Aaron Renn Podcast

I joined Josh Fenton of GoLocalLive to talk about the affects of coronavirus on business, work life, and state and local budges. We also talk about the possible road ahead.

Risk Adamski of Ash+Lime joins me to talk about urbanism in Dallas. We discuss the state of urbanism in the city, the nature of the "Dallas way" of urbanism, and also a bit about the city's little known Fair Park (home to a World's Fair in the 1930s), as well as creative redevelopment of aging suburban retail centers in the area.

Jerome Horne of IndyGo, the Indianapolis transit agency, joins me to talk about the city's new Bus Rapid Transit network now under construction, as well as its new fare payment system and overall bus network redesign. This collection of changes represents a quantum leap in transit service for a city traditionally lacking it.

Sacha Haselmayer of CityMart(https://www.citymart.com/) joins me to discuss how government can reinvent procurement into an innovation engine for government transformation - and significant significant improvements to supplier diversity at the same time.

Nicole Gelinas, Seth Barron and I discuss recent events in Chicago and New York in this edition of the City Journal 10 Blocks podcast. We review the recent mayoral election in the Windy City and the passage of a new flawed congestion pricing law in New York.

Tyler VanderWeele, director of Harvard's Human Flourishing Project, joins me to discuss their work, including what human flourishing is, the state of society today, what factors produce a more flourishing life, and how we can individual can maximize our chances of finding it.

A reprise of a talk I gave at the University of Chicago on the history of the city, it's long list of present day strengths, it's problems and challenges, and its key to-dos going forward.

I recently joined the American Bankers Association podcast to talk about economic development in rural and small town areas. What are the challenges facing these places? What role can be plaid by hometown banks? And what kinds of schemes should these communities avoid attempting to implement?

Tom Wright, President of the Regional Plan Association in New York, joins me to talk about his organization, the criticality of new rail tunnels under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey, how to solve the governance challenges in New York infrastructure development, his priority list of regional infrastructure improvements, and some thoughts on megaregions.

People tend to think of high tech as software or biotech, but there's often an under-the-radar high tech economy already in place in the overlooked industrial businesses of many communities. Rod Stevens of Business Street (www.business-street.com) joins me to talk about what these businesses are, where they are located, what they need, and why you've never heard of them.

What is economic development? Kevin, Scott, and I discuss this and much more, including why cities need to look beyond just tech, the importance of growing your own companies, the three people ever community has to have, the future of the "three F's" (food, fashion, furniture), the need for the right space at the right price, the role of tourism and more. Kevin Hively of Ninigret Partners (www.ninigretpartners.com/) and Scott Page of Interface Studio (interface-studio.com/) join me for this invigorating talk on economic development.

Does Amazon HQs prove that talent is the only thing that matters for economic development? How do smaller cities attract mid-tier talent in an era of power couples and superior economic opportunities in the biggest cities? How are some cities able to attract talent without a great physical product? What are the next hot cities for people to move to? Kevin Hively of Ninigret Partners (https://www.ninigretpartners.com/) and Scott Page of Interface Studio (http://interface-studio.com/) join me to talk all things talent.

I joined Charles Marohn and the Strong Towns podcast for a discussion about Carmel, Indiana, the suburb of Indianapolis that has been striving hard to build a new kind of urbanized, high quality suburb - and spending big to do it. We talk about Carmel, what they are doing, how they are funding it, and the debt levels of the city.

Why do so many cities today look and feel the same? Oriana Schwindt wrote an article for New York magazine on this very topic. It's called "The Unbearable Sameness of Cities," and is one of the fruits of her project to visit the city closest to the geographic center of every state. Article Link: http://nymag.com/travel/article/the-unbearable-sameness-of-cities.html

Former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett joins to talk about his new book, The Next American City. He talks about Oklahoma City's transformation, putting his city on a diet, and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer's drive to make his city America's most compassionate. Cornett also discusses his journey from sportscaster to mayor.

There's an unstated assumption in New York that because it's the greatest city in the world, everything there must of course be the absolute best. In fact, there are a lot of things in New York that, judged strictly on quality and not factors like price, are subpar or even outright terrible. Time has moved on and many of the things and places long time New Yorkers think are great just aren't up to today's standards. I talk about that in this episode, recorded after a return to the city from a month in Indiana

This episode is the audio of my recent appearance on City Journal's 10 Blocks podcast discussing the challenges facing the Rust Belt. We talk about the demographic challenge, including weaknesses in both domestic and international migration, cultural issues, and evidence showing that Midwestern natives themselves often don't want to live in the Midwest.

New York Magazine did an amazing exposé on Shane Smith, the co-founder of the Vice media empire. It's a cautionary tale of questionable ethics at one level. But it shows the ability of hype to conjure something real and tangible out of apparently nothing at all. What can we learn about revitalizing cities from successful hype men like Smith, Steve Jobs, etc? NY Mag article on Vice: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/inside-vice-media-shane-smith.html

Chicago demographer Rob Paral joined me to take a look behind the numbers of Chicago's population changes. The city has been losing people, but what's behind those numbers? Does Chicago really have a population problem? And will the Chicago metro area ever make it to 10 million people?

Salim Furth of the Mercatus Center joins to discuss his article in American Affairs magazine, The Two-Board Knot, a look at how zoning boards and school boards intersect to limit access to communities and raise housing costs. Note: the audio for this podcast is imperfect. Article link: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/two-board-knot-zoning-schools-inequality/