The second tier Chinese cities I’ve visited are very different from mid-sized metros in the United States. Obviously with so much more population that’s going to be true, but especially in terms of things like retail. I saw a number of smaller cities and villages from the train, but my experience with the larger second-tier

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re joined by Ben Donsky of Agora Partners to discuss City Walk BHAM in Birmingham Alabama, a public space project that connects two sides of the city separated by a highway. We chat about positive public space, doing something instead of nothing, and what it takes to make

There are many important parts of the intersection between public health and planning but one I haven’t seen discussed much is sleep. People have all kinds of different sleeping patterns but society generally caters to the early birds over the night owls. I’m not bitter. Scientists in Japan now have found a way sleep is

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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