In most suburban neighborhoods, a corner store or small commercial space can feel years away, even when residents want places to gather and local businesses need somewhere to begin. Rather than wait for a zoning change, Lauren Penn worked with a neighbor to turn their front yards into a tiny market with a baker, a coffee roaster, artists, children selling handmade goods, and people who might not otherwise have met. The project grew out of her interest in the “missing middle” of local economies: the space between an idea at home and a full commercial lease. For parents, especially mothers, markets like this can offer a realistic way to test a business idea and earn income during a season of life that does not fit neatly into a standard work schedule.
Hi, everybody! Welcome to another episode of the Bottom Up Revolution podcast. I'm your host Tiffany Owens. Today's conversation is part two of one I started last week.
My guest and I just were having such a dynamic conversation that we only made it through about half of the questions I had planned, and there was so much more of her story that I wanted to capture and share with you. So we just decided to come back and record part two. If you haven't listened to part one, I definitely recommend going back and listening to it. And we're just going to continue with this theme that we were talking about at the last the last episode where Lauren Penn, my guest, she's really just been able to embody this very Strong Towns idea of starting with what you have.
When you start to look at your community and you start to notice areas that it is perhaps ways that it's struggling and ways that it could become a stronger place. Sometimes I think it's easy to get caught up focusing on big things like policy change and maybe even like serving on city councilor stuff that. But I think what Lauren embodies is really this idea of like start with what you have right in front of you and do what. Literally, we say at the end of every show, do what you can to start building a Strong Town.
So we're gonna in this show we're gonna talk more about some of the specific things that she's done. And the first the first part of this conversation we were talking about more of like some big ideas specifically related to just how moms can be part of this conversation despite the challenges of this life season and also the necessity of moms to be part of this conversation because of how dramatically the design of our places affects our experience as mothers. So it was what I think the young people call these days fire. So you should go back and listen to it for sure.
But today we're going to get into more some more specific projects that Lauren has done, and I'm excited to bring them to you because I think they're really inspiring. They really are a great reminder that we have more than we probably know. We have more resources, more capacity, more skills, strength, and talents that we can start bringing into our communities right now as we work up to perhaps some of those bigger goals, more ambitious goals. So let me introduce Lauren.
She is a neighborhood advocate, creative entrepreneur, and Strong Towns conversation group leader from Denton, Texas. She and her husband are raising three daughters in their college town. She serves on the City of Denton Mobility Committee and is actively involved in grassroots initiatives like Bike Bus Denton, Pop-Up Market Makers, and an online resource called Strong Neighborhoods.com. StrongNeighborhoods.com.
These are all efforts that support safer streets, local economies, and connected neighborhoods. Lauren is also the creator of the Texas Backyard Homes Guide, a resource hub designed to help homeowners navigate the ADU process. So she's very busy, very inspiring. Lauren, welcome to the Bottom Up Revolution podcast.
Hi, Tiffany. Thanks so much for having me back. I am looking forward to part two.
So, if I recall correctly, one of the things that we were talking about in episode, like the first part of this conversation, I think one of the big ideas that stayed with me. We had we talked a lot because we're both moms. We're both living in Texas. We're both very much, I would say, on the front lines of really seeing how specific design and policy choices affect, affect us as moms, affect us in this life stage, affect the children that we're raising, and really seeing an urgent need to address that.
But one of the really inspirational things that you said, you kind of pointed out, if we can have this conversation and begin to rethink how we're approaching the design of our communities in such a way where we are considering the experience of parents, not just moms, but maybe perhaps moms a little bit more, and the effect that it's having on children, to really take on more of a hospitable and a hospitable approach to the design of our communities, and one that's more dignifying. Not only do you relieve a lot of stress, but you also unlock a lot of creativity because you're freeing up so much time. I think this concept is really embodied in sort of the microeconomy idea, I like to think of the microeconomy sort of like the missing middle of our cities in general, in terms of the commercial landscape, the economic landscape, where you might be familiar with that phrase if you're thinking about housing.
But what if we thought about that too when it comes to like the small business frontier? How, where for the most part, you have to hit a certain benchmark of capital or like capacity, or ability to deal with regulations before you can even open a small business, and I think micro businesses or micro, just that whole micro space is a really exciting thing to think about. I think it relates really, it fits in really well, especially for moms who do sometimes have not enough time to really run a full business, but maybe just enough to start doing something creative. And it's actually pretty historic.
Chuck talks about this in his book how. Generally, when you go to places like Italy, you see this combination of residential and commercial. These little micro businesses just tucked into neighborhoods and tucked into houses where families live. So I feel what you're doing is you're kind of trying to capture that spirit of what if we rethought about how our communities are functioning and our design, and what if part of that is rethinking what the business landscape could look like, and how it there is the possibility of unlocking so much creativity and entrepreneurialism if we if we just have the courage to rethink.
And so I think this might be a good segue. I would love just to hear your thoughts on that. But maybe if you can use that as a segue to also talk about this makers market idea that you came up with, and maybe can tell us a story, and what did you see from that endeavor in your neighborhood that you think could lend itself really well to just this overall conversation of sort of just rethinking our expectations about what cities are, what neighborhoods are for, and how we can unlock like the creativity that's already hiding in plain sight.
Yeah, that's a really great way to introduce this. I love the idea of the missing middle of the economy. When we talk about missing middle in housing, we usually will think about how can we again use what we have. So it could be a single family home with a backyard.
Could I add an ADU in the back of it? Could I create a garage apartment? Could I divide my house and create more housing? And that has been such an awesome movement to help us move the needle in the ways that we need to go.
And maybe in the process of learning about missing middle, I kind of started to just wonder. Okay, how could I make that concept work for creating a commercial space in the middle of a suburban neighborhood when we live in neighborhoods that are kind of tucked away from the main road or zoned in an area where, where I live in Denton, Texas, this neighborhood was kind of founded in the 1960s and 70s. At that time, it would have been kind of off the way off the main part of the city, and so our neighborhood is kind of closed in on itself a little bit. We're also surrounded by lovely parks, so that's awesome.
But we don't have a lot of commercial spaces. We're grateful that we can walk to a few shops and stuff that. But when I think about all the other places I've lived in Texas, in these suburban neighborhoods, the likelihood, even as with all the work that people in the Strong Towns movement or urbanist movement are doing, the amount of time it will take for us to ever get a corner lot rezoned so that somebody could, open up a corner store or a coffee shop, I probably won't even be here when that happens. So I don't want to wait that long, and I do want cool places to go.
So I started brainstorming. Okay, what could I do legally on my property to sort of foster a commercial, tiny economy experience, and that is how I arrived at this idea to do a front yard market, similar to what you might see in some rural areas where there are like farm stands or kind of the idea of a farmer's market, but just on a very tiny scale. Literally, it was just in my yard and the yard across the street, and we had only about 10 vendors, and I learned that it is possible in my city, and probably most cities in America, to host some kind of event where you can get what I did is I got a special events permit, and I end up even kind of walking through with my city to figure out what kind of permit is this going to be.
It's not a huge scale festival. I'm not shutting down any streets. I don't need a police or an EMS on site. I am literally just having some booths in my front yard.
Kind of, it's almost like a garage or a yard sale, but I did want to go through it the proper way, mainly because I did not want to make any of my neighbors angry, and I wanted to be able to tell anyone who may have had a problem, "Hey, I just so I have a permit for it, and I'm allowed to do this. So It cost $100, and it was worth it. I didn't charge anything for the booths, and it was just a really incredible experience.
So, tell me about the vendors you had. Were they all neighbors, like people who lived in the area, or how did you find people to come participate in the market as a vendor?
So we had we had several neighbors. And what I did is I kind of I have a background in marketing. I have I actually used to run a business that was an ice cream truck business, and we used to do a lot of markets. And so I do have some understanding on how to get the word out.
And so what I did is I we have like a neighborhood Facebook group. A lot of neighborhoods have like a next door group, and there's a couple of other citywide groups. So I just was I this was a few months ahead of time. I kind of just pitched this idea.
Hey, I'm wanting to do a market in my neighborhood. I'm looking for some vendors, and I also just started scouting people on socials. So I would look up like sourdough bread in Denton, or I think I found our barista, this college student. She had done some events in Denton, so some of them I reached out directly and told them about the concept, and then I also just put the word out saying we're looking for vendors.
So what I did next is I actually had like a form where people could sign up and fill out. It was like a Google form, and it just gave me an idea of what is their business, what do they sell. I wanted to have a variety. So to answer your question, we had a sourdough baker, my friend who roasts coffee.
He lives in one neighborhood right over. We had some neighborhood kids selling homemade cookies and a self-published book. We had a neighbor. I know it's very sweet.
That would have been me.
I was seven at your market. Would have been selling stories probably.
Yeah. Well, and my kids had a booth. My kids and some neighborhood kids made like pins that had all of these kind of insider sayings about our neighborhood. So we had we designed a neighborhood logo for North Lakes neighborhood.
We had some other cute little things having to do with our park, and then they also just handmade some like earrings and stuff that. We had we did have a neighbor, a couple of neighbors who are artists who sold their art, and we had a local florist, and she has a really cool concept, which is kind of like a pop up flower stand, and you can. It was a DIY bouquet, so that was really yeah, and that was really cool. So I, in my mind, I wanted it to feel when you're watching Beauty and the Beast from Disney, and Belle is walking through the neighborhood.
And for those of us suburban people out there, we have never experienced this whole thing, where it's like, oh, I just go down to the market and I'm getting fresh bread and I'm getting. And the other thing is, my kids have been asking for that. My kids have been saying, "Wow, I wish I could walk down somewhere and get some flowers. And we got to go to New York City.
We've we've traveled some really neat places where you can do that. And so, suburban kids are missing out, and suburban families are missing out. And so that's kind of where I wanted to go with this event is giving us an opportunity.
And for you, it wasn't just about the transaction or the shopping or the I feel that was part of it. But for you, you also saw this as an opportunity to facilitate connection in the neighborhood too. Yeah,
Yeah, for sure. So as we as we try to rebuild the village, I find we struggle a lot with finding commonality these days, based on our age, our political beliefs, our just way of life, and my neighborhood is actually quite diverse. We have a lot of older folks, middle-aged folks, and even college students, and we needed something to bring us together. I have hosted easy things I've done like a I don't know like a neighborhood hot chocolate thing, and I hosted a walking audit one time in my neighborhood.
But I think there's something to there's something about the kind of the safety socially the social interaction of coming up to somebody and asking about their products and showing interest in it and purchasing something that is something I think Americans are very comfortable with, and it also makes you feel good as a as a neighbor to go. Oh, I'm going to support a local business, and then we did have a great time. What was interesting is it ended up pouring rain in the middle of the event. This was in October, literally a downpour, and in a blink of an eye, we went from, oh, this is awesome, everyone's just kind of hanging out, chit chatting.
Neighbors hang, greeting each other. Kids playing music, and then it was everybody had to help, and it was all hands on deck. And it was actually a beautiful moment because I had my neighbors, my friends, my friends from church who came who aren't even in the neighborhood, helping and assisting our. Cover their booth or move the coffee cart into the garage, and it was kind of special just getting to sort of hunker down while the storm passed.
And so I even just try to see that as a as a positive.
So you have these three benefits on your website for this, which we will definitely link to for anyone who's interested in doing a similar market in their community, you have these benefits: strengthens real life relationships, creates a micro economy opportunity, and increases neighborhood resilience. I want to talk a little bit more about the last two: the micro economy opportunity and the neighborhood resilience. I guess what I'm interested in, so there are two questions here. One, how do little markets this, and I think you can speak to this as a business owner.
Why is this so important to have these opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs who need that missing middle opportunity, that missing middle, that missing rung on the ladder, so to speak, as they're navigating that journey from ideation to like full on build out? Why is that so important? And then I'll, when you finish that, I'll ask you my other questions. Yeah, that's great.
Well, it's
It's quite difficult to get a business up and running. Those of us who feel that calling, you have a. It can be very difficult to just get the idea going. There's usually a lot of upfront cost whether you are buying material or anything that helps you actually make an make something or do something, and then if you are wanting to actually get in front of people and not just be online, you're very limited on your options.
You could try to do a farmer's market or other kinds of markets. And from my experience, when we had our ice cream truck, sometimes those markets are actually really number one, really competitive to get into. Usually, markets will take businesses that have already been around for a little while to kind of prove that they are going to bring in money, or that they're gonna, have customers, or it's incredibly expensive to ever get a storefront. I mean, it is in our town; it's 1000s of dollars a month just to rent it, plus everything that goes into with running an actual storefront.
So, giving folks an opportunity to get their product or their face in person is such an awesome way to give them that stair step, and that could be not just a front yard market. That could be someone who you might already have a storefront. There's lots and lots of people out there who have a store, and you were once somebody on the bottom of the rung. And sometimes it's giving another business an opportunity to have a table set up where they are selling their product or giving out information.
There's kind of ways that we can sort of bring other people coming in alongside us. And one of the things, as far as the microeconomy, I was just looking back. One of the things I loved in Chuck's book, Strong Towns, in chapter seven, there's a chapter called Productive Places, and he kind of unpacks this concept that is so difficult to understand at first because it's just sort of mind blowing. But he talks about how sometimes the blighted street, the old part of town, is actually more valuable per square foot as far as how much money is coming in, and not only that, it is mutually beneficial to other businesses more so than a big box store.
One of the things he says is when these local businesses are going to employ other neighbors. They're going to use local services like local accountants, lawyers, a local printer, a cleaner, even someone who does marketing. And he says these dollars, meaning the money that we spend at that store or at that place of business, these dollars are passed around the community to employ my friends and neighbors, and when I see places, the big box stores in our town, we had a we had a Joanne's in this like new development that just got built probably 10 years ago. Well, Joann's went under, and there's a lot of big box stores that are not making it, and Chuck talks about that in the book, where, okay, well now this is sitting empty, and now it's going to turn into something else.
I would much rather be investing my money in local businesses, and that's something that I just over the past year, as things have gotten really crazy nationally, I just kind of try to put into practice in small ways of spending my money locally to start locally localizing my spending instead of giving my money to companies that are owned by billionaires. So once I had that challenge, I tried to just keep doing it in small ways.
Well, I think too, there's not just the like financial implication. Of building a strong local economy, there's also the social side to it, And so, when you think about this question of resilience, it's an it's an ability to absorb shock, like unexpected shocks to the system. I think one of the concepts that most people don't realize, that the more corporate or businesses, or the more the more detachedness from the local community, the more it loses like agility or like typically to respond to things creatively, It's like going into a small shop owned by mom and pop, and like haggling. You can haggle.
You can't haggle at HEB. You can't like. There's very little opportunities to sort of respond to the particularities of a particular place and of the people that are in there. My friend just told me that she went to a local vintage store to look for some dishes, and she, and the shop owner, saw that she was at the max of her budget, but she really wanted this dish set.
And he not only like dropped the price, but then threw in a whole bunch more dishes of the style that she loved. You don't get that at like a home kids, And so, and if you like extrapolate that concept to like, if you have business owners who are committed to the community, and they start to notice areas where the community might be struggling, they have the flexibility and the agility to respond to those struggles. To say like, hey, they might know when a family's on a hard time, and they could say we'll give you some credit, Or they might, for at their local grocer, or they could say like, oh, we've had supply chain issues, but we're noticing that this is really affecting this part of our community in this way.
Let's come up with some creative idea, and they can do it. They can do it at it's much smaller scale, but they can do it. And so I think just trying to bridge the gap between like micro economies, more local businesses, and resilience. I think the key concept there is that flexibility and that agility and that response, that ability to like notice and respond.
And
What's interesting with that too is that's that's not always comfortable. That takes risk. It does because it can feel what if I offer something and this person takes advantage of me, or what if they come back and ask for more? We've kind of become we're we're a we're a very individualist society where.
I sometimes have friends over for dinner, and they'll go, "Well, can I Venmo you for the for some of the food? I'm just like, "This is not a transaction. This is a friendship. I don't, I don't need a, I don't need money.
I think we need to kind of get back to those roots of going. We have we have more than enough. That's something I mentioned with Robin Wall Kimmerer. She wrote another book that I really loved called The Service Berry, and she that's a short book.
So anybody out there who wants to dive into her stuff, and she talks about the gift economy and how there is a there's of course there's a time and place for us to pay each other for our services and our stuff. I support that 100%. I mean, that's why I did the pop-up market. But there is also room in our lives for a gift economy where we can, where that shop owner gave somebody a little extra, or there's just so many ways to do it creatively.
I think finding being open. So one of the things in Strong Towns that I've always loved is this idea to be curious and to just try things. And when we think about how do we make our neighborhoods more resilient, some of that is just going to be trial and error and putting yourself out there.
Yeah, I think you're right, and I think, but I really do think you go back to that scene in Cinderella. Part of it is the limited scale kind of has checks and balances built into it. They'll know they'll know someone who's trying to play the system really quick, and word will get around really to think it has that, and then it has the social component of like, well, they did that favor for me? Let me text.
I always text my hairdresser if she wants a coffee. I'll often text and ask her if she wants a coffee on my bed. One of my very first appointments with her, I miscalculated the cost, and she ended up giving me like a huge discount. So it's kind of like a running joke where I'm like, "I'll just buy you coffee.
And so everyone, almost every appointment, I'm like, "Do you want a coffee? She said, "I was like, no, honey, just come in. And I think there's there's so much room for that. I probably I think there's probably more room.
There's probably more possibility for encounters and informal moments of reciprocity that than there are opportunities where people going to try to like take it take advantage of it. Okay, let's talk about this whole micro, this missing middle kind of like micro business base, and I why I think it resonates with us so much as moms, because I feel I'm in this space where the world is not designed for my life pattern at all, including the economic aspect of my life, So I have a couple projects. I freelance. I try this and I try that.
But when you're taking care of littles, like the way that your time is structured, can't really fit within the typical nine to five. Sometimes it doesn't even fit within the typical part time schedule. It's but there still are these like gaps where I feel I could be doing something creative. Entrepreneurial, but it just doesn't map on what most people expect for a working woman.
I think what's so interesting-I don't know-I'm just curious what came to your mind as you were watching this micro market and began. Did you see like, wow, this could be a way, that moms could moms who wanted to, could have a way of participating in the commercial life of their town in a meaningful way without feeling it had to strictly fit into these sort of like these buckets for what it looks like to be a working mom. Like maybe if you're allowed to have an in-home pottery studio, you can do pottery around your kids and not have to carry the whole weight of like if you could have that in your home,. There, I just wonder if like more creative combinations could actually allow families, especially moms who are staying home with little kids, to still contribute to their community in economic way.
So yeah, one of the things that I have started to unpack, and we talked about this in the last podcast interview, was how a lot of times the transition into early motherhood is pretty stark. A lot of us go from having a career or being in university or having a part time job to jumping into first of all, a really physically taxing experience, very physically draining experience, and taking on an entirely new role, entirely new job, and coworker, so to speak, of having a little baby, and then trying to get your sea legs after a few months of going, boy, this is amazing! I am obsessed with this tiny human, and I, I'm obviously a lot of moms are just over the moon to be having that experience, but there is still a need for a mom to have other avenues of socialization, and I think even other means of work that it's not just caring for a child.
I really love the book "A Love Letter to Suburbia" by Diana Lisa, and she's a young mom out in Utah, and she has an amazing couple of chapters on family, and her chapter on she says, "Dear Suburbia, you've distorted motherhood, and she talks about this, this they called it the mom, the mommy wars, kind of working mom versus stay at home mom that has been going on for now a couple decades, and we the way I see it now, and she kind of talks about this too. That has been such a distraction for us to say there's only one right way to do it. Diana Diane talks about we have we have not given mothers enough opportunities outside of what feels like are just two options.
One, your home all the time. You're the sole caretaker to one or multiple children, or two. You are full time, typically out of the home, 40 hours a week. And for a lot of families, that the cost of childcare is so high that the job, any job that a mother takes, isn't even going to pay off the child care, so we need to come back to this again middle.
We're going to go back to the middle housing, this missing middle. Okay, so the missing middle of a working primary parent is having some kind of part time work. She says in the book that there's a study done by the American Psychology Association. Depression symptoms went down if women had some type of part-time work when their children were under preschool age.
This suggests that part-time jobs provide a sense of fulfillment, community, and reprieve from the demands of caregiving. We can see it's important to design places where women can be involved in wider society while raising children, whether through a job or other outlets, and so the rise of what I've seen in recent years, and I'm so encouraged, the rise of home bakeries, which is in my state is like a you can get a cottage kitchen license, home bakeries, selling things on Etsy, making things, doing consulting, doing even at home childcare where you could you could watch somebody else's child. There are just so many creative ways for moms to find fulfillment, not just in their caretaking, but also in using their minds, their talent, their gift, and there's there is something psychologically that even if you are in a healthy partnership and relationship.
Where a partner is the main, bringing in most of the income for the family, there's something I think very helpful for the other primary caregiver to have some money coming in, even if it's just a few $100 That feels that feels good to know you still have something of value that is monetary, and so much of child care is. I mean, if I've seen people like, if you were to count up how many hours moms spend feeding and cooking, cleaning, and caring, I mean, it is you would pay several people over $100,000 a year just doing that job.
So I think there's yeah I think it's the pop-up market is just one avenue to give moms an opportunity to go hey I've got this cool idea I'm gonna just gonna kind of do it they can bring their kids along a lot of times or finding ways to work at home while your kids are home, and that's the way mothers have always done it. And she says in the book, there was before the whole label of like working mom or stay at home mom, there was just mom, there was just mother, and mother would be taking care of her home, possibly farming, but she could be a seamstress. She could be men. She could be running a boarding house.
She could be cutting hair. Like there's so many things that women can do, and what a time to be an adult. I think about this for my daughters, where they are one of my oldest is about to be in eighth grade, and will be in high school. Incredibly bright, she could do anything, and she probably will do a lot of things.
And we are in a time now where the nature of work and career, especially for sort of the white collar jobs, feels extremely uncertain with AI. A lot of young folks are just feeling very nervous about it. And what I've seen, and what I want to encourage my daughters is, let's dive into any interests that you have, because a lot of those things could be turned into a job, a career, and it doesn't have to be a forever thing. It could be something that you do to help pay for college or pay to buy a car, it could be something that you pick up later in life.
And if they still want to, if they want to go to college, I would 100% support that. I would also encourage them not only do an education. And it's kind of funny because being a millennial, we were just told go to college, go to college, go to college. Meanwhile, a lot of us still have debt from college, and our friends back home who became plumbers, and electricians, and HVAC, and hairdressers are making great money.
So I, it's good to have a well-rounded education in not only university but also some skills,
But not even that. Think about the brain drain that emphasis on college has represented for so many cities and communities, Because I think the other side to this, where you're talking about like the, I do think that the way what work will look like will be very different for these gen the generations that we're raising, what I do think there will be we are moving towards greater integration between parenting and work for both genders for both moms and dads, which I'm excited to see. I mean, I've had such positive encounters with people who I've been working with to come on the podcast, or just people who are like, "Oh yeah, it's really fun if your kids are there.
Like, there, I don't think people are nearly as offended at the merging of the world, merging of the roles as we've been told. This myth that like children should be sequestered away, and men should be shuttled off to work, and women should be kept behind the doors of their massive suburban house, so that the city, so that the streets of the city can be quiet and orderly, is really like the whole point of modern city planning. Those orderly, quiet streets-gotta love them. Well, where are you going to put all the people?
Let me tell you. I do think there'll be greater integration. I think people will start to realize, like, wait, the streets are to be filled with the noises of life, not to be quiet and orderly. But also, I think the conversation about what, how to think about work for younger generations.
I hope it'll change to like look around your community and see where you can help go do that thing, rather than like, go off to the big city or go look at some industry that you like, and then leave the community to go get the training, and then follow the market to whatever city you need to live in to do the job. Rather than start with the community and see where, almost like a Strong Town's idea of thinking about work. It's like look at your community and think about ways that you can contribute meaningfully to your community in a way that aligns with your strengths and interests. And like maybe do that, and maybe there's a way you can learn to do that right with the institutions and the relationships you already have, rather than this sort of like disperse out, and it's like maybe you'll come back in 40 years.
Well, and that's just a different value. Like millennials have seen, and we have experienced. We did it. We done.
We've been there, done that. We got the degree, we got a job. We may have moved far away for the job. Then we survived COVID, and a lot of us have pivoted, and a lot of us are going.
Well, what do I have now? I live far away from all of my family. I'm starting now. I'm starting my own family.
This city that I moved to for a job is remote, so I don't even actually need to live here, or I don't even this job. And it kind of yeah. Now I'm kind of going back to this idea of this is it's great to also just to retain talent, like retain incredible people and culture of the city that you're building, of these children that they get, they're in our they're in our place, they're in our community. We want you to stay.
I mean, if you want to go to college, great. Now I'm lucky that I live in a college town, so a lot of kids here actually just stay in town and go to college, but. There's there's such a there's such a movement I think towards you were saying what else could I do and a lot of millennials I think are burned on corporate life.
I want to talk about another side of this because you're as a mom you're raising we're we're raising future generations, but you're also reflecting on. I think you've had some conversations with older generations as well. And how are you seeing sort of how are you seeing this play out on the neighborhood level, Because I think one of the things you care about, as we can see from your work with the with the market, but you're also doing, you're part of the bike bus. You're also part of this idea of like the strong neighborhoods and the ADUs.
You care about neighborhoods being places that are not only economically productive and helpful, but that are also full of strong relationships. But I think you've seen that there's like some tension across the generations about, well, what is a neighborhood for who is it for? What should our experience be in the neighborhood? Can you just speak to that a little bit?
Kind of how what you've what you've noticed, what you've observed, and how are you navigating that tension where you see that older generations kind of expect one thing. Here we are trying to challenge some of those narratives and expectations, and then we're trying to set up our children to possibly to hopefully have a very different experience.
Yeah, it's a delicate it's a delicate subject and a difficult endeavor. But being the optimist that I am, being someone that kind of believes in restoration and connection. It's something that I continually hope and pray that I can be someone who is willing to listen and willing to share. I think you kind of need every generation needs to be doing both.
Where I think folks my age are struggling is our reality, whether it's our financial reality, our career, the world we're raising our children. It feels, in some places, it can feel kind of not welcoming for families, whether that is in how our cities are designed. Our kids can't go out and run around and play. Either it's too dangerous, or our neighbors, our older neighbors, have actually scolded me and told me you shouldn't let your kids run around and play.
And then also in ways that, on a larger level, my neighbors are voting with folks that want to literally defund the schools that all of our neighborhood kids go to. That sends a message to a lot of parents that our children are not valued, which just drives a wedge. I'm just going to be honest; it just that is pretty hard to overcome that position. Those positions where I've had some really good conversations is honestly just in my front yard as a neighbor walked by, inviting them to come sit down on one of my chairs.
And when they go, "How are you doing? And I'm just honest, and I may have tears in my eyes, and sometimes I've had conversations after a school shooting or after another economic blow, and I just I am starting to unmask. I think being kind of a nice lady, nice girl from Texas, I'm I'm learning to. Unmask a little bit, and not to shield the reality from other people who may not be in my experience.
And so I just share. I say it's been really hard. I'm I'm really scared, and I don't know. I don't know what else to do.
We're in a tight spot financially. My kids are struggling to have a school that's funded. We have teachers leaving every year, and I've had some neighbors that have said I'm I'm really sorry, and they mean it, and that has actually restored those relationships on my end where I go, okay, she heard me, and then I also want to hear from them. I want to know what are the challenges you're facing, and then also kind of sharing ideas.
I have a neighbor. I have several neighbors on my street who are widows. Their husbands have passed away. They've lived in the neighborhood for a long time, and they say things like, "Well, I'm.
I should probably downsize. I don't need this big house, but I don't really want to move away. I love our community. I love our neighbors, and I just look them in the eye.
Or if I'm a person, I'm kind of a toucher, so I'll like hold their hold their arm, and I just say we don't want you to move. We want you to stay. We need you to stay, and then kind of opening their eyes. Like, did that it's possible in Denton to, rent?
You could you could rent out a couple of rooms, or you could turn your garage into an apartment. It's called an ADU. Then they go, well, what's an ADU? And so then I get to explain what that is, and just kind of giving them ideas and opportunities and hopes that they do stay, because we do need, I think we do need a variety of ages in our neighborhoods too.
100% yeah, we do. I love that. I love how you're able to meet them where they're at and use, and not you're using it, but help them like see the connection between the season of life that they're in and these ideas that maybe if you just came in with the ideas or the policy change, or they don't make the change. They'd be like, "well, I right.
I get in those
Conversations a lot where I just start going off and I lose people. But I think the challenge too. Sorry to interrupt you, but the challenge too is so I'm turning 40 this year. So I feel like folks my age and younger, we have in some ways, become complacent, where it kind of feels we haven't really had our turn, and whether that's politically, policy-wise, economically, we're still kind of waiting, and we should completely enter into the time and do the work to understand where things are broken, and not just don't focus on the national issues at this point.
I would encourage people look not even at the state issues, although there are some really important state issues. I would go all the way down to your city, and all the way down to
Like your neighborhood. Your
Neighborhood, yes, and that's what I focused on as the past, honestly, the past decade has just been really hard, and I felt very hopeless with things going on in Texas and nationally, and I just said I've got to just focus on my neighborhood. But we've got to include my other comment would be millennials are the bridge, and we've got to include our Gen Z and Gen Alpha. That's like my kids, like teenagers and younger. We've got to get them included because I think a lot of millennials have not felt included, and I've just been waking up to this idea of what?
I'm the big sister. I'm in this situation. I'm I'm the adult in the room now, and I want my generation to be one that is including younger people from the get-go. We need to be listening to what is it that they want, where do they want to live, what kind of housing do they want, and that also bolsters me when I inevitably do have some confrontational conversations with older folks, and they go, "Well, we don't want this, and we don't want that, and we.
I can start to go. I appreciate your point of view, but folks my age and younger, this is what we're this is where we're seeing our cities moving, and we hope you can come along the ride with us. But then we've got to start mobilizing us and younger folks,
And I think also too showing them how it's not as terrifying as they might think it is because I think there's always the myth and the reality, People attach a lot of value to their idea of what a thing might be, and helping them like actually encounter the reality of what a thing is. You said, you like do you don't have to leave? That's way better than we want to have. Like more, call it, whatever their fear is.
It's this is a means to you achieving the thing that you value, which is you not having to leave this community. Let so you mentioned ideas. We don't have that much time, but I'd love for you to talk just head on quickly some of the other projects you're working on because I feel you're just I. In the entry, really just embodying this.
I think you're also embodying just this very. I don't know. Maybe this pre 40s what? I'm just gonna do it.
Got to do the things,. Gotta do it. It sounds you feel that, and just sort
Of.
We're 40. It's we're we're both almost there, and so it's just we don't really have to be. I don't know. Just it feels like less to lose, more to gain to pay for it.
So what I'm working on these days.
Oh my gosh! Well, i love to I love to learn, and then I usually go jump right in, and I so I have a lot of things that I've started, and I'm hoping to just continue to work on those and find even more collaborators. So we do. I do have some free resources on popupmarket.org.
So after I did my own pop-up market in the front yard, I wrote everything down and I wrote down my whole process and I used my graphic design skills and my business management skills and I created basically a step-by-step process of how someone could do it, so I have that for free, and anyone is welcome to download that. I, if you want to just at least even subscribe to my news newsletter, I was just thinking this morning, what if I did maybe one kind of like big free group call if anybody just wants to hop on and talk about what they could possibly do in their front yard, and so that's that's one mission I have. And then I'm starting something called Strong Neighborhoods StrongNeighborhoods.com and I'm hoping to just have some more tools and resources for people to do some of the things that I've done.
So I did a walking audit. We had a great turnout. I'm going to have some resources for families and kids because I want us to start focusing on the next generation. We need to start collecting data.
We need to start collecting stories from our children. When I have gone to speak at our city council about our dangerous streets, I asked my kids and their friends. I asked them for their experiences, and I even had some of them write them down on handwritten notes. I gave those to the people that represent us and represent my children.
So I think that's important too. And then if I am just a collector of resources and my favorite things, just to do this work, and so I've got those are on my website at laurenpen.com. So I've got some stuff on there too, and dabbling in. I started an Instagram where I'm trying to sort of just document my experience.
One of my favorite creators on Instagram in this space is my friend Hope, who is Hope Henchi, and she's out of Chattanooga, and she has just done such a great job narrating and kind of walking around and helping people notice what moms notice, what children notice, or other people that are disadvantaged in the cities. So that's that's kind of where I'm headed in this direction. I have a lot of big dreams, I would love to create other ways to connect folks with these micro businesses, or even connect potential business, small business owners with people that may want to help support them. Whether that's loaning them items to help them get started, whether that's like a sewing machine or other kinds of materials, or even renting out a bedroom or renting out a space in their home to make that possible, so that people can get their businesses started.
So, I've got ideas. Just we're rolling them out as I can while I'm taking care of my children too.
An inspiration to us all. To quote one of the finest films ever made, if Lauren. It's been such a delight to hear your insights and about your projects and the work that you've been doing in your community. I know we barely, scratched the surface.
Yeah. All my metaphors, guys. It's mom life. But yeah, I'm just.
I feel so lucky that we got to capture your experiences and insights and share them here on the show. I'm going to ask you our last question, which is a lot of fun. Tell us a little bit about your neighborhood and what are some local businesses you like to recommend people check out if they come to visit.
Yeah. So again, I'm in Denton, Texas, and I live in the North Lakes neighborhood, which is just north of West University Drive, so we've got some gorgeous parks all the way around our neighborhood, where they now have done some tremendous work in doing some native wildflower preservation. We have these gorgeous trees and the pond, and so if anyone is coming to Denton, I recommend checking out the trails and stuff that are kind of in our neighborhood park, and then some of my favorite places in the neighborhood. One place that we go regularly for years and years and years is called Thai Ocha.
So it's a local Thai restaurant. It's kind of a hole in the wall, and it's kind of right off the main road, but it has incredible Thai. The massaman curry with chicken is like my top choice, and then another great place that I love. That's a new business that is woman owned is called Lamity.
It is a converted church that is now a super charming kind of French American bistro. Super cute, excellent food, really amazing, and then my last recommendation is to go to our historic downtown square. Denton is has a beautiful old courthouse. We have some really cool places on the square that have become really popular.
And my favorite place to get gelato and an Italian espresso is a place called Two Gentlemen of Verona, and they're right on the square, so definitely check them out.
Amazing! Thank you so much, Lauren, to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for another for another conversation. If you enjoyed this, definitely share it with a friend.
And if there's someone in your community who you think we should have on the show, please let us know using the suggested guest form. But Lauren, thanks again. Thank you so much for taking time two weeks in a row to come sit down with me and share your story and your insights with me. I really appreciate it.
Awesome, thank you. I'll be back soon with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a Strong Town.
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.