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Category Archives: Blog

Mondays 179: Another Trip to China

October 6, 2025

We’re Han Solo again but this time I’m sharing some thoughts from my trip to China in addition to the news.  We’ve got stories about traffic lights in Japan, the creation of a new electric company, and housing costs. And of course there’s much much more. Below are the show notes:   Middle class housing


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 551: Architectural Epidemiology

October 2, 2025

This week we’re joined by Adele Houghton of the Harvard School of Public Health and Carlos Castillo-Salgado of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to discuss their new book Architectural Epidemiology: Architecture as a Mechanism for Designing a Healthier, More Sustainable, and Resilient World. We chat about how to connect the social and


Traffic in Beijing

September 30, 2025

The traffic here in China is pretty crazy. In Beijing, there are 6 million vehicles for a city of 22 million people that is much denser than western cities. On the ring roads there is traffic most of the day in certain spots even though people have access to the largest subway in the world


Replay: Walking with Pedestrian Dignity

September 28, 2025

This week we’re on vacation, but we’re flashing back to Episode 391 and chatting with Jonathon Stalls about his wonderful book Walk: Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles Per Hour. He also talks about Pedestrian Dignity and his 2010 walk across the US. Hope everyone is doing well. I’m in China this


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 550: Crash First, Fix Later Mentality

September 18, 2025

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re joined by former FHWA Deputy Administrator and IIJA architect Andrew Rogers to discuss how congress can help reduce traffic deaths and collisions with the use of technology. We discuss the best time to influence congress on transportation and the crash first, fix later mentality. Find out more


A Week of Understanding

September 17, 2025

I love the work that our friend Anna Zivarts does promoting the week without driving which is coming up in a few weeks. What’s interesting about it is that it makes those who try to live for a week without driving a car understand what the stresses are for people who depend on non-auto mobility.


More Development Options

September 16, 2025

I’m currently in Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi Province which contains about 34 million people. For reference, California is almost 40 million people. Taiyuan is a moderately sized city at about 4 million, but even at that population level it is fairly compact and hyper dense. One of the things that I noticed when



Preventive Building Medicine

September 9, 2025

We recently interviewed Adele Houghton and Carlos Castillo-Salgado about their new book Architectural Epidemiology (interview coming out around September 25th) which advocates for designing buildings not just for green and healthy building standards like LEED, but for addressing the local context of social and architectural determinants of health through the building construction process. One of


(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 548: Wonders of the South Bay

September 3, 2025

This week we’re joined by Sam Sargent of VTA for part 1 of a conversation about transit agencies and special projects and programs. This week Sam chats with us about VTA’s history, current projects and future prospects in the South Bay. To listen to this episode, find it at Streetsblog USA or in our archive.


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