74. Jeff Speck - Walkable City

Aussie Firebug

Today my guest is city planner and urban designer Jeff Speck. Originally trained as an architect, Jeff is most famous within the FIRE community for his award-winning 2012 book: ‘Walkable City: How Downtown Saves America, One Step at a Time’.

It’s amazing how such a small detail like walkability can touch on so many tenants within the FIRE ethos. The economy, health benefits and sustainability are all areas that are impacted greatly by our poorly designed cities which are where the majority of humans on earth live.
Some of the topics we cover in today’s episode are:

• How Jeff became an expert in city planning. (00:03:25)
• What is urban design and city planning? (00:09:02)
• City development before the great depression and world war 2 (00:13:43)
• How do we solve this problem of a car-centric environment? (00:36:25)
• Health benefits of a walkable city (00:41:14)
• How we can change our roads to benefit pedestrians and reduce traffic (00:52:09)
• Different ways to make a city more walkable (00:57:48)

Links

• Website - www.jeffspeck.com
• TED - Jeff Speck: The Walkable City
• Book - WALKABLE CITY: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

www.aussiefirebug.com/podcast/