How Will Gardner Is Helping Build a Stronger South Coast
Will Gardner is the founder of South Coast Places For People, a new nonprofit — and Strong Towns Local Conversation — in Massachusetts. He previously founded Alma del Mar Charter Schools and now spends much of his time plotting street redesigns, housing reforms, and community events.
In this episode, Will discusses the three working groups his Local Conversation recently started, which focus on parking reform, backyard cottages, and street safety.
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Tiffany Owens Reed 0:00
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. I'm your host. Tiffany Owens Reed. One of my favorite aspects of hosting the show is hearing how people who never thought of themselves as urbanists, as citizen advocates or as a type of person likely to be involved in local politics, suddenly find themselves taking on all of those roles in some way because they care about making their community a better place. Their stories are reminders that local politics and civic engagement or advocacy, or whatever you want to call it, is not just for people with certain beliefs or lifestyles. Local political participation is just about showing up and engaging in the conversations that shape the future of the community you call home. I personally feel like this is something we've been trained to think of as this special activity for special people with certain beliefs or agendas, or maybe it's just something that we should leave to the experts. But I actually think it's something that is fundamental to being a human being. Caring about our communities. Being part of those conversations is something we can all do, and it's something I think we all should be doing, and I think today's conversation will be a good reminder of that. Today I'm joined by Will Gardner. He's the founder of South Coast Places for People, a nonprofit working to make the south coast of Massachusetts a place with abundant housing, better ways of getting around and vibrant multiple neighborhoods. He previously founded Alma Del Mar charter schools, and now spends much of his time plotting street redesigns, housing solutions and community events. We'll put the link to his organization and his substack in the show notes. I'll just tell you now the substack is stronghaven.substack.com where he's been posting some writing that I'm sure you'll find interesting, especially if you're in this part of the country. Well, welcome to The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. I'm glad to have you here.
Will Gardner 1:55
Thanks, Tiffany. Glad to be here.
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:58
So you are originally from the Boston area. Can you share a little bit about where you live now, about your town? What do you love about it? What do you think makes it unique?
Will Gardner 2:08
Yeah, well, you know, I was originally born on the north shore of Massachusetts, but when I was a kid in about second grade, my family moved to the heart of Boston. So I had this early contrast of starting my life in a suburb and then suddenly finding myself in the middle of a really vibrant city. And what I loved most about Boston growing up, and then what I love about where I am now, is just that freedom to explore. You know, when I was a kid growing up in the city, it started with just walking to school in grade school, and then when I was 10 or 11, I could start riding the subway on my own. And that just opened up so many worlds for me. One of my favorite memories growing up in Boston was just being able to take the T when I was a kid to Fenway Park on my own, and you could get back, then you could get an obstructed view seat for about seven bucks, and get in the park and see a game. And what an adventure as a kid.
Tiffany Owens Reed 3:15
That sounds like a great childhood, having those options, like you said, to just explore. I think it's something that is a sad and tragic loss to the way we've been approaching city and neighborhood design in our country for a while now, we've definitely given up that option. I was kind of chuckling today, because sometimes I get really sleepy after I eat, and I've read that like you should just take a 10 minute walk after you eat. But where I live, I'm in Waco, Texas, in our neighborhood, it's like, I have a small child. I'm super pregnant. It's so unwalkable that I literally ended up just doing laps up and down in the backyard. I can't just grab my kid and go for an enjoyable quick 10 minute pick me up on the block. We've been helping some friends out. So we've been helping them house sit. And I think the sidewalk is not even a block long. So sometimes my son will be like, "I want to go walk." And I'm like, "Well, you can't. Look how short the sidewalk is." And it's like, have we thought about the user experience?
Will Gardner 4:29
Yeah. And sometimes people chalk it up to generational differences only, right? I think I call myself out as kind of a Gen Xer, when I say I had all this freedom as a kid, and I could kind of roam. But a big part of it's the infrastructure too, right?
Tiffany Owens Reed 4:44
Oh yeah. But I think it's also a values question of like, do we value giving children or young adults the option to explore? And I think most people, if we ask them that today, they probably would. And so I think it's always helpful to remember we're living in the legacy of planning decisions that were made 100 years ago. Maybe they didn't have this narrative framework for looking at things. But still, I think we should constantly be reevaluating, like, why are we accepting these norms and what are we giving up as a result of that?
Will Gardner 5:15
I think that's right, yeah.
Tiffany Owens Reed 5:16
Well, I mentioned in the introduction that you have a background working in education, founding Alma Del Mar charter school. So I'm just curious, can you share a little bit about your personal story, your professional background, and how you came to discover this interest in urban design and thinking about streets and mobility and all those fun things?
Will Gardner 5:37
Yeah. I've always just been a curious person, and all over the place in terms of my interests. In college, I was a double major in anthropology and music. So I was just fascinated in music as a way of bringing people together, and music in things like social movements. And from there, I went into education. I became a teacher in the Mississippi Delta, which is the home of some of the best music in the world. And I learned a lot there about what community is and what makes for for culture. And then I moved back up to Massachusetts, back up to my home state, and started working in education up here, and got involved with a group of parents and teachers and community leaders to start a new school in the city of New Bedford. So that really was the biggest chapter of my professional career, was founding these schools with just a really dedicated group of creative people and growing those schools out to 2 K-to-eight schools. Now they serve over 1000 kids in the city. And then it came time, about three years ago, for the founder to get out of the way, and to let my very capable leadership team take the reins. And so I was able to step back. And during that time, I had the flexibility to be at home more, to do things like bike with my kids to school, and that's what started me down this path of really looking around me and just observing and saying, "Hey, why is it difficult to do something as simple as as get to school without driving a car? What about this journey is hard or uncomfortable or unsafe when you're traveling with family or group of kids?" I'm sure you've heard similar stories from other people in the past. You know, something as simple as that starts you asking these questions, and then you go down the rabbit trail.
Tiffany Owens Reed 7:53
Then the rest is history. So was this like a bike bus that someone organized?
Will Gardner 8:01
It became a bike bus. There had been a bike bus in our town years ago, and then a group of us parents revived it. I live in a town called Fair Haven now, and it's right across the harbor from the city of New Bedford. Running across Fair Haven east west, there's an old rail trail that's now a multi use trail. So for much of the journey to school from the center of town, we can use that rail trail. So it was a real opportunity to use that infrastructure and create this really fun group. So the bike bus is kind of the highlight for for a lot of us, for parents and kids. We play music, we do little chants and cheers when we start the bike bus. And one of the surprising parts about it, for me was how it not only was a highlight for kids and a great way for them to burn off some steam and check in socially before the start of school, but it has also become a really nice connection point for a group of parents. So we drop our kids off and then we hang out. Some parents are sticking around the playground at school with younger kids. Some of us go grab coffee. Some are kind of taking a leisurely ride back to the center of town, and that's not something you get in your typical suburban car drop off. So it's nice.
Tiffany Owens Reed 9:29
That sounds really great. What were you noticing on these bike rides? Like, what was standing out to you about the infrastructure, just about your town that you had never really seen before?
Will Gardner 9:40
Well, as kind of the stereotypical middle aged white guy cyclist, sometimes people like me feel more comfortable biking around alongside fast moving traffic, things like that. But when you're taking a group of kids, and you're taking families and you're taking elders, you start realizing, wow, there's no buffer between the drop off of this sidewalk and some very fast moving traffic. Or people really aren't visible when you come up to this corner before this really busy intersection. So there's a lot of just small details that you notice.
Tiffany Owens Reed 10:29
Yeah, those small details can add up and have a huge impact on people's experience or their decision making. I feel like you just need one or two randomly disappearing sidewalks for walking to no longer be an option, right? Or that one block that's super bright, it has no shade, might be the one thing that tips someone back into their car. Little things that really do add up and shape how we approach our communities, and especially in terms of how to get from place to place. I live in a neighborhood with two other friends who are, like, mom friends. It's great. We're all in a similar life stage. And one of them, to get to her place, you have to cross a pretty busy two way street. It's not that bad, but I think cars drive fast enough to be dangerous, especially if you're taking little kids. I've noticed how weird it is that this presents itself as a border in my head. It's not that we can't or that we haven't walked, but it just takes a different type of energy to do because it's just that one street.
Will Gardner 11:46
Yeah, the conversation stops, you have to really pay attention. Yeah. When I first started to get into this stuff, I was involved with our town's bike committee, and they were proposing a painted bike lane for very fast moving street in our town. Some people were bringing up, "Hey, this seems like a pretty scary place to just bike with just a paint painted line there." And I remember the planner at the time saying, "Oh, I bike all the time along that road. I'm totally comfortable with it." Often, decision makers are thinking from their particular perspective, right? But if we're not thinking from the perspective of an elderly person, disabled person, families with kids who dart around a lot and wobble, then we're really not making it accessible to the wider group of people.
Tiffany Owens Reed 12:56
Yeah, I think you're definitely onto something there. Before we jump into the nonprofits and the projects that you're working on, can you just tell us about your town?
Will Gardner 13:09
Yeah, so Fair Haven's a really cool town. It's about 16,000 people. It has a beautiful historic center, kind of a classic New England village feel. It's a peninsula that juts into the water. And then on the other side of the harbor, you have New Bedford, which is a beautiful historic port city. In our center, we have that old grid, right? We have that pre World World War Two town feel, which is wonderful, and I think it just makes it an attractive town for a lot of people. I remember, my wife and I wanted to move here a couple of decades ago just because of the way that town center felt. We couldn't have articulated that as what it was, but we thought, "Wow, this looks like a great place to raise kids" because it's got these short blocks and pretty dense development of houses and very walkable lots of sidewalks and interspersed with with parks, and then you're right near a pretty major city which, which is a great situation to be in. You know, there is some of that post world war two, more typical American suburban development more outside of the the town center, and certainly the way the town has grown in recent decades has been more in that form.
Tiffany Owens Reed 14:46
So can you tell us about how you found out about Strong Towns? It sounds like a great place, but what were you noticing about it that made you think "How could our town become a more strong town?" And maybe you could share some of the themes that you found yourself writing and speaking about more?
Will Gardner 15:14
Yeah. It's that love of the place where we are that, I think, drives a lot of us to get involved in this movement and this kind of work. I think what brought me to Strong Towns was conversations with folks in the bike advocacy and safety community. After I was working on bike bus, you know, connected with folks like that, and pretty quickly ended up reading Strong Towns. And then from there, "Confessions of a recovering engineer," which really just opened my eyes to the way this seemingly invisible infrastructure impacts the fabric of the community and people's ability to connect. And what we're able to do in our places, it's great to have a starting point. In our town, we do have a walkable center, we have a downtown. There's not a whole lot going on there right now, but it wasn't like a lot of cities or towns. It wasn't bulldozed during the kind of urban renewal period. So there's a lot to work with here, and I think that's really exciting. And I think there's also a lot of folks who would like to see more happening in terms of vibrancy in the street. I think there's a recognition that we need more types of housing. And I think there's also recognition that there's certain corridors, certain places in our in our town, that really are uncomfortable to walk or bike along or drive along, and that really aren't safe. So I think there's a real opportunity in terms of people want next steps to improve our town. They're just not sure how to go about it yet.
Tiffany Owens Reed 17:02
It sounds like what you've been noticing is like, "Hey, we used to do this right. Can we just keep doing it right?" Can we go back to how we used to do it and just keep extending that all throughout the city, especially in terms of infrastructure and in terms of housing and stuff like that, which I think can be a really helpful way of looking at things of like we we used to understand this pattern. Maybe we can look to that pattern as a way of solving some of our present challenges.
Will Gardner 17:28
Yeah, that's actually a great entry point into the conversation with a lot of folks in our community, particularly the older generation, because you can ask them about stores that used to be here. "Hey, remember that clam shack you used to be able to walk to around the corner? Wasn't that awesome?" And then that starts the conversation of, why aren't there those places now? What happened to the neighborhood bakery that we used to be able to walk to? I think that's a really helpful way to open up this conversation. Rather than pitching these ideas as something new, as mixed use or a 15 minute city, you say, "Hey, there used to be all this great stuff here. Wouldn't we like some more of that again?"
Tiffany Owens Reed 18:22
Yeah. All right, so you're learning about Strong Towns, you're starting to write and show up to local conversations. How did that ultimately bring you to starting your nonprofit? Let me give the name of it again, South Coast places for people, can you share the story behind how you got started there?
Will Gardner 18:45
Yeah, definitely. So I was having all these conversations with folks. I started writing just as a way to process all the things that I was reading and learning about and share it with other people. I tend to process by by writing and kind of getting my thoughts out there, and and that put me in conversation with people in other places thinking about similar things. And then it also opened up some conversations with people locally, including elected officials and people working in town government. And so I started to show up to meetings. Show up to the planning board meetings and get involved. I was kind of that classic early stage, I think, believer in the sense I was showing up, and I was a real lone wolf, and I could be a real pain at times, right? And I realized pretty quickly, and I need to be reminded of it frequently that being a lone wolf is not effective, and it's not particularly fun either. If we're saying that we want more community and more vibrancy and things like that, we're better off really living that and creating that while we're doing this work. So I invited some neighbors and folks I was having these conversations with and other friends to do a monthly meetup. I work out of a co-working spot in downtown New Bedford. So we just started meeting there once a month, very informal. We would have one topic, do some discussion, have some drinks afterwards, and very social. And, you know, it started with 10 people, and some some months there's 20 people. Some months there's fewer than that. But those conversations started to really galvanize people, and we started to bring in some speakers to share on different topics that we were interested in, and then people in the group then started initiating topics that they wanted to go deeper on. So we just recently launched a few working groups so that people can work on specific initiatives with other members of the group outside of those monthly meetings.
Tiffany Owens Reed 21:06
I totally understand the lone wolf tension. I think people really just want to get out there and start doing things. But then when you realize the siloed and complicated nature of local government, it's not long before you realize this is going to take more than one person. I'm not saying there's not a case for like, individual citizen participation, but I feel like it's fitting to the nature of just local political conversation for it to be a group of people that are coming to these individuals, if they're city staff or elected officials, and saying, "Hey, this is what we have been thinking about. This is what we're asking for." There's just something that fits the nature of political discourse, that just makes more sense. I definitely had that experience when I was trying to show up to everything in Waco, and I just realized I can't be everywhere at once and I'm just one voice. So at these meetups, what was surprising to you or, as people are showing up and getting involved in the conversation, what stood out to you about what people were thinking about? I feel like when you're making that shift from Lone Wolf, it can't be easy to take that step back and say, "maybe I should let other people be part of this too." You have to let go of a little bit of control and let things kind of take shape more organically. There's kind of two questions packed in there. What were you noticing emerging, and then what was that like for you, adjusting your own process and embracing more of this organic approach?
Will Gardner 23:24
Yeah. I mean, I think emerging is the key word, right? It's got to be an emergent thing. You know, I just put out a call. I didn't know who was going to show up. And then it ends up being this really cool, eclectic group of people. There's a guy who runs a local swap it shop, but does a lot of youth development in his neighborhood and his community in New Bedford. He owns some property, and he's interested in incremental development. He's been a real leader within our group. And then we have some teachers who are, of course, great at kind of thinking system wide and thinking about what the needs of kids and families are, and teachers are also generally very good planners, right? They get stuff done. And then there's some kind of creative types who just love downtown New Bedford and love the kind of creative artistic community that's there. And then there's folks who are really into biking for transportation, and they're all about street safety. So yeah, different people are bringing different things. And I think this is where the experience of working in schools and running schools previously is really helpful to me, because anyone who's experienced children knows you just cannot control an environment like that in a top down way and have it be really vibrant and creative and successful in a place where people learn, right? You do have to create structure. People need things to bounce off of, but then you're really seeing what's emerging and then cultivating from there. So one of our group members was just super fired up and passionate about parking reform, right? And so we're like, go with it, this is great. A group of people got together with him, and they're planning an event for parking day. So you just have to see what people are excited about, and fan the flames and then give people some of the resources that they need to make that stuff come to fruition.
Tiffany Owens Reed 25:42
I like that imagery of giving people boundaries, but them bounce off the wall. They need the walls, but they also need to feel like toddlers. It's like the container for your craziness. I also have to let you be kind of crazy.
Will Gardner 25:42
That's right, yeah. And that's what a good city is, right? There's all this serendipity, and that's what makes it great. All those unscripted things. You come around the corner and you just happen upon these really cool scenes.
Tiffany Owens Reed 26:17
Yeah, I moved to Waco from New York City, and that was crazy evaluating this decision for the rest of my life. Anyone who's listened to this podcast for a while knows this is the sub narrative of Tiffany's life, what she wakes up thinking about three in the morning. I feel like that was one of the biggest things I missed, how you can just go and explore. Obviously the walkability and how easy it is to kind of get places, but also that spontaneity. You just literally never know what's gonna happen, like what ridiculous thing you're gonna see, or what creative thing you're gonna see, or what beautiful thing you're gonna see, or what really offensive thing you're gonna see. I'm rereading Jane Jacobs "Death and Life of Great American Cities," and I just finished chapter two. Took me a really long time, but the woman packs so many insights in these chapters. If you're really reading it slowly, to understand it, it should take you a while. And chapter two is really where she gives her signature soliloquy on the ballet of the streets. And it literally almost makes me cry every time I read it. She's kind of a poet when she's describing this, just so many details she noticed, and she just gets it. And I remember reading this book when I first left New York City, which was probably 10 years ago, and I was struggling so much, and I didn't know why. I'm pretty sure it was that section in chapter two where she articulated this ballet of the streets that made me understand why I love New York City and why I was struggling so much being out of there. It had nothing to do with going to the coolest shows, or having the world's most complicated fusion baguette croissant donut, or wearing great outfits. I just miss watching people and seeing what funny, silly, creative, stupid things we can get ourselves into on the random block of Hudson Avenue. That's the basis of her criticism for urban planning as she was observing it at her time, that they saw all of that as a problem. They wanted to clean up the city and move everything inside so that the streets and the sidewalks would be orderly and and predictable and you didn't have to worry about having to deal with people. And that's part of the narrative of how we found ourselves where we are. It was like saying "people as the greatest point to the city and cities are containers for bouncing off the walls", versus saying "cities are containers for order and we should put everyone and their bounciness inside of buildings so no one has to see it."
Will Gardner 28:57
And we have to somehow dictate exactly how and when and how high people bounce, yeah. And so have you been able to cultivate a little bit of that serendipity and enjoy the kind of Jane Jacobs ballet where you are in Waco?
Tiffany Owens Reed 29:13
Well, I do want to tell you one funny story. Yesterday, actually, I was driving to a doctor's appointment, and I had the windows up because it's hot and we're in a really busy stroad and it's, you know, the typical emotional sequence of "this is ugly. Why am I here? I can't stand this. This is so dangerous." starts unfolding in my subconscious. But as I'm waiting at a stoplight with my toddler in the background, who's very musically inclined, all of a sudden, I realize I'm hearing something. I'm hearing music. And then I look up and I realize that, standing on the median across the street, with two or three lanes of fast moving traffic, all this craziness, is a young man completely rocking out on his electric guitar. It made me so happy. I was like, "Who is this human?" And I put the windows down, and I looked at my son, and I was like, "do you hear the music?" You can't really have buskers out here, there's not enough foot traffic for it to make sense. You have to have a whole setup in order for street music to make sense. It was magical. I wish I was going in the opposite direction so I could have got a photo or video or something, or just told him thank you. But, I mean, what a person. I'm definitely cultivating some of that, but I don't know how I would go about that. I will say I've tried to be really intentional to get my son in spaces that are more people oriented, if that's like the college campus here, just parking and letting him just wander and walk and interact with students and deliver handfuls of pebbles to all the pretty girls reading outside, which he really likes to do. And they think it's adorable. Or we'll go to Magnolia, and they have this whole village and the silos that are really popular. And I kind of roll my eyes about it, but I did realize recently this year that it was a great place to take a toddler, because once you set set foot in there, you're safe. You don't have to worry about traffic, you don't worry about cars. There's tons of people. It's really weird how, the minute we set foot in there, a whole different set of norms take over, where people talk to each other, they'll help out with each other's kids. They'll teach each other's kids about sharing the ball, and you'll strike up small talk. You can get a hot dog or coffee at the food vendors and stuff. We don't go in the summer because it's too hot, but when the weather is nice, usually once a week, I'll be like, let's just go to Magnolia so you can enjoy somewhat of a more human habitat.
Will Gardner 32:00
That's how we naturally are right? I think we all want to live and move like that, in general. A lot of times, the environment just needs to get out of our way and let us do it. And then even when the environment is in our way, like the guy playing electric guitar in the middle of the median, it doesn't stop people from being people. It's a beautiful thing.
Tiffany Owens Reed 32:31
Sorry, we went on a bit of a tangent there. But yeah, thanks for asking about what my experience has been like. I would love to know more about these working groups that you've seen emerge in this emergent way. It really is embodying so much of what we want to see happen in our cities, provide structure and direction but let things just emerge and evolve. And I think for anyone running a Local Conversation group, I'm pretty sure this resonates with them, because I'm sure it's something that the leader type among us have to struggle with. So as you've been kind of embracing that and figuring out how to organize this nonprofit, can you tell us about the working groups and what your group is hoping to accomplish?
Will Gardner 33:37
Absolutely. I mean, it's very early days for all of this, right? So we're learning and exploring as we go, including myself. We have a parking reform group that's just focused on doing an event for parking day and getting the conversation going locally about ideas and and parking reform in general. We are in a place where there isn't that conversation isn't happening yet in a very serious way. The ADU group came from a conversation some of us were having around housing. And like many regions, we're experiencing a really acute housing crunch in our area, and there's certainly a lack of both affordable housing and starter homes and all of the above. And so a group of us got together, talked with local banks, some local contractors who are really experts in building ADUs, and then the city of New Bedford and their housing department and planning department. So we brought together this group and figured out how we could present a really streamlined process for getting ADUs built. And this was all on the back of some larger policy work that folks at the state level did to pass legislation a year ago to allow ADUs by right, pretty much in any residential neighborhood.
Tiffany Owens Reed 35:17
That's like a whole side of the ADU conversation, like the state level versus the local level. That's could be a whole episode. I've been talking to a couple people out of Rhode Island, and when housing comes up, they're like, well, this whole thing just happened at the state level so now we can do this. For anyone who's listening to this, we don't talk a lot about state level work, I think in general. I don't know, maybe Strong Towns does more than I am aware. I just feel like a lot of the energy can go at the local level but there's so much that can happen at the state that can make so much possible at the local.
Will Gardner 35:56
That's right, yeah. And so for the ADU group, it really came from just, "hey, let's do this one big event and connect with people and see what the interest is locally in this." What's interesting, what you were saying about the state level versus the local level, is, when we held this event, we were pleasantly surprised. We had a packed room. There were over 100 people there, standing room only, to hear about how you can build an ADU on your property. And when we shared about the change in state law, which had happened a year ago, I would say most people in the room were unaware that the change in regs had even occurred, right? Which makes sense. I mean, most people aren't waking up following state legislation, right? So there's a real opportunity to say, "okay, yes, at the state level, they've cleared away some of the barriers to creating this type of housing. Now let's actually test how it's working in the field." That's what we're hoping to do with this group. We're following up with folks who came to the workshop, people who are on their way to building or planning, and we want to learn from their experience, highlight their successes, certainly, but also learn what other barriers are getting in the way for folks. You know, if doing feasibility is too expensive, what are some ways that we can work on that with the city or other folks to remove some of these initial barriers to make this happen? I think that's often the experience with these things. You pass a law and you expect things to happen, and they might not happen initially because there are some other unforeseen happen.
Tiffany Owens Reed 37:56
I think that was kind of the story in Minneapolis, where everyone was so excited about the zoning reform there. And then it took a while for everyone to be like, "Oh, but wait. We also have to think about this, this, this, and this." That's just the nature of change sometimes. So the event that you're talking about is the ADU Accelerator, right? So I just want to make sure to really capture this well. It sounds like, on one hand, you were building this coalition. You mentioned bankers. Were you also talking with city staff and electeds and kind of just saying, "Hey, we got this reform at the state level. Now how we can put that to work on the local level?" Can you maybe bring that side to life a little bit?
Will Gardner 38:50
Absolutely. Yeah. I think we were really fortunate in that New Bedford has a pretty forward looking administration, and city staff pretty well versed in a lot of this stuff, and they know that housing is a real issue, and that increasing housing stock is really important. And so it was more of a collaboration to say, "What could we do in this space that would be useful?" And, "How could the city collaborate with some of these other folks to make something happen?"
Tiffany Owens Reed 39:22
Was that translating into specific policy changes, or were they just starting the conversation about what might be needed? How did that play out in terms of results?
Will Gardner 39:34
It was less about changing rules and more about clarifying the process for everyday folks. The planning department did some work to get the process on one page. We as a group were just talking and said, "Hey, can we see the entire permitting process on one slide that anybody could understand? So really just communication and clarification. And then also putting people on it to say, "Hey, if you hit any snags, this is the person you can call in the city who's going to be your liaison and help you out." Sometimes, just having the phone number the email of the right person is really helpful.
Tiffany Owens Reed 40:17
That's helpful. I'm really glad we built into that a tiny bit more. So the accelerator was to take this state level reform, the streamlined process-communication solution, and then put it in front of ordinary people who might be interested in actually building
Will Gardner 40:39
Exactly.
Tiffany Owens Reed 40:34
And then you had over 100 people who didn't even know that this was now legal in the state. I think there's this perception of New England as kind of like curmudgeonly around housing and new development and ADUs and all of that. So I'm just curious, what was it like being in the room with all these people who wanted to build ADUs, and what was the conversation like, and what were you discovering about the mindset or the perception around around infill housing and accessible units and stuff like that?
Will Gardner 41:01
Most of the folks there were property owners, or homeowners, and people who had family members that they wanted to build housing for. So people get it, especially when you're talking about that next increment, or something like ADUs, most people understand when they have such personal cases that align with the need to create more housing. I think people in a city like New Bedford and in New England, they do get it. New Bedford is a city of many triple decker houses that were built by waves of immigrants who have come in the past. So we have a lot of folks from Portugal who settled here. We have folks from Cape Verde. We have folks from all over the world who have come who were able to build housing, you know, live on one floor of a triple decker, rent the other two out, and really got a foothold that way. And those stories happened pretty recently for folks. People's grandparents, that's their story. And so I think people get it at that level. They understand that housing is something that regular people can and should be able to build, so I think from that perspective, people, really get it.
Tiffany Owens Reed 42:38
Let's talk about the last working group. That's the newest one, and this is the one pertaining to highway six and improving safety there. Can you tell us the backstory behind this, and kind of how things have taken shape in terms of really advocating for improved safety on this road.
Will Gardner 43:01
A group of us had been talking about this for a while, and truth be told, I was resistant to moving anything forward on it, partly because it's a state highway, and I know that wrangling with the state and the bureaucracy there can be really challenging and really long term. I wanted our group, especially at the outset, focused on smaller scale, tangible local things. What really prompted us, though, to move forward with that work was last month. Within the span of a week or two, there was a string of really bad crashes and fatalities, some involving pedestrians, some involving drivers, several that involved young people that were just really tragic. I mean, everyone is tragic and really heartbreaking. I think the fact that they all happened so close together in time really made a lot of people who wouldn't normally connect the dots pause and say, "Wait a minute, what's going on? This doesn't feel normal." And I think for folks like me and some of the other folks having the conversation about road design, we were used to seeing these types of incidents happen, but normally they were spread out through the course of a year. And in this case, we saw all of our fatalities for the year within one week. Some particularly beloved people and young people in our community. The conversation had already started because this was in the news, and I felt like we were well positioned to start to move the discussion forward in a productive way. My fear was that, if we sat this one out, then we would see what I too often see in other communities, where there's an outcry and then a multi year study and then nothing really happens, or there's kind of some symbolic action to assuage the public or to satisfy that outcry that doesn't really get at the underlying issues with the corridor. And so I felt like we were in a better position to start the conversation in the right way and lead from a place of community values, and that's what we're trying to do.
Tiffany Owens Reed 43:06
What are you all hoping to achieve? What would be like a good outcome that you'd be happy with?
Will Gardner 43:55
That's a really tough one, right? Because we're talking about a state highway that cuts across multiple communities. Where we're starting and what we spent a lot of time talking about just this past week was, "What are our values as a community, and how do we want this corridor to reflect those values and priorities? That includes trade offs, right? Everybody can get behind the idea of wanting our kids to be safe, right? Everybody can get behind the idea of wanting seniors to be able to cross the street in their own neighborhood. What I think is important, though, is being able to say, "Are you willing to prioritize that above other things? Above perceived convenience of a corridor, above the ability for somebody to go over 50 miles an hour between stoplights?" Getting specific about not only what our values and priorities are, but what is a priority over what other, often good, valuable thing. So that it doesn't become this kind of wishy washy exercise. That's the place where we're starting. I really want us to be in it for the long term, to hold on to those values and no matter what the opportunity is, no matter what changes can be made to the corridor -- and those opportunities will come, we have some willing partners at the state level and at the elected level -- we measure them against those priorities and values and engage in that iterative process over the long term. So we're very purposely not saying we just need a stoplight or we want a crosswalk here because we don't want to sell ourselves short in terms of what we can accomplish.
Tiffany Owens Reed 48:27
Your ability to articulate that over what idea is so valuable, because I think it really is at the heart of effective decision making, when you're talking about making decisions about the built environment as a community. Oftentimes, I think we forget to talk about, like, just vision. Like, describe what we actually want to experience to be here. And then let's talk about what kinds of decisions we'd have to make to make that possible. And then let's talk about the trade offs that we'd have to make to make that possible. Those are the building blocks of of of a productive conversation when you're talking about these kinds of changes. But it can be really hard to remember to talk about trade offs and to actually make space for that and wrestle with it. But it's critical.
Will Gardner 49:36
Yeah, because often in these conversations, nobody disagrees that our streets should be safe for our seniors or our people for disabilities. Nobody's going to disagree with that on the face of it. But when it comes time to make actual decisions, some of those values are being deprioritized for others. We want to make those trade offs explicit. If you're going to prioritize the needs of commuters over the needs of local elders, say it out loud. And then we can have that discussion.
Tiffany Owens Reed 50:18
The other risk too is that you try to have your cake and eat it too, and avoid the idea of trade offs entirely, and pretend that it's not a thing. I was in Austin recently, and I got some of the best ice cream of my life. Shout out to Jenny's. But it was inside this plaza that was very funny, because I'm eating my ice cream looking outside the window, and you can see how they were trying to merge walkability, but they were trying to hold on to car-centricity at the same time, and it killed the place. There's no one out walking around except for the few young ladies rushing to their yoga class here and there. There was no real vitality. There was a playground, no children in it. There were sidewalks, no people on them. There were outdoor tables and chairs, no one sitting there. And maybe I was just there at the wrong time or day or something, but there were a ton of cars parked. You get weird mashups like that. I think the stroad is a classic example of ignoring trade offs and not even looking at the way that these design decisions actually contradict each other, and the way that's going to kill any meaningful vitality or safety in this area. When you put a bunch of sidewalks in a playground and a bunch of outdoor dining, but then you put three parking decks and a ton of on street parking, and then lanes and room for cars, it's going to be terrible for drivers, and no one's going to be outside doing things that we want them to do. We have to be courageous enough to say, "what do we want?" Let's really map it out specifically, and then let's just talk about the trade offs and really get honest about what we're willing to give up, what we're not willing to give up.
Will Gardner 52:13
And I think if you start from the technical, concrete stuff, we're going to lose all day long on a lot of this stuff. Because people say, "You want to take away parking, that's going to be a disaster. You want to take away a lane of travel, it's going to be chaos." But I think most people in our community can get behind the idea of being family friendly and accessible for all sorts of people and all sorts of modes and all stages of life. So when we start from those values, then we're on the winning team, all of us. And then the trick is to try to help people see, and to learn more ourselves, about how this built environment can reflect those values, or how it can go against those shared values.
Tiffany Owens Reed 53:22
Very well put. Well, we've hit the end of our conversation, unfortunately, and we get to wrap up with the question I ask all of my guests. If people were coming to your town for a couple hours on a day trip, what are a couple places you like to recommend people check out to get a slice of local life?
Will Gardner 53:42
I think first off, I'll start with the bigger picture touristy thing, which is, if you're coming to New Bedford, you're coming to a city that was once the wealthiest city in this country due to the whaling industry and the fishing industry and the textile industries after it. And so New Bedford downtown is a National Historic Park. That means you can walk around a vibrant downtown that's just steeped in history, that's evident on every street. The New Bedford Whaling Museum is, of course, a great place to learn about the story of that industry, but also, more importantly, the people who built that industry and built the city and the region. One of my favorites is Cushman Avenue up in the north part of New Bedford. That's there's a lot of mom and pop businesses. It's the place where you can kind of cruise down on a Friday night and see lots of people. If you like Salvadoran food, like pupusas or Dominican tostones or whatever, that's where you're going to go get different types of food. And then my town Fair Haven is a beautiful town. We've got some beautiful old buildings, the library, where I often like to work out of is a beautiful building, and the desk where I like to work out of, if you look right above that desk, there's a framed letter handwritten by Mark Twain to a guy named Henry Rogers who was the Native Son who paid for the library to be built. He was a friend of Mark Twain's. So a lot of history to the area. And one more. Shout out to the ice cream cottage. Since you mentioned ice cream. I'm there in the summer, probably more than I should be.
Tiffany Owens Reed 55:38
You're biking around. You're working it off. It's a virtuous cycle, right?
Will Gardner 55:42
That's right. A group of us actually worked with the town to get the sidewalks there, extend it out, and then help the town to write a policy for outdoor seating. So now there's outdoor tables there, and it's a great place where people like to walk after dinner, go get some ice cream and meet up and hang out.
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:00
Do you have a favorite flavor?
Will Gardner 56:03
You know, I rotate a lot, so last night was maple walnut, but I'm generally going vanilla base, though, I don't usually do a chocolate base. That's too much for me.
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:14
Awesome. Well, Will, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and the work that you're doing. It's been really great talking with you. To our listeners, thank you for joining me for another conversation. If there's someone in your community who you think would make a great fit for the show, please let us know using the suggested guest form in the show notes. That's how we learn about a lot of the guests that we bring on. I'll be back soon with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.
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Tiffany Owens Reed 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.