Summary: Bruce Liedstrand loves cities of all sizes. He's closing in on 50 years of experience in a variety of capacities -- city attorney, manager, redevelopment director, and now a consultant. Bruce is a strong believer that city planning and design should be people-focused. His mission is to make places safe, useful, and convenient for people. So naturally he fits right in at Urbanism Speakeasy. Scientific method applied to city planning Raise your hand if you remember learning about the scientific method in school. Make observations, develop a hypothesis, make a logical prediction, and then conduct experiments. Bruce was strongly influenced by Michael Freedman, a designer he met in California. Michael introduced Bruce to the mysterious field of urban design and contributed heavily to Bruce's future work. We had a plan...it just wasn't our plan Tech geeks have heard of Mountain View, CA because it's where Google built their headquarters. But before Google, Mountain View was the city near Stanford University where you lived after graduation or after a divorce. Design consultants had been hired to develop master plans, but they didn't lead to significant change. So what happened? Bruce explains, including some early experiments with what we now call form-based codes. I'll know what I want when I see it Picture a really good downtown street. How does it look? Now picture getting out of your parked car in front of a suburban box-retail store. How does it look? Decision makers in Mountain View struggled with defining what they wanted to see downtown. They knew they had plans on shelves that didn't have any real meaning for them. So they did what any non-professional, common sense observer would suggest. They walked outside. In Mountain View and in other cities. What did they like? What could they do without? Bruce describes the evolution of Mountain View's city planning process. Measuring the effectiveness of your city staff City staff size varies dramatically. Some have large departments for engineering, planning, zoning, accounting, and everything else. Others employ just a handful of people who have to oversee all the city operations. Without considering number of employees, what are some characteristics of a good city staff? What are some ways people can measure the effectiveness of their local leaders? Meeting needs and giving pleasure No, Bruce is not a marriage counselor. That's the way he rates the quality of cities. Bruce has visited many cities over the last 50+ years. How are American cities doing? What are some ways to keep improving? The biggest challenge might be to stop applying sprawl design to downtowns. Bruce likes to say that downtown is the opposite of the suburb -- so treat it that way. Planning for seniors "Aging in place" might be the wrong description for what Bruce describes. Aging in one place is more like our current model of car-dependent sprawl, where seniors are forced to be isolated once they lose the ability to drive. Bruce talks about the importance of walkable communities, including some insights from Paris. Connect with our guest I know, I know. You want to find out more about Bruce Liedstrand's experience with city planning. Go visit his website below. Common Sense Community Design Sponsor links Try Audible FREE for 30 days and get a free audiobook. Yes, there are tons of books on urbanism! It's like listening to this podcast -- give it a try!
