them see that values do get translated into architecture and urban design at some point, like there's no such thing as neutral design. So it's such a funny situation, though, where a people have not been educated about that connection and so well, or they've been Connect. They've been educated along a different narrative of different values, and they've been told, like, things have to be designed this way in order for us to have those values, right? So like convenience or privacy or efficiency, right? This is the design of our cities. They are designed around those values. But like you're saying, I still, I think, like you're saying, with your experience of becoming a mom, like the isolation and the loneliness around that are people wanting more? I think people probably live in more cognitive dissonance than they realize as it pertains to the values and the types of experiences that they want to have and the type of city that they want to that they're protecting, and the tools that they and that they want to have at their disposal, such as the car, right? And it's, it's, it's tricky. How do you help people see that without making them defensive? And also, I think it's really important to help them realize, like, Hey, you're not being irrational. Like, it's very rational to, like, want, to not want an embedded. When you're driving, that's quite rational. It's rational to want to be able to go at a minimum speed, because the design of the car kind of informs you about it shapes your expectations, and so it's not crazy to not want to go under 20 miles an hour, because everything about the way the car is designed and the way it shapes your relationship to space and time makes it such that you need a certain baseline of speed in order to feel like you're gaining the efficient you're experiencing the efficiency gain of this tool, right? So, so I feel like it's it's so important to help people see, we're not saying you're crazy, we're not saying you're irrational, and we're not saying that there's something wrong with you for for valuing these things or wanting these things, but more helping them see like, but let's talk about what you actually really value in in your community or in your city. What kind of experience do you actually want to pass down to your children like, and I think if we can help more people articulate like, oh, I would love to meet my neighbor, oh, I would love for children to be able to play outside without worrying about getting hit by a car. Oh, I would love to whatever it is, right, and help them see, like, okay, these are the things you want. Now let's talk about how design can help us get there. And that's the gap that I think has to bridge, and it's the gap I think you're trying to bridge in your book.
Diane Alisa 21:21
Yeah, something that you said that really struck a chord with me was the that it is a rational opinion in so many ways, like I hear a lot of people talk about how they don't want anybody moving into Utah, and they don't want any more density. And it makes complete sense, because if you are living in a car centric framework, then of course, you don't want all of that traffic. You don't want the density, because it doesn't make sense anymore. If you build density in a way that is surrounded that is valued towards an inanimate object, instead of the people living in the place, then it's going to be overtaken by cars, and the people who are in the densest areas are going to suffer the most. And so I, for example, try to approach density in an extremely family driven lens, because if you have a family centric walkability, then the density isn't such a problem. Like, are you going to be so sad if it gets denser because your sister is living in the duplex next to you? Are you going to be upset if you want to live by your mother in law and she, like, is able to watch your children on occasion so you can go on a date? You know, you're not so separated by this very distinct, sprawling nature, then the density doesn't become the problem that you're making it out to be. And it actually kind of is awesome, because now you have people coming in that matter, but you don't have the baggage of the car centricity. You don't have the major stop lights and the really fast cars and the stucco box stores everywhere that you don't want to live next to in the parking lots, you know, like the walkability and the density, paired together is such a beautiful thing that can be amazing. So I understand why we have these nimbies who are like, Don't even touch my neighborhood. I don't want anybody. I don't want any more people living next to me. But in walkability, density is is so much more appealing and and sensible and community driven.
Tiffany Owens Reed 23:30
It's really interesting to me, the way you set up that example, because it's so true, human beings are such. They contain so many like contradictions at one time, because you're right. No one wants to live next door to the target. Yeah, no, no one wants to live like no one wants to have to drive like, 15 minutes down a strode and keep stopping at stop lights to get their groceries like, you know, lots of people have to do. So when you actually look at the specific patterns of like our built environment, and ask people how they actually feel about them. They probably have a much wider range of opinions and feelings. But the trick is that the package has been sold so over, like, over so many generations. Like, somehow, it's like, it's like, how do we un how do we undo this illusion? Because it's, it's such a strange contradiction where, like, I'll hear people say that they want to have the freedom of their own car but also complain that, like, if they got into a car accident, their whole life would be screwed. I'm like, do you hear yourself? Like, do you hear yourself? But then if I say, Oh yeah, we should have more public transportation. Oh my gosh, that's just like, it's very I think, I do think there are these irrational moments where I'm like, wait, I just I can't follow this line of reasoning. Like, I don't know. I don't know the word for it. I don't know if this is like a, just like a, I don't know. I don't know how to articulate in a concise word. Like, the pattern of thought that I see. Happening, or the pattern of association, or the just the strange kind of way things have been grouped together and communicated about, and the way that cognitive dissonance is the only way, the only the only way I can really describe it is just like, I don't think people understand how dissonant they are when they really articulate what they want,
Diane Alisa 25:19
yeah, because you can't have two things at once, right? Like, you can't have super beautiful environments that are really community driven and safe for your children and and have fresh food and local amenities, and also live in a car centric space, because car Centricity starts to destroy it bit by bit by bit. And I think the true thing is that they just don't understand how car centricity is doing it and and so when you can frame it in a correct paradigm, then these things start to make sense to them. They're like, Why is everything so hideous? It's like, well, everything is designed around the car, and the car doesn't care if anything is, if anything looks good and and the commercial area doesn't care if anything looks good, if it's all consumer driven, and it's not built by local people you know, like, Why does target really care if it looks gorgeous beyond your local neighbor, creating this Beautiful little cafe that they want you to visit and enjoy and have a good time. You know, there's such there's a huge difference there, and they just have not connected it to the car, which is, that was my mission to be like this thing that you think is so great, that is freedom. It's actually been a source of corporate propaganda. And if we just we don't have to get rid of the car, but if we rebalance the way we build societies around walkability, then you can have all of those beautiful things and the car. We don't have to completely destroy the car in the process, but you can't center the whole society around the suburb CAR framework. You're not going to get what you want in that system,
Tiffany Owens Reed 27:01
which I think is really the message that more people need to have an opportunity to, like, participate in. It's like, like, what I was saying about the Jane Jacobs quote, it's like, tell me what you want. Let's make a list like, what do you actually want, and then help bridge the gap between specific policy or design decisions, right? And I think if people saw it that way, if they saw design density and walkability as a means to achieving what they actually want, I think it could give them a chance to see it without all of the political baggage that unfortunately, a lot of these ideas have become associated with.
Unknown Speaker 27:38
It's very political. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 27:39
I want to ask you about the emphasis you have on on moms and children, that that's a that's a central theme of your book and your work. So we've talked a little bit about how your whole foray into urbanism started with becoming a mom. But how do you how are you hoping to inspire people to think differently about mothers and children after reading your book or seeing your social media content or hearing you talk like what is it that you want them to understand or Yeah or to see differently or to think about differently?
Diane Alisa 28:14
This is such a pivotal part of my mission. So first, I just want to say that the suburbs created this massive stigma against motherhood and children. There are so many problems related to it, because the suburbs create a system where they have r1 zoning is prioritized, and then you have to drive away from that community and go somewhere else. And that made it so that women could no longer function with their children. They had to put their children into very child designated places, because there was no functioning society around them for their children to be in and and have adult modeling. There wasn't any men around anymore to show children how to do things or how to work. And then women had to leave. Everybody had to leave if they wanted to go work in society. It's just this bizarre separation. And through all of that, we start to see a lot of religious rhetoric around motherhood, like, Okay, now we're in this situation where if we want to preserve the health of our children. Mothers need to stay home 24/7, in order for that to happen. And and then you have this other sect of women that are like, I need to be a part of society, and I do want children, but I also need to be a part of society. That is a biological need that so many women have. And so we have these two different groups of very religious women, sort of self sacrificing themselves to raise children in this very suburban way, where they are there all the time, and they are in control of what their children are doing. And then you have this other group of working women who, um. I quote, are sacrificing their children on the altar of autonomy and independence in this this very imbalance and negative view of what motherhood even means, as well as I talk about in my book that suburban environments are extremely degenerative to community, and so children as well start to lose social skills and trade skills, and they as suburbia becomes more regulated, they become less and less free To make autonomous decisions and learn how to grow up and and that was all such a huge problem for me, because I absolutely love children, but I am not a caretaker like I don't want to work with children, I don't want to be a teacher. I don't want to work in a daycare. I don't love children in that way, but I love children because they are so just they breathe life into adults. They think differently. They're so innocent, they don't understand a lot of things, and so they say funny things, and they can turn a very cold hearted person and warm them up because of how loving and forgiving and just wonderful they are. And I want people to realize my goal was that children and motherhood are not this, this battleground of morality, but that they are completely normal. Their motherhood is so normal. It doesn't have to be connected to religion in any way. And working in motherhood is so normal as well. To have that balance, like you're a mother, you have, you have a child coming on the way, and you know, you're, you're involved in strong towns. That's wonderful. That's amazing. And I also know that, you know, you put a lot of priority on your children, and that's, that's the way it's supposed to be like in those early years. They're very, very rigorous, but a woman should still be able to contribute to her community. But I want to actually start building environments again that are far more historical. It's super weird that we've separated women and children from society. They should be everywhere, like you should have a functioning society, a village like society where women are highly involved and also working next to their children. That's, that's how human society has functioned. It wasn't really possible any other way. Like, if you left your child with somebody they, they likely might have not have survived like they they needed their parents nearby. They needed community, and that's what I'm hoping to to reintegrate into the culture where we are building societies for mothers and children, because that helps everybody, that helps people who are aren't able bodied, that helps fathers, that helps the elderly. Because if you can, if you can design a city around children, then all of the you're taking into account the vulnerabilities of children, and so therefore you are taking into account the vulnerabilities of everybody. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 33:15
I hear in a lot of what you're saying at this that suburb, the way, almost, I feel like the word suburban is kind of a proxy for this idea of like fracture, that everything has become fractured, which is actually the whole point of zoning, in a way, was to split everything up. And if you compare that to how villages and towns and cities were designed historically, it's the complete opposite. Everything was, like, integrated, right? Because human beings are integrated. We don't. Okay, you and I are both talking as people who are not like neuroscientists or like psychologists, so I hope no one emails me like, you guys don't know what you're talking about, but I'm just going based on anecdotes and observations and being a human being in the world. But I don't feel like people really go through their life segmenting all the different aspects of their life in their head to to a very in this to the same severity that we see them separated in the built environment, right? Like you can be at work thinking about, you know, the birthday party you're going to on the weekend, the laundry that needs to get done, the sports, if you're a guy, you're probably thinking about something related to sports or the Roman Empire. If you know, you know. So I don't think life happens as fractured, in this fractured way, in this segmented way, right? And I think what you're getting at with the suburban model of city building is that it kind of forces us to take our very holistic way of being human and to suddenly split it all up. And I think that's unnatural for everybody. It's unnatural for moms, for single people, for young men, for young women, for older. You know, for seniors like I think there's something very intuitively right about when you when you think about a village right, where you see multiple types of shops all next to each other, you see the housing right above them, you see the town square, you see the church, you see the Civic offices, right? And I think something about that feels right, because it sort of mirrors like our own perception of ourselves in our own lives, right? We see ourselves as embedded in a diverse collection of duties and possibilities, right, and relationships. We don't see ourselves as all of these things being fractured. And so I think when you're talking about like, I think that's part of what you're inviting people to consider. It's like, well, how has Sony and single family lots and emphasis on parking and commuter culture for how is all of that coming together to force us to like, live lives of that are fractured, fundamentally fractured, even community is fractured because you have to drive to each other's houses right, rather than just being right down the street. And then you bought, you bring that back to like, I think moms probably inhabit one of the most seriously integrated roles you can ever imagine, right? Because you you have to do so much at the same time. You can't like, you can't zone part of the house for just children. You can't even zone part of an hour for just one activity. Because, I mean, have you been around a toddler like, it's, it's like, the minute you wake up, you know, it's one big bundle of, like, activity and movement and dialog, and you're trying to, you know, you're making some progress on different goals, but you're doing it. I don't know. I was trying to work out today, my son was suddenly super interested in trying to get this random object around his waist like so in the middle of working out, I'm like, pausing every five minutes to help him and getting life is so so, so integrated for moms because of this other little creature you have around you all the time and all the various responsibilities that go with that. And so I think our understanding of the integration of what it means to be a human being is just turned up to even a higher volume. And then you put that in this super fractured built environment, and I think that's part of what turns up the heat on, like our day to day. It's like, my god, every single thing takes, like, 10 times more energy or 10 times more planning or 10 times more money just to do the simplest thing, yes, just to live the level of multitasking and juggling that we're constantly doing. And then you have to keep confronting a world that doesn't get it, that's not designed for that.
Diane Alisa 37:36
Yeah, we, I took my children to the library. We had a dentist appointment, then I would decide to take him to the library, and then I had a gyno appointment, and oh my gosh, I have to, like, those types of trips where I'm just living life normally are almost impossible. Like, we go to the dentist appointment, they're very upset to be in the car, just there driving, and then naps like, what happens to naps? Basically, my children don't nap like, if I don't plan a day perfectly, I'm basically not going to step outside of my house. And that is really hard on the human soul for a woman to not feel like she can be involved in her community, especially because I feel like mothers today. This is Part of the reason why there's so much stigma, is that we are seen as glorified babysitters. Because we are. We have to, like, if I go out with my children, my children are super young, so I understand that I have to be very involved in everything they're doing to keep them alive, but I am going to places that aren't made for me, like I'm taking them to the park and then I'm sitting in a place that is very boring to me, where I have to, you know, watch them enjoy themselves, and then come home, and that that experience is very abnormal, and it should kind of be The other way around, where I am going out and doing things that I want to do as an adult, like going to the dentist and helping my children learn what it's like to go to the dentist, not constantly feeling like I have to build an entire life around child centric activities that makes motherhood really weird and really hard and very self sacrificing, and there's a lot of things that you self sacrifice as a mother, but it doesn't have to be this extremely regulated suburban ideal in which children are viewed as like separate entities from society, and we have to put them away, And you have to turn your whole life around for this ideal which actually isn't very good for them?
Tiffany Owens Reed 39:45
Yeah, no, you're definitely getting to something there. This kind of is a good segue to my next question. But what you're getting at with not only has this approach to city building and I. Know, some people listen to this might be like, You guys are just obsessed with suburbia, and you think it's terrible, but I will say, in our in my defense, at least, I have been reading this book called downtown and written by Robert Fogelson, published by, let's see Yale University Press. So Academic Press book, and he does a really good job of explaining that this is not arbitrary, like as particularly in the US, there was so much attention and conversation around what he calls the cult of domesticity, and how that really shaped how we approached zoning and city building. But there was this idea, almost like a moral or religious association with the home as being like a sacred place that needed to be kept pure and morally pure and spiritually pure. So that was part of the reason why we started moving homes away from places of commerce, and why you started to see homes and businesses being separated, and why you saw the emphasis on single family homes rather than apartments. Because apartments at the time were seen mainly as tenements and mainly as the breeding ground for vice and all kinds of moral problems. So, so this is not random. If you think we sound kind of crazy, like, there's, there's like, a long psychological cultural history around like the home. Like, what is the home? Where does it fit in the city? What should it look like? What is it? And so, yeah. And so part of that conversation is like, well, if you're going to take the home away from places of business, and if you're going to take it away from shops then, and then you're going to fill it with children, well then someone has to stay there so that, so that eventually becomes the mom. So you have this whole narrative of not just you have a whole narrative that combines family and specific roles with the built environment, and it translates into what many moms are living in now, where they are physically cut off from the life of the city unless they can run around like a chauffeur all day.
Unknown Speaker 41:58
Yes, the chauffeur problem. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 42:01
it really is rooted in this narrative of like, we must keep the home pure. I don't think people walking around today are thinking that, but I think it's important to I'm just trying to say that there, this is not random, like we're not drawing, we're not inventing a connection that's not really there. If you really want to dive more into that, just Google cult of domesticity, like American history, like it was, it was a real conversation, and it really did shape some of the decisions that we made around zoning and the design of homes and the location of homes relative to other things. But I think the other interesting thing you're talking about is how we've not only zoned and segmented our built environments, but like you're saying, We've zoned and segmented family roles, and so the child becomes like its own special zone, and that needs its own special accommodation, rather than just being integrated into like the life of the community happening around it, right? The life of the family, the life of the neighborhood, the life of the community. You're right that, because everything has been so cut up now, I have to sit around and think, well, since my child can't go outside safely, and there's nowhere for them to walk to and there's no one for them to see. Now there's a whole need to design activities and places specifically for children
Unknown Speaker 43:11
that is so correct, and that's
Tiffany Owens Reed 43:13
just a whole nother side of like child rearing, where now you have to think not just about what to get done in your day, to keep family life going and to be a functional, interesting adult, but now you have to plan an entire lifestyle for your children, because it's just it's organically no longer there. This
Diane Alisa 43:36
is what I think happens with the loss of identity for women, their whole lives become a planning session for their children. They're like, what kind of toys can I get? Because now they can't go out and just play in nature and, like, hang out at the candy shop and watch the candy man make happy, you know. Like, what can I get for them? I keep seeing Instagram reels of people transforming these huge rooms into gigantic, amazing playrooms that you would probably pay to go to. And I just think, man, the wealthy get this privilege of of creating these really entertaining spaces, and then so many children are left on the wayside, but the paradigm is all wrong, like they don't need those gigantic individual play areas. They need communities that are actually functioning. And I I understand that women are like, totally throwing away everything so that they can raise their children because now they can't. They can't step outside their door and not feel like, Okay, today, we're going to the park. On Wednesday, we're going to the museum so they can get an educational experience, and they have to be in extracurricular sports, because how else are they going to develop character if they're not playing soccer with other five year olds? And it's just this really rigorous. Serious, time consuming and chauffeuring style of life that is just not that great for them. I have this child section where I talk about the things that children need, and so little of it has to do with these very specifically child centric design spaces. It has to do with do they have a good relationship with their parents? And are their parents overbearing on them? And in suburban environments, they always are, because if you don't feel like your child is safe to go to the park, you have to be with them every step of the way. If your child can't get to voice lessons without one not being safe, or they just literally cannot get there because the distance is too far, then you have to show for them everywhere. So parents and children are spending a lot of dead space with each other. That isn't that productive and halts the development of children making autonomous decisions and being able to be like, Okay, let's say violence starts at five o'clock. That means I have to get on my bike, and I have to bike for 15 minutes, and I have to wear a coat, and I have to make sure that I bring my book bag and and so all of that comes down to the responsibility of the child, because they can now get there, get there themselves. Instead, parents are doing that, yeah, and
Tiffany Owens Reed 46:19
parents are doing this from good from a good place. Like, I think parents are doing their absolute best. They're like, yes, we're adapting. We're loving on our kids the best. We want to keep them safe. So nothing that we're saying is like, hopefully not sounding like a judgment on any parents out there. No doing their best. It's almost
Diane Alisa 46:35
necessary. Like, what is your kid gonna do if you're not doing Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 46:39
but I think it's so helpful to see how and it's not to say that children that it's by default that if you raise them in a super walkable village like everything is just going to go merrily. Obviously, there have to be certain preconditions for that to work as well. But I think the point we're trying to make here is that so much about how we approach motherhood, how we approach parenting, how we approach childhood, there is a connection between the design decisions we've made about how to build the American city, in terms of spontaneity, freedom, autonomy, you know, empowering children to feel more confident moving through the world and, yeah, just going back to that, that integration, right? Or our ability to even build supportive networks with other parents and other families or our own families, and I think that's a conversation worth having. Of like, huh, how does it affect childhood if, literally, we're constantly terrified of them getting hit by a car in our neighborhoods? Like, maybe just start with that question. Like, you also
Diane Alisa 47:38
have DCFS. Like, it's, it's translated into other cultural things too, where my my kid was playing in the front yard, and we were by the window, and somebody, one of my neighbors, picked him up and took him into my house, and I was like, He's not even allowed in my front yard, you know? Like, what's going on? And there's so many cultural things that happen with children because of the way that we view this very isolated, lonely, unconnected, suburban environments. We don't even feel like children are safe to be outside, even though they're supposedly the most safe they could be in a suburban neighborhood. But we don't feel that way.
Tiffany Owens Reed 48:21
I think the irony there is so important. It's like suburbs were created to be safe and pure and the most pristine environment to raise the children. And now look at where we are almost 100 years later, where they're the place that we're all terrified for the children if they dare step outside by themselves. So there's so much to think about there too. Okay, so I want to ask you about the word village. Can you talk about that as to like, why do you use that word as an ideal for what we should be aiming for? And how do you see it as sort of a proxy for like, solving some of these problems?
Diane Alisa 48:56
I think the word village really encompasses what I'm trying to do, because it's so community centric, and the word village is very warm, and I wanted that to be the avenue for what I was trying to portray to my audience. That I want this ideal. We're never going to fully reach the ideal, but I wanted us to actually have an ideal to walk towards, at least, because, if you don't have that, what are you working towards? You're working towards nothing. Village, in my mind, is an extremely functional space that is has a lot of locality. It has people who are very connected to each other because of that locality, like you know the dentist, you know the the baker, you know the the bike shop, your children are familiar with them. They're they It's a family business, and so it's been there for a long time, and there's just rapport with the community, because they really respect them. And. And and just this feeling of connectedness is why I, I chose village. I I don't want to, I don't want to attack this specific show, but I feel like suburbia is connected to the culture of the show bluey. Do you? Do you watch bluey? We
Tiffany Owens Reed 50:19
have not entered the age of bluey quite yet. Okay,
Diane Alisa 50:23
I haven't really either. I've seen a couple of episodes because I have older nieces and nephews, but it's this, like, saccharin, sweet, playful. There's some moments of Louis that are really grounded, but it's just this idea of like, children are also our parents are playing and scheduling and, you know, revolving their entire worlds around their children and and I, and that's like a suburban, you know, Australia, I think, creates it. Australia also struggles with the same type of issues that we are. And I wanted a village life to be far more grounded, far more normal, less saccharine sweet and just more genuine, where everybody is visible again, there aren't a ton of like child centered spaces and elderly centered spaces and disabled center spaces. There is a community full of people who are interacting with each other and visible and and it's, it's very it's like you were saying about motherhood, is we have a lot going on. It's this less corporate view of life. It's more flexible, it's more integrated, it's, it's just life, right?
Tiffany Owens Reed 51:39
And I think part of what you're saying too, is that it's not that we don't create what's needed in response to the needs of the community, right? It's like, oh yeah, kids probably need a splash pad. That's not, that's, that's great, but it's, it's when you have that locality, you're putting yourself in position to truly, like, build connections with who's part of this community. And then now let's see what our unique struggles are, and how can we create solutions to those unique struggles, right? Rather than kind of functioning in this more homogeneous like, one size fits all, this is exactly what every city or community or neighborhood should look like. And I know there's so much to talk about here with, like, you know, how do you even achieve the American village? Again, it's such a it's such an uphill battle. It feels like to rethink some of the design and policy norms that have gotten us into this place of fracture. But I think it's really valuable what you're doing to help people see that when people talk about density and walkability, we're using these as means to ends, not as ends and up themselves, and what's the ultimate end? And it's connection, and it's connection of people, it's visibility, and it's putting power back in the hands of people to shape their lives in a way that actually fits them, but sprawl and car dependency actually rob people of agency, because they have to constantly submit their aspirations to what's available in terms of transport, like the car, right? But I think if people can, I think part of what you're trying to do is help your audience see, when you're talking about walkability and bikeability and density and the village and connective trails, that I think sometimes people can get caught up in those things as their own end. And I don't, I feel like what you're saying is, no, this isn't. This is a means to achieve something greater, which is greater locality, more local agency, more, you know, ability for us to actually determine the shape of our lives. Correct me if I'm wrong or add to that,
Diane Alisa 53:38
that's really beautiful. Sometimes I have a hard time talking about the vision of a village, because I think that every the really what I'm looking for is the value, the base value of walkability. Because if you base your entire society on walkability, which is always you, the value system is humans, right? We use our own two feet. That's what it means to have a value system of walkability. You are now designing around people, right? Because this is how we get around. We walk. When you can do that, then you can create all sorts of really beautiful environments that aren't necessarily going to look a specific way, especially given the culture, the climate, the value systems of the people in it, and so every place is going to have this unique feel and look to it. But I'm giving you the principles of where you need to start, because right now we're we're designing it around cars and houses. And that's not that's that's inanimate objects. We're no longer designing anything around people again. So and then, along with that, are you designing urbanism for the most vulnerable in your society? And if you are not. But then you are not succeeding. You're just not like our infants, our elderly, our disabled, they have to come first. Our children have to come first, or you're not designing a place to last. I
Tiffany Owens Reed 55:15
think there's a huge need in the urbanism world to rediscover a deep curiosity about human beings and what makes them work, what makes them flourish, both as individuals, but also as part of a community. And in some ways, I think your book is an invitation to be curious again. Of like, what does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to be a mom? What does it mean to be a child? And now think about that relative to the built environment, and I think there's opportunity to kind of stop and re evaluate, like, do the patterns of building that govern our city? Do they actually align with what people need, like, with what people need in various contexts of life? And I think some really interesting conversations could come out of that. This has been a really interesting conversation, and we didn't even get to like, half of the questions we had
Diane Alisa 56:06
there is so nice to talk about. We didn't even talk about, like, economics. Now, we didn't even talk about transportation, environment, plastic. I mean, man, there's so much talk about
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:21
plastic. Well, for today, who knows? Maybe, maybe we'll be able to continue the conversation. Speaking of being a mom, it's very possible that everyone can now hear my toddler waking up with his nap and testing that I have not appeared yet. It's okay.
Diane Alisa 56:35
You know what? This is, exactly what I would I want. You know, like we have a little bit of flexibility in our lives, please. I need it, my goodness. Okay,
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:46
to wrap this up for now, can you tell us a little bit about the city you live in? What do you what do you enjoy about it? Where do you think it could be better? And what are a couple of local places around town that you'd like to recommend people check
Diane Alisa 57:00
out so I am in now in Saratoga Springs, which is the most soulless suburban corporate environment you could possibly imagine. I don't know how many small businesses are in the commercial area, but very, very few. But I was living in Provo, and that's a pretty cool place, the downtown pro area, right next to the college, which I think college towns have the most success in walkability. It's saying something, because they're always very car centric, still, because this is how the world works right now. But there's some, there's some cool places on the I believe it's Center Street. We have the communal of there's just a lot of older buildings that haven't really been taken down, and a lot of small businesses and a lot of locality unfortunately, because of the system that we live in, they're constantly moving about like there's not a consistency and community of these local businesses, they tend to be very young, and then leave and another one comes in and replaces it, but it's still like a beautiful part of Utah. It was, if I were to live in Utah, Provo right in that mile radius, would probably be my preferred way to live, because I can at least use their busses, and I can walk to the Rec Center and the library and the park and and the bank and and those are cool things that I as a mother feel helped me function a lot better and help me teach my children about the world. Now, unfortunately, it's still so car centric that I fear for my life every time I step outside my door, but I can at least walk so, um, yeah, check out Provo. I think it's a beautiful city in a lot of ways, and it's, it's very established, so there's lots of trees and greenery and and like Brigham Young University, because it's a college town, tries to make it really appealing and walkable and and their their buildings are very, very beautiful. So that's a that's what I have to say about about Provo it has some improvements, but I I think if you're looking for walkability, you're probably going to find it the best in that that little radius of the college town. Great.
Tiffany Owens Reed 59:22
Well, Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show with me. I enjoyed our conversation, and I'm sure our listeners, at least found it entertaining. If you're listening to this, thanks so much for joining us for another conversation. We'll be back soon with another one. If there's someone in your town who you think we should have on the show, who you think make would make a great fit, please let us know using the suggested guest form, which is always in the show notes. I'll be back soon. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.
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“Love Letter to Suburbia: How to Restore the American Village” by Diane Alisa
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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.