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Today, Chuck is joined by Jeff Speck, a city planner, author, and principal of an urban design and consultancy firm. They discuss the ideas shared in Chuck’s book “Escaping the Housing Trap” and how those concepts play out in the real world, including examples from Jeff’s own work.

Their discussion covers a wide range of topics, including incremental zoning reform, the benefits and pitfalls of inclusive zoning, and how to finance small-scale housing.

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  Chuck Marohn 0:00

  Hey, everybody. This is Chuck Marohn. Welcome back to the strung downs podcast. I don't even know how to introduce this one. My good friend Jeff Speck called me up and said, Hey, I read your book. I want to interview you about it. It was great. And I'm like, Well, I can't turn that down. So this is technically my podcast, but it's not going to be my podcast today. I'm going to give it over to Jeff. Jeff, welcome back to the strong arms podcast. You're like the host today, so go for it.

  Jeff Speck 0:36

  I didn't realize I was going to be the host, but I definitely want to talk to you about your book. The same thing happened when I read confessions of recovering engineer, which, as you know, I feel is one of the most important books written on that subject. Your earlier essay that became that book is the longest quote in walkable city, which is my best known book. You've always been very kind to interview me about my books, and today may end or may begin with an ask, which is when my next book comes out, I expect to be back?

  Chuck Marohn 1:07

  Yes, absolutely.

  Jeff Speck 1:09

  And we'll talk about that, and that's gonna be about a year from now, probably a little less than

  Chuck Marohn 1:14

  What is your next book?

  Jeff Speck 1:16

  I don't want to I don't want to detour. We can't yet, but we'll get to it. But I do want to focus on the fact that I read two books in pretty quick succession, and that was Nolan Gray's book, "Arbitrary Lines" and your book "Escaping the Housing Trap," which I thought were a really good pair, in a sense, but also the way I read these days is, gee. For the last five years or so, my wife has had a full time job. And the concession, which is many would many would say was not enough, is that I now, among other things, I now do all the dishes. So when I do the dishes, perfect, when I do the dishes, I listen to books, and I've managed I cannot look at the dishwasher without hearing the power broker in my head,

  Chuck Marohn 2:05

  the 40 hours or whatever,

  Jeff Speck 2:07

  63 hours power broker, yeah, but I've read a ton Thank goodness. You know, Twitter and and other blue sky and other social media really trashed my reading habits, and I'm probably like a lot of your colleagues and friends, and what saved them was audible and doing the dishes. I also, you know, take trips to New Hampshire and back on occasion, where we are finishing up building a cabin and other things. So I've had other opportunities to listen. But I listened to escaping the housing trap, and I was like, wow, I have to talk to Chuck about that. But then I realized, unfortunately, that I didn't take notes because I was just listening. That's the downside. That's the downside of audible. So during my younger son's Springboard diving practice this Saturday, I did flip through the book, which I also own, and I should say all of it to all of your and my readers, it's really important to buy the hard copy, as well as the obvious support support our publishers. But I took some notes, and it's kind of random. I think what I found really worth talking to you about. It isn't so much as I have questions as I have just some really interesting topics that you raised that I'd like to discuss with you. So let's do that.

  Chuck Marohn 3:24

  Let's do that. So we'll make this a discussion more than Yeah, yeah.

  Jeff Speck 3:29

  Let me ask you, have you, have you gotten a lot of great feedback over the book? Have you been organizing your public speaking around it? Are you still doing strong towns visits the way you used to? How has this book reoriented your your practice, or was it was a reaction to a reorientation of your practice?

  Chuck Marohn 3:48

  No, I think the first part is that this is the first book that I've written that became a best seller. So we it's not reflected in the cover yet, because we it might be in the newest ones if you bought it, yeah, it doesn't have national bestseller on it. I've got one on the wall that has national bestseller on the front. This book hit at the right time in the right way, with the right audience, where it's sold enough. And you know how this goes? You know, if you get being a national bestseller is a lot about, like, initial momentum. So when the book launched, it had a lot of pre sales, and that kind of put us up into this stratosphere. I did about nine months of book tour the month the book came out, for the next nine months. And you know, because you've done this too, when you're out on book tour and you're presenting the ideas. There's a lot this book is really thick, particularly the financial parts that I wrote, simplifying all that down into a way that you can explain to people is a huge challenge that you really should do before you write the book, after you write it, and you're trying to. Like, take all this stuff and present it. That took a number of iterations before I went out on the road, and when I did, I found right away that the