BONUS | Steve Nygren & Jim Durrett in Conversation at the Atlanta History Center

In this bonus episode of Start In Your Own Backyard, hear Steve Nygren and Jim Durrett’s 2025 book talk at the Atlanta History Center, where they discuss Steve’s unlikely path from restaurateur to buying a farm to creating Serenbe.

Steve shares stories from Serenbe’s early days and reflects on the growing movement toward New Urbanism, agrihoods, and communities designed around nature. He also explores biophilia, the connection between nature and health, and why we might want to rethink the American lawn. The conversation concludes with a Q&A about Serenbe, community, and designing places where people and nature can thrive together.

Jim Durrett is an Atlanta civic leader and the former president and CEO of the Buckhead Coalition, where his career focused on smart growth, livable communities, and sustainable development.

This conversation was recorded on December 15, 2025. 

Show Notes

• Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Steve Nygren

Are you interested in communities where people, nature, and businesses thrive together? Whether you’re a developer, urban planner, or simply curious about how thoughtful design can create lasting value and resilience, join us in Serenbe – September 28th through 30th – for the annual Nygren Placemaking Conference.

Are You Ready For Radical Common Sense? Visionary placemaker Steve Nygren chronicles the rise of Serenbe, a pioneering model of biophilic living outside Atlanta, and charts a path for others wishing to challenge the status quo, embrace optimism, and reinvent their communities…and themselves. 

Order the book today. 

Subscribe on Substack and receive a free essay from Steve every week. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Good evening. Welcome on this nice warm uh December evening. Thank you for coming out tonight. Um I'm Jeff Field Hale and I'm President and CEO of Atlanta History Center. I want to welcome you to tonight's author talk. It's our last author talk of 2025, and I can't think of a better duo than Steve Nigren and Jim Durk to wrap us up for the year. We also have some very wonderful speakers coming in 2026, including Nura O'Donnell of uh CBS News and one very special speaker on February 19th that we're revealing exclusively to our members. And if you are a member, check your email. If you're not a member, join today and I'll let you know the secret. Um it rhymes with teacher. Um teach them. Anyway. Um anyway, so just check out on that. It's going to be great. And February 19th, you want to you want to be here. Um but now back to Steve and Jim. Tonight we'll be discussing Steve's book, Starting Your Own Backyard, Transforming Where We Live with Radical Common Sense. Uh I see many of you are holding a book, a copy of the book, but if you aren't, um you need to get one tonight. Christmas is coming. Buy multiple copies, and Steve will gladly sign all of them for you, personalizing them to your favorite um in-law. Um anyway, I wanted to introduce tonight's speaker. Steve Nigren is founder and CEO of SarumBee, a model wellness community just outside of Atlanta. Many of you also know him as the uh founder of the peasant restaurant group, which we which changed the course of dining history in Atlanta, uh, bringing great food into our restaurant restaurant void in the 1970s, but at the same time accelerating our cultural decline by eliminating the requirement that customers wear jackets in order to dine. Of equal but more important impact was his work in the 1980s to professionalize and bring the Midtown Alliance into the very effective organization it is today, and I can't overstate what he did with that organization. Therenby is the latest of his visionary projects, and I'm excited to hear more about his ideas in creating sustainable communities tonight. He's in conversation tonight with another great Atlanton, Jim Durrett. Jim is president-CEO of the Buckhead Coalition and the executive director of the Buckhead Community Investment Improvement District. Both organizations are dedicated to the improvement and development of Buckhead as a critical part of the City of Atlanta. He has been deeply involved in the city, including the tricky job of being chair of the MARTA board, where his graduate degree in hydrology no doubt came in handy. Jim is an Atlanta native, lives in the Cab County, and is also a Serin B homeowner. Please join me in welcoming Steve Nigren and Jim Durrett. Thank you, Dirk.

SPEAKER_05 3:48

Oh it's good to be with you, Steve. Thank you, Jim. Good conversation, huh? I think we'll have a great conversation. I think it's uh important for us to let these folks know that you and I have known each other for 25 years when a mutual friend suggested that we get together when you are dreaming up this idea of Serenby. And uh we'll probably get to that later in the conversation, but um that's how well I know you. Um why don't you I heard Sheffield say that, you know, you had the peasant restaurant uh chain group. Why don't you, if you don't mind, tell us your origin story. Where did you grow up and how did you get from there to Atlanta?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Grew up on a generational farm in Colorado. Uh my uh uh family, three generations, settled Boehler County in the mid-1800s. And of course, as a farm kid, I could hardly wait to get away from the farm. And uh had dreamed of being an architect headed to the University of Colorado, a summer job uh in a resort up in the Rocky Mountains, uh, introduced me to the hospitality industry, and then a part-time job in college uh started with the Stofers Food Corporation as a busboy there, and uh ended up with them for seven years. And I was part of their uh in uh hotel management and into the opening team. And we opened the uh hotel in St. Louis, and then they moved me to Atlanta in 1969. I remember arriving here when uh uh 7585 was still under construction. I had to come in on 41. Uh the the I I see a lot of heads. There's enough gray hair out here that you remember those days, right? The the um the uh Hyatt Regency was the tallest building you saw when you were coming in. And the Darlington that year had hit a million people. Wow! And the champagne bottles uh popped, you know. But man, uh Atlanta was just really great. And so we we we broke ground uh uh on that hotel. I remember uh Maynard Jackson as vice mayor uh came and uh did the the the the shovel uh in the ground. And so if he was vice mayor, that probably means Sam Massell was mayor? That is correct. Okay. And so, you know, I I I was in charge. I, you know, I was this young kid really, but uh uh I was in charge of the home and I represented the the Stofers Food, and so I I was organizing with the PR team and uh opening all that. And and just show you where we were in that period of time, you know, they they arranged lunches, the PR team, with various important people. And of course, uh, you know, it was uh uh Sam and Maynard Jackson. Also Lester Maddox, the former governor. So, wow, I arrived at an interesting time. I, you know, this Colorado kid had no idea uh uh about the the southern history, so I have just this naive entry. Uh and so we proceeded to to open the Stoffords Hotel there on West Beach Street. Uh remember five uh 590 West, the Dick Drew playing the piano on the top. And so uh we opened that in October of 72, and that meant that I would soon be going to another city. And I'd fallen in love with Atlanta and I decided I wasn't going to leave. And so I stepped off the corporate treadmill and we opened the Pleasant Peasant. Uh in in that that little uh it had been Vic's Delicatessen for years from 1900 when it was built, but the last five years after the you know the hippies came in in the in the 60s, and when they left, they left Midtown fairly devastated. Uh but I could afford the the rent of $400 a month. And uh it had been five restaurants in five years, and they've gladly sold me all of the interior for twelve thousand dollars. Uh and so uh we started the Pleasant Peasant.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

Timing is everything. Everything. So you grew that business, and you got to a point where you decided to go down to southern Fulton County and see what was down there. So what what what led to that?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Well, it it wasn't quite that simple. So you know, it was um yeah, we we were very fortunate that, you know, um uh those early days, every everybody remembers when Fifth Plaza was about to go under after five years, Atlanta didn't like all those fancy people. And so, you know, uh they made us a deal I couldn't resist, you know, to open a restaurant in the second floor of a mall that was closed five nights a week. Uh wow, you know. Uh and so the word got out that I was so naive that I didn't need feasibility studies, I would go to the crazy places, you know. Uh and uh and so we we we we were at that transitional place. First liquor license in in Roswell, first liquor license in Decatur. So we were at the forefront. You know, now at the end of my career, I uh, you know, everyone decided I was too wise to need a feasibility study. So we we we were still in those interesting places. Stanley Marcus, you know, to negotiate our first lease in Washington, D.C. to be next to so a whole story. So I I wasn't looking, I was on the treadmill of success. We we had the great house we'd restored in in Ansley Park, right up at there at the top of the hill on 17th Street. We had the pool. It was like an acre in Ansley, it was, I think, the second l largest lot. Uh you know, we were on lots of nice boards and dressing up fancy for all these parties and political things. Uh and then Marie saw on the back of the Georgia Preservation newsletter that there was a historic farm for sale south of the airport. Now, you know, we'd been, you know, Roswell, I knew everything north, but uh was there really open land that close? I was very curious. And uh, and if you have small kids, the girls were three, five, and seven, you're looking for something to do, right? So I called and said, hey, we're not interested in buying anything, but if you have farm animals, would you mind if we pulled in just to show our darling daughters? And anyone with something for sale says, come on. We arrived, they had the Shetland pony saddled, and we bought the farm.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

So you you you you would you bought the farm so that you would have a place to go like on weekends? Is that what it was all about?

SPEAKER_02 10:30

When you have three little girls looking at you, just saying, Oh daddy, and you just want to make them happy. And then my logical mind was all this open land this close to Atlanta, but this would be a good investment. You know, they had nothing was happening in South Fulton, uh, you know, and so they'd had it for sale for some time and they were really anxious to sell, and and I see decided I should take advantage of that, and I could, you know, make the daughters happy. And I thought, well, we'll we'll come down a couple Saturday afternoons and we'll get our own Shetlam pony. First at first I tried to negotiate that into the sale, but it belonged to their granddaughter who who uh uh we they they weren't gonna let that go, although they sort of nod their head until it was time to sign. Um uh and uh Marie fixed the shack in the back in case we ever wanted to spend the night. We rented the historic house out. And to my amazement, the daughters, who two of them are here tonight. I know I've seen them here. Uh in the in the front there over there, and I know. Um uh this is where they wanted to come every weekend. And so doing that every weekend for three years, that was my value shift. What was really important, and I realized that all these boards we were serving on, the arts organization were always going broke if we didn't get X money raised. Uh I'm not sure we were making a difference on diseases. Uh the politicians I was supporting weren't getting elected. You know, that that was the time that uh uh uh I I I was supporting a mayor that didn't get elected, and we elected Bill Campbell instead. And I just said, you know, why am I on this treadmill? When, you know, the simple things of just connecting with nature, and we were in this little shack, and you know, in our our house in Ansley. We had the poor, we had everything that I thought money delivered for happiness, and yet we were retreating. And so one Monday morning on the way back into Atlanta, I just decided that's it. And so I stepped off. So, you know, I you know, another book I'm gonna write someday is the 90-degree turn. Uh, because you know, w when you're headed to place you expect, it never turns out quite like you'd planned. But man, if you do that 90 degree turn. So I did that when I left Stofers, and then I did that again when I decided to sell the restaurants.

SPEAKER_05 13:04

So you and your family moved down there. Yeah. And one afternoon, you and your oldest daughter, Garney, are out taking a run through the woods. What about that experience made you turn 90 degrees one more time?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

So this is almost 10 years after we bought the land. Uh you know, up a little over six years after we had moved down there full time, got all know all the neighbors. Uh if you see pictures or knew me in those days, my hair was down to my shoulders. I mean, we planned our garden. Life was great. Uh, thank goodness for all of you supporting the re the peasant restaurants. Uh, I was able to retire nicely. We could take the kids to Europe for a month. I wasn't looking for anything to change. Uh but one morning Garney and I were coming up over the uh over the hill, and the uh forest next to us was being leveled with a bulldozer. And I ran out and I stopped the guy and I said, What are you doing? And he says, We've just been hired to clear the houses. I guess there or the land, I guess houses are coming. And I thought, oh my God, how have I been so, you know, don't you remember land this close to Atlanta, you know? And so I ran back to the house to call the retired doctor who lived over in Fayette County, uh, and I couldn't get him. I couldn't get him. And so I started calling other uh landowners that were nearby. And when he returned three weeks later from Europe, uh, and I found out he had sold it to someone down the road who wanted to put in a pasture airstrip for his little plane. In my panic, I had an additional 600 acres under contract. A whole story on that. Uh and initially we had bought 60 acres and then put the original farm back together just because it became available, only that. And then in the panic of three weeks, you know, I uh and so here I am with 900 acres. I couldn't keep s showing up. And, you know, seeing how fast the land was swallowed on between Roswell and here when I used to open the restaurants in 78, I realized, man, once it starts, it's over. And when you had the restaurant in Roswell, between Atlanta and Roswell was what? Oh, country. I mean, I drove through four four miles, you know, of uh of country. Uh 400 had just been completed, and and uh I I I remember there was so little traffic. There was a dog who always uh slept right in the middle of the road, loved the sun hitting that asphalt, and and and you know, it was just there there was hardly anybody coming up. You'd you'd slow down, you knew the dog was going to be in that same place. You know, and it'd get aside and come back to the spot.

SPEAKER_05 15:50

So you realize what happened between Atlanta and Roswell can be coming my way.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

That's right. And and the farms that that I grew up on as a boy, that that my um my mother, my grandfather, my great-grandfather that was suburban Denver now. And so uh I knew all those families then that didn't want to change. And they were just like the people my new neighbors that had southern accents, but they were just exactly like the people who'd settled this area on the edge of Atlanta uh back then. And so uh it just felt it it was it was like, oh my god, I know. I know only too well how what's gonna happen. So what do you do about it? Well, you know, when I decided I couldn't keep showing up, uh uh at dinner one night, Ray Anderson, many many of you know maybe the Ray Anderson of Interface Carpet, had been a friend of ours for a year. In fact, her his uh uh stepson is Quinn, who's here her godfather. So we'd known Ray through his whole uh uh uh realization that he was going to change that industry. And uh he had just uh finished being the the White House uh the first chair of the White House Council on the Environment. So I said, Ray, you know all the smart people. Who can who can help me figure out how to save this? And so Ray asked the Rocky Mountain Institute to join him in in bringing a group together. And so in September 2000, that is is some of our first times that we got together, uh, Jim was representing the Urban Land Institute in one of those 23 uh uh people uh who showed up to talk about some of these issues. Uh and so I thought, man, this is gonna, you know, I'm gonna have somebody that's gonna give me the roadmap on how we do this. And after the two days, you know, I said, Ray, these are all experts. And now I'm a little more depressed because a lot of this is they're talking about how how dire this is. I mean, we had Stephen Strong who had put solar in the White House for Jimmy Carter, John Todd, who developed the living machines. I mean, we had some real uh personalities in this whole environmental movement at the time. Of course, Dennis Creech of um uh South Face. Um and so Ray and his wisdom sent me off to see the rainies outside Chicago, and of course I knew uh uh Robert Davis who did seaside, and and I realized in these visits, number one, I came back and said, hey, you know, nobody's really applying. Who, you know, and he said, that's why you have to do it. I mean, Ray gently knew, and all of a sudden I realized he had pushed me through that threshold of passion that I needed to do it. And I looked at the models and I said, wow, you know, it's these places have actually destroyed the area around them rather than changed it. We need to think about how regulation, people will follow regulations rather than volunteerism. And so that's when I stepped back and said, we need to look at at our neighbors. You know, I I I first went to our neighbors, the Peaks, who had been there for seven generations, and said, What's your thoughts? What you know, and and of course they didn't want things to happen. And and so I uh I started looking at, okay, what where where are we here? And the southern tip of Fulton County, uh, there were 60 square miles that was still zoned agriculture. And so I said, okay, this is where we need to focus. How can how can we not create a model on how we could do this, but how can we set up protections for this entire 60 square miles? Uh now in in those retirement years, we took the girls to England a lot. Uh Marie had gotten to know uh through conferences this woman who really became her adopted grandmother. And so we would go to this little village southwest of London, between London and Bath, called Selbourne. Uh and so I learned about English land law and the public footpaths. And, you know, uh Great Britain had to put good landlaws in after World War II because the island was only so big and they couldn't afford this urban sprawl that they saw coming. So I said, why can't we do this in America?

SPEAKER_05 20:05

In your book, you say that you went around looking at different sort of novel developments, and you came to realize that what really mattered was towns and not developments. And so I think it's important for everyone here to understand that in Sarinby everything doesn't look the same down there. What you've done is you've created, it's not really a town. You're in the city of Chattahoochee Hills, but it is a big community of neighborhoods that fit together, but it's not all the same vernacular. So tell us a little bit about that as your model.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Well, when there was the aha, uh I'm gonna be a developer, uh I had enough of a naive mind, so I went out to, you know, check places I loved. And I found when I went to some of the developments, you know, seaside and what have you, I came back with very few pictures. And there was a similarity, you know, these play, you know, a lot of times the design and review board and developments are very thick, but what they allow is very narrow. And great places had a variety of architecture because over over a century things happen and and and and and there wasn't that idea of regulations. And and just living, you know, I uh I had the the the the house in in in um midtown there at at sixth and and uh uh uh Myrtle and the front porches, walking to my mother-in-law's restaurant, Merrimax, uh people on the front porches you would wave. Uh that informed me, and then we moved to Ansley Park. And I remember some when when uh the Hulsis tore down a historic house and built a contemporary house, and everyone was aw. But but they they they put that house basically on the same foundation, and it was basically the same size house that they had torn down, and I said it worked. And then I saw places where maybe even the architecture clearer, but it was bigger and closer to the street, and it didn't work. And so I realized, hey, it's it's a variety of architecture that gives texture and interest, and it's where that house sits and the size of the house that really informs the Whether it it it has a continuity. So we think about the tapestry of a street rather than the design of a individual houses.

SPEAKER_05 22:47

I will often describe Serenby as a place for urbanists who love nature. Why don't you talk about the importance of the integration of new urbanist development, the Congress for the New Urbanism, along with access to nature?

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Aaron Ross Powell Well, absolutely. You know, everyone sort of sort of tried to associate who we were, tried to figure out who we were. Of course, you know, when we when we started this whole effort, uh, you know, we were able to change the zoning, which got all kinds of attention. We were able to do a lot. But then when it came time for me to really break ground, and I found out since how hard some of the professionals laughed at me. I was this naive dreamer that was going to do some dreamy thing in the middle of the woods in South Fulton County, made no sense. And you know, because I I was passionate now. I had to do it. I mean, I realized what was happening, I knew I could. Um and so uh I stopped going to meetings and we just put our head down and and the market was ready. I mean, the the the first 20 uh lots we released once I once I realized I had the money together, and thank goodness, because I I believed in Midtown in the 70s and bought that land. And when I couldn't get anyone to invest or loan me money, that's uh I leveraged the Midtown property that uh really allowed it to happen. Um and so I thought, well, this is gonna take forever. And so we released those first 20 lots, and they were gone in 48 hours. Raised the prices 20 percent in six weeks, the rest of them are gone. Which is amazing. It's in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of nowhere. This made zero sense. These were and I realized, you know, it's it we we were we were touching a need that had not been touched, and a lot of there there was a built-up market more than we realized. And so, man, we were, you know, we we were rolling. Uh and and then of course I uh I realized that man, this development business is a lot easier than restaurants, and and uh I couldn't keep doing 40 lots at a time, and then I had nothing to sell. So uh uh I I borrowed, went ahead and borrowed money, and we we brought 120 lots uh to mark at the end of uh 2007.

SPEAKER_05 25:09

Timing is everything.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Uh and so we, you know, uh we we we managed to stay alive. A whole that's a whole nother story that we don't have time for tonight, but I could, you know, have I could probably write another book on that. Uh but uh after the recession, the analysts who thought we were nuts and not paying any attention uh started realizing that environmental communities and walking communities were the first to come out of the recession. And so suddenly people started coming down to Cerami, those analysts. And so, you know, this has been a long way to answer your question about new urbanism. So a lot of people identified us as new urbanists. Well, new urbanism wasn't necessarily environmentalists, and they certainly didn't save land. I mean, Robert Davis, I'm sure, would have loved to have saved additional land around there, but uh, you know, everything was developed. Uh the Urban Land Institute had also published around 2007 the ten top environmental communities in the U.S. Now, this was Brave's Island and some of your great environmental, I think half of them Robert Marvin had done. We were the only one with density. And then uh Kevin Sachs with the New York Times had done a story on us putting houses right next to farms, unheard of back then, uh 20 uh some years ago, because everyone thought farms were stinky. Well, environmental ones or industrial ones are, but organic aren't. Uh and he called it an agrihood. And so we're the beginning of the agrihood movement. So people were arriving to usually see one of those three things, and we're trying to understand who we are.

SPEAKER_05 26:53

New urbanism, environmental sustainability, agrihood.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

That's right. And we were doing all three in one place. So we're all those things, but none. And that's when we started exploring. Who are we? Now that people were coming to see us, wondering who we were, we had to find who we were. What what who'd you call what this is that puts all these things together, you know? And uh that's when we came up with the biofilm. It suddenly remember that Bill Browning and the charrette you were at. I'd first heard that strange name that I couldn't spell and had to look up. And then uh at the time I was searching, I uh I was a uh a speaker at a conference in North Carolina, and the speaker ahead of me was Tim Beatley uh UVA of Biophilic Cities from University of Georgia uh UVA. And he was talking about biophilic cities, and I said, Oh my god, that's who we are. And so I came back and said, Hey, we're we're leading with biophilic principles in the in the built community that brings these three things together, and then maybe we should have an institute and the whole thing about that. And gosh, wouldn't it be nice to call it the biophilic institute? You've been on that, and I was sure somebody had already registered that name, but it was still strange enough that no one had. And so we formed, as you know, the biophilic institute. Jim was one of our early supporters. Uh and here we are.

SPEAKER_05 28:24

And here we are. So, for those that don't know what biophilia is, biophilia is the innate need for people to be attached to nature. And the research that's being done these days is showing more and more that our mental health, our physical health are improved when we have that connection to nature. And that's why I say that I describe Serenby as a place for urbanists who love nature. It just makes you feel good when you are there. It's uh and and it's when I I was fortunate to have grandparents who bought land in Jackson Hole in the 1950s. And I whenever I would go to the cabin and get on the porch next to the babbling brook with the cottonwood and the wind going through the trees, looking at the mountains, everything melted away and I felt wonderful. And now I know what it was. I was experienced the biof I was experiencing the biophilic effect.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

You absolutely You were experiencing part of it. Because it's really all living systems, and that includes us. And so a lot of the post-pandemic research shows that the mental attitude is the connection to nature and to one another. And we have been building places that separate us from both for the last six decades. And then we wonder why we're in a mental health crisis, why we're selling more uh antidepressants every decade than the decade before, why our children are are are feeling stressed, why we have a loneliness epidemic. It's the built environment. And and that's one of the reasons I've written the book, is to really this is common sense, this isn't hard principles. And so many times we're coming in with research and trying to figure this out. We're crying out loud, it's the built environment. Uh let's change that.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

There is a book out now called The Anxious Generation. It's uh written by Jonathan Hayte, and it that book argues that the rise in teen mental illness is caused by the shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood, driven by smartphones and social media, which is rewired child development. When you go to Carenby, you don't see people walking around looking at their phones. You see kids and adults out playing everywhere. And uh it's just a testament to what happens when you create a place that encourages interaction and play.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

We we we call it free-range kids and uncaged elders everywhere. You know? And here's what's amazing. People notice that it's so unusual. Yet think back 60, 70 years ago, that's that's where it was everywhere. And so that's a real problem. And you know, uh Jonathan Hyde's book, I I I uh I you know, there's one here again, it's coming in with looking at a situation and trying to come to a solution. Now, two decades prior to that, Richard Liu wrote Last Child in the Woods, which also addressed the problem about children were not exposed to natural environments, that they were living in such a structured built and social environment. The part of the brain, the Tuitary gland, which is associated with common sense, wasn't developing. Um and so this is just this is just the art. Louvre uh identified the issue, but Jonathan Heid's talking about controlling the problem. Well, now just imagine, you know, some of the suburbs. I've I've got pictures from the air, even some that have that are over the county line that that aren't part of our Chatta Hillage. It's this suburban developments. And I was actually able to identify from the air these developments that come out on the two of our main roads, cul de sacs, so they come out on different roads. And and my aerial shows that the the these houses are literally uh a thousand feet apart. But there's there's woods, there's probably a stream, there's no connectivity. These kids, I'm sure, go to the that are in those houses, go to the I know they go to the same school, so you'll probably have friendships. Yet I put those two addresses in to Google to find how long it would take to get from one door to the other. You could you couldn't dare walk it because it comes on two main roads. No parents can allow their kids to go. I mean, there there's no path. It's it it's uh i i it takes 19 minutes to drive from one door to the other. We wonder why kids are on screens, it's because we have trapped them into prisons and we've turned parents into chauffeurs. And you tell them they can't have their screens without a path into nature or connect with their kids, we're we're just creating more anxiety. And so this is a good example in where we're we're coming in and trying to address these various problems, but but we're not going to the core base of what it is and what some of those solutions are.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

When my wife and I built our house ten years ago down at Serinby, it felt like um, number one, we felt like we knew everybody because we were early enough where we almost did know everybody. But we also wondered how many of these people have this as their principal residence as opposed to a weekend place or a second home, that sort of thing. And I didn't see a lot of kids back then. Today it's like Kid Central. It's a place for families, principally. And I just think that's remarkable. So kudos to you for creating something that ended up attracting a complete community because that's what you've got down there now.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

It's a complete community. Yep. And you know, we we've got, you know, we now have the the the education, not, you know, it's uh uh the the community stood up number one, the charter school, uh which is a model in in education because it's a charter, five hundred kids there, five hundred on the wait list. It's not a community school as we had predicted. Uh and so then uh uh more parents uh uh set up uh TARA, which is a private school, uh, but with a 20-25% uh uh scholarship. So it the local farmers, the merchants' kids, those that maybe couldn't uh do uh afford the full tuition uh are able to go. So it's an incredible. And Woodward now sends a bus there as does heritage. So and then we are now uh expanded over the Fulton County line into Cowita, and so now we're four miles from a great public school as well. So we've we we we've turned from a from an educational desert, if you will, when our girls were were there going to Woodward, where we drove them there every morning, uh, to all kinds of options that are that are down there.

SPEAKER_05 36:14

So bringing up the schools reminds me, Steve, that um I believe in the charter school is whereas as well as at Tara, there is a lot of time spent outdoors. In both cases. And I remember that folks were saying the kids that go to these schools don't ever call in sick. They are there all the time. Why don't you say something about what this is meant for people's health?

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Absolutely. So the charter school, uh three years into it, the school is what now? Monica Howell, 12 years ago, 10, 11? Uh Monica was one of the parents uh uh who's now head of our communications that her kids were small and helped form that. Uh and so third year into it, uh the uh uh CBS Sunday morning flew Richard Liu from San Diego to that campus to interview. And of course, uh, because it's a charter, a lot of the kids had come from the local uh elementary school in Palmetto, where 90% of the kids were on free or assisted lines, so it gave you an idea of the economic base uh of those kids. Uh and so naturally the the test scores in those first years really were dramatically changed. But that happens other places. What CBS Sunday morning was doing the story on is the uh the the drop in illness and reported illness. And back then, this was pre-COVID certainly, I think it was 19 days a year in Georgia, uh were missed and was the average due to health. Uh and the school's uh absenteeism was so low it rounded out to zero. And the school had hired the public uh nurse that had been at the public school, the nurse, and she said, I saw those same kids three years ago, and they were legitimately sick. They're not sick anymore, and I'm sure they have the same parents. Most of them maybe live in the same house. Uh, but it's a third of the day is spent outside uh on curriculum, come Rain or Shane. And so it's it's that it's that natural uh existence in nature that really changes mental attitude. So so so you have you you can see happy kids. Uh but uh also we have over 300 full-time kids living at Sarinby today, and there's not one reported sign of asthma. Statistically impossible in the United States. And I think next year we're gonna be able to bring in a third party to start documenting a lot of the health issues that we hear on elders, young kids across the board, to where we're gonna be able to document this and and and actually be able to start proving the case that the built environment makes a difference. You you remember uh Howard Frumken when he was at CDC, and and Howard believed in this a lot, and he said, man, as soon as Cerembi becomes 500 people, we're we're gonna come in and really start following this because I think you're onto something. Of course, Howard left and um uh they're they're no longer focused on the built environment. The CDC? Yes.

unknown 39:32

No comment.

SPEAKER_05 39:33

No comment. Um so when you're talking about asthma, it's probably also adults as well. And I uh so every single house that is built there, every single building that is built there is built to what's called earthcraft standards. So it's very well built in terms of the air quality, how much resources the home and the occupants uh consume, but you also don't allow lawns, and so there's no spraying of pesticides and that sort of thing and fertilizers everywhere. Do you believe that what do you think is leading to this?

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Well, I think that's a huge the sum total? You know, it's it's as I as I talk about the unintended consequences that have happened since the time uh President Eisenhower developed the Interstate Highway to move military forces. It's never been used for that, but it's i it's it's it's informed how we've built. Uh there was, you know, a regulation to uh that the all this disturbed land had to be covered by the time I got a certificate of occupancy. And the builders found out the cheapest way was to roll out sod. And suddenly we have become addicted to the idea that lawns are uh are some sort of status symbol, and they take a third of our potable water, and we have to poison them to kill the weeds and to keep them green. And we're poisoning where we are living and where our kids, and we're not stopping to ask what was going on. And we wonder why we have cancer and asthma and depression. Well, when you live in a i i you know in in a chemical dump, what do you expect? And and and and then you know the the the national natural predators of pesty bugs disappear because they they just know they shouldn't be there. So then we have to spray more to kill the the the mosquitoes and things that are left. You know, how many times do you get bitten by mosquitoes at Cerambe?

SPEAKER_05 41:47

Actually, not very often.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

And because we've left the natural environment like it is, and the natural pr predators are uh are there that take care of it all. And so it it's hugely. But yeah, for seniors as well. I mean, most people know uh Penny McVee, who was with the Blank Foundation for years, uh, and her husband Ray had some asthma problems, and this was the only place in Metro Atlanta he could breathe. So she moved there, and likely we have all these great people from all these various places and industries moving to Sarinbee because of the the lifestyle, and Ray's now aging into his 90s and is not having an asthma problem.

SPEAKER_05 42:28

I like how your book is organized, and I also like that you put QR codes in it so that if you found something of particular interest, you could scan the QR code and learn more about it and dive deeper. Um I want to thank you for the way you organize the book, and uh you will get to experience that, I hope. In the book, you say, if you want to change the world, start by tending to your own backyard, and that's where the title came from. I'm struck by how similar that is to what Ray Anderson used to say. Brighten the corner where you are.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

And uh I wonder if that sort of subliminally maybe I I had not really thought, and no one had pointed that out, but yeah, I mean the same. I mean, Ray and I spent a lot of time together and a lot uh uh things talked about. You know, he he talked about you you know that a lot of his work was uh the the the future generations, the the the unborn uh child that he doesn't know. And so uh, you know, I certainly do that, you know, uh now with seven grandchildren. Uh all those little girls returned to Sarinbee with their northern husbands, some of them are here. My eldest grandchild sitting in the in the front row. I'm sure he's gonna, he's he's really a book scientist, he's a great help, you know. He he even came came to Colorado to help me uh uh assign books out of there. But uh, you know, when I I knew five of my great grandparents, and I knew the stories. The last one died when I was 14. And I understand the sacrifices, the decisions they made that has provided me to be here in my life. And I I worry, I wonder what three and four generations, what's Amos's grandchildren and great grandchildren gonna think about the decisions my generation has made. And I don't feel too good about it right now, and so I I I'm hoping that uh as the baby boomers step into elderhood that that we become more conscious. And and I don't think we're gonna be like my parents' generation to where we fantasized about retiring into luxury and doing nothing. Uh that didn't work so well. Uh and and so I think it's obvious we're gonna stay more engaged. And you know, we're we're we're the the only generation that's that's sort of lived the extremes. In the 60s, we were gonna solve all the problems with drugs, rock and roll, and sex. Um and this became the same generation of people who became the greed generation of the 90s. In some cases, the same exact people. And so now I hope that having lived at the extremes of that pendulum, that we can come back to center and join the 30 and youngers. They have been built born into a fragile world and they're very aware. And they're not going to just say, hey, it's all gonna change. You know, my generation has a tendency to think it's gonna work itself out, it always has, so we'll just sit back, have another drink, and somebody will fix it. Uh they don't have that attitude. They're not gonna sit still and they're gonna change things, either from their buying power or for actually in leadership. And so I think it's an opportunity for us to join them to really address some of these things in real issues in real time. And and that's why that's why we organize the book that way. And it's and and and you can use it as a manual. You can come back and forth, and and it's so that HOAs could use it uh uh as a guidebook to change some of these things. Uh we we we have uh uh a professor out in California is buying books for her class, and they're gonna use it kind of as a as a so it's and as you know, the Biophilic Institute, we've really tried to to go after policymakers and educators because that's where it's really gonna change.

SPEAKER_05 46:46

I had other questions to ask you, but I think it would be an abrupt 90-degree turn if I were to go from those uh comments. And I believe the microphone has been grabbed uh to allow you to ask whatever questions you would like to ask. And if nobody has any questions, I'll ask mine. But I'd like to let it be your turn.

SPEAKER_07 47:10

Okay. That's easy. This on. Hi, Steve. Hi, Jim. I'm Scott Genergraft. Um, I'm interested in Nigrine placemaking, read the book, loved it, but want to know if you can tell me, tell us a little bit about some of Nigrarin Placemaking's clients who have done developments or started developments based on your principles and guidance.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Absolutely. It's fun. You know, well, uh as I mentioned, once people started being interested in what was happening uh back back there uh in 2010, 12, I had time and I'd have coffee, whoever wanted to come talk. Uh and we wanted to share what we were doing and learned. And so as that became more and more, we realized we were running out of time. Uh so we created uh Nigrant Placemaking as a consultant uh to take our team, however uh much that they wanted to do in. Uh and then for those that wanted to learn more, but maybe did not uh want were not ready to engage us full-time, uh, we've created a two and a half uh day conference every fall. Uh and this is Kara, which number my middle daughter uh helps organize our Nigrine placemaking. Raise your hand. Anybody interested, right? Raise your hand there. Uh this is what, 12 years we've done the Nigraron placemaking, I think? And uh and so you can come for two and a half days, and we bring everyone in so they can learn uh what it was like. Uh Steve Cover, who was head of planning for Fulton County when we were bringing this forward, he comes in from wherever he is. He's currently in Sarasota, Florida. So he can talk about what it's like when somebody brings crazy ideas to a local planning board. Uh and then we we we bring in our civil engineers, uh, everyone who's dealing with solar and environment and uh geothermal and some of these concepts. We bring in the architects, we talk about the the design review and placement and massing, and and then we bring in some of our community leaders to talk about uh a lot of the activities. Our art farm, which is our our institute on our tour. Uh we're putting over a million dollars a year into art programming. We bring in the farmers, we're really have become this area now, is a think tank for agriculture. And so it's all these things. And so everyone comes there so everyone can learn. Uh the book signing, we we did a book signing in in in New York. It was it was great, one of the big architectural firms shop because he'd come to one of our biophilic conferences. But uh we um the developer in Hyde Park, New York, across from the Culinary Institute, has 400 acres. Uh they uh came to our Niagara in place making and then hired us about five, six years ago uh to really look at a different pattern. Hyde Park was very restrictive, didn't think we could get the things through. Man, when we went in and just talked about, hey, this is common sense things, we got a very difficult planning board to support them. And he was so excited because they've broken ground now. Uh they've got the streets going in, and so he had me up uh for a book signing uh in in Hyde Park. So that was that was good. Uh a woman in Madison, Wisconsin wanted to change 40 acres on an infill in Madison. We helped her, and it's it's it it's it's amazing what's happening there. Uh the Duke and Duchess of Fife in Scotland, uh the heirs to Johnson and Johnson trying to save the village where they fell in love in Costa Rica, uh Australia, uh the group in Iowa, uh Ames, Iowa. They're actually selling the houses uh now for we help them. So it's it's kind of different sizes all over the world, literally, which is kind of amazing. And everything about Serenby, everything we've done is common sense. So it it's amazing uh how rare common sense is.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

Uncommon common sense.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Yeah, amazing, huh?

SPEAKER_05 51:22

One thing you should also know you've got three square miles of Sarinby. It's in the middle of or on the edge of 60 square miles of Chattahoochee Hills, and you have worked with the community in Chattahoochee Hills to develop a land plan for the entire city of Chattahoochee Hills. So it's not just Sarinby, it's everything that you have touched.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Well, that's what you know we we touched on. I know you were going to ask the question, but you know, the the the changing 60 square miles, I felt was important, so we didn't destroy it. And now, as popular as Sarinby has become, if we had not done that, we would have traditional development strip malls or whatever across the road from us, and it still feels very country. Uh our zoning, modeling after the countryside of England, we save 70%. So uh we we don't worry. I know there's maybe some folks here from preservation groups, uh, and while they all championed me on, they were all putting their resources in front of the bulldozers up north where where the threat was immediate. Uh so we we we we brought a d a diverse group of people together, some land speculators, uh inherited landowners that thought bring on the bull uh the bulldozers, that's when payday comes, versus those that wanted to save it and those like us. Uh and so through the zoning and through that public process, we decided we could save 70 percent of the land, but move all the density to the 30 percent, showing we we've taken all the statistics on what metropolitan Atlanta, 17 county area, has done per square mile, and we're actually putting 20 percent more housing per square mile than Atlanta has done in the past three decades.

SPEAKER_05 53:15

While saving 70 percent of the life.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

And because it's the dense village. It's it's very much like the towns were done a hundred years ago. What you know, if you if you look at, you know, Roswell, Midtown Atlanta, that's you know, it it was close together. Uh it it turns out that no one in the United States is saving this amount of land. 70 percent is is the best efforts. Uh we in this in this area, we will permanently save 28,000 acres. And it's costing us not one penny. It's through zoning regulation. Uh the only thing close to it that I found with a very similarity is Lexington, Kentucky. We've helped some folks. We just did a big thing up in Lexington, saving a horse farm, and and brought the whole community in. So I know a lot about that and have met the people. Uh it's cost them $93 million to save their 28,000 acres. Uh, and that's sort of the model we have been in, no matter where you look and where we've saved land. It's been, it's been, you know, all the great environmental organizations raising money to do this. And we have connected it with development. So we don't worry about it until somebody wants to develop it, and then that automatically triggers the preservation and various zoning possibilities. Uh and so it's uh and basically we stopped zon we stopped development because it those developers who were putting contracts on land, feasibility study, they they they stopped looking because they didn't understand this model. They thought this was nuts to save 70% of the land. Now, 23 years later, it's a different story. People from all over the world really are looking. I mean, we have now the just uh on our edge there, uh the the uh folks that have the hydro plants out of India that are putting 1200 acres. You'll be hearing a lot more about preserve life in the coming coming uh uh years as they as they unveil that. Uh and and and what really got everyone's attention here is is here a couple months ago, uh uh D ⁇ B out of Arizona uh have uh uh partnered with our largest landowner, Carl Bukhart, and they they entitled 8,000 acres and have agreed to the 6,000 acres of preservation and building 11 miles of the trail that was prescribed by both PATH and Trust for Public Land in the Riverlands project. And they're gonna build that at no cost to anybody else in the saving. And so suddenly And it'll be available to the public. Available to the public. And so what what we're doing along the river now with other landowners that are catching this, this is going to be one of the great recreation corridors for Metropolitan Atlanta, and and uh a lot to happen. Transfer public land just uh just opened this year. Uh the camp and paddle, and those are two brand new parks in Chattahoochee Hill Country uh that that have put in with docks and put in, and so this is this is a great recreation corridor that's that that's happening. I see two others.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

Hey, um my name is Costlin Dickinson. I'm an architect here uh in Atlanta, and I've been following your work for a long time, and I uh concentrated in regenerative design. So just in that light of dreaming big, um I know that there's a big transformation happening in South Downtown Atlanta and Centennial Yards, underground Atlanta. Has the Nigrine Placemaking been able to work with them? I mean, there's six acres of surface parking lot, there's so much untapped potential to actually, you know, take Atlanta and try to make it as regenerative as possible. Have you guys been able to get in contact with the city planning office or anything like that? No, tell them to call me. Okay. We'll do. I'm on the Central Atlanta Progress Board as well, so if we can make that happen, I'd like to.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

You know, you know, it's uh all this parking, it's uh I was I was both uh uh uh if this is a few years ago now at at at both TED and the Urban Land Institute. And and uh I remember, you know, the the at the Urban Land Institute there were about 4,000 developers out there. And and one of the speakers said, okay, uh uh they they were talking about the automobile and and all the parking that were both under regulation uh and and not. I mean, this is one of the great things about Midtown. We we took away the regulations for parking because we realized this was, you know, we we need to look at that. Uh but but they they asked the developers to raise their hand, how many people put uh uh golf courses in in in the uh uh you know 70s, 80s, and 90s, and and how many are re uh imagining them today? Because you know, we we we did that whole that's a whole story of why we had so many golf courses. Well, the same thing is gonna happen with all these parking decks. Because if if you if you think we're all gonna be driving these these celly thousand vehicles machines to get one person from one place to another, it isn't gonna happen. Uh today we we have three paved parking spaces for every car, and our car, 90% of our cars sit idle 90% of the time. There is every analyst that looks at this system, it doesn't work. And once autonomous cars are more in the in the are easy, this is gonna change. DOT's gonna change this by what they're gonna charge. And I guarantee you, 20 years from now, owning your own drivable car is gonna be the same as owning your own horse today. You know, only a few are going to be able to do it. And you know, my generation, so many of them are tagged. We we think we think we're losing independence if we give up our cars. Yet the under 30-year-olds, they figured out, my goodness, I can have my own chauffeur by the hour. You know, it's something we always dreamed about. It's here. Let's get into this program. So I I think all this parking lot's crazy. So yeah, I'd be happy to talk to any of them.

SPEAKER_04 59:44

This popped in my head, and it may not uh I'd just like for you to comment on it. I during my life uh I'm from Atlanta and and I too uh love the outdoors and the Chattahoochee River and the areas up uh north of Atlanta all seem very wild and and approachable. Now that I'm 75 and I'm looking around and I know people who developed that land and took care of it, uh if they were able, they've started founding leaving them to land trusts. Is that a door that could help you? I mean these people, these pieces of property are generally well taken care of and and all uh in special uh places sometimes when they pass away, they they don't want them to be developed. Is that a door for that you might be able to go through?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

Well, you know, we we we love uh land trust, and that's certainly an available door, but the key is because of our zoning, it is not the only path that most you know, if you if you go north, that was the only path for saving the land. For saving land in green space for permanently. I realized how much money that costs, or the fact you have to connect with someone of wealth that is able to to leave it, and that that is a path that is I I I've served on these boards, I've worked with them, and I know the challenge that is. And so we realized, hey, let's just do it with zoning. Uh and so we we still welcome that. Uh for those families who have that and and there's a tax benefit to it, that's all still very available. We we we have some of the big names of Atlanta who have realized what we're doing then there and have come down and and and bought land. So that's that certainly happened to add to what we're doing. Absolutely. And and and and and then and now working with Trust for Public Land on the Riverlands project, and and man, the pieces are are together. Uh and and you know, we ha how how many remember how most people thought Ryan Gravel and and the belt line was crazy, you know, and and and now it has redefined Atlanta and we understand how important green space and trails are. And and and then Proctor Creek, and the whole, you know, we turned our back because of the stormwater, and that's a whole nother issue. But now Proctor Creek is being cleaned down to the river, and now we're developing the trail system to where at Chattahoochee Hills and Sarinbe, you'll be able to come all the way up and we'll connect into the belt line. In fact, I've committed that for my 100th birthday I'm going to ride a tricycle from Sarinbi to the belt line, right? So I'll be there when I'm 90. So a lot's happening. And I and I think it it's a time where we uh we really have learned a lot of what we shouldn't have done and what didn't work. And so, you know, we're really, really have an opportunity. Because this whole area, uh, the we looked at the 53 miles when we started Chattahoochee Now, the 53 miles from Peachtree Creek to to uh Chattahoochee Bend State Park. Uh that entire southern corridor is all industrial or agriculture and would be rezoned. And that's why we started Chat Now 10 years ago to really start looking at those land policies and the lessons we'd learned at Chat Hills, why couldn't we uh expand those into that entire 53 miles on a mile of each side of the river?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:43

You said you do most everything with zoning, but aren't you concerned about rezoning sometimes, like especially in Chattahoochee Hills with that much land that somebody might rezone something opposite of what you wanted?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Well, absolutely. I mean, we we we changed this overlay with Fulton County and educated everyone on this in 2002. But we realize that zoning is only as good as the politicians that sit in those chairs that allow it to happen. Zoning has changed over a steak dinner and the promise of higher taxes, and that's the mess we have today. And we've changed that because we have put it zoning into a trigger of preservation and transfer development rights, which we haven't talked about, which puts moving development from land. So we've we we've allowed small landowners to participate in the economic development without having to sell their land and lose the and lose their land. So there's there's several things we've done.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:54

Now, understanding do you understand what Steve just said? If you own land, but you can't develop it, you can sell those development rights to somebody who will develop in an appropriate place. So that's how you participate in the development. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

You know, out west, everyone understood the severing of mineral rights and water rights. Man in the South, you know, some of our neighbors, well, either own my land or don't. What do you mean I can sell my development rights? But it it it is a right you can sell, and that means that means two things. One is you can you can monetize your land. Generally, it's 50% of what the land was going for, and it permanently resets it so it can no longer be appraised as future development land. It can only be agriculture. And so it does two things for those smaller landowners. But but but uh uh uh uh back to the question of zoning. Understanding that, that's why we the minute we could prove the economic value, it was Sarinbi that could afford our own base, we petitioned to become our own city. And so we became our own city in 2007. Now, and and and not Sarinby, but Chattahoochee Hills. Chattahoochee Hills. Now, this whole time, uh you know, because we had a diverse group in the 500 landowners, we created an organization called Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance. And by the time we brought this to be voted on by the Fulton County Board, we had 80 percent of the landowners paying dues at $2. An acre to support the effort. The 20% that didn't support us also never opposed us. They just stayed home. Now, through these 20-some years as a city, there's always voices. There's always going to be what I call the sandpaper. They're the loud voices that think this is crazy and we're going to take it back. And so when we voted to become a city, we held to that 80% vote that we were, that the landowners vote to be a city. We have just had a testy mayor's race. Tom Reid, who had been mayor for 16 years, decided he needed to retire. And we had two city council members running against it. One city council member had small property and wanted property rights, and he wanted to keep it country and divide his land up into small pieces. Well, you can't have those two things. And so, man, this was a group of residents who became very vocal, and it was, oh my God, what's going to happen? The other city council member totally was educated, understood, lived at Sarinbi as the former mayor had, and talked about keeping it in our zoning in place and rule. We ended up with that vote, and the the the the the mayor, the the woman supporting the zoning as it was received over 70% of the vote. So again, the citizens reinforcing that they believed in what we were doing. And this will continue to happen as it as we're establishing what it is. You know, and I always say it's it's up to the citizens and the people that decide through through who you elect and where you put, but also what we expect. I'm not sure what the zoning laws are that protect Central Park. But I can assure you, if somebody decides they're going to try to rezone it, they're not going to get that to happen. And that's what's starting to happen in Chattahoochee Hill Country, is we know the value, both economic, and that's a whole nother story I could share, and personal health that this saved land is providing. And we have more and more of the population that's understanding that, and they're going to defend it irregardless.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:02

I think it's poetic. 70 percent to 30 percent preservation versus development, and 70 percent of the people in Chattahoochee Hills voted that way. Anything else? Then let's oh, microphone going back. That's question.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

And I think you probably have said it, you just kind of summarized it, that we have to be um proactive to get the things we want. With the emergence of all these data centers, and they're just like enroaching on communities uh like a snake slithering on its belly, and they just pop up. How do you fight to keep your community when you have these data centers and these politicians who are deciding that the communities can share space with data centers? There's one in Fayetteville, and I recall when that when it was first being built, that was just a rural area, if anybody's familiar with Fayetteville, and now it's just a huge data center. So what do we do to make sure that our communities are I I know we have to figure out a way to live with development and growth, but how do we fight for our communities when it seems like your voices are just falling on deaf ears?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

Well, you you begin talking to your neighbors, and you start stepping into uncomfortable places. You start running for local offices, you start organizing neighborhoods. These things don't happen out of thin air. The you know communities have to own the vision you have for your community. You know, the developers, you know, they they can't read your mind. And they're gonna do what they need to do, and your politicians are gonna support them unless they think you're gonna throw them out of office. So you've got to make sure that they're educated on what's going on. Yeah, and so many times we wait for the fight. We wait until something's announced that we don't like, and then we decide we're gonna get involved. That's that's late. That that, you know, the time to do it is now in every community to decide what your vision is. Before somebody else has borrowed money, put a contract on land, and then all of a sudden they have a fight. And and and everybody's spending their energy on two sides playing winner and loser, and somebody's gonna be exactly that. So my my my my advice is is is is if you've lost that one, worry about all the land that hasn't been planned yet. And that's by getting involved. Serving on a planning board, organizing your community, you know, become active in what's happening. Uh we we we we have developed into a fairly passive society until something happens we don't like. And and we should be more active on a regular scale. And that's what we did down there, and that's how we've been able to do this. So we didn't have a fight. Uh you know, we were able to educate everybody about what we wanted, and now everyone understands the rules. Uh and you know that why why that was a green space, we did that? We did that in Midtown in the 80s as well, when that was parking lots and bars and prostitutes, and you know, nobody nobody cared much about it or saw anything. We changed the zoning for that square mile of Midtown before anybody was active on what should happen. And you look at once you set the playing field, everyone's willing to play with a vision.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:09

Steve is going to sign books out there, but before he gets up to do that, would you join me in thanking him for sharing his time with me?