Kevin sits down with (fellow engineer) Chuck Marohn from Strong Towns to talk about recognizing our delusions, admitting failure, and embracing the "chaos" of bottom-up action at the local level.
Here are some highlights from the discussion:
- When optimism becomes delusion for city administrators.
- The ways that many engineers and other professionals have built up natural defense mechanisms to avoid acknowledging failure and fallibility.
- The common myth in Texas and other high growth areas that "fast growth will continue indefinitely and it will solve all our problems"—and the two possible ways it could end.
- Not learning lessons from major events: droughts and near-bankruptcies.
- The social and economic results of "slash-and-burn city development."
- Why city leaders should be more supportive of the short-term "chaos" of bottom-up action—and more wary of the long-term chaos of rigid order.
- How affluence makes people and cities less adaptive—and how small, early failures can build resilience.
Links:
The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of VERDUNITY. Learn more at verdunity.com. Find our other episodes and blog posts at GoCultivate.org.
(The music in this episode is from Custodian of Records.)
