A Better Block Versus Years of Planning

Chuck Marohn  0:00

Hey Everybody! This is Chuck Marohn. Welcome back to the Strong Towns podcast. I have long been a fan and admirer of the Better Block ever since I got a chance to meet Jason Roberts and see his TED talk, and we had him speak once at a conference we put on in Tulsa, And he just wowed everybody. I've been enamored with the thought process, the approach, the examples, the just plain generosity of the organization. I have the executive director of Better Block, Krista Nightingale, joining us today, and I'm so excited to talk to her.

Krista Nightengale  0:29

Krista, welcome to the Strong Towns Podcast. Ah, thank you so much. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us on. same, we have been longtime admirers of yours. We learn so much from you all. We take inspiration from you all. So grateful to have a moment to chat. I do feel like the Better Block mindset is generosity. What I've experienced is a generosity of spirit, a generosity of intellect. There's a lot of giving that comes from your organization, and I admire you for it. I admire everybody that's been a part of it. It's a really cool place to be.

Chuck Marohn  0:29

Thank you. We got thousands of people who download each episode. There's going to be a lot of people who have not heard of Better Block, even though I've talked about you for years and all that. There's going to be a lot of people who don't know about Better Block. Can you Give everybody like what would be the elevator pitch? Like what's the speech like? Here's what Better Block is, and I also would like people to hear how you came to be in the role that you're in.

Krista Nightengale  1:38

Awesome, yeah. So I am not great at our elevator pitch. It's all good. We haven't figured it out, and I have found though that a lot of times I'll test on Lyft drivers as they're driving you from one point to another.

Chuck Marohn  1:38

Yeah.

Krista Nightengale  2:02

So, Better Block is an urban design nonprofit, and we are based out of Dallas, Texas, but we do work all around the world. we basically our goal is to work alongside neighbors to help them reimagine and test out some ideas to think about what could be in their communities. So sometimes we're looking at streets that are overbuilt and looking at can we kind of thin these down? Can we make better intersections? What can we do to make the street safer? Sometimes we're looking at empty lots and thinking about okay, how could we transform the space and make it a community gathering space? What would that look like?

Sometimes we're looking at commercial corridors and we're asking how do we make this a sticky area? How do we get people to come to the space and then to stay? our ultimate goal with all of this is that we're not in the lead and we're not taking over. It is the community who comes alongside and lets us know what it is that they're looking for, and then ultimately they're there making the changes happen. The Better Block started about 12 to 13 years ago, as you mentioned, Jason.

He walked out into his street here in Dallas, and basically, he and his neighbors said, "What can we do to make our street better? they wanted to add cafe seating, they wanted to add flowers, and just create a space where people could come together. they quickly found that there were ordinances from the 1940s that prohibited most of that from happening. So it was $1,000 to add sidewalk flowers. It was something like area times market space times 18 percent times 12 percent, whatever to add cafe seating. there was actually an ordinance that said it was illegal for people to gather on a sidewalk. So this was back in the day. Tactical urbanism was pretty new.

The concept of placemaking, all of that, was very new. But Jason knew of this, and just the idea of the community being the ones to go out and make some changes quickly, temporarily, to see what could be. so that's what they did. They just took over their street for a weekend. They painted bike lanes with kids' paint and duct tape, knowing that if they got in trouble, they could just wash it off. They brought out some seating, some lights, and then they had these empty storefronts and they filled it with their neighbors' businesses and said, "Test it out for a weekend and let's just see what's possible.

While they were doing all of that, they printed out those ordinances that they were breaking and they posted them in the window and they invited city staff to come, and they basically said we can't have this street that you see here today because we have these ordinances standing in the way, and they weren't sure how people were going to respond to it. The city staff said, "what? You're right. over time, they worked to change some of those fees. They actually turned the street from a one-way into a two way.

One of the businesses that popped up that weekend still exists today, and those storefronts are all now filled. so Jason just realized that there was a lot of power in the community, not only being the ones to say here are some issues and some problems that we see in our neighborhood, but also to say here are some solutions that we've tested it and we have feed. Back on here's a little data behind that. Let's make these permanent. So He started the concept of the Better Block, and 10 years ago, probably like 10 years and four months ago, they received a capacity grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to start the nonprofit arm.

At that time, I was working as a journalist at the D Magazine here in Dallas, and I grew up on a farm. I had not put much thought into how or why or when or who designed our streets, but I knew about the Better Block because we covered them, and I just thought it was such a fascinating concept for the community members being the ones to go out and to be making some of these changes. Around that time, we had an urban planner, Patrick Kennedy, who started pitching this idea of taking down a 1.4 mile stretch of highway between downtown and its neighboring community, Deep Ellum. At that time, that just seemed so out there, so counter. Right, right. Why would you take down a highway?

This makes no sense. But I live downtown, and I was working at the magazine, and Patrick got the publisher really interested in this concept. So this became a whole thing. The publisher comes over. I was working as a managing editor, but I was doing some community engagement and type of things on the side, And decided to switch more to doing the community stuff. the publisher said, "We are going to start a super PAC that's going to get council members elected who are behind this idea of tearing down this highway. I had no idea what a super PAC was. I did not fully understand why were tearing down a highway, And pretty much was willing to learn and to figure it out.

But my biggest thing was I just didn't want to go to jail. So we dove into this, and I learned so much about redlining, what the highways had done to our communities, how they had separated them, and got deep into this world, and found it terribly fascinating. so, while I'm learning all of this, I'm also watching Better Block and seeing this community-led kind of approach to making these changes and literally redesigning our streets. So, when they got the capacity grant, I threw my name in the hat and Ended up coming over 10 years ago, and have been making it up and figuring it out ever since.

Chuck Marohn  7:17

That's amazing. That's amazing. There is a certain, I think, in the early days of Better Block, there's a certain. I don't want to say like guerrilla aspect. Like we're it's it's we're against the man because I always felt like there was a collaborative spirit to it. Nobody was like an anarchist. Like I want to tear the city down, but there was a certain like pushing back against a machine that was not very responsive. I wonder, in the 10 years that you've been there, and we can focus on Dallas first.

How have you seen that responsiveness Kind of change and evolve because It's not a perfect place, and there's still a lot of tension. there's still we had Patrick on the podcast maybe a couple months ago, and he's still amazing, sharing just boundless energy and lots of ideas. I do feel like though there's been a lot of progress that has been made, Opening up the conversation. Certainly, there's been more demonstration projects. Deep Ellum is a great example, I think, of things that have been done. Tell me about the evolution of Better Block in Dallas from those early days and from when you started.

Krista Nightengale  8:24

Yeah, so I would definitely say in the beginning it was pretty gorilla, and go down. I will say too, people remember that for better or for worse. For sure, that is. I will say too, when we started, were very much pallet furniture, and just whatever we could find. one thing we very much learned just on that side of things is Design aesthetic matters, and people want things that aren't going to look shoddy after a couple hours or a couple of days, which is why we've launched this whole WikiBlock library, which we can talk about later.

But we realized that the design we needed to elevate because otherwise it was just going to feel like something that was just thrown out there, and it needed to be a bit more curated. So that was one piece of it. We have become a lot more sanctioned, and we do work very closely with municipalities, and often are hired by municipalities to do this work. it's interesting because there's still tension. there are still times where we might be hired by one department, and we're working with all the departments, and it's kind of there can be tensions. There's internal politics that sure, sure. There's community politics that we're having to navigate.

But a big part of our work is to be a bridge with everyone. So we are connecting departments that have never worked together, kind of bringing them together. We're connecting the community with the city. Vice versa, and so there is a lot of our work that I didn't realize when I started that we are therapists in a lot of ways for community issues and for people's frustrations, and also for their hope and their excitement and the potential of possibility of what may be.

Yes, we Are generally playing by the rules, There are times where maybe we'll do something without full permission, and that's usually something where we haven't been directly hired by someone and we're kind of testing something out. What I have found in those cases when we do them carefully and under a lot of different parameters, the data that we gather as part of that will go so far in helping make the case, and so it's very easy for us to get anecdotes.

It's very easy for us to get photos and to talk about what it means to the individuals, but the data that we can use to back that up and to talk about why this is so important, that will go a very long way in getting some of those permissions across the line, and then ultimately making some of the elements more permanent. Let me ask you this, so that people can have in their mind what we're talking about, because I want to ask you in a minute about the role of the city and the role of local organizing groups and what have you, but walk us through if I'm looking at a street, and Better Block is going to come out and help us with that street. What does that look like?

What does that engagement look like? What are you doing when you come in? What would I expect if I'm someone living in the neighborhood nearby, Yeah. So I'll talk bigger picture about our process and then kind of bring it down. But our bigger picture process is a 120 day process, and it basically unfolds in four phases. The first one is just getting an understanding of the space. So if you're a community member, we're going to have a kickoff. We're going to do a charrette.

We'll have surveys and just kind of asking you what works here, what doesn't work here, and who else should we be talking to. so it's just us kind of understanding what it is that folks are looking for, and then with that information, we'll kind of synthesize all of it. We'll also, do research on what the city's already got planned, comp plans, different things like that, and we'll put that all together in a design concept. Normally, we are looking at one block. We don't want to spread the peanut butter too thin. We don't want to go too far with it. We're really trying to hone in and show best case scenario for this space or for this one block.

Once we get through all of that, we then create a core team of community volunteers. We've got job titles for everyone. We've got estimated number of hours, and these are the folks that we're meeting with weekly to kind of talk through the different elements of the project. My team we are working on the nuts and bolts, so we're making sure things are organized. We're getting things fabricated.

We're getting the permitting done, but this core team of community volunteers-they bring the heart and soul with food, music, entertainment-just the things that make this unique and special to their neighborhood. then, once we're good with all of that, then we start installing, and that really happens over the course of about three to four days. So it's very fast. Our whole process is about community engagement and trying to meet people where they are. So some people are more comfortable with doing a simple survey. Some people want to be a part of the core team.

Some people will be driving by, and all of a sudden they're going to see this space with people in it and painting, and they're going to come back and say, "What's going on here? Sometimes we'll get them to actually volunteer and be a part of it. Sometimes they'll just take the information, move on, and then after all of that, we do a demonstration. the demonstration looks like a big, huge, fun event, and in a lot of ways, it is. But what we're trying to do is get people into the space, get them touching things, feeling things, moving things around, understanding that when we reallocate car space to people.

It's okay, and so it's really about trying to touch people where they are and get them, coming out and experiencing the space. I often tell people, if we did exactly what people asked us to do, we would only build parking lots because everybody wants more parking, but what we're trying to do is figure out why do you feel like you need more parking? What does that look like? do you really need more parking? Is there something else we could be thinking about with these spaces? we recently did a project in Irving, Texas, and we took 30 parking spaces, and it was up for three months, and I expected a ton of concern around the parking and a lot of outreach.

I warned everyone: month one, everybody's going to be angry. You're going to get a ton of emails and phone calls. Just be prepared for it. Month two, you're going to have some folks who are used to it, but you're going to have a lot. Folks still experiencing it for the first time. They're still going to be pretty upset. then month three, most people will have experienced it at that point, and you'll get to see how they really do use this space or really how they feel about it. in this one, I was shocked because we only got three complaints. Wow! them was from the bit one of the businesses, and she said, "Listen, this is going to kill my business. Like I can't.

This will not be sustainable because I've lost, my two or three parking spots out front. we're like, "Well, you've got this parking lot back behind the building. What about that? Like, could we maybe look at that? she said, "Well, it's always full of trash. They never come pick up the trash. We're like, "Okay, well, we can take care of that. So we took care of the trash, and then it was fine. So it, a lot of this is just Opening people up to the idea and letting them experience it, and then truly understand if the what ifs and the concerns are founded. I don't know if I answered your question. That was very roundabout.

Chuck Marohn  15:47

No, you did. It was it was good. There's a gap here that I feel like you fill brilliantly, and it is the gap between The city and often the staff who has procedures and process and stuff that's built up over a long period of time. Some of those are the result of legal requirements, but a lot of them are developed just in reaction to negative feedback and fear and what have you.

Then you have the public who also has their own expectation, their own set of ideas and insights, their own critiques and criticism of city hall and the way things work and the way things operate, the interface between those two is generally the ballot box and the podium at a public hearing or a meeting, and both of those are Kind of. I'm not saying the ballot box is dysfunctional, but the podium is a dysfunctional way to express what you're thinking, and at the very least, the ballot box is a coarse way. It's it's not a refined way to have a dialog, right? It's like a once every four year referendum or what have you. I feel like you sit in this gap between those two, right?

What is it that you wish that residents understood about City Hall, and what is it that you wish that City Hall understood about residents when you're thinking about a place? I would say for residents to City Hall, I do wish

Krista Nightengale  17:37

That they would get to work with some of the folks we get to work with a little closer and see that there aren't as many conspiracies as maybe they think there are, and that people truly are looking out for the good of their city and of these communities. I find more good than bad in city halls, and we do have our challenges, and there will be some issues, But a lot of folks are, the like you're saying the bureaucracy behind it, and the rules and the regulations and all of the things that have built up over the years. A lot of times, people don't even understand how convoluted these things are. We did a project once where we had a hard time.

The community said they wanted to do a project in a park, and normally that's not something we would do because activating a park Is something people do all the time. Like that, it's not hard. they said, "No, we can't activate our park. Like we can't get a permit. what we did through this one is we took 11 pages of notes of what were being asked to do to get this permit, and we turned it over to an illustrator, and we said, "Please show what this felt like. I don't think all the departments understood what they were asking people to do. it wasn't until they saw this illustration in front of them that they were like, "Oh yeah, this does not make sense.

We're asking people to do this and go back here and go around, and it was very confusing and very convoluted. just seeing it laid out that way, I think helped staff understand. But the community felt like staff was working against them when really staff was doing, what they are mandated To do. so for the community, it's like they're not out to get you, and they're not trying to prevent all of these things from happening. But there is a process that needs to be worked through. Now, for city staff, kind of looking at the community, I do wish there was a bit more trust there.

The communities are going to be the experts on their communities and their neighborhoods and what's working and what's not working. I think they're. I'm constantly thinking about how do we create a permit that allows people to do these things. I understand there has to be some checks and balances. I understand not everyone's a traffic engineer. They're not. there are some things that we do have to look through, and safety has to be number one. I would love to find a more elegant way. Where that can happen, to where there can be a bit more of a collaboration rather than a lot of no's, coming out from the one side. So, no, I just wish we could all just get along a little bit more.

Chuck Marohn  20:00

Let me ask about The demonstrations themselves. I feel like One of the Critiques or dismissals of better block work early on, particular came from technical professionals like engineers and what have you who just said, "Oh, this is this is really cute. This is something that maybe like a parks department would do, or you get the Rotary Club or whoever in who's going to go do this fun block party, but this is not like serious technical work. This is not something that we could learn from. I know that has changed in a lot of places, and it should change. it's it Is some of the some of the best stuff comes out of I think these demonstration projects.

What I'm what I'm most interested in is how do you how do you bridge that gap? How do you go into a place with a mindset of we're not just doing something that will be like a happy memory when it's done? Oh, wasn't wasn't that a wasn't that a swell party? But you're actually thinking about How do we bridge from today to something differently? What is the what's the expertise that you bring to that thought process that helps us get to a better destination? Yeah,

Krista Nightengale  21:30

That was That was a challenge, and it still is a challenge. I think now we at least have 10 years of experience, and we can talk about the MUTCD guidelines and the 2023 updates versus the 2013. we can we can discuss all of that, and we've we've experienced a lot of that, and we've had the honor of learning from many technical expertise and experts around. But I have a journalism degree, so when I come into a room and I'm talking to a traffic engineer, which I love them, but traffic engineers are going to be. I can tell how difficult a project will be in that first meeting with a traffic engineer. I know how hard we will or won't have to work,. I understand where that skepticism comes from.

We recently did a project. I'm literally looking at it. It's right outside our window here. There's an intersection by our office. That's just bad. It's the geometry makes no sense. Yeah, it's true. We've got cars speeding. It's just it's a bad intersection, and yet we have kids who are a block away, and we they we saw when we first moved here about three years ago that they were coming across. We share a parking lot with a Family Dollar. They were coming to hang out at the Family Dollar. So we turned our parking lot into a basketball court, and we've added shade and seating. So now the kids come and they hang out in our plaza, and we wait for the parents to come pick them up.

It's about a block down. There's no sidewalk. The stop sign that's there as a suggestion. No one's taking it seriously, and it's just kind of a jumbled mess. so this is one where went out. We made some changes. We just did some curb extensions, added some flexi sticks. We striped the road with duct tape because it had not it had no striping before, and each lane was 20 feet, 20 feet or 25 feet apiece, and we took them down to 12 and a half feet. So still rather wide. Usually, yeah, right. Still wide, but we took them down to half. so, in the beginning, people were really obviously upset about this, And the striping helped them delineate. Oh, I still have my lane, and I'm still okay.

But then we had the curb extensions for the kids to kind of use. In this case, we Had the council member, and we gathered data for about 90 days. We found that we slowed down traffic by about speeds by about 14% 23% more cars actually stopped at the stop sign rather than driving through. one of the kids told us this saves lives, and so we're like, okay. So we took all of this data that were getting, and we took it to the council member and the transportation department, and we had them come out, and we had them watch at 3:15 when school got out, and they were watching the kids even with the intersection and the changes we made. They're still in the street. We still don't have sidewalks.

We're still, dealing with the other side of the street and the speeding cars. they said, "You're right. We've got to make changes. So when they came out to permanently change this intersection, I watched them probably for about 30 minutes or so, and they were just measuring, and they just kept measuring. so I went out and I was like, "Hey guys, how's this going? they said, "This we can't make this like we can't get it up to the standards it needs to be. Like this, this intersection makes no sense. Like it just doesn't make sense. I was like, "That's right, but the goal here is not perfect. Like we're just trying to make it better. We just need to make it safer for these kids.

I understand this intersection is not going to be. Perfect. It will take significant dollars to get it to the level that it should be, but at least until then, we can get it better and make it safer. they did curb extensions the whole way over. They put in four-way stop sign. They added the sidewalks, like a huge, significant increase in the safety for the students here in this area, and so again, a long-winded answer to say a lot of the way that we try to get everyone to come along is just by experiencing the changes, being open to make adjustments, which we will go out there and tweak as needed. We do follow the federal guidelines, and we do follow the rules.

There's a lot here in Texas around muralized crosswalks and what you can and cannot do. So we're very mindful of all of the things, But it's just showing we can make things just a little bit better, even if that means they're not going to be perfect.

Chuck Marohn  26:00

I want to give you a chance to talk about your credentials or lack of credentials. No, I do. I want to say this delicately because I feel like there is an empowerment thing here that I want people to walk away with. I'm an engineer. I have had an engineering license. I put that into retirement status because it was better for the work that I'm doing to not have other engineers making complaints against me. But I'm married to a journalist. I don't know if you knew that or not, but my wife is she's a news reporter, very accomplished, amazing, amazing woman. But yes, this is like a very brilliant person.

I think about the work that I do as an engineer, the work that I did as an engineer, and there were certainly times when I was working in a technical sense, in a way that I think you needed the expertise and you needed the background and you need if you're calculating stopping distances and things. these are these are things that you get trained on, and there is a certain technical skill that you have to have. But most of the decisions that I was being asked to make, and most of the things that I was being asked to weigh in on, were value judgments about places. They were value judgments about what do I prioritize here Versus what do I prioritize over there? You're a confident person.

You're an accomplished person, but you're not a person with like technical credentials attached to your name. How should people who are non-technical enter these spaces and these conversations? What kind of confidence should they have going in, and what kind of respect do they deserve walking into a conversation like that?

Krista Nightengale  27:49

I think my training as a journalist taught me to listen first, right? so, whenever I go into these rooms and we're having these conversations, I just ask all the questions, even if perhaps I already know what the answers are going to be. I don't presume to know. in those conversations, you can start to kind of suss out like where the priorities going to be. Is this the type of engineer who believes their job is to move cars the most efficiently, or is this the type of engineer who believes that putting people's safety first is the goal, and not to say that it's always one or the other. But you tend to kind of see where the scale leans just a little bit.

I would say it's also in these conversations, kind of getting the police department involved, getting the fire department involved, and understanding a bit of those dynamics is hugely important, but those aren't things people are going to say out loud. So a lot of it is listening, Kind of observing what is being said and observing what's not being said. then I'll take all those notes and my team as well. Like we'll all kind of sit down and start talking through what we heard from them versus what we heard from community, what overlapped, and then what seems to be a bit more contentious, and where are people not seeing the agreement or what it should look like?

A lot of times, we'll try to go one step farther than maybe what we think will be accepted. So we want to have negotiation room in here, and so we'll we'll really try to push it just a little bit. oh, if there's an engineer that we're going to work with at some point, please don't listen to this part. But we do. We want to go just a little bit further, and then say, okay, how can we pare it back? What would this look like? What would it take to get us to this point? I will say, People are generally pretty open to working with us. Like as long as we are, generally we're getting a special event permit.

I think the biggest thing, and this is, this whole world and the field that we work in, temporary makes a huge difference. Yeah, we often talk about temporary erases the fear of permanency, and I think when we say it's temporary, fire departments, engineers, police, they're open to testing it out. They want to make sure you're hitting certain requirements and that you've got the criteria marked. But there is a bit more of a willingness, and same with community members. When you say, we're going to reallocate this parking space. When you say we're just going to test it, it opens people up to the concept.

I, I really think that is One of the only ways that we've been able to get a lot of this done. Even if I just have a journalism degree.

Chuck Marohn  30:33

Yeah, that's beautiful. I watch my city on the Fourth of July Do all the temporary things that we do when we're managing crowds and managing people, and then and it's so beautiful. It's so wonderful. It's amazing. Like you can walk everywhere. The city's like safe and fun, and there's all this stuff going on. then the next day, it's all gone, and it's cars speeding through again and very dangerous. What does a transition, a successful project look like when it's done? We've gone to the public safety people and we've said, "Hey, we're going to do this thing temporarily, and they're like, "Okay, we're on board.

We've got the engineer on board because we use the word temporary, but the goal is not temporary. The goal is something more. What does that transition to something more look like? when you walk away, what are like the most successful projects? What is their what is their nature when you're done?

Krista Nightengale  31:37

Yeah. So the temporary allows us to test out the what ifs, and I think we're testing the what ifs and seeing that perhaps some of those things don't come true. That gets people on board for what could be next. As far as what is successful moving forward, or what does a successful project look like? My team hates when I say this, but it depends on the project. Most of my answers are: it depends on the project.

Chuck Marohn  31:37

Yeah, yeah.

Krista Nightengale  31:37

So, like one we did a couple years ago, there was a lot of mistrust, distrust between the community and the city because the community was running out of water in the '90s. They were incorporated into this other place, and they feel like the folks from here aren't paying attention to them, or they don't trust what's happening. They were on a commercial corridor. Two of the businesses were doing super well. Everyone else was struggling or just needing something different to happen. But there was just so much pushback from this city doing anything or even trying anything that they said, "Can you just come in, do your process, and let's just open the door.

Like, let's see if it could even get us there. We'll do a two-day festival. So this one was super temporary, and it was really just kind of trying to focus more on the community engagement piece of it and the community organizing.

One of the most vocal opponents in the beginning ended up becoming one of our core team members and one of our biggest advocates. throughout the project, we did a woonerf on the street, which meant taking some of the parking. there was a barber shop there, and he was Very resistant to anything happening. so I just kept talking with him, as were installing, as were working on these things. the day we took away the parking, I said, "Okay, we're going to take the parking. I will meet your folks at the door. I will show them where to park. we'll we'll figure this out. After about an hour, he came out and he said, "Krista, we're good. Like they figured it out.

There's parking right on right around the corner. We're okay. I was like, "Okay, great. This is this is step one. Now tomorrow, there's going to be a huge festival. Like we're showing down the street, it's going to be a big thing. Are you going to be okay? he's like, I don't like it, but we'll we'll give it a try. I watched his face throughout Saturday, and I watched everybody going in and folks saying hi, and just he was. I could tell he was having a good time. I went in at the end of the day, and I said, All right, how do we do? he said, I'm 86 years old.

Sometimes it takes just seeing something to realize it's not that bad, and it can actually be fun. what happened then is that core team of community volunteers were able to take that momentum and continue doing activations along that stretch. Now they're not installing a wooer, and they haven't drastically changed the streetscape, but it's opened the door to conversations and bridged the gap that was kind of happening between the community and the city, and has allowed for more activations to happen. Now, on the flip side of that, we've got one of my favorite ones was Kenmore in Akron, Ohio, and so this was A stretch where they were facing some depopulation.

The schools had just been consolidated. We proposed, parking protected bike lanes. Throughout the process, we realized that music was a big part of their history, so they decided to really embrace that, make music their thing. Well, our core volunteers. Like our block captain, at the end of that project, she ended up quitting her job. She started a CDC after five years after she had brought in 14 new businesses.

Chuck Marohn  35:00

Tina,

Krista Nightengale  35:12

Yes, Tina, who is Now? Tina is amazing. Yes, and she's now a council member in Hall.

Chuck Marohn  35:15

Really, I did not know that.

Krista Nightengale  35:15

Yeah, so she brought in new businesses. She upgraded facades. They made the road propose, the changes that we proposed permanent. They have a school that's committed, I think, a $62 million Investment from a school or redevelopment project. now Tina is a council member, and that was one of those things. That is not us. that is that is community embracing it. That is Tina saying, "I'm going to do a CDC, And that to me is the sign of a successful project.

It's when the community becomes stewards of the space before we're even done with what we planned on doing, and they start taking over, and truly embracing it and making it their own. then the city or federal, whoever, wherever, following along with the with the money at the end. Now, I do want to answer a question that we always get. Yeah, please. There's a lot of pushback on temporary. People always want us to go permanent. We're like, listen, our whole thing is about feedback and community engagement. It just would not, we would not be who we are if went permanent. So we're always going to test things out.

But then people always ask, well, how many of your projects become permanent, and what kind of impact has that actually looked like? So were able to go back to the past 10 years and review some of our older projects, get some updates on that. We've got a report on that online, but we found 73% of our projects have become permanent in some form or another. I'm not talking community engagement. I'm not talking perception change. That is all separate. But we've also catalyzed $700 million in investment over a 10-year period. So temporary matters on a lot of levels, but it also has led to a lot of economic development.

Chuck Marohn  36:55

Okay, let me apply for the job of your marketing director for a moment, and I'm going to speak to the mayors out there. I have been in so many meetings where the traffic engineer comes in and says, "Okay, we're gonna we're gonna do this. You want to make this block better? Here's the traffic study we're gonna do. We're gonna hire a consultant. They're gonna come in. It's gonna be 200,000 400,000 whatever it is. They're gonna do all this modeling. You're gonna see graphics and models and reports. Then we'll have a public hearing, and the public can come in and yell at you about theoretical changes you may or may not someday make.

It will take three or four years to go through all those hearings and all that stuff, and then at the end, you're going to have to make a decision, not knowing whether it's going to work or whether theory translates into practice. Hey, I've got this other alternative over here. It's called a better block. It's way cheaper. It's way quicker. It's way better public input. Let's do this instead. How'd I do?

Krista Nightengale  38:14

You're hired.

Chuck Marohn  38:14

Okay. Yeah. Is this is this the pitch to the mayor? I've told this story before on this podcast, but I remember being in a meeting and I was doing a park plan in a small town, and they raked me over the coals for a $3,000 proposal. It took like 45 minutes to get it approved, and then the engineer came after me and had $100,000 proposal to study something that never needed to be done in the first place, and they approved it on like a voice vote in 60 seconds. I feel like the branding of this is a cute demonstration project, and oh, it's it's so nice. We're gonna go out and put benches out and all that puts it into this like fun parks and rec category.

When the reality is, is like this is a better engineering study would be my argument.

Krista Nightengale  39:04

I agree. I agree. It's a hard sell. It's a hard sell because people do see they see the fun part. They see the activation, and they see people out there painting, which I love so much. But we have been we have been talking a lot about it's so much of that, those pieces that are coming before, it's so much of the data that we're able to gather that truly makes this special. A big part of what we do is we do, and so that is the part that people see. I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of us being able to bring the community together and get people out there, and ultimately goals. They have this experience. They can go into these rooms and have these conversations without us.

Like that's where we want things to be. We want to not exist. We want people to know they can make these changes. They don't need Better Block. We're not quite there yet. I think to your point, we do bring a lot of value in that, and we are able to get some. Hard data, and were able to really test something out. what? We're taking out insurance on the project, so it's on us if it doesn't work out. So that should help the city with the sell.

Chuck Marohn  40:12

Let me ask you this: I feel like part of the part of the pitch here is that you are trying something out. Sometimes it's not going to work. What does it look like when it doesn't work? how do you how do you approach it with the Mindset that we think we know something and we think we're going to try something, but we don't know everything, and sometimes we'll discover stuff That wasn't apparent. I feel like that's part of the sell to the mayor too, right? Like We're flexible.

Krista Nightengale  40:43

Yeah, I would say we currently have a project going on in downtown Dallas where we have taken a lot of parking And extended sidewalk space in anticipation for the World Cup. When were out there installing the changes, I was the one who had to go up to each of the cars and say, "Hey, you've got to move along. Like we're about to take this parking. Like I don't want to have to, tow you, whatever. I learned two things through that. I think so much of this work is just about what you learn while you're out there.

But the first thing I learned was that most of the parking spaces were being taken up by Uber drivers and Lyft drivers and Grubhub, and so they're not paying the meters because they're just sitting there. Let's move on. Yeah. One tried to argue with me that he wasn't parked, and I was like, "Well, sir, you're literally in park, so you are parked here in the space. But, but so they're not taking the parking. So then, when we hear, from someone within the city that they're concerned about parking revenue and what that looks like. It's like, well, we've got to address this issue because we've got folks using our parking who are not paying for that parking. So that was one thing I learned.

So the second thing I learned was that In watching it, I was watching the delivery trucks come in, and there was a section that we had planned on taking removing all the parking along one side, And in watching It, even though it had been approved, I realized we've got to keep some of that parking. The trucks-I don't know where they would go. I really could not. they asked me when I was like, "Hey, you got to move along. They're like, "Where am I supposed to go? I didn't have an answer to that question, so it had been approved.

Everybody was on board, and technically we could, remove that parking, and that was a situation where we definitely, made a last second call and decided to keep that parking. I do think that was the right call in that situation. From this project too, as far as what works and what doesn't work, I would definitely say removing the parking has made it a much more pedestrian-friendly space. I live downtown. I live right where it's happening, and I was talking to one of my neighbors the first day, and he said, "I don't feel like Dallas ever prioritizes pedestrians, and today is the first day where he felt maybe they will, and so I realized, okay, this is what we're looking for.

This is what needs to be happening, but The crowds have been there. It's been great. World Cup has been a lot of fun, but it's not as full as maybe I expected it to be. so we do have a lot of spaces that are kind of empty that aren't activated, and so were getting some feedback from folks where they were like, "Hey, I don't think folks are using the space in this way because they're not feeling like it's totally, completely blocked off or activated in the way. so we made changes. a couple weeks in, we brought out some more shrubs, we brought out some more seating, and In just one, kind of area because we don't have budget to do the whole thing.

But we're measuring that, and as soon as we put those elements out there, there's a ton more people now using it. So we're always open to the feedback. We're always willing to go out and make just adjust adjustments and changes. We do want to give it some time. We do want to see how traffic patterns adjust, how behavior adjusts, And then if we're still not quite if things still aren't where they need to be then we'll make some adjustments as needed.

Chuck Marohn  44:07

We've talked about Dallas. You mentioned Akron and Tina and the great work they've done there, but I know you grew up on a farm in a rural area. I wonder what you How well this transfers to a small town context. I'm. I know there's a lot of people listening today who are like, I don't live in a major city. I don't live in a big place. Maybe this isn't for me. What would you say to people in that situation?

Krista Nightengale  44:31

Yeah, my favorite project. One of my favorite projects. I won't say absolute favorite, but okay.

Chuck Marohn  44:31

My next question was going to be a quick one. What was your favorite Better Block project? So, okay, I can I can I can answer that, but I do have many.

Krista Nightengale  44:49

But one project I really enjoyed was in Quincy, Washington, a couple years ago, Four years ago, I guess, a town of about I think 7200 A couple. Hours or an hour outside of Seattle. I love rural communities because everyone has all the supplies and tools we need and continue to the next level. Like we did not, we had forklift, we had everything we needed, and it was so. But it was so cool. It was such a cool project. We took over the center of a street. We had everyone coming out, but their big thing was everybody goes to this town or that town.

People don't come here; they don't fully understand that we've got a winery, we've got this going on, we've got that going on, and they had people from all the surrounding communities coming in for this demonstration, and they were so excited to be able to show off their town and to show off possibility. Now there had been some things that were trying to get worked on. City was a little hesitant about. We were able to test those out. Those things were able to happen more permanently. They have continued this on. In fact, I think a month ago they repainted the mural. They did this whole thing again. They've got permanent lights now.

So they have really embraced the concept and have continued to iterate on it and take it to the next level in ways that maybe I haven't seen. I will say I have had conversations with my dad about what I do, which this work is weird. It's a little confusing. Yeah. It's hard to explain what it is we do, and so I was explaining, traffic calming and what that might look like on our main street in my hometown.

Chuck Marohn  46:01

You did the farmer,

Krista Nightengale  46:01

Yeah, my dad, the farmer, yeah. so I was explaining, maybe we would take down some of these lanes a little bit, we thin them a little bit, we think about some landscaping along here, perhaps change the angled parking, different things. he goes, yeah, but how would I get my combine through town? I was like, what? yeah, even if I take the header off, it's still going to be wide load. Like this, this is a legitimate issue. Main Street is the only one that is wide enough to actually get through town. so there were definitely things that I would have to consider: should we be doing a project back home?

That, but that's all part of it. it's really figuring out how can we make some of these things happen. What does that look like? while our process is 120 days, while we approach things somewhat the same, each design, each thing is going to be totally different because it's really dependent upon the community and the goals of what they want that project to be. Yeah,

Chuck Marohn  47:29

I always say that my dad is my target audience because if I can convince him of something, I can convince anybody of it, and he has a certain BS detector kind of thing to him, where it's like, well, if I can't get my combine through there, like it's not going to work. yeah, I totally get it. I had four like quick hit questions at the end, and you answered the first one, which is your favorite. I'll I'll accept they're all your favorite, but some are more favorite than others in this one. What's a skeptical elected official that you won over that you feel good about?

Krista Nightengale  48:06

Oh, an elected official that we've won over. You don't have to name names, but you can just talk general names. Okay, this one is-it's a little-it's a little out there. It's not about the road changes or any of that we did. It was more so about allowing alcohol in setting. Yep, I don't drink. I never have, and so I found myself up there in front of the council arguing for why they should allow alcohol. I was just like, "This is such a fascinating, so weird, yeah, right now, yeah. So, but the goal, like, how do you get people to come and hang out in a space, and what does that look like? Now, alcohol can be divisive, and I don't. Yeah. It is some.

It is it is a Topic, and we always discuss it with the community and take the lead of the community as to whether or not that should be an element of a project or not. it is a fascinating topic, but yeah, that was one. That's great. What is something that city halls do or cities do, kind of everywhere that you wish they would stop doing? What-iffing?

Chuck Marohn  49:17

Okay, I get it. I get why you would, if you're asleep, you're going to sit there and you're going to go through all the what ifs, and I am guilty of it too. But I think we just we use it so much, and it just stops so much from being able to happen

Krista Nightengale  49:34

That I think if were if we would we can do the exercise of what-iffing, but also be a little more flexible and open to maybe testing in a few things out. Such a good insight. I do feel like cities. I've always thought that there's like this immune response that you have to

Chuck Marohn  49:55

Being criticized, being under the micro. having things that have gone wrong, and then. You're Attacked or held accountable, and there is this kind of what if, what if, what if, what if. It's almost easier to fail by inaction than it is to fail by action. To me, that's a better block. you guys don't set out to fail, but like my core argument would be, I want to learn stuff quickly and cheaply, and make my mistakes quickly and cheaply. To me, that's the most brilliant part of the approach, right?

Krista Nightengale  50:25

I agree, and it is a huge part of what we do. But I did once say a couple years ago on a project, I said it allows us to fail. It allows us to test some things out and see what doesn't work. someone in the community looked at me directly, and he was just like, "We cannot fail this community once again. Yeah, it got me because I was like, "I understand, I understand.

Chuck Marohn  50:50

But we need. But what if is paralyzing, right? Right, right. Yeah, and if you're not open to making a mistake, I have two daughters, and they're they're beautiful. They're beautiful kids,. I think amazing. But I'm they're like out at college, and I'm like, you got to try stuff. Like make a mistake, screw up. Like that's what you're supposed to do right now. Yeah. Okay. The last like quick question I had was, give me a city that's doing amazing work, And people ask me this one: like, who's the strong town? I'm like, oh my gosh! Like, no one's got it figured out. But here's one that, like, here's some things that like caught my eye. What's this?

What's a place that has caught your eye recently?

Krista Nightengale  51:35

Well, it's just recency bias, but spent some time in Detroit. Yeah, Detroit a couple weeks ago, and I think Detroit is fascinating. I think there's the people are just man, they are so determined to make that city amazing. absolutely, I'm seeing it, and so I find Detroit to be really fascinating. I think, quite frankly, a lot of us can be learning a lot from them.

Chuck Marohn  52:04

I had a contingent from New Zealand that was coming to the U. S. and they were going to All the hot places. they they wanted to go to New York City, and they wanted to go to Houston. They wanted to see how great American cities work, and they said, "Where would you recommend? I said, "Well, I would go to Detroit. I would go to Memphis, I would go to Shreveport, I would go to Buffalo. Yeah, those are the places that really are doing the amazing stuff.

Krista Nightengale  52:30

I will give a shout out to Houston. I am super impressed. We did just do a project with them for the World Cup, but what they did in preparation for the World Cup that's going to impact and last and be amazing for the community well after the World Cup is really fascinating. They just pedestrianized seven blocks in their downtown and did it so quickly, and it's really great. So that's fantastic. I'll throw Houston in there too.

Chuck Marohn  52:30

Cool. Well, Houston's a great city. We didn't even get to talk about the WikiBlock Library or any your website betterblock.org Has amazing resources for people to use. Can you just want to talk just briefly about what you've tried to do there? Because again, we're we're kind of getting to the end. Generosity is the word that I would use again. You are very generous in sharing all the stuff that you've learned and put together.

Krista Nightengale  53:04

Yeah, again, our ultimate goal is to not exist, so we want to put out tools, resources, different things that people can use without us. WikiBlock is a great example. It is an online library of street furniture designs. Anyone anywhere can download any of our designs for free. You cut them out using a CNC router, so you could just find a fabricator for that, and then you can build it without any glue, screws, or nails. our library is, we've got a ton of benches, seating, tables, kiosks, parklets, whatever, whatever you can think of. It's there. We've also got templates for, emails to send to fabricators, and so everything should be explained.

We've had some friends in the UK who translated it into metric units, so we've got oh okay all over. So yeah, so WikiBlock is a really great resource. All of our social media, we explain some of our concepts, the way we go about different things. So we're constantly trying to put some more information out there and let people know how they can go out and make some change in their own communities.

Chuck Marohn  54:06

When you were saying that, my mind immediately filled in the way they translated it to, and my mind said English, and I'm like, well, It's pretty close. Krista Nightingale, Executive Director of the Better Block. The website is betterblock.org. That's the best place to get a hold of you too. I know your email address and everything else is there, as well as the rest of your team. Anything that we didn't touch on that we need people to know?

Krista Nightengale  54:32

I think that's about it. I will say I have an amazing team, and so a lot of the beauty of our work. people always ask, "Oh, how do you get communities to trust you so quickly? One, we do what we say. Going to do, but to my team, they're they're very Transparent and authentic, and so you can tell when they're talking with you, like they really care about what it is that you're looking to get. So it's all it's all due to an amazing team.

Chuck Marohn  55:14

If you are a public official, if you are a professional staff working in a city, and you have a problem you want to transform? Give Better Block a call. Get a hold of them. Betterblock.org. If you are a local advocate and want your city to listen to maybe see something that you're seeing, go to BetterBlock.org and look at their models, their examples, and all of the toolkits and all the stuff they've had. These are great resources, and approach them with humility and start a conversation. I think they'll listen. Krista, I'm so inspired by you and everyone on your team. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Thank you so much, and thanks everybody for listening.

Keep doing what you can to build a strong town. Take care. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at Strongtowns.org/membership.

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