The Bottom-Up Revolution
McKenzie Ortiz is the founder of Pedestrian Pride, a digital storytelling project that uplifts the realities of life for working-class people who can't drive. She also serves on the Planning and Zoning Commission in Columbia, Missouri. Today, McKenzie joins Tiffany to discuss what it's really like to be a nondriver in America and how storytelling can transform advocacy.
Transcript (Lightly edited for readability)
Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany. I am delighted to inform you all that it actually feels like fall today in Texas, which is a rare occasion, and it was the source of much joy and delight in my heart today. I celebrated it by going for a long walk at our local zoo at the request of my toddler, who's really into rhinos right now and really wants to check on the rhinos every couple days to see if they're still sleeping. It was a really pleasant time, mostly because of the weather, but also because it's one of the only places in Waco that we can actually just walk around and not have to worry about car traffic or anything like that. As a mom of a toddler, I'm always loving when I find spaces like that. It just reminds me of the importance of really designing our cities, really thinking about our cities and what they prioritize. I'm joined today on today's episode by someone who thinks about this a lot and someone who's working to change this in her community, someone who also loves walking. Mackenzie Ortiz is the founder of Pedestrian Pride, a digital storytelling project that uplifts the realities of walking, riding, and rolling in Columbia, Missouri. She strives to center working-class non-drivers and celebrate the dignity and creativity of navigating the built environment on foot. I'm really looking forward to today's conversation. Mackenzie, welcome to The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
So I would love it if you could start off our conversation today just sharing a little bit about your background. Maybe you can just tell us a little bit of your story and how did your experiences growing up shape the work that you do now?
Yeah. So I am from Wichita, Kansas. I grew up there. I grew up really poor. I was bouncing between homes as a kid, so between my mom, my grandparents, and then my aunt and uncle. I had a lot of early childhood trauma. My mom struggled with some mental health issues, which now she's in therapy for. So I love that for her. But my dad also was murdered when I was seven years old. So there was a lot of just really intense things happening as a child. But I was very lucky to have a village that did raise me between all of my family, and I was able to go away for college. I was first in my family to graduate with a college degree. I'm a first-generation college graduate, a woman of color, but that was very tough at a primarily white institution. I went to the University of Kansas, and while I was there, I kind of felt like I was being left behind a little bit. A lot of my peers had cars, and they had access to their parents. If things were to go wrong, they could call home and ask for help. I really didn't have that kind of access, and I realized then that I was kind of behind other folks, but it really formed the ground floor for my advocacy then.
Yeah, really able to speak to these challenges from personal experience. It sounds like so you are now in Columbia, Missouri. Can you tell us how you ended up there and how is it different from Wichita? I have to admit, these are two cities I've not—I feel like maybe I've been to Wichita, but don't quote me on that. But yeah, tell us a little bit about Columbia. Tell us a little bit about Wichita. What are the two like? How are they similar? How are they different?
Yeah. So Wichita is a very diverse place to live. So for reference, my high school was 40% Hispanic, 11% Asian, I think—a ridiculously diverse area. Black, white, Mexican, Asian, we had a little bit of everything there, and we were very much working class. Our major employer was aerospace. If you're familiar with Boeing, it was headquartered in Wichita when I was growing up. So it was very working class, very diverse. After I graduated from high school, I went away to college in Lawrence, Kansas, which is very white but very liberal, lots of hills, lots of hiking, typical college town. Then I moved to Kansas City after college, and it was a lot bigger than my experiences in Wichita and Lawrence. So when I had the opportunity to move to Columbia, I was excited because it is a college town too. So I was kind of looking for that mix between being in a city and being in a college town that I had when I was in Lawrence. Wichita also has a big university. So I was excited to move to Columbia for access to more opportunities and also be in a college town where I could get more experiences that I want to get in a big city necessarily.
Yeah, I totally get that. So you've been there, how long now?
It'll be four years now.
Okay. So what do you—yeah, tell us about Columbia. What do you love about it? What would you say are some of its challenges?
So when I first moved from Kansas City to Columbia, I was really struggling. I was grieving an aunt who had died, who played a huge part in raising me as a kid. Coming to Columbia was kind of like a mental health restart of this is a new place where I can experience things for the first time with people who don't really know me, and I can kind of get to know a city without the baggage of some of the trauma that I've had earlier in life. One of the best things that I really liked about Columbia is that because it's a college town, there's a lot of people who also walk and bike and get around outside of a car. So I live in an area of town that has a nice brick road, lots of people who don't have cars. I'm in a historical part of the city where there are no parking mandates, so we don't have giant parking lots everywhere. So it's very cute and quaint where I live. It's very walkable in the city core where I live too. So I love those things. But some challenges that we have is that the city of Columbia is rapidly growing since the '90s. I mean, it's grown exponentially. So I believe right now it's at 140,000 people, but it was just at 90,000.
Similar to where Waco is. Waco is at about 150, I think. So yeah, sounds similar. So many other cities we're dealing with housing shortages. We're dealing with, so much of the outer of the city is developed mostly for cars, and it leaves the folks that are without a car pretty stranded if they don't live in the city core. So when you moved to Columbia, were you already using words like "walkable," or were you already noticing things like, "Oh, there's not massive parking lots here"? Or is that, did that come later? I'm just, tell us a little bit about your urbanist transformation, I guess, throughout all of that.
That's a great question, because when I first moved to my place, I was looking for all of those urbanist things without knowing that they were an urbanist thing. So when we're looking at apartments, we looked at one that was kind of in a suburban area, and it just didn't feel like home. It felt like I knew this is what people aspire to, but it didn't feel like me. Then when we went and saw the apartment that I'm in now, it was off of a brick road. It was next to a park. Traffic was being calmed because of the brick road and because it was on a dead end. There were so many factors that I didn't know were contributing to me wanting to live there that actually were. So I've been a non-driver, and so I knew I was looking for something walkable, and that was ultimately the decision that led me to choosing the place that I live now. But no, when I first moved to Columbia, I had a lot of shame around being a non-driver. So
Let's jump into that part of your story. So you're a non-driver by choice. Can you tell us the story behind that?
Okay, so it's twofold. I would say I'm a non-driver by circumstance more than choice. So although I don't have a physical disability that prevents me from driving, I became a non-driver because when I grew up, I was poor. No one in my family—it was, you know, some kids, they get a car when they turn 16, or maybe they get help with a car when they go away to college. That for me was never going to be a reality. Then when I graduated college, I just relied on the bus, and I'm like, "Oh, well, once I get my big job, then I'm going to get a car." It was just this waiting game. But then once I got to a spot where I had a little more financial stability where I may have been able to afford a car, I was diagnosed with OCD, so obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I realized that my anxiety was really having a mental block for me from driving. So although it is kind of by choice, I haven't gone to pursue it. I could seek therapy to really resolve that OCD. I think it's something that I've kind of continued to choose not to do because I do enjoy navigating my community by foot.
I would love to hear some stories that you'd like to share about what it was like, what it has been like getting around your city on foot. I mean, this is what you do at Pedestrian Pride. You're all about storytelling, collecting people's stories. But can you just share what it was like? I don't know if you can remember all the way back four years ago, but when you kind of first arrived in this town and you're starting to feel it out and figure out your new routine and all that, but you're doing it on foot. What was that like?
When I first moved to Columbia, I had gotten a job at Target, and Target was across town. So for a while there, I was mostly Ubering where I needed to go, and that was absolutely miserable. I hated being in someone else's car. I already don't like being in cars in general, but I hated being in an Uber. It was the worst thing ever for me. It just caused me a lot of anxiety. But whenever I had a day off, I was like, "Okay, I need to take this city by foot. I want to go downtown. I'm going to go explore." I would go explore the campus. Once I was in the campus area or around a bunch of other people, I noticed that I felt so much safer in numbers, being around more pedestrians. But I was consistently having trouble crossing the street kind of near my house at College and University, which is near Mizzou campus, and I was consistently almost getting hit by a car anytime I had a day off. So anytime I was going out to explore the town, there was a car that nearly hit me. Due to this frustration, I went to Reddit to complain, because that's what you do when something bad happens, you go to Reddit. I went to Columbia, Missouri's Reddit, and I said, "Guys, I keep almost getting hit. What can I do about this?" Honestly, I wasn't expecting any solutions. I was just looking for a place to vent. But what I got was people told me about this place called Local Motion. They're a nonprofit. They do advocacy for people that bike, that walk. They do traffic calming projects, all of these things that I really didn't know a lot about, and I was kind of confused that there was a nonprofit that did it because I thought that my life as a pedestrian was kind of a temporary state that I could earn my way out of. But that wasn't the case. After being diagnosed with OCD, I realized that this is going to be more of a permanent thing for me, and so finding Local Motion was a godsend.
Can you tell us about this intersection? Is there a way you can sort of describe it so we know what was happening? What was your encounter like with the drivers?
College is this big street that has four lanes of traffic, and then University is just a two-lane, it's kind of a neighborhood street. It's not a big street. There are traffic signals that are there, but there is no protected left turn for drivers, so they are trying to go as quickly as possible to get across before they get hit by traffic, I guess. But then they sacrifice the pedestrians that also have the right of way there. So when I'm trying to cross and these cars are also trying to go before traffic comes, they're nearly hitting me. Yeah, hope I did that justice, because I don't
I feel like we need a clever name for what that is, because I can see it in my head. If I'm in the turn lane trying to turn, you would be basically coming from my right trying to cross the street that I'm also trying to cross. Would that make sense? Yeah, okay, that's really scary. I think about this in Waco, because Waco is home to Baylor University, and there's a really crazy street. What even is this thing? I think technically a drive, who knows, but it's similar. It's two, maybe even three lanes on each side, so it feels definitely like a highway. But it cuts the university off from a really popular museum, but also an athletic center where a lot of students go to do athletic things. I don't know what they do over there, but there's tennis over there, I think. Anyway, it's a place that a lot of students need to get to. But between the campus and these facilities, you have four to six lanes of traffic, plus some kind of canal or median thing that's basically a whole other lane, and it creates the same type of—not so much turn, I mean, there are these situations where cars are trying to turn into campus really fast, and there are students trying to get their run in, and they're running across these entry points to campus. Every time I'm over there, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." No one even knows to look that this entryway into campus crosses a really popular running path. You have to know that it's going to happen, that you could possibly encounter a runner there, but then you'll see students just running across the entire highway trying to get into the athletic center. There's no pedestrian crosswalks. You have to either walk all the way to the end of the campus. I don't even know where the other one would be. There's one, and this thing stretches so long, so you just see students running regularly, just running across the thing. But yeah, those tension points where you have pedestrians competing with drivers, and it's not just that, it's that you're competing with drivers whose attention has been focused so long on one particular other user that they forget to think about anyone else. So they've been focusing so long on those other drivers that they forget to think about the pedestrian that also has been told they can cross. Then they turn really fast, and then all of a sudden they might have to brake.
We have access to the data for that intersection through our Vision Zero coordinator here in the city, and that intersection consistently gets pedestrians hit with injuries.
Makes total sense. It's what you've designed for. Even the idea of having a turn signal and a cross signal going at the same time never made sense to me. It's like, why would you do that, even for someone who's parallel to the pedestrian and trying to turn right? It's like, why would you tell pedestrians they can cross and also allow traffic to turn right at the same time? These competition zones are extremely dangerous because our attention is, you know, we can only put our attention on so many things at one time. So of course, your attention is going to be placed on the other drivers because they seem more lethal, and then at the last minute, you have to quickly brake because there's a person. It's just a horrible setup for everybody, for everybody, including the driver. I agree completely. Okay, so you go to Reddit. I love Reddit. Some people really—I feel like Reddit is one of those things where either you love it or you hate it. But I just had a newborn, and let me tell you how many times my fears have been abated through Reddit at 2:00 in the morning. I'll be like, "Reddit, what is happening to my baby?" You go to Reddit. They point you to this organization, and yeah, what happens from there?
So I go on to Local Motion's website or, actually, no, I went to Local Motion's Instagram because I love to follow—I judge people kind of based on their Instagram sometimes. But they seemed really cool. I saw a lot of myself in the organization. They talked about walking and biking as a means of survival, not just recreation, because that was the other thing I was worried about. I'm like, "Well, I'm not running for sport. I'm not walking for exercise." It's part of my routine to do it to get to where I need to go. I saw that there, and then they had a post that said they're hiring or recruiting for a cohort to learn more about transportation advocacy, but it would be a paid position, so you'd be in the cohort, but they pay you to participate. At this time, I'm obviously working at Target. It's around the holidays, and after the holidays, they always cut hours. So I was about to lose all of my benefits that I had at Target because they were going to cut my hours. So I was really worried. I'm like, "I'm going to go from 40 hours to 20 hours a week. I need money to survive." And they were paying. So I applied, and I thought, you know, I think I would be great for this, but I also don't have a ton of experience in this area. So I was happily surprised when they called me and they told me that I was selected for it, not only because it would help with my bills, but I thought this could be a pathway for me to find a job in my field later on, because I was getting really sick of working retail and working service industry when I have that kind of advocacy underpinning already activated in me.
Yeah, that totally makes sense. So tell us about this cohort. What was it like, and what were some of the results from that for you?
Yeah. So I did the cohort just for the first year, where they teach you about transportation advocacy and about Columbia in general. So I had only lived in Colombia less than a year when I started, or maybe it was at the year mark. I lived in Colombia for one year. So I didn't know a lot about the city, but they taught me a lot about how our city government works, how to advocate strategically in Colombia. I learned a lot about our public education system, about urban renewal that had happened here, things that I had no idea about just being a transplant. After a year, the organization was hiring a full-time position, and one of the cohort leaders, Ricky, she asked if I would apply for it, and I instantly thought that I was not qualified. I was like, "Well, you know, I can't. You know, I work at Target. There's no way I could have a job."
I think that because I am a non-driver, I'm so used to applications asking, "Do you have a driver's license? Do you have reliable transportation?" You know, those kind of things that are asked on a job application that for those full-time jobs, you know, even at Target, they ask you that stuff. In theory, it's like you should be always able to say yes because we have two feet, yeah. Because I can walk. But our places are not designed for that. So isn't it funny how reliable transportation means a car? It doesn't mean any other option. People automatically assume by that, "Do you have access to a car to get to work?" And it's like, no, I don't have access to a car. That doesn't mean I—that doesn't, it shouldn't automatically imply that I don't have mobility or I don't have connection to or I don't have access to the places that I need to get to, including a job.
So because of that past experience with applying for jobs and being denied partially based off of my lack of stable transportation, I felt a lot of shame, and I thought that there's no way I could get this job advocating for non-drivers when I myself don't even drive. I just didn't think that I would get the job. But I went ahead and I applied anyway, and I did get the job. So I stopped doing the cohort, and I started working for the organization itself as the Advocacy Coordinator. It was amazing having—I still work here. It was amazing having an employer that I could be honest with them about, "Hey, I'm going to walk to work, so I might come in a little sweaty, and I might need to change my clothes." And that was totally normal, because a lot of people at my workplace are non-drivers as well, mostly by choice, but they come from a similar experience.
So I mean, I would assume that would make it less stressful for you to apply for the job, given your situation, because you didn't think that they would understand more so than the place like Target you not having a car.
The problem was, there was this one line in the application that was, "You must be able to travel the city of Columbia independently." It had that line. Oh. In our bus system here, for reference, the headways are 90 minutes. So unless it's within the two-mile radius that I walk, I probably don't go unless I can take the bus there. But the buses, the time between the buses are so long that I was like, "Well, I don't know if I can effectively get places in Colombia within 90 minutes," because a lot of my job is talking to elected officials and doing that kind of in-person one-on-ones. So I understand why it was in the job application, but I just make people come closer to me.
I was going to ask, how do you get around that? Exactly. Okay, yeah. So tell us a little bit. I would love to hear more about your work, but then I also want to talk a little bit more about Pedestrian Pride and the story behind that. Can you share a little bit more about what does advocacy look like for you in this role? What are some of the conversations you're having? What are you hoping to advance in your city as it pertains to pedestrian infrastructure?
Yes. I actually totally forgot. So as part of the cohort that I did with Local Motion, we had to do a project that would help transportation in your community. Part of that project for me was starting Pedestrian Pride. So I started Pedestrian Pride before I got hired on as staff at Local Motion, and that really spurred my real pedestrian advocacy. So while the organization I work for does similar work, it is definitely not the same. The scope is a lot different. I focus really on the lived experiences of people that are working-class, non-drivers out of necessity and not by choice. So that's really the scope of Pedestrian Pride. I do that mostly through storytelling and digital content, short-form Instagram, TikTok stuff.
So what are some of the stories you've been hearing? What really sticks with you?
So recently, I talked with two young, younger women who had just moved to the area from out of state, and they are non-drivers here in Columbia, and they mostly walk where they need to get to go or where they need to go because of our bus system not being very great. Both of them, even though they didn't know each other, they haven't met, they just talked about how much social isolation they feel being a non-driver here because at night, it is so easy to feel invisible with poor lighting, no sidewalks or very poor sidewalk maintenance. You're forced into the street a lot of the time, and then when there are incidents between a car and a pedestrian, our city tends to do the instant blaming of, "Oh, well, they were wearing dark clothing," or "They were out at night," or "They were walking in the street." So it's really easy to feel that social isolation here, because it's hard to get out of the house when you're a non-driver here, and then you're working all day. So it's not like you can do things during the day necessarily.
Yeah. When I moved to Waco from Brooklyn five years ago, the first year I shared a car with my friend and roommate. The second year, I mostly got around on foot or by bike. Then the third year, I was married and there was a family car. But that second year, I remember as I was getting around by foot or bike—I lived, I would borrow a car one day a week to get groceries and do a few errands, and that was it. But I was working at a co-working space downtown, and then my church was really close to there, so I had enough that I could get to. But I remember when I would walk or even when I would bike, how lonely the city felt. It's funny because it's like, well, I don't know how to explain why it feels so different. If you're in a car and you pass another driver in a car, you don't sit there thinking, "Wow, I'm so lonely." But when you're out in the world without the mediation of that car, when your body is just right in the world, and you don't see anyone else walking, you don't see anyone else biking, and you just see people in their cars. I don't know how to explain how it feels so lonely, but it does. So it totally makes sense how someone would reflect—part of their experience would be just, it's so isolating. Yeah, it just totally makes sense to me.
Yeah. I definitely feel that. I feel like it has become so stigmatized to be outside of a car. It's like people see you as a woman, and they're like, "Why are you not in a car?" They're like, "What's wrong with you?"
Yeah. A woman walking down the street who looks normal, what could possibly have gone wrong?
No, legitimately. Especially for those of us that are outside of the college age, I think it's really hard, because it's like, "Oh, if you're a student, that makes sense. You know, you're going to and from classes." But it's like, "Oh, you're just a girl in your late 20s or 30s. Why are you—what's wrong with you? What kind of, what stunted you?"
"Are you okay? Do you need a lift?" But I love the irony of this, how these same cities that are so implicitly hostile to being on foot are the same ones where they'll make a big deal out of putting sidewalks. And it's like, but why, though? It's just funny how there's this weird paradox of, it's easy to make a fuss about putting down bike lanes or pedestrian, or putting more sidewalks and blah, blah, blah. But it's like, have you actually taken a walk? Have you actually biked? Do you actually know? Fixing the infrastructure is one thing, really understanding and experiencing the culture around mobility in your city is another. If you haven't spent a few, at least two weeks trying to do as much as you can on foot or on a bike, then I just, I don't know. I feel like it's one of those things easy to check a box and say, "Well, we put a sidewalk in, so no one should be able to complain about walking around here." And it's like, okay, the sidewalk's fine, but the culture is a much harder—that's a much harder nut to crack, so to speak.
Yeah, I mean, that exactly. I think that's why I'm using social media to tell those stories, because so many people, well, I guess it's twofold. One, for the people who mostly drive or for the people who may have positions of power, for them to be able to see the stories laid out in front of them like, "These are the folks who are non-drivers. This is what they're experiencing." Sometimes that looks like cars rushing by you on Business Loop, where you're getting gusts of wind on your sleeve. You feel the car next to you. Then other times, it's for people who are like me that are doom scrolling, and they're thinking, "Oh, well, I'm embarrassed that I don't drive, or I feel shame around having to call for rides all the time." So that they can see like, "Oh, I can have pride in walking somewhere. I'm normal. Other people are experiencing the same things I'm experiencing. I can document this. I can show like, 'Hey, this is messed up. I shouldn't be put in this situation.' Let me go ahead and send this over to this account where she can amplify my experience."
Yeah. That's so powerful. I love what you said about the gust of wind, because that's a whole other side to getting around on foot. All the things that you feel that you don't feel when you're in the car, or here, I feel like sound is so—just your perception of the city is so distorted in terms of what you hear when you're in a car. I took my son to a playground the other day, and it was right off of an interstate. It was crazy. I didn't realize how close it was until I got there, and it's a really pretty park, but then you just realize, "Oh my goodness, the interstate's right there." And how loud traffic is, and that's just the type—it's just one of those details that it's much harder to capture when you're inside a car. What your city actually feels like, sounds like, smells like, the actual feeling of being in this place. There's so much of that information you're cut off from when you're actually in the car. It's really remarkable.
It's like there's good and there's bad. When you're outside, you do notice how loud traffic is and all of the unpleasant things and the smells and the sensory experiences. But then you can also hear the laughter of a toddler playing on the playground, or you hear the birds in the morning and the crickets. Observing is a really nice thing that you can do when you're not in a car that I really enjoy. There are times where you see another pedestrian, you give them the nod. You smile at them, where it's like, "Oh, I'm not sure where you're going, but we're both going by foot, so there's some camaraderie there."
Yeah, for sure. What is your overall vision and hope for Pedestrian Pride in terms of using these stories to advocate for real, tangible change in your town?
There are so many things that Columbia can focus on, but I think in the short term, things that Pedestrian Pride would really like is to have equity in mind when we're building these sidewalk projects or doing traffic calming or anything of that sort. Right now, we hear it over and over again, anytime there's a sidewalk project, it goes in white, wealthy neighborhoods. This is something that has been called out for years, and there's usually some kind of justification of, "Oh, well, we're putting it in this neighborhood because it's getting developed a lot, and there's going to be more people moving there." But then it's forgetting the communities that have renters, that have more working-class, poor people, Black folks. They often get forgotten in that. Sidewalk projects are not inexpensive. They do cost quite a bit of money. So I would really like to see equity front and center when we're building things here, same with traffic calming when we see children. They deserve to be able to play outside safely in their front yards if they have access to that, or in their streets if they don't. Right now, there are so many—we have this long list of communities that have requested traffic calming in our city, and it's really sad to see people from since the early 2000s advocating for their street to be more accessible for people of all ages to walk on, and that essentially is going nowhere. So having an equity component to that is important.
It seems like that would also be a great area to begin to rethink the whole process around how we improve our communities. If there are citizens and residents who want to improve their street, they should just be allowed to by right. I feel like safety should just be a thing that's like, "Here's a list of things you're allowed to do, and you don't have to wait for us to do it. Here's your guide. Here's your little handbook." Go for it if you want to. You know, I don't know. I don't know. Is that too bold of an idea just to have 10 things any citizen is allowed to do to make their streets safer? You don't have to ask permission. This just has to be with you.
I love that idea. That would be great. Why can't we just paint things on? You know, why can't we just make impromptu bump-outs?
Why can't we? I'm currently very proud of myself because I convinced a friend of mine and a neighbor to buy orange cones. She just puts orange cones out when her kids are biking. They're not city cones. They're not—no one asked. They're just out, and traffic has to respect them. I've done this before with another friend, partly because I was just straight up terrified because her kids were playing. They were riding their bikes around. I may or may not—will let the listeners decide which scenario is most how likely the scenario is. But the city had actually put up orange cones around a street project or something, but they were done for the day. So it's very likely that I ran over—I'm not going to confirm or deny, but it's very likely that we ran over and we grabbed cones from the construction site, and we used them to make the street safer for kids, because it's one of those streets where, again, people tend to go really fast because they were cutting through. We just kind of slipped that. We were like, "We're just going to extend this project, and then we'll come back when we're done." We just kind of walked them over, and then we watched—really fast, they just, they saw that cone, and they stopped. They saw the cone. They didn't see the children, and they stopped, or slowed down and went around it. I just feel like stuff like this should be by right. It's like people—it's simple interventions. If you notice a bunch of kids playing, you can just put, you know, here are some cones. We'll give you five cones. Come ask for them. Make your street safer between these hours. I don't know. This is crazy. This is crazy. I don't think this is that crazy, but it just, it's a mindset shift. You got to give up control a little bit and let citizens have opportunities to participate in solving some of the problems they see.
Yes. I think that a good start for that, though, is making sure people feel like they have ownership of their communities and that they have the buy-in like, "I belong." I think that that's one of the problems that we face, is that there is a disconnect between people feeling like they belong here and belong in their communities, because people will say, "Well, I'm just renting," or, "You know, I'm just here for college. I'm just here for a few years. I don't have—I'm not a stakeholder in these conversations," or, "You know, I don't own a car. I don't buy gas. I don't—what do I contribute to the streets? Why? What ownership do I have?" So I think shifting people's mindset into having that ownership is really important by demystifying the government system. "Okay, this is what you—if you want to be part of this conversation, this is how you do it." That is something that I try to do with Pedestrian Pride, letting people know when there are those engagement meetings. "Hey, you can speak up." It shouldn't just be the homeowners association or the neighborhood watch at these meetings. You, the renter, deserve safety and the same respect that the owners of the townhome do.
Yeah. So I want to tell you something that might be—you might disagree with. But going back to sidewalks, I have a hard time with sidewalks. I like sidewalks, but I also realize they're very expensive, and they seem to me often to be used as a quick win when there's very little attention to the actual problem. The actual problem is connection. The actual problem, if I were to be really nerdy about it, is actually land use policies, because the places that people need to get to, they're too far from where people live. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that dilemma, that paradox of we want more sidewalks, but it's very likely that people won't even use them because the place they want to get to is so far away that it's uncomfortable to even walk there. Do you have any thoughts on that, especially reflecting on your experience? What are some ways we can think about that? Because I feel like the infrastructure solution is only part of the solution. We also need to be thinking about how can we bring destinations closer to where people are? I think that would actually allow the sidewalk to do its job, which is to get people to the thing they want to get to quickly. They don't want to spend 45 minutes getting to a grocery store. They'd like to spend—
10? Yeah, no, you're so right. So another hat that I wear is actually, I'm on the Planning and Zoning Commission for the city of Columbia, so I look at land use projects all the time. Or I look at—well, actually, you might not like this because we give approvals and denials and conditional use permits for different projects in the city. But you're exactly right. I would love to be in a city that had transit-oriented development or just new development in general that prioritized housing and walkable neighborhoods or mixed use. But those are not the projects that are coming to us right now. That is just—I don't know how to change or to have that mindset shift in Columbia to include more projects like that, because we are in rural—well, our city is not rural, but we're surrounded by rural Missouri. Yeah, you might have a similar mindset or not mindset, but people around you in Texas, yes, that same culture of, "Well, I want to go back to the suburbs," or "I want to take my car home." A 15-minute city is scary to me.
I know exactly what the solution would be. I think it's just understanding. It's kind of what I'm reading right now, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," Jane Jacobs. I'm reading the chapter right now on parks, and she has this whole thing about how parks are only as good as what surrounds them, the activities that surround them. I kind of feel the same way about sidewalks. Sidewalks are only as good as the destinations people can get to. If people can't get anywhere productive, helpful, useful, if they can't use that sidewalk to get to something, to solve a problem in their life or to do something interesting and delightful, what's the point? What's the point of the sidewalk? Which makes me, which might be unconventional because I'm supposed to love sidewalks, and I do like sidewalks, but I want sidewalks that actually solve problems. So I think it's more—I'm reflecting more on kind of the political conundrum, where it's easy to throw down a bunch of sidewalks. Sort of, you have to kind of get federal money for it these days, but to say, "Oh, look, we put a sidewalk," and I'm like, "Literally to where?" So I just think the conversation needs to be expanded. It's like we can't just stop at the sidewalk or at the bike lane. We really need to think about this holistically and think about the city as a holistic ecosystem and not just think about the parts. Are the parts actually achieving any meaningful kind of—are they helping the ecosystem work? You know?
Yeah, that's honestly so real. No, I mean, that's so real. I guess, I guess that requires a type of optimism for the future that maybe I'm not looking at right now, because I am looking at solutions that are immediate and that can fix things in the next five to 10 years. But really, if we want to make our communities better for everyone and more connected, it's going to take big changes.
Well, yeah, I think—well, I just want to applaud you for doing what you do, because you do more than me for sure. I'm sitting here giving you all my grand thoughts, and I—I'm not on—well, technically, I am on a board, but that's a story for another day. But I mean, you're actually out there doing what you can, and you have to work within an incomplete, and I would say a broken system, where the game is rigged, so to speak. You have to work with what you have, and even by being out there and taking action and starting with that, I think that's more than most of us are doing, and that's why we love having you on the show. I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't know, I guess I'm just throwing it out there that I think conversations around mobility often stop at infrastructure. "Let's just put a new sidewalk." I just would hope that in the future we can begin to talk about mobility issues as both the infrastructure and the destination. In other words, the infrastructure and the land use, they have to go together. You cannot separate them. We really should not be talking about bike lanes for the sake of bike lanes. We should be talking about bike lanes that connect children to schools, that actually solve a real problem, because otherwise you just end up in a city, like where I live, or, you know, there might be bike lanes, but not anyone using them because they're not being thought about holistically, if that makes sense. Absolutely. This has been really exciting. I'm glad you were able and willing to just riff with me on some different ideas. I feel like we could keep going. We should just start our own Reddit thread. We should just both go on Reddit and pretend that this has not been planned and be like, "Is anyone from Waco, Texas thinking about—" Love it. Well, we're going to wrap up here. In closing, this is a fun chance for you to brag a little bit on Columbia. I ask this of every guest: Tell us a little bit about your town, specifically thinking of local spots that you love to recommend for people to check out if they come through to visit.
All right, I have to give a shout-out to Uprise Bakery and Ragtag Cinema. They're inside of each other, so you can, oh, and Hit Records. They're all three in the same building. You have to go to all three if you come, but it'll be easy, not a far walk. They have amazing food, indie movies, and then cinema Ragtag. That's so fun. Yes. And then if you're—I'm a vegetarian. You have to go to Main Squeeze. Main Squeeze is delicious vegetarian and vegan food. It's great. Love it. It's a staple in downtown Columbia.
Wonderful. All right, Mackenzie, thank you so much for coming on the show with me. This was really fun talking with you and sharing your story.
Thank you, and thank you for challenging me. I think that's the great thing about these conversations, is that we can learn more and kind of do our studying afterward and figure out where we should go.
I should be like, "Hey, Strong Towns, can I do a new show called 'After Hours with Tiffany' where we just keep going?" Well, to our listeners, thank you so much for joining for another conversation. We learned about Mackenzie because someone nominated her using our suggested guest form. If there's someone in your community who you think should come on the show, please let us know using the same form. I'll put the links to everything she recommended and links to her work in the show notes, and you can also find that link there. I'll be back soon with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town, keep taking walks, and keep thinking about sidewalks and where are they going. I'll be back soon. Thanks, everybody.
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