Greetings and welcome back to ZacCast, the official podcast for local government nerdery. I am Chad, that's Patrick, and this is-

What's up?

What-- Thank you. What's up? Uh-

Yes. Howdy.

This is probably gonna be our last pod for the year, so, uh, at the end we're gonna have a little naughty and nice list for, uh, city employees based on our, our time as city managers, so that'll be fun. Stick around for that. Uh, but first we're gonna talk about an article in Strong Towns. However, I should say actually first, Patrick, how are you doing? Uh-

I'm-

... getting ready for Christmas and all that kind of fun stuff.

Getting ready for Christmas. The kids will be home on Friday for two weeks, so pray for me. Uh, but yeah, everything's, everything's going well.

So next year, uh, the calendar has been released and our kids are... The, the actual, like, the Christmas break starts later, I think around the twenty-first, but they don't go back until the tenth of January.

Whoa!

Yeah.

That's like three weeks.

I know.

Yeah. That's wild.

So that'll be fun.

So we get a, we get like a really long fall break and, and then we get like, uh, we get Thanksgiving and then we get Christmas. And so we... They give us a-an extra week earlier in the fall rather than just having a longer Christmas break.

Which is good because then the kids just don't ever have to go to school really.

Correct. It's all, it's all a formula too, right? They're, they're basically trying to figure out when people leave for vacations and such, um, because-

Like when are they not there anyway, so they can minimize the loss of their average daily attendance.

That is correct, yes. So that's how it pretty much works. All right, on to Strong Towns now.

That's good. Let's talk... Yeah. Yeah. Like there's nice unintended consequences there of, uh, the incentives that we create. So, uh, last week, Patrick, an article was posted on Strong Towns by a woman who actually lives in Waco. She is not a city person per se, she's just a city resident. Um, but she wrote about this concept of second ring relationships. So this comes from a book, uh, called Vanishing Neighbor by Mark Dunkelman, which I have not yet read. Uh, it's now on my queue, uh, because it actually kind of touches on some things that, um, that, that other people have hit on, and I think it k- probably kind of synthesizes some of those discussions a little bit. But the idea is that, uh, as humans, you know, we have different layers and different types of relationships. We have family relationships and really close personal relationships. Um, uh, but the second ring is sort of the almost... They're just like loose connections, right? Loose acquaintanceships.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, just people that we kind of know just in the daily course of life. Uh, and the i- the argument here is that these are extremely important relationships, both from like a social capital standpoint, from a social organization standpoint, um, in terms of how, how we can kind of get things done as a community, um, but that we're, we're losing this second ring of relationships. Uh, this is something that, uh, we kind of talked about this beforehand, but, um, in the Death and Life of Great American City- Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs talks about this, um, sort of in passing when she, when she tries to identify what makes urban neighborhoods vital. Um, and, and one of the most important, she spends a lot of time talking about sidewalks and how important sidewalks are for neighborhoods. And one of the reasons is that, um, when, when you have a diverse mix of uses and, uh, diverse mix of people and time of use when the, the, all of these things are, are being utilized, um, it provides you the opportunity to become acquainted with people from all walks of life, not just in a, uh, like, you know, "That guy kind of looks familiar. I may have seen him," but like, you know, "I kn- that's Joe. I know Joe. Like we're not buddies, but I know him, uh, and he knows my kids, and, and there's Sarah, and I, I know her. Like she, you know, she comes to the deli all the time." Um, but the, this interaction and this sort of social networking, uh, builds up community cohesion. And so, uh, the argument of this book is that we've lost that. Um, and this article kind of gives an example of, of how, uh, how the author was able to utilize one of these relationships where, you know, she got to Starbucks probably and didn't have her wallet and had to ride her bike all the way back to her house and, uh, she had one of these sort of loose acquaintances who was able to give her a ride back. And, you know, instead of driving or riding her bike for fifteen, twenty minutes, she just had a quick, quick car ride. Really the, I think the argument here is that with our development patterns, we've almost kind of zoned ourselves out of and developed ourselves out of the ability to form these kinds of relationships, right? 'Cause you're not just sort of walking on the street casually to get from place to place and bumping into people, uh, on a frequent basis. You know, we get in our cars, we're sort of in this, this bubble. We go to the store, we do this and that, run these errands, and, and our ability to have these sort of loose connections with people from all walks of life is made much more difficult. Um, I think that we still do have this to some degree, but it's a lot more self-selected, right? So like you have-- you've made acquaintances with the kids or the parents of the kids on your... The parents of other kids on your kids' sports teams, right?

Yes.

Like, so I know the other soccer parents, I know the other dance parents, um, but that's a really self-selected group, right?

Mm-hmm.

Kind of homogenous. Uh, and probably people in your neighborhood are also relatively similar to you, uh, whether from a demographic standpoint or a background standpoint. And so, uh, while we, while we do still have to some degree that sort of loose relationship, it's not as broad as it used to be. So, um, one more example real quick from, from Jane Jacobs. Uh, she was kind of explaining, uh-How I can't remember if it was a highway that was gonna be built, uh, in her-- through her neighborhood or a park that was gonna be removed or something like that. But, um, you know, she knew how to do one type of organizing, and then they had acquaintances with someone who was, like, a printer and someone with, with these other acquaintances, and kids who knew the neighborhood, and because they played in it and walked in it, and they could pass out flyers and things like that. And so they were able to use these very loose connections, right? These people were not all good friends. They just knew each other, and they were able to use this to sort of organize a-against this highway. Um, so, uh, that's sort of one way in which these kind of community building bonds of very loose relationships can, can help keep a neighborhood or a community vibrant. Anyway, I-

Well, I think-

What do you think about it?

Yeah, no, I, I... Really similar path from my mindset on, on where I went. So you're right. I mean, whether it's, you know, like in, in my world, a lot of our close friends come from our sports relationships, um, you know, baseball, football, basketball, whatever, whatever we're playing at the time. Um, we-- Jennifer and I, my, my wife, we, we talk a lot about how our friend group is really, really tight, as in we don't have a lot of friends. Uh, we have a few really, really good friends that I would say are, like, more holistic in nature, um, whereas like, uh, you know, we, we have formed really good friendships and relationships with other folks, but it's not as well-rounded. It's, it's very, um, in a single lane. We're friends because we play sports together, um, or we're friends because we go to church together, which is also... And those, those folks that we have those friendships with in those lanes are very similar to us, whereas friendships of people that we grew up with or friendships of people we met in college, um, are, you know, they're just, like, a lot more bloomed. You know, there's, there's a lot more to it, uh, dimensions and, and, and layers and, uh, different thought processes and, you know, just, just-- there's just a lot more to it. I, I think, you know, when you are in a single lane with a friendship where you kind of agree on everything, your, your parenting styles are the same. You know, especially when you get into, like, high-end sports, and, and I know you're in that world in soccer too, but, like, in the baseball world, you know, pretty much every parent we have on our team is very competitive, right? Has a very strong opinion on how to play a game. You know, there's just-- there's not, there's not a lot of fun, fair, positive parents. They're positive, but they're not like... I'm, I'm joking about an organization I was a part of a, a-as a kid where I played soccer, but they didn't keep score. Um, y-you-- kind of like the I9 model has become, you know, it's, it's a little bit more on the social-emotional side. You know, we wanna keep kids happy and enjoying the game, whereas, like, in select baseball, it's the total opposite. We wanna win all the time. And it's just-- I'm kinda getting a little off track there, but, you know, I'm-- in those relationships, I don't see the other side of the equation. I have no understanding why a parent would be an I9 parent, right? Um, which means I have no, um, ability to truly digest why they make that decision or, um, the empathy to understand how they parent differently. Um, it's just, it's-- I would agree that a lot of that comes down to, though, where we live and how we live and how we choose. I've always said the DFW market is very different than what I grew up in in the Houston market. Houston is a... I-In my personal opinion, Houston is a much more diverse community at the neighborhood level, it felt like to me growing up. You know, and, and I'm not-- no scientific study on that. I'm just telling you, in my neighborhood, I had kids from multiple socioeconomic backgrounds, um, from multiple countries. A lot of that has to do with the oil field, uh, employment in that, in that area that I grew up in. Whereas in, in North Texas, it's very homogeneous. Like, everybody's kind of the same, you know, at the same level.

Right. Within the neighborhood, everyone's pretty similar.

Yeah, within the neighborhood, everyone's pretty similar. And so, um, you know, I, I think because of that, uh, my fear for my kids is that they grow up in a very tight square box, right? Um, and they don't get to see a lot of people struggle. They don't get to see a lot of folks, um, you know, culturally, uh, different. Uh, you know, we had... And, and it's just-- it's like little things like food. Obviously, I'm a fat kid at heart, right? And, and probably in real life, even though I'm working on it. Ugh. So, but the reality is, is that, like, cultural food in North Texas is, is a lot harder to go get than it is, say, in the Houston market, uh, but-

I did find a Venezuelan restaurant nearby.

Well, and, and, like, my kids, you know, and it, it took us, like, forcing them to go, but, like, my kids love pho, right? And they were never a big, uh, you know, which, you know, is, is, is kind of like a Vietnamese, uh-

Ramen type

... you know, food for sure. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, it's just trying to go through and, and teach those things when, when they're in a neighborhood is, is, that is all the same, is very difficult. And so we have to find paths to do that, um, from a parenting perspective. And not everybody is doing that, which means, you know, it's, it's just another kind of nail in the coffin of where our politics have gone. You know, it's very difficult to come to a compromise. Um, everything is at a poll. It's, you know, one side or the other. Uh, and so trying to teach your kids to understandWhat somebody else who feels differently thinks and why they think it, um, is very difficult. Instead of them immediately going to the, "Well, that other person is just wrong for what they do." Like there's-

Yeah, or, or evil in some cases.

Yeah, correct, or evil. One or, one or the other, right? Um, yeah, I alway- always encourage my kids not to jump to conclusions on things like that. Uh, it helps that my, my wife is a high school principal, and, um, she does a much better job of the parenting when it comes to stuff like that than I do. Uh, but it is... it's something we notice, and we have to forcefully assist and parent to. But, um, the other thing I would say too is as acreage or lot size goes up in neighborhoods, I would imagine that things become more and more disconnected. Um, so yeah, I'll just be honest, you know, talk about w- you know, we, we were on... We... When we got married, we started on about a quarter acre, uh, subdivision neighborhood. Now we have about an acre. Um, you know, and, and we're still in a quote, unquote, "subdivision" without sidewalks. Uh, first neighborhood had sidewalks. Um, and I was probably closer and with more neighbors in my first neighborhood than I was in the neighborhood we're in now. Neighborhood we're in now, I'm very close to, you know, kind of the one or two neighbors that are around us, and then the neighbors that my kids play with, like, that have kids as well. But I get myself thinking all the time like, "Oh, it'd be lovely to have 15 acres and nobody who lives around me." You know? So, like, I, I don't think we really talk about the positives and negatives of that, right? At the end of the day. Like, what, what is the positive of living in a neighborhood versus the negatives and, and what is the negative of moving out to that 15 acres? I think everybody wants to build their dream house out on 15 acres, but, um, I enjoy saying hi to my neighbors every day. And I don't think I really give that the credit that it deserves.

So one of the draws of the suburban lifestyle has always been, or at least the argument has always been, you can have your own piece of land and your privacy, right? And you live in an urban environment or even just a slightly more, uh, dense, diversified environment, and, and the idea is that you lose that privacy, but it's not really that, not really true. Um, again, kinda going back to, to Jane Jacobs, she... her argument is that because of these loose acquaintances, like, you feel connected to the community, but you're not letting them, everybody into your life, like into a deep, intimate relationship, right? You can still reserve that part, um, while not feeling isolated because you, you do know all of these people. Um, and that the trade-off comes when we, when we move into areas without that sort of vitality, and we... when we build areas without that sort of vitality, the trade-off becomes do I let you fully into my life, or do I just keep you out of it entirely, right? So you kinda have to make-

Yeah

... that decision of how much am I go... or am I going to share or not? Not a decision of, you know, can I just kinda get to know you. It's, it's almost becomes all or nothing. Um-

Yes, if you're out on two, if you're out on two-plus acres, right, the only way you get to know somebody is if they're in your home.

Right.

Right?

I mean, I would say even a-

If you're on a-

... even a quarter acre, you know, half acre, like, d- really even any kind of individualized living box, right? You, you drive into your driveway and you shut it, and then you're in your house. And sometimes you'll maybe go to the backyard, but, like, you have to make a concerted effort to meet your neighbors.

Yeah, I mean, at least it, it... You know, my neighborhood, like we're, you know, three-quarter to one acre lots, right? But I still see my neighbors at the mailbox grabbing the trash cans twice a week, you know, while we're playing basketball. You know, we have a fantastic neighbor, uh, and, and their grandparents, and her grandparent name is Coco, so my kids call her Coco. I mean, she plays horse and pig in the driveway with my kids all the time. Um, I'm not sure she's been inside of our house in three years though, right? So I just feel like if, if I lived on two or three acres and she, she would have to be a friend who was inside my house friend-

Mm-hmm

... quote, unquote, to be playing basketball with my kids in my driveway.

Yeah. But also just-

It's just not as feasible

... just consider the fact that that's, that's one neighbor, right? How many people-

Correct

... live in your neighborhood that you could theoretically have contact with? And there are, like, two, and those happen to be the ones that live pretty much right next to you.

Right next to you.

Right?

Next to you.

Um, I mean, every now and then when the people across the street from us that way, uh, you know, they have young kids. In fact, one of their kids is in my kids' daycare class, and they're really good friends in daycare. But, like, we only talk to them when they are outside in their front yard playing, and we happen to be getting the mail.

Yeah.

Right? Like, you have to make a very concerted effort to, to do that. And how many other... Like, when we did, uh, Halloween, you know, we drove around in the golf cart because there's no sidewalks and houses are so far apart you can't walk with kids.

Uh-huh.

And we stopped at one house, and, uh, we realized that my oldest son has, uh, is in I don't think the same class, but is in the same grade at the same school with, with their daughter. And, you know, we had a little conversation, but we'd never met them. Like, we had no way of knowing. They probably live 20 houses down. Um, but, but, but even then, okay, so, so let's take the fact that, yes, you can, you can build kind of those relationships with non-inside-the-house friends with your immediate neighbors. Um, but you're, you're still stratifying yourself into a particular demographic.

Yeah.

Right? And so these, these sort of second-ring relationships involve people of all walks of life because that's really how you build the community cohesion. And so w- kind of piggyback on two things that you said. One, I think that most people who went to college would think back on their time in college as, um, kind of like a, a really enjoyable living environmentRight? Like you're living close to people, you meet a lot of people. You're not friends with all of them, but you know a lot of people

Minus the getting sick when everybody else gets sick. That was-

Yeah.

Yeah. So.

Um, but, but sort of the, the environment that you live in in college is really a lot more sort of dense, mixed use, walkable, right? Like-

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, like that's your life. You're not... You... When you're living on campus especially, you're not driving everywhere. Um-

Yeah.

You can fill most of your basic needs by walking from place to place, and you run into people that you know, and you kind of make those acquaintances. And then they graduate like I did, and you just move completely away from it. And then you kinda wonder why you feel more isolated. Um, but s- but second, when you talk about things like just community development, right? How can we make our community a place with an identity? Um, and that's really a very important way that we make really difficult to happen, right? We, we make it difficult for people to build these very loose bonds with other people that they live near, um, just because of the way that we build our neighborhoods. And so when... Then we end up with things like Nextdoor, right? 'Cause you can't just go talk to, chat with people and solve your problems. You're gonna go online and complain about stuff and sort of radicalize. Um, and then that makes things really difficult for-

Yeah

... us as city managers. So by, by making it harder for these loose connections to be built, we're making it harder on our s- on our communities as a whole to, to solve their own problems, right? To, to come together and, and, uh, and make a difference in their own lives. And so what they... what ends up happening is sort of the opposite, which instead of solving problems, we just create new problems and create radicalization and, and tension and animosity between neighbors and between city and residents.

Or create solutions in search of problems.

That too.

Yeah. We've gotten really good at that lately, for sure. Um, so, you know, I, I think when I finish the Jane Jacobs book, you know, we'll probably have more conversation on this type of thing, and, you know, and, and really the impact or the... the impact of development patterns on, on what it has done to, like, our psychology is, I think, just a really in-depth topic that somebody's got to talk about, that we, we have got to have conversations about, okay, development patterns and how we develop as a city will also impact our politics into the future. And we, we need to look at, um, you know, what is going to happen and how that's going to happen. So if we, if we develop solely in, in one way, you know, what, what is it? We need to start looking at how do we create a city that has... You know, we talk about the zen city stuff, but how do you create a city that it kinda has that zen, uh, that, that equilibrium that's there, um, and is able to kinda move forward and, and get things done? And, and we've probably made it worse on ourselves because of specific decisions that we've made over time within our development and our development patterns.

Yeah. I mean, I'd say that the question is less about how do we create it than how do we stop making it impossible to do, right? So, uh-

Yeah

... I'd say, I'd say there's more that we're doing to prevent it than that we could do to create it, um, and just kinda flip that question around a little bit. Like, are we, are we planning ourselves out of this type of livelihood? Are we, uh, trying to put our fingers on the scale to create an environment that we all think is what we want, but in reality, we're preventing what used to, what used to be, uh, the way that we sort of built communities? Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, the, the lack of open space, the lack of any type of gathering space, you know, the... what, what those things generate, you know, um, I-

Well, it's not even that. It's also the fact that when we do build those things, we build them in big, like, big centers, right? Like, here's our civic center, and here's our cultural center, and then here's our retail center, right? So, like, there's-

And jump in your car-

Yeah

... drive it to a big parking lot, and then walk over to the big area. A- absolutely. I mean, we built that too, right? Uh, but ult- ultimately, you're right. I... You know, there's a, there's a, a development that I always keep in mind of just I've got a lot of friends that live in this development, and I think all the time, like, "Wow, these developers actually did a really, really good job on this development." Um, and it's, it's a neighborhood called The Parks, and I'm just gonna kinda leave it at that, not give away the city or anything like that. But, um, but it's a development of single-family homes. They're 35 by 120s up to, like, 50 by 120 lots. Um, but they have meeting... They have sidewalks everywhere, right? Um, and then they have parks in the middle of the streets, right? And, like, little parklet areas throughout the neighborhood. Um, and they do, like, you know, the HOA that's there, they do, like, little movies in the park. They do, like, little block parties, you know, that type of stuff. But it's, like, every week, right? So it's a very, like, socially engaged neighborhood very consistently. I just... I find it interesting because people who live on opposite sides of the neighborhood in that, in that area all know each other, and they all know each other because of these consistent get-togethers that happen in these little parklets that everybody walk... Nobody drives to anything. Everybody walks to. Um, and it's all very kind of flows, uh, to be kind of like a healthy living lifestyle-

Yeah

... neighborhood.

But again, probably-

It works out really well

... but again, probably a very homogenous neighborhood.

More diverse than other areas in that community, I would say. Uh, specifically geographically-

A range of housing styles and types, or is it all pretty much the same kind of-

No, it's, it's a, it's a range of housing styles and types. Um, so you, you can... You know, the houses in some of the phases are four or five hundred thousand dollars. Um, and, and they're all connected through trail systems. So all the different phases are connected through trail systems. Uh, and then they also have, like, mountain bike and, and other trail systems that are there as well. Um, but all the way up to, like, one point four million, right? So kinda that range, um-

That range is not, not quite as, uh... What's the opposite of homogenous? It's still- It's still pretty homogenous, right? Like, that's-

Well, I mean, I-

I know that the average home price these days, like, four hundred thousand is probably the median home price in most, most big cities, uh, at least here in Texas. Yeah

There's no multi-family tie in.

Yeah.

You know, like, they don't, they don't have that. That would, that would get you into your, your lower, lower tier price ranges. Um, but I mean, from a starter home standpoint, that's about as starter as you can get these days. I mean, like, it's hard to get into a starter home for less than four hundred thousand in today's world. Now, maybe that's gonna change with the crash in the housing side, but it's coming, so... Or it's here.

It's here. Yeah.

One or the other. Yeah. All right, I'm gonna move on to the next topic. Are you cool with that?

Yeah. There's so much that that kinda ties into that we were never gonna be able to cover all of it, so let's, uh, let's just leave it there.

In reference to Pinky and the Brain, and I'm referring to you as Brain. Brain, do you feel like computers are taking over the world? I'm gonna give you two examples-

Okay

... Brain, of why I think computers are taking over the world. Example number one, uh, I have a new electric vehicle, a Ford Mach-E. Great car. Love it. So much fun to drive. Um, it's our around town vehicle. We still have a huge gas-guzzling truck, 'cause I can't get rid of my American truck. Um, but this EV, when pl- it was plugged in during a, um, a lightning storm, and we had kind of like a brownout condition, and then it came back on. The car kinda put itself into a s- shutdown mode, right? Because it was keeping itself safe. I didn't realize that I wasn't supposed to charge it in that situation. It, it is what it is. It's still under warranty. It's not a big deal, and they fixed it. But I could not charge the car because it had gone into, like, this shutdown where it had to go to the dealership to get it done. That is my first example of computers not allowing me to make any adjustments to do something because it's smart enough to know that if I do something, I'm going to ruin it or screw it up, right? My second example, I've had cold water in my house for two days now because I bought a fancy water heater with a heat pump. It's called a hybrid water heater, um, because I was gonna save, like, four hundred to four hundred and fifty dollars a year on electricity with this hybrid water heater, which t-to be fair, I have saved a lot on electricity. But once again, came home, the computer screen and computer user interface was broke, and it controls all of my hot water heater. There is not a mechanical piece in it like a, a, a thermostat like on an old school one. Whereas if that had happened before and a thermostat went bad, I could just roll to the store and grab that thermostat and roll on back and install it myself, and I'd have hot water in about twenty or thirty minutes, right, of working on my hot water heater. But not this one. With this hot water heater, I couldn't do anything until customer service opened on Monday morning and which is today. And I had to call super early and, uh, and they're gonna overnight me the part. So I'm gonna be with cold water again tomorrow morning. Uh, thank you Amazon for delivery of the, uh, the heat sticks that warm your bathtub in a, like, two-hour period. They've saved the day at least to have some warm water to, uh, bathe and shower, or really bathe. But I just... I mean, are we at that point now where we're taking all of the mechanical ability for people to fix things out, and we're basically saying if computer broke, everything broke?

I thought you were gonna ask about the ChatGPT sort of OpenAI-

I was gonna get there-

... chatter.

I was gonna get there next.

Um, yeah. So are you familiar-- I know that you're not a, uh, a Twitter user, but there is a Twitter account called... I, uh, I'm gonna say it and then bleep it, um, because I wanna do them justice. It's called Internet of . Um-

Okay

... and essentially, it's, uh, it's an aggregator of stories about how the Internet of things sucks. Right? So it's a lot of these types of, uh, um, scenarios like my coffee mug, uh, isn't connected to the internet, so it doesn't work or, you know... Um, I mean, Tesla frequently has people complaining about how software updates won't allow them to even unlock their car doors.

Uh-huh.

Um, here's one pulling up to a drive-through reading the terms and conditions of the drive-through. Uh, uh, I'll fast-forward through some of this, uh, as I search here. Soccer ball's connected to the internet, right? Spatial positioning in real time so that they can see where the ball is throughout the game. What is this? Internet-connected batteries. So yeah, the answer to your question is, um, yeah, I think that this is one of those pendulum scenarios where things sound cool in theory, like-

Mm-hmm

... on paper, but when you actually put, put that into practice, it's not anywhere near as good. Like, the sum is not, uh, greater than the... or the whole whatever, you know.

Yeah, it's not 100%

The whole is less than the sum of the parts. Um, I assume that at some point we'll kind of reach a tipping point where we'll be like, "Yeah, this, like, this is not as neat as it seemed." Like, when we remodeled our kitchen, we got, uh, the Samsung appliances, and they're all Wi-Fi, and they're supposed to talk to each other, and, like, you can turn on the vent hood from your phone. But, like, we never use it 'cause it's stupid.

Yeah.

Um, the, the one thing that would be nice is if you could preheat your oven, but it never works. Like it's ne- it always loses the Wi-Fi connection. So, like, you can't preheat the oven from your phone when you're, you know, five minutes away from the house, so it's kinda getting warm already. The biggest problem with all of this is this sort of the brittleness, right? The centralization of these things. If they're running through Amazon Web Services and Amazon Web Services goes down, you're screwed.

Yeah.

You can't use your microwave. Like, the idea that you could not use your microwave to make Easy Mac for a screaming toddler because Amazon Web Services is down just makes me wanna, like, pull all of the rest of my hair out. It's just so stupid. Um-

It is

... and I say this as someone who when this d- all this stuff first started, like, we w- we, we talked about, like, what can we build that's connected to the internet? This would be so fun.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

We can make all of these cool things. Um, and it's just really neat to think about, but it's just one of those things I think is it makes life worse when you actually do it. So I hope that we are coming to, uh, it's... I hope that soon we will come to a tipping point where we realize that th- all of this sort of fancy internet connected crap is nowhere near as, as useful. It's not gonna last as long. Um, it's gonna be more brittle. It's gonna break more frequently, um, than just the old school stuff that we used to use. Like, I, I don't wanna sound like a curmudgeon or a Luddite. Like, back in the day, we had w- water heaters that could work, you know. But I, I do think-

We do, we do need to get the light bulb idea going again. The, uh, every time we would put a new client inside of the system, the light bulb would turn green at our houses.

Yeah, so what I wanted to do is, is set it up where is the, the user could have an internet connected light bulb where whenever sales tax data was released by the comptroller, it would pop red or green depending on whether-

Yeah

... their city was up or down.

Yeah.

Um-

But I g- I think that's... We need to get back to that idea. I think it's pretty cool.

But see, those things are, those are, like, novelties, right?

Yeah, yeah.

You're not running your life on those-

Yeah

... kinds of things.

True. True.

Um, versus, you know, a water heater, a stove, a fr- a fridge, whatever the case may be.

Yeah.

Like, those things that you need for daily living and to basically put them in the cloud and rely on that is, is not all it's cracked up to be, I think.

Yeah. No, no, no. I get it. I get it. For sure. So, all right. Uh, real quick, I wanna move on to the ChatDet, uh, AI deal.

Okay.

So, uh, talk to me about, like, what this is. You, you were sending me text messages the other night telling me how bad A&M was, like, a whole story of why A&M was terrible, and all you asked this chat bot was... What did, what did you ask?

I said, uh, "Please write three paragraphs about why Texas A&M football is mediocre."

And it was-

I'm gonna tr- I-

It was knives

... I'm gonna try to find it here.

Yeah, it was, it was knives. I mean, it was, it was brutal. Um, so but basically, y- what you're saying is, is that AI and the ability to talk about AI back and... or talk to AI back and forth has gotten advanced enough that it, it can do these types of things.

Okay, so I think that it definitely passes the Turing test, which if you're not familiar with that, this is sort of the, um, the benchmark, the classic benchmark about, um, about artificial intelligence, um, is that whether you can talk to it and not know that you're talking to a computer-

Mm-hmm

... then it is passes the Turing test. I think that this definitely does that. Um, like this says here, uh, "One specific example of their mediocrity is their record against the University of Texas. Over the past 70 years, Texas A&M has only managed to win the rivalry game against Texas a handful of times. This is clearly an indication of the overall mediocrity of their program." Right? But it's writing that because I told it exactly what to write.

Okay.

And it's using just basic, like, linear, linear regression and statistical models to pattern match with this very large pool of documents that it's ingested. Like, if you ask it what's, you know, what's two times two, it will probably tell you four because there's somewhere in these documents a pattern that matches two times two equals four, two plus two equals four. If you actually have it do math, like, you know, 1,275 divided by, you know, 45 whatever, it's not gonna know that. So it-

Yeah

... it's gonna get you close from a pattern matching standpoint, but it's not gonna actually do the math. It doesn't know that you're asking it a math question. S- and, and honestly, when you... if you go to the ChatGPT and give it a prompt, give it a specific prompt, um, it's going to spit out some very probably, like, freshman level high school writing that will largely answer your question. In many cases, it may make inferences that are, that if you are, like, a subject matter expert that you know are wrong. But that you would see, oh, that probably sounds good if you don't know what you're talking about, right? Like, if you're using this, say, to help with some kind of term paper, you know, as, like, a high school student-

Mm-hmm

... or a college student, and you haven't done any of the readings or gone to class, um, you would probably think, "Oh, wow, I could just use this to sort of turn in my paper," and you're gonna fail it for sure 'cause it-

But if you did go through and give it some substantial facts, it would basically take those substantial facts and write your paper for you.

Yeah, like, I mean-

Which is, which is, uh-

But it's-

... also-

But it's not gonna be a very pleasant re- uh, writing style to read. Like, it's-

I gotcha

... it, it doesn't, it's not gonna sound like... The, the, the amount of repetition in this is three paragraphs, they use the word mediocre, like, 10 times-

Yeah

... because that was in the prompt.

That's my writing style too. I like to use the same word 10 times in a row.

Yeah, just we just-

Yeah

... don't even open up the thesaurus.

That's why we let you do all the copy on the Facebook page. Yeah.

Um, so I mean, at the end of the day, this is... I, I wouldn't even really call it intelligence. It's, it's just a very sophisticated statistical algorithm that's just matching patterns from a very large amount of preexisting documents, right? It's not coming up-

So-

... yet with... It's not synthesizing the ideas that are in those documents and coming up with new ideas. Um, it's just sort of spitting back out whatever it's received. And of course, the, one of the big problems with that is that it's heavily biased. It can be heavily biased based on whatever it was ingested to, to create that model, right? So if you ask it, for example, a political question, depending on what data sources or, or what point of view those were written in, like, it's, it's not gonna probably give you a neutral answer. It's gonna give you one that has an opinion based on whatever it was used, uh, whatever data was used to build a model.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think this is another sign of when our kids grow up, teaching or allowing your kids to be creative is going to be very important because the legwork of doing calculus and the legwork of writing a paper and the research and things that are there, that is all now at fingertips, right? Like, you don't have to go to a library anymore to, to really get into research and detail. Um, a lot of that is gonna become automated. This is just one example of that automation that's coming that way. So a creative mind is probably going to be one of the most important skills you can have, which it's, it's not creating the tech as much as it is how to utilize the tech. So I just, I just think it's an interesting point. My understa- question is, how does somebody interact with this? Gotta be a programmer?

No, it's a website. I can link it in the show notes.

Okay.

It's just like a instant message page. Like, you have-

Okay

... a little text field, and you say, you know, enter whatever prompt, and then it will just sort of spit back out the results.

Okay. Excellent.

Yeah.

So-

The other thing is too-

We'll talk-

... because it, because it doesn't actually know the things that it's telling you, it can't really tell you how confident it is that what it's telling you is accurate, right? Like, if you asked a specific question and it gave you an answer, it would be nice if you could say, like, "How sure are you about this?" And they'll be like, "It's 100%. I'm 100% sure that this is right." Right? 'Cause it, like I said, it's just pattern matching.

Yeah.

So just be careful.

All right. So here we go.

Okay, so naughty and nice list.

Naughty and nice list. So what departments, what roles, what, um-

You're gonna contribute to this too, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay.

What projects would you put on your naughty and nice list-

Okay, so-

... this Christmas?

So my number one naughty list item, I mean, I haven't thought about it enough to, like, rank them beyond number one, so I'm just gonna start with number one, is the person in charge of enforcing parking minimum requirements.

So b- because you think parking minimums are goofy as all get out, right?

Yes. Yeah.

I, I, I would, I would agree with the parking minimum side. Okay. Um-

There's a really good podcast, uh, with Donald Shoup. Uh, it's, it's remarkably entertaining for the content, uh, but it's called The Planning Commission. They just had an episode with Donald Shoup, who's, like, the famous parking-

Yeah

... professor. He wrote The High Cost of Free Parking. Uh, but it's actually a very entertaining... They, they go off on some interesting tangents and analogies.

That's funny. So my naughty list number one would be police seizure funds.

Oh, man. That's a good one.

Yeah. That's number one on my naughty list. So the ability, especially in Texas, but the ability for police departments to gather these police seizure funds, either dollars or from equipment sold at auction or whatever it may be, um, to gather those funds and then pretty much use them-

However they want

... for a public purpose at the discretion of a police chief and not the discretion of a city manager or a city council, more importantly city council. So that's my number one naughty list.

Yeah. Okay. So then-

Let's go nice first.

Oh, man.

Let's, let's-

No, I wanna-

Yeah

... I wanna stick on this one for a minute.

You wanna stick on naughty? Okay.

So the, one of the biggest challenges, like in Texas, you can still, like, local governments, um, they, like, or s- there's like the, they have their own seizure funds. Some states have prevented their localities from taking advantage of these seized funds.

Yes.

But the states don't have the ability to prevent the federal government from allowing localities to participate. So what ends up happening is that these cities will form these task forces-

Yes

... where they work with the feds, with this, with the primary purpose of doing this is to allow them to still engage in this seized funds sort of racket. Um, there is... I have so many problems with-

Yeah, there are so many-

... those

... control issues with seizures and-

Well, I have constitutional problems with it too because-

Yeah, I get it

... because there's no due process on this.

And there, there have been, there have been some courts that have kinda gone in there and said, "Eh, that's a little too far" on some things. But-

Yeah

... like, yeah. But I don't disagree.

So yeah.

What, what's your next naughty list?

I'm not, I'm not gonna change my number one pick, but I will say that that was solid.

I got that one right, huh, Brian?

That was solid. Good job, Pinky.

Yeah.

Okay, um, nice list. I thought we were just doing naughty list, so I have to think about this one for a little bit. I mean, I, I guess I'd have to say probably-

This is nice?

... your, your entry level budget analyst.

This is the nice list? Yeah.

No, I don't know. What would be, what would be the most nice thing, um-The water clerk who gives you credits on your accounts when you have a leak, and they're, like, super friendly about it, and you're panicked because you think you're gonna have to pay, like, a thousand dollar water bill.

That's, that's pretty good.

That's like spreading cheer.

So my nice list is... I, I didn't real- realize this early in my city management career, but late into my sanag- city management career, I did not realize how much of an impact a good quality, long-term city secretary matters. So a solid city secretary, I believe, is, is my nice list. That'd be my number one.

Okay, so is this tainted-

For making my life easier

... is this tainted at all by the fact that our city secretary did a lot more than just city secretary?

No, no, it's, it's more, um... No, 'cause I mean, obviously she did HR, and she did some public events-

Event planning, yeah

... and some things like that. But yeah, no, not, not that. It's more or less the fact that the city secretary keeps you from looking stupid, right? Like, um, posting things for a meeting or doing things in a meeting that you shouldn't do, or, uh, quorum issues, or whatever that may be. Like, there's just, there's somebody who's just kinda on top of making sure the wheels of government are turning, like the magistrate wheel-

Yeah

... wheels of government are turning

... the, the mechanism, mechanistic-

The mechanisms

... elements.

Yeah.

The logistics.

And I don't think I ever gave that credit early in my career, but I give it massive amounts of credit now. So that's, that's one. All right, we're gonna do one more naughty and then one more nice.

Okay.

Give me your second naughty.

My second naughty, I'm gonna call back to a previous episode. My second naughty is gonna be the firetruck that's constantly at the ga- the grocery store.

The $1,700 grocery store run-

Yes

... is-

Yes

... yes. Okay.

And I'm not gonna go into-

I like that

... I'm not gonna rehash all of that. I'm just going to re-up it or bump it to the top, as they say.

Okay. W- we, uh, we have a standard theme right now of, of, of public safety, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to jump off of public safety.

Abuse of power, guys, come on.

Y- yeah, no, I'm gonna try to jump off the public safety side. Um, which my, my second one, to be fair, was public safety, so I'm gonna ...

No, just-

I'm gonna, I'm gonna-

... just keep piling on.

No, no, no. I'm gonna purposely go to something else. Oh, this is all departments and cities. The highly inefficient nature of which we respond to, implement, and complete work orders in cities in a inefficient and mind-boggling way because it's how we've always done it.

S- so, um, when I took over the parks department, parks, parks maintenance side-

Mm-hmm

... all of the work orders were done on paper. And so, you know, a call would come in, a work order would get written in the office, and then the crew, wherever they happened to be, you know, as they came in for lunch, came in at the end of the day, they would drop off their other work orders that had been completed and then pick up the new stack of work orders. Um, and yeah, the, the question was, like, it was 2010? I was like-

Mm-hmm.

... like, we have, we have email at least. Um-

Yeah

... we have SharePoint. Like, wh- why are we doing this in paper? Like, if you have a work order that comes in, and a crew is, like, actually at the park that this work order is for-

Yeah

... they could just do it now. Um, but we don't know where anyone is, and we don't know what they're doing. Uh, so yeah, and, and it took a lot of work to update that process, and as you know all too well, not with that particular organization, 'cause they were receptive to it, but with others, as we tried to kind of pass that, uh, the benefits of that system along, didn't go very well. So yeah, I, I, I'd agree with that, that-

Same, same thing happens in utility, same thing happens in streets. Uh, you know-

It's just inertia

... examples of... Yeah, just i- it's somebody not stopping and saying, "Hmm, I wonder if we could do this better," or, "Maybe we could do this more efficiently." Or my favorite is, "We've repaired a water line in the same location or close similar location five times in the last year, yet we're gonna go tear that yard up one more time to repair it again. Why not just go in there and-"

Just replace it.

"... take the whole thing out and replace it?" Right? I mean, I, I cannot tell you how many t- you know, and this is, this is pre me getting, uh, to my, my last employer, um, how many circle clamps we took out that were just over the top of a broken line because guess what? They leaked again because the, the broke line cracked even further as the tree root continued to grow. Like, just cut out the tree root and cut out the l- the next 25 or 30 foot and put on two C-clamps and move on. Like, that's super technical for water, but, uh-

It's not that technical.

Yeah, and, and, and, you know, obviously we had a, a great water superintendent who, um, who kind of grew up in the organization and realized some of those mistakes and would start to do that. But, um, I just... for me, the inefficiency of, of the field work was tremendous. And I think your example of the paper work order and then having to drive, I mean, and it was a large city, right? I mean-

It was, yeah

... they're, they're driving 20, 25 miles to come back to the shop. Um, so it's an hour both ways just to pick up the work order that they could've been texted on a phone or shown on an iPad or even gotten in their email, right? So that's my... All right, last nice list.

Okay. So my last nice list is the rare but jovial city attorney who tries to say yes. Not the one-

They are a rarity

... who's gonna bog you down in all the reasons why you can't do something.He or she is gonna be looking through the code and trying to find any way that you can do what you're trying to do.

Dude, it would've also been a great naughty list, though.

The, the opposite?

So, the opposite. I mean, it would've been a great naughty list. And, and, and I wanna... We a- we actually have a couple of city attorneys who listen to this podcast, and so I'm, I'm gonna say this. I, I apologize to them because I send... The, the couple that I know that listen to the podcast and that I would consider to be the, "Hey, I'm gonna try to do everything I can to get it done," types, they get sent so much work because it... I cannot tell you how many times. I had a c- well, I just had a conversation the other day about, um, a developer wants to come into a community and, you know, and I, I just expl- I'm not gonna go into details, but I just explained to the community that there are other options. You are not forced to do some things in this development. Like, "Well, our city attorney told us we kinda had to because of this." And I said, "That's great, but have you ever just thought about, you know, doing this?" And they're like, "No, we didn't really think that through." And it just, it just, you know, there are, like, other ways to skin the cat. Isn't that what they call it? I don't even know if that's a good term, but, um-

I think it's probably more broad than just city attorneys. I was just thinking about a specific city attorney who was amazing. Um, it's really any kind of system where there are incentives to be very within your sort of blinders, right? And if it, if anything sort of falls outside of your comfort zone, whether it's engineering or planning or even, like, budget, like, anything can, can sort of trigger that response where it's like, "No." Like, "The rules don't say that we can do this explicitly. Um, so, like, the, I'm not gonna exert any mental effort to find a way to make this work."

The, the setup of how that city attorney relationship is matters, right? Is the city attorney an employee of the city? Do they work directly for council? That's, you know, that, that could shape it. Does the city attorney-

How do you feel about that?

... appreciate-

That might be an interesting topic.

I, you know, I, I think it's important for the city attorney to directly answer to council. I think it's a check and balance on the system. I, I do. But I also think it's important for that city attorney to have a respect for professional management in cities, right? Especially in the county ranks, I have run across numerous county attorneys who basically run the show. They're elected officials, and they run the show. And they want to tell people what they can and can't do and will say in open meetings, "You can't approve this," or, "You have to approve this." I just... Mm. It just irks me. I just feel it down my spine when it happens. But I think the, the city attorney who's contracted with a city usually has a better understanding of things because there's, they just deal with so many multiple cities, and they get a better view, just like we do on the GoVirtualCFO side. Like, we've become much better at that business because we just deal with so many different cities. Um, I, I just, I think it's a little better, but I really think it comes down to the respect level of the dichotomy that occurs in city government between management and politics and an attorney understanding that, and a city manager understanding that dichotomy. I think that has a huge play on that. Um, where an attorney, where a city attorney is afraid to get fired because they wanna give council what council wants at all times, that gets dangerous as well, so.

Yeah. I think there's a little bit of a symbiosis there, right? 'Cause, like-

Mm-hmm

... say that your city attorney is, is just accountable to the city manager. You're still not gonna get stuff through, through council, right? Like, just having that sort of extra support as a manager, it's probably not gonna be enough if you're gonna, if you're trying to convince your council to do something that they don't wanna do or, like, to operate in a way that they don't wanna operate. So probably it's not gonna help you anyway, at least not as much. Whereas if your council and your attorney are on the same page and they're trying to be, you know, either, uh, inventive or innovative or, you know, kinda push the boundaries a little bit, then they're already on the same page anyway. So if you don't have that, it's gonna be hard to do those things regardless of where your city attorney's located. But-

Yeah, true. True. All right. My last nice list-

Okay

... before we wrap this up. Nice list. I love a great community event. I'm a... And I know you totally disagree with this one, I'm sure. I love a great fireworks show. I love a great Hallmark card event. I love a, you know, a, a dance. I, I, I just, I mean, man, I, I love every bit of community events. And I like going to them and attending them. I like putting them on. I'm a... I, I just love it. I love what it does for your community when you have these well put together events.

They are a beating, though.

They are, but man, just-

And my primary recollection of all of those events from the seven or eight years of doing them with you is the, the constant struggle over turf when it came to getting people away from the event.

Yeah.

Right? 'Cause any kind of big event, you're gonna have law enforcement. Um, when you're in a smaller city, you're gonna bring, be bringing people from outside to assist. Um, and when you're trying to get a mass of people away from an event, whether it's buses or parking or whatever, I often found myself in a situation where, uh, the things that were happening I didn't feel were the most efficient ways to get people out, uh, and, uh, had, had words with, with some people from time to time.

Always fun.

Yeah, always fun.

Well, man, um, since this is our last show, I gotta wish you a merry Christmas in the fam of-

Merry Christmas to you

... a merry Christmas.

Happy holidays.

Absolutely.

Merry Christmas to all of our listeners. Hope y'all have a-

Happy, happy Festivus. Isn't Festivus today or tomorrow?

It's, I think it's usually later in the year.

Is it?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe-

Side note

... maybe we can, uh, air some grievances next time.

We should. We should air some grievances, so.

All right, bud. Well, y'all have a safe holidays, and, uh, we will, uh, chat with you next, next year.

All right, we'll see y'all.