Speaker 1: One of the most important non political political books I've
Speaker 1: read in the last decade or more is The Social
Speaker 1: Conquest of Earth by the great biologist E. O. Wilson,
Speaker 1: who passed away last year at the age of ninety two.
Speaker 1: In it, Wilson argues that the most successful species that
Speaker 1: have ever inhabited our planet are ants, termites, bees, and people,
Speaker 1: because they, out of all those species that have ever existed,
Speaker 1: have been able to repeatedly avoid opportunities to destroy themselves
Speaker 1: or be destroyed by others. And the one thing they
Speaker 1: all have in common is that they all have very
Speaker 1: high levels of cooperation. But of all species, Wilson says,
Speaker 1: humans are the greatest co operators because their consciousness enables
Speaker 1: them to evolve in advance, and their conscience pulls them
Speaker 1: back from off destructive behavior before it's too late. So
Speaker 1: why am I telling you this? Because in an age
Speaker 1: that seems so dominated by a conflict, it's important that
Speaker 1: we step back and remind ourselves of our amazing capacity
Speaker 1: to work together. There's perhaps no greater example of that
Speaker 1: than the modern city. From the smallest details to the
Speaker 1: large scale infrastructure, every piece of the city was thought about,
Speaker 1: design and built by someone to make one large living
Speaker 1: thing we could all inhabit together. When it all works well,
Speaker 1: it enables our society to work well too. My guest
Speaker 1: today spends his career chronicling these bits of human ingenuity
Speaker 1: that we so often take for granted, things like the
Speaker 1: utility codes, the curb cuts, the traffic signals, and much more.
Speaker 1: Roman Mars is the host of The Invisible Podcast and
Speaker 1: co author of The Invisible City. His work challenges all
Speaker 1: of us to look up, look around, and think about
Speaker 1: the how and the whua of design. Roman, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for being here. Oh my pleasure, Miss President, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, and thanks for writing that book. It
Speaker 1: was It's really really good. I had so much fun
Speaker 1: with it. I appreciate it. My colleague Kirk Colestead and
Speaker 1: I put it together as we were doing the show,
Speaker 1: and it was probably one of the hardest things that
Speaker 1: we've ever done, but it was it was really gratifying
Speaker 1: in the end. I appreciate you reading it. Was there
Speaker 1: one specific thing that kind of got you started on
Speaker 1: this whole idea of invisible and how you came to
Speaker 1: focus on it. Well, I was in radio for a
Speaker 1: long time. I just love the way explaining things on
Speaker 1: the radio. I love the way people talk on you know,
Speaker 1: public radio in particular. And I also was as a
Speaker 1: person who like went on architecture tours and so I
Speaker 1: have no training. I was trained to be a scientist actually.
Speaker 1: And there was one building there was the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Speaker 1: UM has a boat tour in Chicago that talks about
Speaker 1: the architecture. It's it's amazing, like I recommended to everybody.
Speaker 1: I've been on it like five or six times, like
Speaker 1: I really do love it. And they told this story
Speaker 1: of the Montgomery Ward complex that's that's along the river,
Speaker 1: and Montgomery Ward is, you know, kind of long gone
Speaker 1: as a as a company, but there's this one the
Speaker 1: headquarters building was this kind of generic UM rectangular modernist building,
Speaker 1: but it had these four concrete post on the corner.
Speaker 1: And I had passed this building all the time. I'd
Speaker 1: never cared much for it. And then the architecture the
Speaker 1: curator on the on the boat, the docent said that, well,
Speaker 1: the reason why that building is the way it is
Speaker 1: is that the Montgomery Ward company sort of pride itself
Speaker 1: on it's a galitarian hierarchy, and they wanted to build
Speaker 1: their headquarters so that there were no vps fighting over
Speaker 1: who got the corner office, and so they've made a
Speaker 1: building with no possibility of a corner office at all.
Speaker 1: And I just love that story and made me love
Speaker 1: this building that I thought was boring. It made no
Speaker 1: impression on me, but then it made me love it.
Speaker 1: And then I realized, well, if you can tell a
Speaker 1: story like that that's independent of the aesthetics and the
Speaker 1: sort of like image of the building, then I could
Speaker 1: tell stories about architecture on the radio. And that's where
Speaker 1: I sort of got the idea that that we could
Speaker 1: do this. All the thought that goes into things that
Speaker 1: most people don't think about is really tantalizing to the brain.
Speaker 1: They go, oh, yeah, I guess I have always noticed that,
Speaker 1: and then it begins to build on something. And then
Speaker 1: they begin to read plaques and they noticed the sidewalk
Speaker 1: markings of like what the utility lines are underneath the street,
Speaker 1: And it makes the world just a little bit more
Speaker 1: delightful once you begin to sort of key into those
Speaker 1: those little markers. I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about radio as a medium, and then i'll come back
Speaker 1: to what you said. But I remember in two after
Speaker 1: I had lost in the Reagan landslide in and become
Speaker 1: the youngest ex governor in the history of America. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about running again. And that's all the
Speaker 1: polls show that I had a chance to win, but
Speaker 1: we had never had a governor elected, defeated and elected again.
Speaker 1: And I read a book by a New York media
Speaker 1: guy named Tony Schwartz. He had this theory that if
Speaker 1: done well, radio would be more compelling than television because
Speaker 1: it had more power over the imagination. Yeah, and I'll
Speaker 1: never forget I talked to him. I bet for two
Speaker 1: hours about it one night, and for the next several
Speaker 1: years I invested a lot of time, money, and effort
Speaker 1: in radio communications and trying to imagine what would trigger
Speaker 1: an open mind. He also said, you know, if you
Speaker 1: if somebody has been against you're on the other side
Speaker 1: of something, it's harder for them to look at you
Speaker 1: than it is to listen to you. So he said,
Speaker 1: you know, if somebody just kind of comes along, they
Speaker 1: talked and the same halfway decent, you know, and you're
Speaker 1: not losing face by listening, even if you've been calling
Speaker 1: them names for years. I love that Tony Schwartz is
Speaker 1: super fascinating as a human. I'm so like envious that
Speaker 1: you got to meet him. I love the sound of
Speaker 1: people's voices. I'm sort of hook line sinker, like for radio.
Speaker 1: All the time there's people talk about having radio voices,
Speaker 1: and I love all voices. I love the tone of
Speaker 1: people's voices. I love what it conveys. This is something
Speaker 1: about storytelling in this way that has always sort of
Speaker 1: made my brain light up. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: You've done all these episodes about things that we've all
Speaker 1: seen but not seen, things that are obscure or at
Speaker 1: least rare, like the only street light with green on
Speaker 1: the top instead of the bottom, and so accuse. But
Speaker 1: of all the things you've written about, and I again,
Speaker 1: if for any of our listeners who have not listened
Speaker 1: to your podcasts or read your book about the Invisible World,
Speaker 1: what are two or three of your favorite stories and sights,
Speaker 1: things that you just were interested in and you got
Speaker 1: involved in them, and it's surprised to what you learned. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the first things I did a story about
Speaker 1: that I thought about a lot. We're actually municipal and
Speaker 1: city and state flags. I really love flags. I really
Speaker 1: love graphic design, and I worked in Chicago at a
Speaker 1: radio station. They're called w b e Z. And when
Speaker 1: you're in Chicago, all of a sudden, you notice that
Speaker 1: there's the flag of Chicago because it is everywhere, and
Speaker 1: if you really go to almost any other city, you
Speaker 1: never see the flag of a city as much as
Speaker 1: you see the city of Chicago flag. And and I
Speaker 1: didn't even know cities had flags before I moved to Chicago.
Speaker 1: And then I began to sort of look at them
Speaker 1: and realized that like basically every city over fifty thou
Speaker 1: people has a flag. They're just not really well designed
Speaker 1: and they're kind of an afterthought and no one notices them.
Speaker 1: And so I began to really like think about the
Speaker 1: design of flags and what you can do with them.
Speaker 1: And and that was the one that really sort of
Speaker 1: like kind of took off. I even did a Ted
Speaker 1: talk about city flags um at a certain point and UM,
Speaker 1: and it was a really kind of crazy moment where
Speaker 1: you know, TED conference starts, all these extremely important people
Speaker 1: like yourself presenting, I'm about to do my little flag talk,
Speaker 1: and I felt so sort of silly, but it really
Speaker 1: resonated with people because my contention was was that the
Speaker 1: reason why Chicago's flag was was so used. It was
Speaker 1: because it was so it was so beautiful and so
Speaker 1: well done. And if people don't know it, it's it
Speaker 1: has a white field, it has two horizontal blue stripes
Speaker 1: and four six pointed red stars across the center. And
Speaker 1: you will see it like on cops uniforms, you will
Speaker 1: see it on municipal building but you also see it
Speaker 1: on like punk rockers tattoos. Like everyone has claimed it.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just that you know, people love Chicago
Speaker 1: who lived there and therefore love the flag. I also
Speaker 1: think that people loved Chicago more because the flag was
Speaker 1: so cool and the power of that type of graphic
Speaker 1: design to unify people, for like somebody who represented the
Speaker 1: city to use it, for someone protesting the city to
Speaker 1: use it. These municipal symbols that weren't owned by anyone,
Speaker 1: that we're owned by all of us, was really like
Speaker 1: inspiring to me. And so then UM, I think other
Speaker 1: ones you know, like I think that you know that
Speaker 1: one of the first stories I ever did was about
Speaker 1: the Transamerica Perramid. I'm located in the Bay Area, I
Speaker 1: um see it every day out my window. Um is
Speaker 1: very striking. And one of the things that I had learned,
Speaker 1: which was kind of like the impetus for the whole show,
Speaker 1: was that the local chapter of the American Institute of
Speaker 1: Architects truly opposed this building when it was built. Like
Speaker 1: they thought it was it was sort of a height
Speaker 1: of modernism, so like the pyramid to make the pyramid shape,
Speaker 1: the top two feet of the building is kind of
Speaker 1: empty glass, like it has no real purpose, and modernism
Speaker 1: is all about, you know, like unadorned like functional forms,
Speaker 1: like no no extra anything. And it was like offensive
Speaker 1: to modernists that there would be this like two ft
Speaker 1: of air that did nothing except for complete shape of
Speaker 1: a pyramid. And they posed it and they talked im
Speaker 1: poorly about it. But you know, like in the sort
Speaker 1: of many decades since it become you know, this thing
Speaker 1: that everyone loved and it's identified with with San Francisco,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so much like whether or not the building
Speaker 1: was beautiful or ugly, or worked or didn't work, or
Speaker 1: violated this principle whatever. What I'm interested in is what
Speaker 1: are the values of the things that we build, and
Speaker 1: what does it say about and how does it change
Speaker 1: over time? The effective things it's the human activity that
Speaker 1: centers around these objects that is really what the show
Speaker 1: is about. In my interest, I've read an interesting fiction
Speaker 1: actually about San Francisco more than a years ago and
Speaker 1: about the earthquake and what happened during the earthquake, what
Speaker 1: happened after the earthquake. Is there anything that stands out
Speaker 1: to you about how after the earthquake building standards or
Speaker 1: neighborhood organizations were changed in a way that made life
Speaker 1: at least somewhat more secure. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the founding and most cities can be pretty haphazard. You know,
Speaker 1: they begin people plot outland. There usually isn't a grand
Speaker 1: design and grand plan, and then disasters like the Chicago
Speaker 1: fire and the Nineteam of six earthquake give people a
Speaker 1: chance to like really start with a plan now that
Speaker 1: they've seen that the city is there and in his
Speaker 1: robust and there's a need for it. You know, Sees
Speaker 1: like Chicago and Paris who went through like really strong,
Speaker 1: sort of heavy handed design, have a certain style. And
Speaker 1: what I think is interesting about cities is when you
Speaker 1: have these moments of evolution and what we grab onto
Speaker 1: and what we build off of them really reflects the
Speaker 1: moment in time and then you sort of go from there.
Speaker 1: And when I was, I mean not not to sort
Speaker 1: of equate these disasters necess early, but like I was
Speaker 1: really struck. The book came out right when the beginning
Speaker 1: of COVID shutdown started, and all of a sudden, this
Speaker 1: sort of like ingenuity of like the built space like
Speaker 1: sort of cropped up over night so that people could
Speaker 1: still function. So they're like plexiglass like showed up in
Speaker 1: front of you know, bodega cash registers and and like
Speaker 1: little markings on the floor to tell us where to stand,
Speaker 1: and sidewalks became you know, play is for us to
Speaker 1: sit and congregate when they used to just be the
Speaker 1: domain or you know, even into the roads that used
Speaker 1: to just be the domain of roads. Like no one
Speaker 1: took away a road from anybody. But but like all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you could form a cafe and people
Speaker 1: accepted that. And the thing that I love about thinking
Speaker 1: about cities is that when you're in them, there's a
Speaker 1: habit of thinking these this thing is the way it is.
Speaker 1: It was this way when I was born into this
Speaker 1: world and noticed it, and it's very hard to change.
Speaker 1: But they've always been these evolving entities that reflected our values.
Speaker 1: And I like noticing that because I think that that's important.
Speaker 1: Two considering change in a place, Like if you don't
Speaker 1: think a thing is fixed and it is a way
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to be, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the possibilities of what you can do with a road
Speaker 1: opens up, because like roads started for like millennia, they
Speaker 1: were like multipurpose, multimodal, like people walked across them, vendors
Speaker 1: would sit on them, cars would be on them, horses
Speaker 1: would be on them, trolley lines would be on them,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, for about a hundred years,
Speaker 1: we just gave away roads to just cars cards meant roads.
Speaker 1: And then we went through this period of crisis with COVID,
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden we were like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: a car is and the most important thing in this
Speaker 1: spot right now, maybe a cafe sitting area is the
Speaker 1: most important thing. And it kind of dislaunches us to
Speaker 1: think about the possibilities that these built structures that seem
Speaker 1: so permanent, so fixed, are really malleable reflections of our values,
Speaker 1: and they can always be re examined and they can
Speaker 1: always have input, you know, and and change because of them,
Speaker 1: and theose moments of crisis kind of shock us into
Speaker 1: thinking of of how we can change something for the
Speaker 1: better when for most of our lives, most of our existence,
Speaker 1: these seems like completely attractable and placable, unchangeable forces because
Speaker 1: they're hard physical surfaces, but they really can change. And
Speaker 1: that's where I find inspiring about thinking about those moments
Speaker 1: in our history and what we can make and do.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. One of the things that interests
Speaker 1: me is that shows the malleability of cities, but also
Speaker 1: the importance of basic functions being modified and improved, is
Speaker 1: how cities respond to things that they hadn't imagined happening.
Speaker 1: For example, Stephen Johnson's book The Ghost Map is about
Speaker 1: the discovery of the real cause of the cholera outbreaking London,
Speaker 1: and it led to a total rework of you know,
Speaker 1: how the water came to the city and how it
Speaker 1: was purified. And one of the things that I was
Speaker 1: hoping would come when I was going through your book
Speaker 1: I was hope it would come out of is that
Speaker 1: people would copy things that work that they hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about and adapted to their own cultural tastes. And environment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it does happen. So there's like a the book
Speaker 1: is sort of laid out, you know, where we sort
Speaker 1: of get granular and then we get like bigger and
Speaker 1: bigger views you know, from the world, and it ends
Speaker 1: with this section on urbanism that is all about the
Speaker 1: conversation between sort of top down forces who shaped the
Speaker 1: world and bottom up forces that affect the city, and
Speaker 1: that conversation that happens between you know, people who give
Speaker 1: like urban interventions or design solutions like you mentioned, like
Speaker 1: local ones, and then like I think of really like
Speaker 1: mindful government or bigger entity like notices those things, takes
Speaker 1: those ideas adapts them because there's certain types of things
Speaker 1: that we have built our society on that only government
Speaker 1: can do, you know, bridges and highways and those are
Speaker 1: amazing things. I think I take sort of almost spiritual
Speaker 1: solace in these things. Like I look at the Golden
Speaker 1: gate Bridge and I just think it is the greatest
Speaker 1: structure that was ever created, and it represents all these
Speaker 1: people getting together to do a thing where a bunch
Speaker 1: of people recognized, you know, it would be really good
Speaker 1: for all these people over here to be able to
Speaker 1: get to this side over here and then we're going
Speaker 1: to spend you know, like ten years making that happen
Speaker 1: and also create something like gorgeous in the process, and
Speaker 1: that collective enterprise his government, and it's meaningful to me.
Speaker 1: But there are things that are great to do in
Speaker 1: a place in a moment, solve a problem, affect a
Speaker 1: change that is just as sort of inspiring and powerful,
Speaker 1: and I love those things. I mean, some of them
Speaker 1: are like you know, they can be interventions. Like there
Speaker 1: was a sort of a prankster basically like who noticed
Speaker 1: on he drove in l A. He knows all he's
Speaker 1: missed an exit on the five because it wasn't labeled properly,
Speaker 1: and so like he literally made a fake highway sign,
Speaker 1: went up at six am with his friends, made it
Speaker 1: as real as possible, bolted it up, and it had
Speaker 1: this sign that was there to like mark an exit
Speaker 1: that he thought was undermarked so he would always miss it.
Speaker 1: And it was so convincing that it stayed up for
Speaker 1: like a decade because nobody noticed it was a fake,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was this like I do not
Speaker 1: recommend anyone doing this. It was super dangerous. But the
Speaker 1: point is is, like there's always these little moments to
Speaker 1: improve and do something to make the world better that
Speaker 1: are worth sort of working on. And they don't have
Speaker 1: to be something like the Golden gate Bridge. They don't
Speaker 1: have to be an entire sewer system that requires buy
Speaker 1: in from every community down the line and you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars, like you really can't affect
Speaker 1: change in these smaller areas to just make a little
Speaker 1: bit better, like little pocket parks, little like you know,
Speaker 1: seed bombs or something that that people like take in
Speaker 1: an empty lot. They'll take flowering plants and just like
Speaker 1: throw them in and just like make something that's what
Speaker 1: makes the city. First. I agree with that. I got
Speaker 1: several things I want to ask you, but I would
Speaker 1: like to start with design and native public safety. The
Speaker 1: very first specific example I believe in your book If
Speaker 1: my Memory services about steel poles that are really two
Speaker 1: poles where you you have to build something that will
Speaker 1: either hold the building up or hold a sign up
Speaker 1: or hold of whatever up, and you have to dig
Speaker 1: down deep, so you have to have a long story
Speaker 1: pole to hold the weight. But instead safety designers actually
Speaker 1: made them double poles, and they bolted them together somewhere
Speaker 1: near ground level with screws that guaranteed or both enough
Speaker 1: flexibility so that if a car ran into them or
Speaker 1: something else hard hit them, they would actually break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how did that come about? How did engineers think
Speaker 1: about that? How many people had to die before they
Speaker 1: figured it out? Well, I'm sure weigh too many. But
Speaker 1: you know, breakaway posts. You're talking about a poll that
Speaker 1: is an environment like right next to where cars are
Speaker 1: speeding past. I mean, it has to do two different
Speaker 1: jobs simultaneously. It has to be robust enough to hold
Speaker 1: up this heavy thing that is the sign or or
Speaker 1: the wires, and it has to just do the complete
Speaker 1: opposite thing, like it has to completely try to get
Speaker 1: out of the way as fast and as easily as
Speaker 1: possible if somebody runs into it. So, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: They have these connector plates and breakaway bolts. Sometimes even
Speaker 1: those connector plates are angled so that if you hit
Speaker 1: them at the right angle, not only does the poll
Speaker 1: like fall over, it kind of like vaults over the
Speaker 1: vehicle and doesn't hit it at all. And then you know,
Speaker 1: like if you need to replace it, the base post
Speaker 1: is still there, it hasn't been damaged. You just bolt
Speaker 1: on a new one and then you also have that
Speaker 1: aspect of safety, like you can return to normal faster.
Speaker 1: I do not know how many people had to run
Speaker 1: into a post for this to change, or all the
Speaker 1: people that were involved. I mean, I'm sure that there
Speaker 1: were hundreds of different engineers involved, but they're like it
Speaker 1: is one of those invisible design elements that is that
Speaker 1: you would never notice, like unless you're really paying attention
Speaker 1: to post and you notice the throw breakaway plate. It
Speaker 1: is not there to be honored or paid attention to.
Speaker 1: It is actually not even there to be used. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: it is there just in case to make the world
Speaker 1: a little bit better place, a little bit safer placed.
Speaker 1: And what what I like to do in the show
Speaker 1: and in the book is have people notice those things
Speaker 1: so that they are aware of all the design decisions
Speaker 1: that are made around them to make their life a
Speaker 1: little bit better, because it is really easy to not
Speaker 1: see these things and really think that you're on your
Speaker 1: own in the world. But you're not. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of people that thought about a problem that
Speaker 1: you've never even thought about and solved it before you
Speaker 1: even had to encounter it. And it makes the world
Speaker 1: more clearly reflect that we are like interconnected group of
Speaker 1: people that are trying to create a place where we
Speaker 1: can all live and thrive. And those breakaway bolts are
Speaker 1: a great example of this. Like most people never notice them,
Speaker 1: most people never encounter them. They are everywhere, and they're
Speaker 1: just they're just in case so that you're safer, that
Speaker 1: you are more important than this sign is. And I
Speaker 1: love those examples. I find those examples like super inspiring.
Speaker 1: And those design solutions are everywhere if you just know
Speaker 1: how to look for them. It's fascinating. I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you about another sort of related thing to me.
Speaker 1: To me, it's related, and that's how design happens in
Speaker 1: the first place, and why some people and some societies
Speaker 1: thought about things that others didn't, even if they had
Speaker 1: common levels of income and capacity. About half my lifetime ago,
Speaker 1: I don't know, thirty five fourty years ago, a woman
Speaker 1: that I knew well when we were very young, and
Speaker 1: she came from a town even smaller than Hope, Arkansas
Speaker 1: and my native state. I went to New York, became
Speaker 1: interested in um, you know, the origins of humanity, and
Speaker 1: went to Africa to study with the Lakies with Richard
Speaker 1: Lakey Any she wrote a book called The Hominid Game,
Speaker 1: and then it was about all the people that were
Speaker 1: digging up our ancestors history, and she got very interested
Speaker 1: in the design of prehistoric civilizations. So she did another
Speaker 1: book which I went back while I was getting ready
Speaker 1: for this, and I looked at it again I had
Speaker 1: looked at it in so many years, called The Sand
Speaker 1: Dollar and the Sladder Rule. Her name was Delta Willis,
Speaker 1: and this book is about how patterns of nature are
Speaker 1: reflected in human construction m and have always been. So
Speaker 1: I thought I would ask you about that. How much
Speaker 1: do you believe in general that a lot of the
Speaker 1: things we do basically evolved from what we perceived to
Speaker 1: be happening in nature. Well, I don't know I have
Speaker 1: a good answer for this. Maybe it's a stupid question. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a stupid question at all. It's
Speaker 1: just sort of it's like hard to answer because I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know that through stew of things that gives
Speaker 1: us thought and solutions has to be what's around us,
Speaker 1: you know, um, nothing sort of like spontaneously generates. And
Speaker 1: so what I find kind of inspiring about humanity is
Speaker 1: when we go beyond our empirical senses to study and evolve.
Speaker 1: I think that when we when we're looking for ideas,
Speaker 1: you should always look for nature to like how it
Speaker 1: was solved, how it was solved well, and and try
Speaker 1: to harness it and then go crazy on like everything
Speaker 1: else that you could possibly do that has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with with nature. But I do find it like
Speaker 1: one of the things that but that's most inspiring. And
Speaker 1: I find that a lot of good design is the cyclical,
Speaker 1: non extractive part of nature, the sustainable you know, like
Speaker 1: that's what we mean by sustainable. It's like kind of
Speaker 1: behaves like the Earth is like sustainable, and that that
Speaker 1: I hope people always stick to when it comes to
Speaker 1: like designing things. They should mimic an ecosystem, and ecosystem
Speaker 1: is a really perfectly balanced thing. In cities who that
Speaker 1: work well function as ecosystems. I mean they have to
Speaker 1: have these tall, like firm, big structures that sort of
Speaker 1: form the basis of things, you know, so that we
Speaker 1: can gather in big places and they have anchors so
Speaker 1: they and then we have like slightly more ephemeral bits
Speaker 1: of architecture that serve our needs for periods of time.
Speaker 1: When a mode of transportation is in fashion and then
Speaker 1: changes those have to be more flexible, have to be
Speaker 1: torn down. But those bones are really important, you know,
Speaker 1: Like when I think about a city I love. I
Speaker 1: love Pittsburgh as as a city. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the things that sustained it as a place was that
Speaker 1: you know, Carnegie like built all these palaces two things,
Speaker 1: and when the city was gutted because of the decline
Speaker 1: in the steel industry, those things were still there. Those
Speaker 1: civic institution were still there, so that art could come
Speaker 1: in and technology could come in. But those bones were
Speaker 1: there that were like the trees in a forest, and
Speaker 1: that sort of conceiving of the built environment as a
Speaker 1: complex ecosystem and mimicing nature in these ways, it really
Speaker 1: behooves us because it makes it more resilient for when
Speaker 1: there is change. But you have to think of the
Speaker 1: long game when you're creating these things, and so I
Speaker 1: think there's tons of inspiration to come from nature and
Speaker 1: openness and the sort of like the way that all
Speaker 1: these different pieces interact, and highly designed systems sometimes can
Speaker 1: be super efficient, but when they're you know, when there's
Speaker 1: a flaw, there's a real problem. Like one of the
Speaker 1: one of my examples is like, you know, like an iPhone,
Speaker 1: is this a marvelous thing that I love. I love
Speaker 1: to use it, I love to mess with it. Is
Speaker 1: the way I play most music or listen to people's voices.
Speaker 1: But when that thing doesn't work, it's called breaking. It's bricks.
Speaker 1: There's no way into it, there's nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: You have to take it to someone to fix it.
Speaker 1: Like I grew up listening, there was a real to
Speaker 1: real in my household. If something broke on that real
Speaker 1: to real, you have a little bit of a chance
Speaker 1: to do something about it. It is like open designed.
Speaker 1: It is like allows you to do stuff to it.
Speaker 1: And I like those open systems, and and nature is
Speaker 1: more mimics those open systems. The same thing is true
Speaker 1: of your car, you know, yeah, exactly. I grew up
Speaker 1: in the in the our business. Indirectly. My stepfather had
Speaker 1: a little Buig dealership in the town of where I
Speaker 1: was born, which had six thousand people. And uh, I
Speaker 1: remember there was a fire in a dealership of Henry J.
Speaker 1: Kaiser's old Kaisers about thirty miles away, and he took
Speaker 1: I don't know, six or seven of them and had
Speaker 1: him repaired him as best he could in his own
Speaker 1: garage with his mechanics, and the prize was we got
Speaker 1: to keep one of the Henry Jay's all cut down
Speaker 1: and hollowed out. But I drove it in high school
Speaker 1: and it had it had hydraulic breaks, so whenever there
Speaker 1: was the slightest gash in the air tube, they maintained
Speaker 1: the pressure. I'd had to go down shifted in the
Speaker 1: first degree and run up the first gear and run
Speaker 1: up on the curb. But the point is, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt one with that car because I felt like
Speaker 1: I could fix it. Just like if I had to
Speaker 1: change the all myself, I could do that. If I
Speaker 1: had to change the tire, I could do that. I
Speaker 1: could figure out how to make the engine work again.
Speaker 1: And I think that, I think for all the wonders
Speaker 1: of technology, I wish we wouldn't be taken so far
Speaker 1: from being able to do things with our own two
Speaker 1: hands in mind, because I think it, at least for me,
Speaker 1: it made me more aware of the design of the car,
Speaker 1: the internal desire, the mechanics, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: about that. But the point is, I think that when
Speaker 1: I read your book, I kept thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: we Americans and maybe people all over the world, and
Speaker 1: maybe because of the social media or polarization or whatever,
Speaker 1: are losing the ability to think large and small. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we just want to give us something we
Speaker 1: can to jest in six seconds or eight and say
Speaker 1: we think this that. The other thing and the beauty
Speaker 1: of your book to me was you had these apparently
Speaker 1: small things that made a big difference because they were
Speaker 1: part of a whole that would be visible if we
Speaker 1: were looking. That's right. So what what have you concluded
Speaker 1: about that are as a species? Are we losing the
Speaker 1: predisposition to look to be aware? Well, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that not being aware of all things all the
Speaker 1: time is it a brain coping mechanism? We have like
Speaker 1: eleven million stimuli like coming at us at all time.
Speaker 1: So the things that don't change, we don't notice them.
Speaker 1: It's forgivable, you know what I mean, Like our brains
Speaker 1: are meant to filter some of that stuff out. We're
Speaker 1: to the change, you know, and so there's no problem
Speaker 1: with people not noticing things. I do think that what
Speaker 1: I like about you know, these examples of ants and
Speaker 1: us and why we're resilient is because there are those
Speaker 1: people and things and entities that do think long term
Speaker 1: that solve problems that are they're not really just altruistic.
Speaker 1: They're not just doing it completely selflessly. We're trying to
Speaker 1: create this thing together and it requires thought and design
Speaker 1: and differentiation. Like as much as I like the idea
Speaker 1: of you fixing your own break, you know, when you
Speaker 1: were a kid in your car, it kind of was like,
Speaker 1: there's also a beauty in other people doing it better,
Speaker 1: and you just kind of like trusting in that, and
Speaker 1: that it becomes like how we build a society, and
Speaker 1: so the world is made up of It has to
Speaker 1: be an ecosystem of things we know in control and
Speaker 1: and there's like individual like agency and liberty and things
Speaker 1: like this, and then you have to like fall into
Speaker 1: the warm embrace of a designed world that people have
Speaker 1: thought of and their expertise is present and maybe you
Speaker 1: don't understand it, and hopefully we're engaged enough in a
Speaker 1: civic society that you trust those things. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's super inspiring. Like I love the things that
Speaker 1: we create together collectively, and cities are inspiring, Like machines
Speaker 1: that are just they're super efficient. They you know, like
Speaker 1: if we're talking about your own like carbon footprint. Living
Speaker 1: in a city is better living on your own in
Speaker 1: these ways. And there's all these things that I think
Speaker 1: that if you take the time to notice the small
Speaker 1: details of how your life is made better by somebody
Speaker 1: thinking through a problem you probably don't even you know,
Speaker 1: know you need to have solved. But also just like
Speaker 1: then go just look at the Brooklyn Bridge, you know,
Speaker 1: I can just go like wow, that thing is amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, like when so like in the eighty nine
Speaker 1: grade out here in the Bay Area, part of the
Speaker 1: Bay Bridge collapsed and then they they rebuilt the Eastern
Speaker 1: Span and it was about to open when I when
Speaker 1: I lived here, I didn't live here during the eighty nine,
Speaker 1: but I lived here after. So when the new span
Speaker 1: was opening up, they were going to have a big
Speaker 1: day kind of like when the opening Brooklyn Bridge, but
Speaker 1: people gonna walk across it, you know, like celebrate it.
Speaker 1: And there was all these sort of problems they need
Speaker 1: to fix with the Eastern Span, and so they didn't
Speaker 1: have that day where everyone walks across the bitch. And
Speaker 1: I just think that was a huge like missed opportunity
Speaker 1: of this like collective like enjoyment of these things that
Speaker 1: we can make together when a structural engineer who knows
Speaker 1: way more than new about the tensile strength of steel,
Speaker 1: and you know, like a city planner and a government
Speaker 1: body and the willing taxpayers that put money into this,
Speaker 1: and we should all just walk across this thing and
Speaker 1: marvel and it's like amazing thing, you know, like we
Speaker 1: now can get from that side to that side, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, millions of times a day. And I
Speaker 1: love that. First of all, you got ahead of me,
Speaker 1: and in a positive way. But I was going to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that I was so grateful I didn't have to
Speaker 1: be a mechanic. And that also that I being able
Speaker 1: to trust people in small and direct ways, in in
Speaker 1: ways that you understand, which is if you notice more
Speaker 1: like the things in your book, it's easy to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it might lay the foundation of restoring some trust in
Speaker 1: a larger sense. And being able to forget things is
Speaker 1: very important. And I think knowing that design the world
Speaker 1: like helps you in that way. Not that you don't
Speaker 1: need to know how to do it or need to
Speaker 1: know how it works, but you need to know someone
Speaker 1: thought about it. You know. It's not like being a parent.
Speaker 1: You know, like, like you don't need your kid to
Speaker 1: know all this I've done for you all the time.
Speaker 1: That's the water they swim in is that you love
Speaker 1: them and take care of them, you know. And so
Speaker 1: them not recognizing the water isn't a fault on their part.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't recognize the water. They should just like swim
Speaker 1: in it, you know. And a well designed world that
Speaker 1: is about care and mutual benefit and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff is like that and super I mean, it's
Speaker 1: why I do the things I do. And you can't
Speaker 1: read this book of yours about all these genius little
Speaker 1: things and some of the things that don't work without
Speaker 1: believing that we actually are highly interdependent. We need each other,
Speaker 1: and we're all better off if we just keep trying
Speaker 1: to get better and devise. And sometimes the answer is
Speaker 1: not a mega solution that affects the whole world. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a low cost, high impact, active genius that can
Speaker 1: echo across national borders even But that's what I got
Speaker 1: out of reading your book. I thought, you know this, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's so heartening, because that's what I feel when
Speaker 1: we do these stories, that it really is an optimistic
Speaker 1: view to sort of examine these things and realize our
Speaker 1: interdependence and uh yeah, I'm so, I'm so Pleately if
Speaker 1: we don't, we don't often like talk about it directly,
Speaker 1: like we hope you get it through the castalto of
Speaker 1: the of the show in the book and so well,
Speaker 1: given the political polarization in the world in America, it's
Speaker 1: probably better that you don't talk about it directly. People
Speaker 1: come to it almost by osmosis. I think that more
Speaker 1: and more this idea of us being dependent on each other,
Speaker 1: and that a world in which we're completely on our
Speaker 1: own that some people like love to imagine for themselves
Speaker 1: politically is a terrible world that we don't want at all,
Speaker 1: and that these physical manifestations of us working together in
Speaker 1: the form of cities, in the form of roads. You know,
Speaker 1: people should recognize how much they depend on each other,
Speaker 1: even when they feel like they're completely alone. And it
Speaker 1: all requires like an idea that we have design systems
Speaker 1: and expertise and a faith in those systems, and that
Speaker 1: no one person has to do everything that only works
Speaker 1: because we all work together on it. And the built
Speaker 1: world is all is all that no one person can
Speaker 1: build a building, no company can build a bridge. It
Speaker 1: takes a government, you know, and the government is our
Speaker 1: is the manifestation of our collective care for each other.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's anything to shy away from.
Speaker 1: I think that's something to celebrate, to exalt in. And
Speaker 1: it manifests, like you said, in in the biggest things,
Speaker 1: and it manifests in the smallest things, like little tiny
Speaker 1: things and little regulations. And there's all types of silly,
Speaker 1: dumb side effects of regulations, of people having good thoughts
Speaker 1: about things that have bad effects. I mean, like we
Speaker 1: have a whole section on like weird architectural features that
Speaker 1: have to do with taxes, you know, like there's always
Speaker 1: a time they're trying to figure out how to tax people,
Speaker 1: you know, for governments to run and basically monarchies to
Speaker 1: run at this point, so they would tax like this,
Speaker 1: how many bricks you had in your house. They would
Speaker 1: tax how many windows you had in your house. And
Speaker 1: so then people would board up windows, and they attack
Speaker 1: how many bricks you had, so people made bigger bricks,
Speaker 1: you know, like and then they would tax, like in Paris,
Speaker 1: they tax like how high your roof was, you know,
Speaker 1: like how many stories you had, and so but they
Speaker 1: decided that it wasn't taxed past a certain line, which
Speaker 1: created that manswered roof, that sort of manswered roof for
Speaker 1: the dormer, which is like the Paris roof that that's
Speaker 1: created because of taxes, you know what you mean, Like
Speaker 1: and it's like a dumb side effect of trying to
Speaker 1: solve a problem and then in the end you made
Speaker 1: this beautiful roof line that we think of. It's quintessentially,
Speaker 1: you know, like Parisian, you know, and and so like
Speaker 1: it's not that we don't make mistakes when we collectively
Speaker 1: decided to solve problems and there there's top down things
Speaker 1: and ways to get around it. That's what the world
Speaker 1: is made of, is that sort of conversation between well
Speaker 1: intentioned things and well intened things that work, well intended
Speaker 1: things that fail, dumb things that we find ways to
Speaker 1: work around. Because people are great at avoiding taxes, they
Speaker 1: will do anything, like they have to find all kinds
Speaker 1: of ways. And you can date the period of taxation
Speaker 1: of a building because of the size of the brick
Speaker 1: in England, Like that's a that's an amazing asing thing
Speaker 1: to like notice and recognize and realize that that was
Speaker 1: part folly and also part just good story that made
Speaker 1: something like interesting happen. And it's not that we collectively
Speaker 1: figure stuff out. We don't. We're a mess, you you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And but that all that stuff
Speaker 1: is what makes design and that's why it's fun to
Speaker 1: look at because it's all just stories in the end,
Speaker 1: and it's a fascinating world if you just know to
Speaker 1: look at it more. After this, if you were the
Speaker 1: czar of the infrastructure bill that had just passed the Congress,
Speaker 1: that is, you've had this kind of money based on
Speaker 1: your now many years of experience looking at all these
Speaker 1: systems and all these things that worked helpful lot of
Speaker 1: people are that created some problems. What do you think
Speaker 1: the priorities should be on what we should be doing now?
Speaker 1: First of all, the natural lifespan of concrete is, you know,
Speaker 1: like about a hundred years. It just so happens that
Speaker 1: we're entering into this era where all those beautiful things
Speaker 1: of w p A built are about to reach their
Speaker 1: natural lifespan and they require just maintenance. Like I I
Speaker 1: think that one of the ways that design reporting or
Speaker 1: design thinking gets things wrong is that you can come
Speaker 1: up with some great solution and solve a problem and
Speaker 1: then it's done. But that's not how the world works.
Speaker 1: The world is much more mundane and it has much
Speaker 1: more to do with maintenance than solutions necessarily. And so
Speaker 1: the first thing I would do is assess all the
Speaker 1: things that we have. Is like, we have these reinforced
Speaker 1: concrete structures that have rebar that are rusting and things
Speaker 1: falling apart, and we should just do what I would
Speaker 1: consider to be, you know, or most people consider to
Speaker 1: be the boring work of just making the things that
Speaker 1: we have last another hundred years. I know that's not
Speaker 1: you know, like super exciting, but I feel like that
Speaker 1: we should begin to, like, instead of just the genius
Speaker 1: problem solvers and solutions of great little design innovations, we
Speaker 1: should start recognizing that maintenance is a reason why we're here,
Speaker 1: maintenance and care of the things we have, because the
Speaker 1: greenest building is a building that's already built, and to
Speaker 1: recognizing that that we just have to spend money on
Speaker 1: things and and make them last longer. And the other
Speaker 1: part of it that I would spend on it is
Speaker 1: I would do kind of the w P a thing
Speaker 1: of like going this thing that we're making is not
Speaker 1: only going to be functional and important. It's gonna be beautiful,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be proud to be an American when
Speaker 1: you see it, and not shy away from it because us,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because it seems like a boondoggle or
Speaker 1: it seems like too expensive or something. Just like, really
Speaker 1: lean into you know what. We make those things because
Speaker 1: we do them together. And that's what America is. That
Speaker 1: we are an idea and that to me is like
Speaker 1: how I would present it as much as make it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how I would do it. Before we go, First
Speaker 1: of all, thank you for that. I think I believe
Speaker 1: that most people, in spite of all this polarization and
Speaker 1: fighting and name calling in the world today, if you
Speaker 1: scratch nearly any of us deep enough, there's still a
Speaker 1: person down there somewhere, you know, and we have basic
Speaker 1: human instincts. And I think the one thing about you know,
Speaker 1: reading your book and saying all these zillion things that
Speaker 1: you noticed, I think people do notice more than they
Speaker 1: know or even are aware of. But there's so much
Speaker 1: that they don't know, and there's so busy they have
Speaker 1: to worry about how they're gonna, you know, bring in
Speaker 1: and you help them to understand that, and so I
Speaker 1: think that what you said is right. I think anything
Speaker 1: that increases our self confidence and our self awareness will
Speaker 1: increase our willingness to cooperate and increase our ability to
Speaker 1: begin with the end in mind. I find that this
Speaker 1: is social infrastructure, I guess. But it's like all these
Speaker 1: things that you talk about, the things that were done
Speaker 1: well and things that weren't. Most everybody that built whatever
Speaker 1: they were building, they tried to do a good job
Speaker 1: of what they did. That's the conclusion I reached. And
Speaker 1: sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong. I mean,
Speaker 1: once in a while you have a thing like this
Speaker 1: Miami deal where the parking decks weren't maintained all that.
Speaker 1: And I think that your maintenance argument is very good,
Speaker 1: maybe just because I've reached the age when it's all maintenance,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, I think, Maden, this is the
Speaker 1: greatest thing since slice bread. But but you have given
Speaker 1: all your listeners and your readers are great gift because
Speaker 1: I honestly believe that knowing things bill's confidence, and you
Speaker 1: have to have a certain amount of self confidence before
Speaker 1: you can entertain trust and cooperation. We need more social
Speaker 1: capital in America. And ironically we might be able to
Speaker 1: best build it through physical capital. I agree. I agree.
Speaker 1: That's easy to rally around something that's a big physical
Speaker 1: object because you know it was made sincerely and that's
Speaker 1: a great thing to recognize. Yeah, it's one of the
Speaker 1: great things. Like infrastructure bills are like the ones that
Speaker 1: get past right, and it's because people recognize that building
Speaker 1: things together is you know, what makes us a human yep.
Speaker 1: And it's valuable not only to people who are who
Speaker 1: need other things like to improve their income or there
Speaker 1: access to healthcare or whatever. It helps some move around
Speaker 1: for it, but it's valuable for people who need to
Speaker 1: succeed at what they're doing now, who are aspirational and
Speaker 1: who are working. And I feel good about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hope I get to see you when I'm out
Speaker 1: in California. I would love that. Let me know. I
Speaker 1: love that. I have some zany friends out there that
Speaker 1: we would love to have you at dinner that I
Speaker 1: could grill you would sit on me. Well, it's a deal,
Speaker 1: you gotta do. I'll pay for the meal if you'll
Speaker 1: be grilled. That sounds delightful. Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Why am I telling you this? Is a product action
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation, and at Will Medium.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Craigmanascian and Will Manadi. Our production
Speaker 1: team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sarah Harowitz, and Jake Young,
Speaker 1: with production support from Liz Rafferee and Josh Farnham. Original
Speaker 1: music by Watt White. Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson,
Speaker 1: on hell Orina, Corey Gansley, Kevin thurm Oscar Flores, and
Speaker 1: all our dedicated staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Dr Mike Kempill, Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program,
Speaker 1: one of a kind partnership between the presidential centers of
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and
Speaker 1: Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton often says that the key
Speaker 1: to great leadership is in finding our common humanity, something
Speaker 1: that's needed now more than ever. That's why each year
Speaker 1: we bring together a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from
Speaker 1: doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans,
Speaker 1: all of whom have a passion for making the world
Speaker 1: a better place. We create a culture of collaboration that
Speaker 1: transcends partisan divides and ideological differences in service of a
Speaker 1: greater good. Today, presidential leadership scholars across the country are
Speaker 1: working together and actively applying the lessons learned in our
Speaker 1: program to help tackle today's most pressing challenges. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about this work and see how you can
Speaker 1: get involved by visiting www dot Clinton Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1: Slash podcast