In this episode, AJ interviews Dr. Kaye Monk-Morgan and Shaun Rojas of the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) where Kaye is the President and CEO, and Shaun is the Senior Director of Civic Engagement. Their discussion emphasizes the importance of building a culture of civic leadership and engaging with community members to address their concerns and build stronger, healthier, and more prosperous communities. The conversation also touches on the idea that leadership is an activity rather than a title or position, and the need to develop skills and engage in activities that promote leadership.

Moving communities beyond status quo is hard. Entrenched practices in zoning, transportation planning, and road design have created places that are unsafe, unhealthy, and inequitable for many, while others who have benefitted from these systems staunchly defend them. In this episode, “Plangineers” Andy Boenau and Kevin Shepherd discuss how their careers evolved from engineering to planning to advocates for change in their respective roles today. They discuss why radical changes to traditional planning and engineering approaches are needed in order to create more inclusive, sustainable, and thriving places. Andy explains the benefits of using storytelling to communicate and simplify concepts to inspire change, as well as how to use online platforms and targeted posts on social media to communicate and test ideas. If you're searching for language and tools to nudge your community forward, Andy is an excellent resource.

In this episode, Kevin talks with two city management officials about which bills concern them and the unintended consequences that could result if they’re passed. Michael Kovacs, the City Manager of Fate, a fast growing suburb east of Dallas, and Tom Yantis, the Assistant City Manager of Taylor, a community outside Austin that recently landed one of the largest economic development deals in Texas with Samsung have been leaders in adjusting development processes to ensure their cities have the money they need to maintain quality services and infrastructure long-term while keeping housing and taxes affordable. Both cities received national awards for their Comprehensive Plans for embracing principles of fiscal sustainability. These two guys are extremely knowledgeable about how development impacts short and long-term costs and affordability, and how things “work” in Texas, so their input is worth listening to.

Rural communities are a focus for us here at Verdunity. In this episode, AJ interviews Julianna Dodson, Deputy Executive Director, and Radically Rural Director for the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship. Together they chat about how to transform these places for the better. You might be surprised to hear that rural communities face some of the same issues that bigger cities do – housing shortages, inability to find affordable child care – but they also face issues like the hollowing out of medical support systems that historically have been a part of the rural fabric. Julianna highlights how rural communities have attempted to recover from one financial crisis after the next and how they do that differently than cities.

William Fulton is one of America’s most established thought leaders in urban planning. From 2014 to 2022, he served as Director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Prior to moving to Houston, he served as Mayor of Ventura, CA and Director of Planning and Development for San Diego. He’s the author of multiple papers and books, including his most recent book Place and Prosperity, which is the focus of this episode.

It's not enough to hope for better neighborhoods. Meaningful policy needs to be enacted to make better places possible. Melissa Milton-Pung and the Michigan Municipal League have been working to give advocates the tools they need to push for zoning and housing reform in Michigan. But the lessons they provide can be applied across the country.

Fiscal policy, municipal finance, thoughtful budgeting, and infrastructure maintenance. If you ever wanted to know where and why your city's money gets spent, you'll want to hear this. Mark Funkhouser, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, with decades of experience in municipal finance, and Liz Farmer, a writer, thinker, and consultant on policy and budgeting, are two of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to local finance. They present us with some really tangible options for getting more out of those in this episode and explore how the systems we have built are fragile, like we've seen in places like Pittsburgh and even in a place like Texas that is ostensibly booming.

Mara Mintzer is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of Growing Up Boulder (GUB), Boulder, Colorado, USA’s child- and youth-friendly city initiative.  Mara presents and writes internationally on the topic of engaging young people in community planning and child-friendly cities.  Her TEDx talk, “How Kids Can Help Design Cities,” has been viewed 2.3 million times and translated into 21 languages.  Ms. Mintzer has designed and implemented programs for underserved families in New York and California. 

On this episode of Go Cultivate! we have Ryan Short, the CEO of CivicBrand, a firm that blends together branding, communications, and direct engagement with communities. As we think about the kinds of places we want our cities to grow into and be in the future, it's important to directly connect with members of the community to help identify and then take ownership of a place.

On this episode of Go Cultivate! we have Ryan Short, the CEO of CivicBrand, a firm that blends together branding, communications, and direct engagement with communities. As we think about the kinds of places we want our cities to grow into and be in the future, it's important to directly connect with members of the community to help identify and then take ownership of a place.

How sustainable is any system which requires the agreement and buy-in of those with the deepest pockets and largest portfolios to be successful? Can many small players create the same value in a place that the big guys do? This week's guests will tell you that the former simply isn't sustainable, and not only is the latter, but it also creates more lasting value for the community. Monte Anderson and Mike Keen are working in two different places (South Dallas and South Bend, Indiana). Still, they are working to create incremental wealth in the communities where they live, and as you will hear, both of them have been successful at this bottom-up approach to development.

Kent Cagle has been a city manager in Texas for over 20 years, and has worked in local government in Texas for nearly 35. He has worked in cities that are growing rapidly, and ones that are built out and having to determine how they can balance a budget with limited resources. He is the current city manager in Killeen, Texas and oversaw the city's recent Comprehensive Planning effort. Kent shares a great deal of knowledge on how he has navigated the changing landscape of local government and provides some useful insight on how to actually get things done. Hint: he's very pragmatic about it all.