Greetings, and welcome back to ZacCast. I am Chad, that's Patrick, and today is Patrick's episode of ZacCast. He is 100% in charge, so buckle up and gird your loins because, uh, I have no idea what's gonna happen. I have a vague idea, 'cause he told me some of the topics, but we're just gonna see how it goes. So Patrick, how you doing?

I mean, I, I'm good, Chad. I'm good. I mean, Chad doesn't really know this, uh, but for the listeners that are out there, our titles are very fluid. I've been in charge forever anyways. He just doesn't know it. So, uh, anyways, yeah, I mean, this is gonna be a kind of a cool episode. I, I think we're, we're gonna take an opportunity first to start and talk about the Queen. The Queen has passed away. Uh, she passed away a little over an hour ago, I think, uh, from when we're recording this podcast. And so now, now, uh, the Brits, the island across the pond, um, now has a new king. King Charles III is the new king there. So Chad, you love and respect the monarchs so much, what, what are your comments on this?

I'm sorry that she died, but otherwise I have no interest in this topic. Is that, is that a really-

Well, we're doing-

That's a really good podcast fodder, huh?

Th- that is, that is, that is fantastic, yeah. So, uh, I felt like we had to say it out loud, uh, but you know, we still need to be proud Americans. Uh, there is another King George in the line of succession, so we have to be careful as Americans as well. Anybody got a King George joke there? No. So anyways, moving on.

Yeah, I'm gonna intersperse some, some Hamilton, uh, clips here now.

Some Hamilton.

Which you still, you still-

So-

... won't have any reference for.

Th- that's true, 'cause I still have not watched Hamilton. I have, however, listened to the Hamilton soundtrack.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I did a Peloton ride the other day that was Hamilton, and, and so it was... I got to listen to the soundtrack. Yeah, I mean, it's... I like it. I mean, you know, Lin-Manuel, what's, what's that guy's name?

Uh, Miranda.

Miranda, yeah. So I, I, I mean, he's, he's brilliant when it comes to words, right? And word smithing, so, uh, writes a little better than you, Chad. Man.

That's a very low bar.

Can I get drums in there somewhere? All right, anyways, so back to this. All right, so Queen's died. It is what it is.

We don't have the budget for all of these sound effects and throwaway clips here, so try to, try to keep that at a minimum-

That's true

... for, for the rest of the episode here. I know this is your episode, but-

We, we do

... help me out.

That, that's correct. We, we do, uh, serve governmental clients here, and we can't afford those extras. So, uh, all, all that being said, I, I do want, before we jump into meat and potatoes of what we're gonna talk about in the podcast today, I do wanna bring up a topic. So last night, um, some of, some of you, our listeners know Doug, some don't. Uh, Doug runs our GoVirtual CFO side-

He's a two-time guest

... of the Zach family. He is a two-time guest. He's been on a few times. Uh, but last night, there was a text message that gets sent to our, our string that, that we're on. Doug, I guess, is watching the, the US Open, is my guess. He sends a question in general, "Is it harder to hit a 90 mile an hour fastball or return 130 mile an hour serve?" And I respond within seconds, right?

That's very quickly.

Very quickly, "Serve." And then I respond again, "For sure," right?

Yeah. So before we go further, I, I want your reasoning. Just because it's faster?

My reasoning is 100 and... Well, my reasoning is, is that when you look at it in milliseconds of reaction time, based on a baseball being thrown, which it, which, you know, I know based on whether a kid is throwing 46 feet, 50 feet, 70 feet, or sorry, si- 60 and six inches would be the furthest. Um, based on that and what the speed of the ball is, I'm, I'm pretty aware just 'cause I'm a big baseball guy, I coach baseball, that you have so many milliseconds to react to a pitch based on how fast that ball's coming and, and what distance it's coming from. So I just figured, man, 130 miles an hour, who cares if it's a longer distance? I just went to logic and said it's gotta be... reaction time has gotta be less. But my two most nerdiest friends for the next... Hold on, Chad, I gotta, I gotta look at the time.

It was at least 15 minutes.

Fir- first off, first off, this is, this started at 11:15 last night.

This was at 11:15.

11:15 last night, which will, will tell, you know... I, I, I, I think some of that's kind of a throwback to when we were in full-time jobs and building Zach and, um, so- sometimes we're just really productive late at night because that's when we did most of our work on Zach was after work. And so I just find it funny that most of our, like, in-depth conversations happen at, like, 11:00 or midnight. Um, I think most people who work for us that aren't a part of that would think we're weird for conversations that late. But anyways, it is what it is. So it started at 11:15, and it ended at 11:51 last night. Okay?

Yeah. I was pretty tired by that point.

So, so you can imagine there are... the text string goes back and forth, right? So Chad immediately chimes in with, "Fastball." Doug goes, "It's actually almost equal scientifically." Oh my goodness, did this start a conversation. He basically talks about how the ball, the tennis slows down on 130 mile an hour serve, and it equates to the reaction time you have to hit a baseball.

Yeah. There's so much more-

And the serve slows down when it hits the ground.

Well, first of all, when it hits the ground, the ball itself has a lot more friction than a baseball, which is leather. So when it hits the ground, especially probably, right, grass surface is gonna be even more, but that ball's gonna slow down quite a bit before it gets to you. It's not coming at you 130 miles an hour-

Correct

... the whole time.

Correct.

Anyway.

To which you respond, "Exactly," like, with, with gusto.

Yes. Yes, there was a lot of gusto.

Right? Yes. Ple- uh, plus, y- you respond with, "You have a big racket versus a small bat."Okay, this is super scientific, people. Like, we're really getting into the details here, right? So, so hold on. You then go into, uh, or Doug admits that he couldn't hit either 'cause he's not super athletic at, uh, anything outside of golf and maybe basketball. Um, and, and so he admits he can't hit it. You said, "Are you trying to guess whether it's a fastball or curve or slider or off-speed that can make it more difficult?"

I said, "And," I said, "And you aren't trying to."

Yes, and you aren't.

Yes.

You, you're making the point that-

I'm making the point that hitting a-

... baseball is more difficult because it's coming differently. To which Doug says, "But in tennis, the serve can spin left or high, and it has a ton of variables there too." And you said, "But there's more air friction, less impact on spin than a baseball, plus larger service areas on a racket. Not saying it's easy. You're also face forward versus sideways, so that probably helps reaction time." To which Doug then sends a website.

It's a pretty cool website.

Now, notice, notice, folks, we're about 30 minutes into this discuss- dis- discussion at this point. Patrick has not timed in one time, right? I am watching this text string go, and I, I'm just not smart enough to be a part of the conversation, to be honest. But Doug then sends a humanbenchmark.com list of, you know, basically the reaction times and what's harder, what's easier, whatever. But anyways, I just thought it was hilarious, so I come in there with... I end this conversation basically with, "This was the nerdiest text string we've had in a long time. For sure it will be on tomorrow's podcast."

Yeah. It still has to get past the editing process, 'cause I'm not sure this is going to be compelling radio, but-

It, it, it probably isn't, but it's just the insight of when I tell people you are the nerdy side, right? Like, I don't have great concrete examples of that. This is a concrete example of you and Doug going down a rabbit hole for 45 minutes-

Yeah, but-

... over the difference between a tennis serve and a fastball.

Oh, I think, honestly, a lot of this, if you hadn't chimed in so quickly, I think a lot of this was really just piling on, um, and then trying to find additional things to make the case that you were wrong. You were so confident with that initial-

I think it all started with my mistake was responding within the first 15 seconds of the text-

You should have waited

... with an immediate, like, gut response of, "Gotta be a serve, 130 miles an hour," right? And then y'all went on for the next 45 minutes to prove wrong my initial case.

That's, uh, that's probably 90%. That was almost the extent, the full extent of my motivation, was just to pile on different reasons why your initial reaction was incorrect.

So to be fair, though, that was also how we worked in real life in the city world, right?

Still do.

I would have an initial, "Hey, we should do this," and then you would come up with 5,000 reasons why that was a bad idea, right? So, and, and, you know, to be fair, you were right on a lot of those. I, I, I was lucky like once out of every, I don't know, 200 times probably. So anyways, I thought that was very interesting. Let's get to the bread and butter of the conversation today. So the first thing I wanna start with is-

Let's, let's

... Yeah, the first thing-

The first thing.

I would like... The first thing-

I, I was agreeing with you that we should go

... I would like to start with today.

Okay, go for it.

Okay, awesome. I thought you were correcting me there for a minute.

The show is... No, the show is yours, bud. Let's go.

I mean, I, I know I don't speak great English, but I certainly don't write great English, but, um-

So, uh, I, I've told... Real quick, I've told you the story of whenever someone says something like that, like I talk good, or, you know, hate to say it, they use basically good versus well incorrectly.

Yeah, yeah.

The thing that immediately pops to my head is there's this episode of Full House where Jesse and Rebecca are trying to get the twins into a daycare or, or they... I don't know if that's exactly what was happening, but at some point this other child was at their house, and he had, he spoke with very, uh, pristine grammar for a young child. And at one point, Jesse says, "Wow, Tucker talks good." And this kid says, "No, Tucker talks well." That's just the first thing that-

Oh, my

... always pops into my head whenever I hear someone say something like that.

The first thing that popped into my head is that Rebecca is now a felon because she paid to get her daughter into college.

That's true. That is true.

That's all that comes to my mind. So a- anyways, so I wanna talk a little bit about, because, you know, look, there's been a lot of heartburn over this. Um, but Judge Whitley did a po- a podcast, and it's actually one of my favorite podcasts, uh, that, that I listen to regularly. I didn't hear this one until Chad sent it over to me. But Judge Whitley did the Y'allitics podcast, and they traditionally, you know, sit down in a brewery with somebody and do an interview. And, uh, it's WFAA, uh, it's a g- good group of reporters, and they basically bring in politicians and talk about different issues, so forth and so on, about Texas politics, you know, named Y'allitics. So Whitley sat down for that and started talking about statewide politics. Now, what has made the news in this whole process is, is that Judge Whitley, a sitting Republican county judge who's retiring this year-

For Tarrant County.

Right, for Tarrant County.

Okay.

Yeah, came out and endorsed Mike Collier, the Democrat running for lieutenant governor against Dan Patrick. That's what made the news, and we're actually not gonna get into that topic of conversation on this podcast. What we're gonna talk about is the other, like, 90% of the meat and potatoes of what they talked about there, which was the election systems and how those election systems really impact politics in today's world, and how you can have, you know, different types of election systems in different states. Um, you know, you have states that have closed primaries where you have to declare as a Republican or Democrat, and you have to be, you know, basically a, a member of the party in order to vote. You have, like, what we have in Texas, which is a clo- which is an open primary system-Uh, where you can vote in either primary. Can't vote in both primaries, but you can choose which primary you wanna vote in, right, for that election. Um, and then you have, um, uh, I'm trying to remember what they called it, but it was basically like an election of plurality. Um-

The ranked choice?

Where you, you basically... A ranked choice. Um, and they, you know, basically talked about, you know, how those different systems impact which candidates run and which don't. And, and Judge Whitley used, um, some numbers where he basically... And, and I, I wanted to correct him. Like, I wanted to send Judge Whitley a text message and actually correct him on his statistics here, because he said in, in our last primary, uh, where, you know, Mayor Betsy Price, who was the Republican mayor of Fort Worth, got beat, uh, by a gentleman out of, like, the Mid-Cities area, right? She's technically not a Republican mayor, but she was running as a Republican-

Right. Yeah, it's nonpartisan, but yeah

... for judge 'cause they're nonpartisan, yeah. So, uh, and, and before she was the mayor, she was a Republican county elected official at Tarrant County, right? So, um, so all that being said, I think that what came out of that is he said, "Look, at the end of the day, our decisions are being made by very few people." Some of that is, is because our primary system and the way the primary system is set up, uh, and some of that is, is just voter apathy, that they don't understand that in order to have a good candidate, they a-actually have to participate in the primary process, not just the general election process. He talked about the differences. So he said basically, you know, 10% of registered Republican voters or registered voters voted in the Republican primary, and then 6% of, uh, voted in the Democratic primary to choose those Democratic candidates out in Tarrant County specifically. And then he said, "So we only had 16% of the population that..." And that's where the statistic was, was a little wrong, 'cause it's... You can't take percentages of A and percentages of B and then make that a percentage of C as a whole.

And add them together.

Yeah, and add it together. But, you know-

If you had 100% of the Democrats and 100% of the Republicans, if you have 200% of the electorate voting, that would be-

Yeah, but his point-

... an amazing feat for democracy.

His point being is that, you know, a lot of the electorate goes into the general election and they get mad because they have a candidate who's on the far left of the equation, right? Or the far right of the political spectrum. And his point was, is that, well, we only have 16% of people that are participating in, in this, but then we have, you know, greater than 50% that are participating in the general election. And so what, what the voters don't really understand is, is that they actually need to participate in the primary so that they have a better choice in the general. It would be more important for them to be a primary voter than a general election voter. Uh, really more important for them to be in both, but the point he was trying to make was, is that we've already selected the candidate for that party, and we're probably making poor selections at the edge case because the edge case is all who is showing up to vote. And he went on to talk about if you go to a party meeting in Tarrant County, so it doesn't matter where you go, but if you go to a Republican party meeting in Tarrant County, which, I mean, who goes to, right? Or any of these party meetings. He said you basically see the same 30 people plus candidates at all meet- all the meetings. Go to Arlington, you go to the Mid-Cities, it doesn't matter where you go, it's the same people. And he said and that's the same 6% of people who are voting, and so we just have very few people that are making these choices, uh, and, and it impacts party platform and it impacts the candidate itself who is there, uh, on the ballot at the general election. And so, you know, ultimately he, he, he kinda walked through that and talked about it and, and that's where he talked about the election system of, you know, ranked choice could, could assist in that process, right? Because you can, um, you can take like your... You basically in a ranked choice primary, everybody's put together, right? So Republican, Democrats, everybody kinda gets put together in a ranked choice set, and then you go in and say, "Okay, this is my number one, this is my number two, and this is my number three," and then they take the top two candidates and put them in the general election against each other, right? Um, so party affiliation is there, but it's not as impacted by the smaller percentage of primary voters. Primary voters feel like they can have more of an impact on that. Um, I believe, and I may be wrong on this, and you may have to correct me, Chad, I believe that's the, the, the special election that is happening right now in-

Alaska

... or is it, I think it's, it may be done, in Alaska, it was a ranked choice election, right?

It was.

Um, yeah. And so, you know, that, uh, uh, have they final... Did the Democrat actually win in the final election?

Um, I know there was one Republican, one Democrat, that were the top two.

Yeah, Sarah Palin being, being the Republican.

Being the, being the odd man out.

Yeah. So, um, so anyways, I, I, I just thought that conversation was really interesting because, you know, we, we talk about in Texas the loss of local control, uh, but then we also talk about how our local governments, you know, especially outside of the major metropolitan areas, but even inside the major metropolitan areas like Fort Worth and, uh, Tarrant County and those areas, are, tend to be fairly conservative. But we've elected other conservatives who kinda take away the authority of local governments and, you know, that was... You know, trying not to get into politics of why he went with Collier over, uh, over Dan Patrick, but his major comment-

Biggest reason was local control

... was local control, that there's, you know, Dan Patrick started running back in the early 2000s as a candidate who wanted to take away local control. And so, you know, he just feels at his heart and at his core, he wants to support somebody who will make reasonable decisions for locals and not take away that control. So I, I, I thought it was extremely interesting though to, to, to understand that his feelings on the primary process and how that primary process has really put us in the situation in the state of Texas we are now. There's a lot of predi- I mean, look, I mean, uh, right now in the governor's race, if you look at it, um, I, I haven't looked at the lieutenant governor's race to see what the spread difference is, but I think in the governor's race, the most recent poll is only five points.

I saw seven, I think this morning or yesterday.

Okay. So, but to be within a ten-point range is unheard of in Texas, right? I mean, that's the way I look at it. I mean, it's, you know, you, you think that, you know, Texas is, is as red a state as they could be, but to be-- to have that conversation, um, the first party that would run somebody a little bit more towards the middle that had a good name probably would win an election, uh, in a general. But you can't get through the primary process in Texas to put that candidate on the ballot.

Well, yeah, I'll avoid making any comments on the, the candidates for the gubernatorial race, um- ... 'cause I'm not huge fans of either of them, but-

Yeah

So the, I mean, this-

But that's his, that's his point, though.

Yeah.

I mean, that, that was, that was Judge Whitley's point. Look, I have the utmost respect for Judge Whitley. This man has given-

So real quick-

... thirty something years of his life to public service.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and, and, and look, I, I wanna be very clear, he's not a guy who got rich off of being a county judge or a county commissioner. He got rich 'cause he built one of the top twenty-five accounting firms in the United States, right? Whitley Penn. That's-

Mm-hmm

... that's where he made his money. Um, and, and he gave service to Tarrant County. The coolest thing about Tarrant County is they have always had very stable long-term county judges. Before Judge Whitley, it was, uh, Judge Vandergriff. You know, they called him the boy mayor in Arlington because he literally was the boy mayor, but he drove in the Rangers and did everything that Arlington is today, right? Um, and so but just the, the respect that I have for the guy who has given so much of his life, I don't know, it just felt like a lot of truth bomb in that podcast. I thought it was a really good podcast where he talked a lot of truth. Outside of the politics of him endorsing a Democrat over a Republican and being a sitting Republican, I, I don't really wanna get into that. I just think it was interesting how he explained the, the process of primaries and how that is impacting the electorate and who we choose as our candidates.

Yeah. I'm gonna throw this out there and, which is that, um, I'm not a big fan of the primary system, just generally speaking. Um, I think that it takes-

So you would prefer ranked choice?

Um, honestly, if I had my absolute preference... The only difference right now is that I don't trust the parties either, but, uh, the parties are institutions. They're private institutions that, uh, the purpose of which is to put forward candidates for office. What we've done with the primary system is taken the choice away from the institution and given it to the handful of people who vote in primaries. And I mean, uh, we've had conversations about the same kind of discussion, like, "Well, this person's gonna have to lean really hard to the left or the right for the primary and then kind of scooch their way back to the middle for the general." I mean, this is a conversation that happens at every single election. It's not new. Um, it's not terribly novel of an insight. It just is the way that it works. Um, but-

Well, and the hard thing is, is that people get destroyed in the process, right? I mean, let's-

Absolutely

... let's look at, I mean-

I don't know why any good person-

Let's look at Mayor-

... would wanna run for office right now.

In, in, in the current primary setup and in the current system, why would you wanna... I mean, look at, look at Mayor Price.

The letters, the mailers that I got about Betsy Price were crazy, like defamatory.

Yeah. And, and totally untrue, right? But in political speech, not something you can sue about, right?

Yeah.

I mean, but, you know, and, and it, you know, Judge Whitley talked about that in, in the podcast as well. Uh, but, but ultimately, you know, it's a political system where in order to win, you destroy. Like, that's the whole mantra of in order to win, you destroy. And why would you wanna run in that system? As in, why would you put your family through that? Like it's, I, yeah, I just, I think it's incredibly difficult to, to put good-- for good people to step up in today's world with the existing primary system that we have.

Yeah. Yeah.

So moving-

I'm not a fan, so.

Moving on. Um, so-

Can I just say it's, it's hard to have these conversations when we're trying explicitly not to be political. Do you feel that?

I mean, look, our number o- our num-- yeah, I, I agree. Our number one rule on this, it, it doesn't matter where you fall on the political spectrum, we have a core belief that the most local form of government should be making local decisions.

The smallest level of government that is capable of handling something should be the one that handles that thing.

Correct.

That's my general principle.

It... We, we do not care whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian. We, we don't. We, we really generally don't. We, we are friends with everybody. But we do care about local control. We are passionate about it. We talk about it, and, and we explain to legislators on both sides of the aisle when we have an opportunity why taking away local control is a nightmare. It, it just, it just is, and, you know, they are setting themselves up for failure. So moving on. All right, getting into, uh, some more fun topics of conversation. There was an article that came out in the Star-Telegram talking about the Seventh Street Corridor of Fort Worth-

Oh, yes

... specifically.

Okay. I-- Go ahead.

Okay.

I thought you were gonna talk about the other one.

No.

Let's do it.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna go into this one. So the article's title was How Dense is Too Dense on Fort Worth's West Seventh?

Oh, man.

Will these new apartments push the limit? And specifically, it's talking about taking out a significant size, uh, retail development that's already there, right? It's like an Office Depot, a Michaels, something else, and, and they're gonna convert that development, tear it down, and convert it to a basically like a mixed-use multifamily development, which is primarily what is on Seventh Street. Whether you're on Third Street or on Seventh, I mean, primarily it's a, it's a heavy, high-density residential development that is-

Let's, let's say-

... super supportive of the business community in Downtown.

Let's state that it's high density for Fort Worth.You're not talking about-

It is, it is high density for Fort Worth

... 20-story towers

It is not Chicago-

Yeah.

It is not Chicago, New York high dense. No, at all. Um, what is interesting thing, interesting about this article is the, the three or four people that the newspaper found to be against this. Uh, and I joked with you, you know, when you sent me this article, I joked with you that this is, this is pretty standard of local media today. They go find a problem, right? And then, and then go find a quote for the problem.

Mm-hmm.

Like, that's, that's what they're looking at. So-

It's not even local media

... one of the things-

You can, you can see this on... if you are on Twitter, you'll see reporters from national newspapers say, "Hey, if you have this very specific situation to you, uh, that you're dealing with, will you please text me so that I can quote you in the story that I'm writing?" It's like people are looking-

Yeah

... for stories to fit whatever narrative that they're trying to, to pass off.

So the, the paywall of the Star-Telegram is, is not friendly to me at all times, and so you actually did send me a quote that I, that I found to just be absolute hysterical. So I'm gonna read that quote.

Go for it.

I'm not gonna read the lady's name, but I'm gonna read the quote. Um, "That is just way, way, way too dense, first of all. I've lived in a cultural district for nearly 30 years, and remember when it was a quieter place." Okay, this is the cultural district where we host the rodeo.

The stock show.

Right? Stock show and rodeo. It's the cultural district where there are concerts and have always been concerts. Uh, you know, I mean, literally there is an event in this area every day. I mean, it, it, and it has been that way for generations.

Yeah.

I mean, for a very long time. Uh, to continue the quote, "There's gotta be some place else that they can find to build, and I don't want them to take out my PetSmart or my Dollar Tree or my Michaels or even my Office Depot."

Keep going. Keep going.

"Even though I don't go in there that much." "They are very convenient for me." I, I'm sorry, you, you can cut the laughter later in this one, but I love that it's, one, they are her stores. They're my stores.

They're her stores.

And two, even though I don't go there very much.

Yeah.

There's a reason why they're closing.

Yeah. So, so two things on this, uh, 'cause there's a whole... This is so... Like, we could spend a whole episode on this, but, um-

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. They're not her stores.

We are writing a newsletter article on this. We are, we are writing a newsletter article on this. Chad has, has already enthralled himself into that.

Yeah. So they're not her stores. They're owned by PetSmart and Dollar Tree, et cetera. Um, so whether they sell or not is dependent on... Well, they're, those buildings are probably leased, but the point remains, those, those buildings are owned by someone else, and they should have the ability to choose what they do with them. If they're not generating enough money, if they can make more return by selling, that's really should be their call. Um, but so a couple of miles from my house, there's a, there was an old golf course that was, uh, in talks to be redeveloped into a single family neighborhood. I mean, talking probably three miles away from here, absolutely no impact to my neighborhood. But on our neighborhood Facebook page, we had several people were complaining about, "Well, this is gonna add traffic and congestion, and it's gonna hurt our home values, and, uh, and why don't, why don't they just keep the golf course? It's, it's a great golf course." First of all, it's a terrible golf course. I've played there once. Second of all, it-

This is, this is Windy, this is Windy Acres. You and I-

I can't... I don't, I don't remember what the name of it was, but it was terrible. Um-

Yeah, they call it Windy Acres because it's so windy your ball goes the opposite direction you hit it.

Well, yours does that anyway, so, um-

That's true. I have this nasty slice.

The, the only time it doesn't is at Topgolf where they have the huge nets to keep it in, in play. Uh-

That's correct, yeah.

So my response is, well, you have two options. One, you could have played golf there so that they would stay in business. Or two, you could have put up your own money to buy the property and then done what you want. You could have left it alone. You could have operated it as a golf course. It could have just been green space. But at the end of the day, we, we operate in a market environment, and the market is gonna dictate what happens to these properties. And in this case, the question of... I don't know if you wanna move on quite yet, but, like, the question of is this too dense, the answer is, of course not. Like, it wouldn't be done if it was too dense because it would... you wouldn't have the sufficient return on the capital that you're putting in to build this property or to redevelop it.

So this is, this is where free market Chad takes over, right? And you start talking about density, and you know that we, we basically look at density incorrectly, right? We look at density as, uh, all these multifamily people coming into my backyard or, uh, what- whatever that may be, even though these rent rates are actually higher than the mortgage payments on the houses that are adjacent to it, I'm sure, right? Um-

Especially someone who's been there for 30 years who probably doesn't even have a mortgage anymore, but yeah.

Correct. So, so I mean, the whole, the whole title of the article is wrong because it assumes that there is such a thing as too dense.

When you... When the subject of density comes up, it's very touchy 'cause a lot of people, um, there's a whole conversation about sprawl and how awful sprawl is, and a lot of people live in what we would consider to be sprawl developments, and so there's a lot of emotions that, that get wrapped up into it. People also, they don't like to see their neighborhoods ever change, right? I bought into this neighborhood, and I want it to stay like this, at least until I sell. Um, and so it's, it's fraught with a lot of emotion. And so you have to kind of s- take out the, the subjective elements of this argument of it being too dense with the actual objective, you know, economics of it. Um, but the same thing works in the opposite direction, too. So at, at the end of the day, the reason why development occurs is because there is a market incentive for it to occur, and the type of development that you get is based on the economics of the location where you're building. And if the land prices are high enough, it is m- it makes more sense to build more dense development.Because you can't, uh, you can't justify building out or building lower density 'cause you won't make enough on the development or the project to justify how much it costs to buy the land. So where land prices are higher, you are going to get more dense development. I saw a tweet the other day-

Yeah

... from a guy who, one of... He's like one of the YIMBY thought leaders or influencers on Twitter, and I like a decent amount of the stuff that he ha- says, but some of the stuff is just sort of utopian. Um, like, high-density YIMBYism. And so he had this thing like, "Look at this five-story Home Depot in Manhattan. There's no parking. It takes up almost no street space. And compare that to this, you know, 20-acre Home Depot in suburbia. Like, we don't have to build in this way. Like, we can do it differently." And, and I mean, it, it's true. Obviously, there's a picture of a Home Depot in a fi- like, a five-story building in Manhattan. It is possible to do it this way, but only if the economics dictate it. You're not gonna build a Home Depot like that in the mid cities or in the suburbs of Austin or San Antonio or Houston because there's no reason to spend that extra money to build up when the land is so cheap. Now, the opposite side of that is when people complain about sprawl, you also have to understand that the reason that that occurs is because the land is so cheap.

Yeah.

And you can still get a return on your, on your project by building three quarter acre lots with single family homes. Now, the economics may not work out all that great for the city, but from a market standpoint, once that project is done and they made their money, they don't really care about what happens after that, right? So-

Yeah, so that, that, that's a, that's an important point to make. Let's not, let's not skim over that, 'cause I, I think that's, you know, that's where we can kind of bring our Zach hat in for there for a minute. Is there a possibility in a straight single family neighborhood, single family residential, non-dense, you know, just say quarter acre neighborhood-

Typical Levittown style

Yeah, typical Levittown style neighborhood. Is there any scenario that we have ever seen with that style of development, not mixing in uses, not putting commercial, not being walkable, have we ever seen that be a profitable venture for a city?

So to clarify, when you say walkable, most of these neighborhoods have sidewalks, so you can walk on them, but there's no place to walk.

But they don't have-

Right

... anywhere to walk to.

Right.

Yeah, there's no park-

So-

... within a walking distance. There's no store within a walking distance.

Right.

There's no school within a walking distance, right?

So really, it's more recreational than walkable. So-

Correct

... just, just to kind of clarify that, that question. Um, and the answer generally, especially if the roads are in concrete, the answer is no. Those neighborhoods do not generate enough revenue to, to cover s- in most cases, the infrastructure, but certainly not all of the other, uh, the services that go along with it. And that's just-

Yep

... that's not just us. There's a, a lot of research that's gone into this in the past 10, 15 years from a lot of very smart people, um, all of which we have been able to verify with the dozens and dozens of neighborhoods that we've looked at. Um, we looked at 13 neighborhoods. We looked at 11 single family neighborhoods for a talk we gave to GFOAT recently. Those 11 neighborhoods, all in Tarrant County, just to pay for the infrastructure, they needed about $1.5 billion of additional property value on the ground-

Yeah

... without, without any extra infrastructure.

For 11, yeah, for 11 neigh- for 11 neighborhoods.

For 11 neighborhoods.

Yeah.

And that, it's just not feasible.

So the question is, the question is how do, how do you... It, it becomes feasible when you start thinking about the mix of uses, right? It becomes feasible when you start thinking about, we've got to get away from this, like, block zoning system that we have where, you know, we have yellow out here, which is single family residential, and we have red over here, which is totally separated from that area that's commercial, right? A hard corner-

Right. And then purple over here-

... power center commercial

... which is just apartments. Like-

Yeah, you know-

... ga- like just gated apartments

... totally disconnected from...

Yeah.

Yeah, just gated apartments, totally disconnected from anything that's walkable.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, any interior commercial, those type of things. We, we actually don't build neighborhoods for livability, right? We don't, we don't build things for, um, for the end user. We build them for the return for the developer.

Yeah.

I say that as a, as a son of a developer, right? So I'm saying it out loud. And we, we do that mainly because I, I mean, I'm gonna be fair to the cities here. We... There's so much data, there's so much that goes into it that I don't... The cities don't really know that, right? They see this development come in. They see all these new people come in. They see population growth, and they're eventually gonna get a power center over here. Um, and they're gonna be able to, you know, import some sales tax and so forth and so on. And so yeah, it should, it should be good. I mean, we're building all these houses. Why wouldn't it be good?

Mm.

The reality is when you put pen to paper, and you can actually run and crunch those big numbers, it, it comes in pretty subtly to tell you, hey, you need something else to support that. Some type of pit or special district or transportation fee or drainage fee or whatever that may be, in order to properly service that neighborhood and recover your, uh, your investment on it, you're, you're gonna need something else there. Um, and, and so density is one of those areas where it's an, it is an area where we increase it. But I think, I think you are correct. The connotation of density... Look, before I got into this business, I'm gonna be honest, when you said density to me, I thought, um, subsidized housing, right? That's where, that's my first mindset went is, um, because we, we... Density that was built during the '70s and '80s, you know, really was more of a s- that was a way to generate, uh, housing in a cheap, subsidized fashion to make sure that everybody had a roof over their head. Uh, it's very different now. Now, it's a lifestyle choice. I don't wanna mow a lawn. I, I wanna be walkable to the wine bar down the street. I wanna be able to get to the park with my dog.It's a lifestyle choice to live in, in those dense communities. Um, but in suburbia, we, we probably still build them incorrectly at this point. Um-

Yeah. The big challenge is that when you build things as sort of isolated enclaves, which we pretty much build everything as an isolated enclave, that's really where you're... It becomes difficult to say that this is like a livable area because you, you really can't do anything that you need in life, like to live, without leaving one enclave and going into another enclave, right? You leave your neighborhood, and you go to the power center. Um, and that's where you do your shopping, and then you go to some other place to do that shopping, right? So it's like e- everything is just so disconnected. Um-

Yeah. My, my argument specifically on this development, right? Um, looking at this fine citizen who makes these comments about, uh, my PetSmart and my Dollar Tree. My argument would be the reason that your PetSmart and your Dollar Tree and your Michaels and your Office Depot are leaving so that there can be a more dense multifamily mixed-use facility going in is because it has become inconvenient to drive a vehicle in this area, right? The density has actually gone past the point of return to where having a vehicle is a smart choice in this area, right? If you're gonna drive to work or get out of the area, that's one thing. But if you're gonna go eat dinner or go to the grocery store or, you know, uh, go shop at Office Depot or whatever that may be, you don't need a vehicle to do that in this area, right? You know, Office Depot is still set up in a very traditional power center format. But like there's a Tom Thumb grocery store that's here that's, that, that is actually set up to be a walkable grocery store in this community. Um, and so it, it is, it is a dense community that has made the transition away from the vehicle and more into a walkable community. And that's-

Yeah. Outside of, outside of commuting to work-

Right

... everything else that you need from a s- from the standpoint of just living your life, you can pretty much get within about a quarter square mile, like ha- maybe a half square mile.

But and, and if you work downtown, you can certainly ride a bike.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's... Yeah, it's, it's right across the bridge, right across the Trinity is downtown.

Might be tougher in the dead of-

You know, you can get to every major office building.

Might be tougher in late July, but-

Yeah, a little hot. Little hot, little sweaty. But y- y- y- my, my point being is that why are we looking at this from an ease of transportation standpoint? Why aren't we looking at this as this is the community that people choose to live in in this case? And hey, I'm sorry that you're not gonna have your Office Depot anymore, but Amazon delivers because of the density.

You don't go to the-

Yeah. You don't go to the Office Depot anyways , but if you needed that spiral binder, you can get it from Amazon in an hour, right?

Or from the Target that's right next door.

Yeah, cor- yeah, or the Target that's right next door, so, um, you know, I just, I-

To me, the, the, the question here... Go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah. No, no. I, I just... I w- I was gonna wrap this up with, um, we do not do a good enough job from a local government standpoint of explaining why density happens, why density is necessary, and the financial implications of continuing to develop in the manner that we've developed. I think if taxpayers truly knew that for every new resident coming into a single family neighborhood, they're actually paying for the right of that resident to live in that city through their taxes, they would ask more questions. But we don't do a, uh, we don't do a good enough job explaining it. Now, now, some of that is because we just haven't had the data historically, and now we do. But a lot of that is, is we, we just... we have a bad PR game when it comes to this, and we've gotta do better at it.

Yeah. The, the one thing that I always, again, just to wrap up, the one thing that I always, um, or at least recently have had tried to emphasize when having these conversations is it's not just that density is good in and of itself. Um, density is more of a morally neutral subject. In other words, density occurs where it makes sense to have density, and it doesn't occur where it doesn't make sense to have it, right? So we're gonna have lower density development outside of town, higher density towards the center. That's just the way that it's gonna work because that's how the economics work. And so what we have to do in city government is plan around that, right? We need to look at where this density is likely to occur, not... We don't need to be sitting on a map where we want it to happen. We need to look at where it's likely to happen based on the economics, and then-

Yeah

... do what we need to do to make sure that people can get around, um, and, and still participate in the local economy. Not try to force it into where we want to. We-- where we want it to be because we think that this would be a good place, right, to have an urban village, or that would be a good place to have a mixed use development. It's gonna happen where it's gonna happen. We n- our job is to kind of work around it and make it, make it function effectively.

And we need to be flexible with zoning codes and entitlements and those type of things in order to make that work, right?

Parking requirements.

Parking, yeah. Parking requirements is a big one. Go on a diet, both in your parking and your streets. So all that being said, next item, totally not on the topic of items I told you I was gonna talk about.

Okay.

But it, this, this information came out a couple of, uh, of days ago. Um, and I just think it's important to note. A lot of cities have been inundated by residents to regulate Airbnbs, right, in single family residential neighborhoods. This has been a huge topic of conversation in the DFW area. I think every major city has had to deal with it lately. And cities have, have implemented zoning codes or tried to implement zoning codes, um, to, to basically restrict the ability of Airbnbs to go in single family neighborhoods. Some of those cities have tried to do that by basically stating that you can only have an Airbnb, like a room rental, right, Airbnb at a house that was your, um, uh, homestead.

Your homestead, yeah.

Sorry. Yeah, your homestead.Big case news. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans came out and said, "That's illegal. It's discrimination under the Commerce Act because it in- it, it directly impacts interstate commerce."

Mm-hmm.

Your favorite clause of the Constitution, Chad. So I bring this up-

This is, so this is one of those scenarios... Yeah, this is one of those scenarios where, um, a lot of people, when I talk to them about court cases, they don't understand my view, which is that I would rather have a decision that I disagree with based on, uh, uh, reasoning that I do agree with, than the opposite. This is one of those where it's the opposite where-

Yeah

... I would much rather, uh, get the ruling based on a better foundation than saying that this violates the Commerce Clause.

So for the listeners, so you guys understand, I did not tell Chad we were gonna talk about this before we got on, and the reason is because I wanted to get your actual reaction, and I wanted to see-

Just the raw emotion

... how you were gonna r- just, uh, you know, one, the Commerce Clause and the use of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution is, is just one of your most favorite topics of conversation. And so I've, I've heard you go on about Commerce Clause issues in the past, and so I thought it would be interesting to, to see how the Commerce Clause was being used here to justify this, this opinion.

Yeah.

But-

So what I'd like to see is that if the Commerce Clause can be used to s- to, to prevent zoning from banning uses, like short-term rentals, then maybe one day we'll get the Commerce Clause, which I still wouldn't agree with, but maybe one day we'll get the Commerce Clause to ban zoning, and we'll sort of reconsider Euclid.

But then everything's gonna look at like Houston.

But then-

Right? I mean-

But then you'll actually have property rights.

I love my hometown, but it's, it's just not pretty. No, I get it. I get it. Um, but, but ultimately, um, the Airbnb debate has gotten very interesting. Uh, TML actually has a write-up on this in their, their latest, um, legislative update. They do a fantastic job of those legislative updates, and they wrote about this Supreme Court case, which is where I read it. Uh, very interesting to go look at that and see how this impacts your city. Uh, they do give direction that you should go talk to your local city attorney if you do have regulations in place to regulate Airbnbs today. Uh, so you probably gotta go look at that. Not from a taxation standpoint. Many cities have gone through and, you know, made sure and adopted ordinances to tax Airbnbs as, uh, hotel/motel tax, uh, facilities. But there are some cities that have restricted the area in which Airbnbs can locate, and basically the Supreme Court has come in and said, "You can't use, um, you can't use something that gives somebody from out-of-state a disadvantage to somebody who lives in-state," which is why they used the Commerce Clause.

Oh, okay. So that's how they got it? Okay.

Yeah.

I was assuming that-

So that's-

... because people travel from out of state, because you probably are using Airbnb, which is based in a different state, that somehow there'd be a nexus for-

Yeah

... interstate commerce.

No, it's basically stating that you can't regulate... You can't use in your zoning regulations the fact that somebody who lives out of state wouldn't have that same opportunity within your zoning-

Well, but anyone who would be living out of the city. Like, if you lived in Fort Worth and-

Yeah

... Dallas had this, uh, you know, the... You'd be the, under the same rules.

Well, the Constitution, however, does not cover intercity travel.

Intrastate.

Intrastate. Yeah, it, it, it covers interstate commerce, not intra. So-

Well, I'm gonna heavily disagree-

That would be a state's issue

I'm gonna heavily disagree with you insofar as the, the Supreme Court says that's not true. And I'll just leave it at that.

I- Y- The difference between the Supreme Court and the actual Constitution on that item are two different... Look, it turns the whole thing around on me.

Oh, I, I 100% know. I 100% agree with you. All I'm saying is that the way that it's been interpreted-

Uh-huh

... you are wrong.

And folks, to wrap up our entire podcast for today, we're getting back to our almost original point at the beginning- ... which is we believe in local control and local decisions at the local level. There you go.

So what we need, we need to talk about next time is all of the stuff California's doing to limit the ability of cities to prevent new housing, because this is basically the same question. Like, in my case-

It's an affordability question, though. I mean, it, it's all been wrapped in a afford-

Yeah, well, but it's-

... affordability blanket.

True, but at the end of the day, if you want affordable housing, you have to build enough housing to meet s- to meet demand, right? Supply and demand have to be-

You're gonna make me go research California.

Yeah. Well, it's an interesting question of local control versus, you know, state dictates, and especially on one of those scenarios where you're, you know, a lot of people are happy with these new laws because they're allowing more housing to be built. A lot of cities don't like them because they take away local control. So it's again this constant tension between, uh, between those two issues. Yeah, let's save that for another... 'cause I don't wanna start getting down a rabbit hole and then 15 minutes later we have to stop halfway through, 'cause we've already gone kind of long here.

Yeah, absolutely. So that gives you a little bit of a preview about our next conversation- ... and what we're gonna jump in there. But, uh, yeah, Chad, man, I, I appreciate you joining me and, uh, and letting me take control.

For Patrick Day.

Every, every once in a while, you must empower me. So thank you guys for listening. Uh, we hope to see you soon. See you next time, Chad.

Pat, I appreciate it, and I'm glad we got through this whole episode two days before, uh, Texas plays Alabama without you mentioning anything about it. See ya.

Nice. I'm gonna stop the recording.