Greetings and welcome to ZacCast, the official podcast for local government nerdery. I'm Chad, that's Pat. We have a special guest today who I will introduce momentarily, but real quick, Pat, I have to start today's podcast with a very simple question here, um-

Jimbo is getting paid seventy-six million dollars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's the question, Chad? Go ahead.

Well, much like Charlie Strong benefited from having a generational quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater, Jimbo Fisher parlayed his time with Jameis Winston into one of the most lucrative contracts in college football history. And n- as of Sunday, he's probably gonna get paid more to not coach at A&M than Jameis Winston will ever make as a quarterback in the NFL. So my only quick question is: how much is Jimbo paying Jameis as a thank you? Is that-- Has that been reported? Has TexAgs had anything on that?

I am very glad to have another Aggie on the show today so that I can be defended in my, my statements, but here you go, Chad. First off, Jimbo was a decent coach at LSU. Let's not forget his previous time before Florida State, okay? So there was that. It wasn't just Jameis Winston. I just think he gave up a little bit, man. He had great recruiting classes, he was able to drive them in, but I think he just gave up at the end of the day and it was time for us to part ways because at the... It showed up at the end of games that he just... he didn't have a care about them and, uh, you know, it's sad. It is what it is. But lucky for you, Texas has gotten past some Cougars. They've had a couple problems with Cougars, and they finally got past that really bad Horned Frog this year, but made the Horned Frog look really good in that football game. Let's not forget that Texas really never controlled the game fully, um, you know, so it's gonna be very interesting to see how do you guys... Who do you have left? You gotta go to Tech, right?

Uh, we have Iowa State in Ames this weekend, then we have Tech at home.

Okay. So Tech at home, uh, that's-

Two more games to get through

... that's the game I would really be worried about. Tech is terrible, which means you won't be prepared for it and, uh-

No, I'm more worried about this game in Ames because it's a night game.

Oh, that's true, in Ames it's-

Things are always, things are always weird in Ames.

Is it State Fair in Ames?

No.

No?

It's too late.

Okay. Yeah. So the other issue is you still have to play Tech, and Tech has ruined seasons for you in the past, haven't they? I believe they have.

They did, 2008.

Man, that-

Michael Crabtree. Never forgive him.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So it's kinda like, uh, Tucker, the kicker. I'll never forgive him either for the last game we ever played in, uh, in, uh, Kyle Field against Texas. Until-

Until next year

... you beat them next year. Until next year. So, uh, really, really good, uh, turn point there. So Chad, now that you've gotten your whole college football, the Aggies are terrible-

I got my dig in.

You got your dig in.

It's funny 'cause when we, when we podcast in the fall it becomes about 50% college football and 50% city stuff so... So without further ado, let me, uh, bring Maria Skrut in. She is the newest Team Zach member. She, uh, brings to our team, sort of rounds it out with a lot of planning expertise. And so today we're gonna talk about a, an article that I came across last week and we wanted Maria to come in and give us her perspective on some of these topics. So, uh, so this article is called Hungry but Not for Human Contact: Americans Head for the Drive-Thru. It's a New York Times article. We'll link to it in the show notes. It's probably on a paywall, um, but hopefully you can find a way around it, maybe use a VPN or private browser or something a- and get your one free article. Um, but the gist is drive-thru traffic is up 30% since 2019. In-store dining is down 47% over the same time period, and so it's just talking about this trend of drive-thrus becoming more prominent and what the industry is doing to lean into this trend, right? So, um, Popeyes for example, cutting dining room sizes. Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, experimenting with basically drive-thru only restaurants. I'm talking two-story buildings where you just drive up and your food comes out on a conveyor belt. When you couple that with mobile ordering, you don't even really have to talk to a human being anymore. And so one of the things that they talk about in this article, and obviously with the title you can kind of see where they're headed, Hungry but Not for Human Contact, the author suggests that one of the most, uh, prominent reasons for this change is that after the pandemic, we basically lost our tolerance for interacting with strangers. She cites a couple of, uh, give a couple of examples and interviews a couple of people to, to talk about that. And so I wanna, I wanna hit on that, but first, Maria, I wanna start with you and just ask you, in the hierarchy of urban form, how far down is the drive-thru?

Very, very low at the bottom.

So my thought was the, the Moneyball scene where Brad Pitt is like, "There's the Yankees, and then there's everyone else, and then there's 50 feet of crap, and then there's us." That was kind of how I-

Yeah

... how I see them. W- why are they so bad though?

Yeah, drive-thrus, they are single buildings. They add on to like the car, um, culture, car-centric culture of urban planning. Um, it makes it easier us for to, for us to avoid organic social interactions, um, which has forced communities needing a car for anything having to do with us leaving the house. Um, it's not a connected building form, so you're not getting out of your house and then walking down the street, and then you see a restaurant, and then you see a haircut place, and then you go to the grocery store and you have all these connections. But instead, a drive-thru, you're just getting in your car-Going to pick up your food and then leaving, and you're just creating less, um, you're just adding on to not meeting those social needs and rewiring our social needs

You know, one of the things with drive-throughs that I look at that I dislike personally is it's very difficult to make restaurants that have drive-throughs walkable, right? There's just a, there's an immediate safety concern to a drive-through being there. Even if you are in a walkable district and say you have like rear-end parking with a drive-through that exits in the front or exits to the side, there's still kind of like a separation between side of building and walkability that occurs. And so it makes it really difficult for, um, you know, for urban planners to kind of connect in those buildings. So we, we've seen a lot in like inline retail centers, right? Um, inline retail centers are trying to put drive-throughs on both sides of the retail center, right, which means that retail center is totally disconnected from any other retail establishment that's adjacent to it. So even though you've encouraged, um, adjacent uses to be at zero lot line, right? And even though you've removed the need to have a 24-foot fire lane between the two building sizes, the drive-through is still kind of moving things apart. It's still separating-

Yeah

... the walkability.

You're not really putting it as zero lot line, especially if you have drive-throughs on both sides. If you have it only on one side, you can queue in the back.

Correct.

But if you have it on both sides, you need a space to queue, which means that you're gonna have a parking lot in front of the building.

Yes. So what-

Right? So you still, you're not at a zero lot line.

No, no, no. My point was is that cities have, in a lot of their zoning ordinances for general retail, right, have gone to zero lot lines, uh, to encourage... That's happened. And they've also loosened the requirements for a fire lane to run between two buildings that are sitting on a zero lot, right? So but when you add drive-throughs, you basically just put all those things back. You still have a setback, right? You still have a, a fire access lane. And then, you know, and then a lot of cities have... And we talk about the parking standards and things like that, but a lot of cities also have a, an escape lane requirement on a drive-through. So not only are you putting a drive-through lane there, but you're also putting an additional 18-foot, uh, escape lane requirement. Or, sorry, it'd be, it'd be like a 12-foot escape lane requirement. Um, so it's just a, you know, everything gets more spread out. It's, it's kind of like what Maria's point was there. The sprawl just continues to move.

Yeah. And just like you mentioned, um, there is, you know, those, that data that they threw out, like drive-throughs account for two-thirds of food purchases, and drive-through traffic has increased 30%. Um, it's like it's smart for businesses to use that data to justify improvements, um, from a business perspective, but cities are allowing these decisions. Like, they ultimately have the last say in it. Um, and they're allowing it and we're enabling and making it easier for people to just minimize that social interactions by allowing these dec- development decisions that does separate, um, building facades and creates that 15.15-mile distance between each building.

This is, this has permeated past the fast food market, right?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, this has really gotten into even, you know, what we would consider like quick service restaurants. You know, the Chipotles of the world, right?

Mm-hmm.

It is very rare now that you see a brand new Chipotle built that doesn't have a drive-through, or they call it the Chipotlane.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know if, if y'all know that. Um, but like my wife and I, for example, uh, we go to Chipotle in two different ways. And first off, y'all know I go to Chipotle like three to four times a week. It's kind of an obsession. Um, it's where I'll be for lunch today at 1:30, if anybody would like to meet me at the San Antonio Chipotle. Uh, it's, you know, I know it's not live. But the reality is is that, uh-

Are you gonna use the drive-through?

I'm not. So that's the thing is my wife- ... my wife always uses the app, right?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and she always uses the drive-through. For me, my Chipotle is my... It's like because I work from the house, it's my Cheers, right? It's like-

Mm-hmm

... it's where I go to meet my friends. And, and I do. I run into three or four people that I know in the community every time I go, and it's a 30 to 35-minute lunch, but I've got somebody to talk to. I know all the staff. I constantly make comments about, uh, how well the, the fajita veggies are caramelized or not. Uh, every Chipotle has a different style. I care about that. I like my com- I like... You know, uh, Maria, you'll understand this being a Houston kid. I, I really like, like a caramelized onion with my-

Mm-hmm

... you know, like fajita. So-

Mm-hmm

... um, but here in North Texas, they like, like their onion to be like semi-raw. I mean, come on, people. We gotta be better than that. Um, but I go for the social environment. And so when we go as a family, it's, you know, it's always me being insistent that we're gonna go inside, and it's always Jennifer who's like, "No, let's grab it and take it home." Right?

Mm-hmm.

Um, but it's, it, it, it is very interesting, uh, to me the differences in perspectives there, uh, on how to utilize Chipotle. But we're seeing that encroach in more and more, you know, what I would consider quick service, counter service restaurants, uh, where it used to just be limited to fast food and coffee shops, right? And, and really even in coffee shops it was kind of something that was developed by Starbucks, right?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and so, you know, before coffee shops were all go sit down and, and, and kind of eat inside and, and grab a coffee inside and sit on a couch type of deal. Um, like we see at, uh... Oh, I'm gonna... Central Perk?

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

I knew you were gonna go with the Friends reference.

Friends. Yes. So, but-

Yeah. Let's definitely use a, uh, a coffee shop in New York City as our comparison-

A comparison

... with suburban Starbucks.

Correct. Um, but you know, the, the question is, is how do you make suburban communities that are sprawl communities? Uh, 'cause Maria, you kinda hit on something in your initial comment-Which was it kind of encourages or promotes the sprawl even more. Um, but, but how do you, how do you change that? You know, how do you... You know, 'cause look, the neighborhoods are there, right? Especially in, in, in portions of Texas that we live in. The neighborhoods are all spra- sprawl-based at this point. So how do you change your commercial districts and how do you make those walkable and how do you connect those residential communities to walkable, like, retail and restaurant when they're already there in a place?

Yeah, I do think we, uh, we as a community and as, as a community need to create this walkable culture first. Um, you know, I, I grew up in Texas my whole life in suburban neighborhoods where I had to... I was stuck to living, to staying within my parents' cul-de-sac and walking, just walking down the block for safety reasons, um, just because it's so... Our neighborhoods are so car-heavy traffic. There's a lot of heavy traffic from cars. Um, so changing that culture would be a little difficult, especially after we've lived in it for so long. But yeah, it's about creating these 15-minute neighborhoods where, yeah, there's a neighborhood right here, um, and you add in a sidewalk, but outside that neighborhood, there is that restaurant and there is that haircut place that you need and that grocery store.

Can you do that though without a market to support it, right? Like, you have-

Mm-hmm

... detached single-family homes on a quarter acre lots. The density is so low.

Yeah.

So I'm not sure economically that you can come in and in that environment, es- and, and couple that with the fact that most of our, like, big neighborhoods are not grids. They're winding, curvilinear cul-de-sac streets that just don't... They won't support the kind of growth that would allow for that ki- the mixing of uses and things like that. So like, what's, what is the first step into getting there? Is it, is it ADUs? Is it, like s- like, allowing slightly more density to build up in these areas-

I do

... where the market will bear it? Or just-

Yeah, I do

... is it just walkable infrastructure to allow it to be s- more safe-

Yeah

... uh, even if you're still walking a long way?

Yeah. Um, I do think it's, yeah, ADUs is a great first example. It's like giving people, um, making people more comfortable with the higher density areas versus just staying within your one acre lot. Um, but also pocket parks are also a good example of, yes, they're not a restaurant and they're not a retail center, commercial center, but it gives people that destination and creating that place of I'm going to walk to this pocket park or even at home businesses too, allowing those uses. Um, if a mom wants to sell empanadas out of her house, that creates that community culture and her com- people coming into her home and buying empanadas.

Yeah. And, and-

I had a really good empanada in London, by the way.

Yeah.

Did you have a... In London you had a good empanada?

Yeah. It was like a little Argentinian shop. It was so good.

Oh, wow.

I heard London has the best diversity of food.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

And-

That-

Mm-hmm

... no doubt.

I didn't get to test any of it 'cause m- my family is extremely picky. But that was one place, like, in the subway or in the, in the Tube, just ran over real quick. I didn't even tell my wife that I was going. I was like, I saw it and I was like, "I'm gonna go get it."

Okay.

And she's like, "Where did he go?"

Wow.

Anyway, sorry to interrupt.

So s- stop for a second. Maria, you just picked up a glass of water and drank it, and that glass is both square and round.

Yeah, it is.

Okay. So that's, that, I... That can't be. You can't be square and round. That's not acceptable.

MC- MC Escher glass.

Yeah. So I wanna get back to the pocket park conversation now, um, because I, I, I think that is, uh, kind of a solution that we can really talk about, right? Connected trail systems to pocket parks-

Mm-hmm

... and those connected trail systems going back to sidewalk systems that are adjacent to retail developments, uh, can be beneficial. So maybe you can't totally make it, quote unquote, walkable-

Mm-hmm

... but you could make it bikeable and scootered.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, you can-

Yeah.

I do love a scooter. Um, and I know that scooter's just waiting for me to break a hip but, uh, why you li-

Well, look what's happened

... why you like... Me and scooters?

We have talked about scooters before, and you have absolutely-

No

... mocked me.

So I dislike scooters when they're, like, Lime scooters laid all around the city, right? Personally, I love riding a scooter.

Yeah.

Like, it's, it's amazing.

Times they are a-changing.

But, like, in, in the community that I live in, right, it would be awesome to have a trail that would connect me to the retail area, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then I could ride a bike or ride a scooter, and I could get there. Um, it doesn't change the fact that you s- still can't drink and drive. Most people don't realize that. You actually cannot go to Bouree's and have six beers and then jump on a bike. That's still a no-no in Texas. Um, but the, the reality is, is that I, I think if we could just connect things with trail systems, then, you know, it may not look like it's connected on Main Street side, but it could be kinda connected behind the scenes. Um, and, and really give some props where, where props are due. Uh, the city of Fort Worth does a really good job with that, right? Uh, I've seen some other communities that have done really well with those connected trail systems. City of Houston does that kinda with the bayou system, where, you know, there's bayous behind everything, and they have a connected trail that kinda follows that bayou system as well. Um, and so yeah, I mean, I, I think there are other ways to kinda connect it, but when you're talking about sprawl, you have to get creative. Like, it's not, it's not a grid system where everybody's gonna be able to get around pretty easily. I'm, I'm laughing about the, the meme that was sent out, that Maria sent out and to our team-

And, and we-

Yes

... I, I think we could, we could post that one on show notes. We're not gonna post the, the one that got made of Allison and I on show notes because it shows where we live. Uh, but it was, it was really funny. Like, uh, Maria, you posted this meme which basically was like w- it, it kind of explained what it was.

Do you want me to explain it? Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so it started off with the classic, like, Taylor Swift conversation scene between her and her neighbor, um, in the music video You Belong With Me.

Mm-hmm.

And Taylor asks, "Are you okay?" And he responds with, "It'll take me two hours to walk to your house," with a map showing that even though they're backyard neighbors, sidewalks are available, but it will take him two hours to walk to her house. Um, so that makes a good point of just making sidewalks accessible. Um, if you just connected those two areas, they... It could have taken two minutes to walk to her house.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Um, and I-

We build these subdivisions as, like, isolated things.

Mm-hmm.

Like, they're pods.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So they're not... Like, I have my entrance and my ingress and egress, and they have theirs, but they're not connected at all, so.

Mm-hmm.

So I made a, my own version with Patrick and Allison, who live, you know, as the crow flies, like, I don't know, 1,000 feet, 2,000 feet apart.

Yep.

But it would take, like, 15 minutes for them to drive to, uh, one another's house.

Yeah.

So.

In fact, I can walk there in, like, five minutes. It's actually quicker for me to walk.

You'd have to cut-

But I would-

You'd have to cut through

... I would have to cut through a yard to get there.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, um- And, um, I did look at that map on the meme and just investigated the area a little bit and maybe, like, a mile, 1.5 miles, there's a neighborhood Walmart market. But because of the disconnection, it's takes them six miles, about 20 minutes to get to that neighborhood Walmart market, or Walmart neighborhood market.

Wow. So what about, um, what about just re-envisioning how our commercial centers are aligned? Because we talk about how do we start to rebuild a walking culture. I've got a slight digression that I would like to get into in a little bit, but if, if the residential areas are difficult to retrofit, and even adding density may eventually allow you to add some other mixing of uses, right? 'Cause then you'd have enough people to support the, the market. In the meantime, what if we just re-envisioned the way that we build our commercial areas with sort of maybe shared parking or, or maybe even remote parking?

Mm-hmm.

But then put the buildings actually close together so that you can walk between them instead of having to, like, drive to the At Home and then get in your car and drive to the Target that's in the same shopping center, and then get in your car and drive to the restaurant that's in the same shopping center. You know, if, if we instead oriented the, these places around, um, the, that conne- connectivity so that you could walk from one store to the other.

Mm-hmm.

Is that... I mean, is that helpful at least in terms of rewiring us to thinking, like, walking is actually okay?

Yeah. I, I do think that's helpful. Um, like you said, it's really hard to retrofit these suburban areas and also, you know, change someone's mind about driving to places and changing that car culture. But there's a lot of good examples. Like in Houston, there's that Town Lake, um, town center right by, in Cypress, Texas, and everybody in Cypress drives to it. And they park on the outer skirts of the development, but once you get out of your car, there's the restaurants on the bottom floor. There's little gym, boutique gyms on the second floors. Um, there's some offices space, and then there are, there is that natural aspect too because there's that man-made lake in town center that people can just, um, stand on the dock or look at the sunset on the water. Um, so you can retrofit these already built, um, commercial areas, like those At Home areas. Create little, little open spaces in a vacant... If there's a building that goes vacant, maybe do a tear down and create an open space where people can sit down and socially interact while, where husbands can socially interact while their wives go shopping at At Home kind of thing, or their children versus them running around the store and getting bored. They can be at a park during that, so.

Yeah. So, um, like, Austin's solution to this, right, is just to eliminate parking requirements, period, from their commercial districts. Like, what are your thoughts on that?

I actually don't like parking requirements.

Okay.

Um, I don't, I believe that businesses aren't gonna jeopardize themselves when developing, like, their area or their-

Wow. A free, a free market thinker you are there, Maria.

Just a little.

Yeah. Okay.

I have my-

Okay.

Um, but yeah, businesses aren't gonna jeopard-

You have your moments.

I have my moments. But yeah, businesses aren't gonna jeopardize themselves, um, and provide so little parking that their customers can't come into the building. But it does put creating these parking minimums that are kind of not out of, out of reach a little bit. Um, it creates costs for the development, um, just 'cause it's three parking spots per person or 2.5 parking spots por- per surface. I d- I just don't think they're necessary in creating impervious surfaces that, um, could in ret- in return create more sal- generate more sales tax. Um, a good example of this is Hu- Can I say Hudson Oaks?

Oh, you can. Yeah, yeah.

Can I mention?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. A good example of this is the Hudson Oaks where the movie theater used to be.The movie theater, um, went out of business during COVID. It had parking minimums. It provided those parking minimums, and then it changed, um, after COVID, it changed to a church, and those church parking minimums were completely different. And if it originally was a church, those parking minimums would have been cut in half compared to the movie theater. And for Hudson Oaks being-- not having property taxes and being sales tax driven, that space for those, that half of the parking lot could generate more sales tax for Hudson Oaks. Um, so that's another example of also being in that situation, you can retrofit that area to break down that lot and build something else that's close by.

Yeah. Interestingly, interestingly enough, um, 'cause I know you're a couple of years removed from Hudson Oaks, but, um, that church is actually doing the big remodel construction right now.

Mm-hmm.

And they're actually integrating a gym into the church, a privately owned gym separate from the church, obviously, in, into that, that church. Um-

Oh, that's great.

So yeah, I think that... I, I think that's a really good point with older uses as those older uses transition, especially when we're talking about big rock- big box retail, right? Um, it is really interesting to go and look at that. And we've, we've actually talked on the podcast before about, um, like, uh, parking minimums that are putting, put on Walmart stores. But if you go look at, uh, if, if, if you go look at satellite images and you just look at like the old oil stains on the parking lot to see like where people park, there's still like twenty-five or thirty percent of the parking spaces that never get parked on. And if we would just turn those in, like just from a revenue standpoint, I know this is not a great planning thing to say, but from a revenue standpoint, if you just turn those into pad sites, you'd be making a ton of-

Mm-hmm

... of money off of that because of the traffic generation that occurs at a Walmart store. Um, and, you know. So is, is it, is, is another solution like what you see in some urbanized districts, though? Uh, so I'm thinking like Dallas, like Mockingbird Lane area and Seventy-five, that those areas. Is another solution like requiring that all of your parking be structured and in the same footprint as the, the retail store? 'Cause that's kind of a requirement that Dallas has in th- in those areas, right? Where I, I can think of like Dick's Sporting Goods and Target store and, and something else. I think they're stacked on top of each other-

Mm-hmm

... in a, like a multi-level structure, which you, you usually actually see a lot more of that like in South America, um-

Mm-hmm

... than you do in the United States. But, um, you know, they have those requirements. So is, is a solution like hiding the car? You know, I mean-

Um, yeah. I think it could be. Uh, it is a possibility if it's done correctly.

Mm-hmm.

There is an example of that in, um, in Dallas off of Seventy-five. It's a Walmart slash, I think a Sam's too.

Mm-hmm.

And they're stacked on top of each other. And it ki- kind of gets a little hectic 'cause everything around it is parking on the ground, and then you get into this maze of going all the way up to go to the Walmart on the second floor. Um, I think it just depends on the development and how you do it, but it, it could work. And so I recently moved to Massachusetts, and there is a Target where you enter from its side, and then the parking's in the back, but it's stacked parking. And that works really well 'cause it's not such a... The corridor is not huge, so the corridor narrows down as you get closer to that Target. So it doesn't create that hecticness of just, um, coming from a major corridor and jumping into the maze of a two-story parking lot and trying to figure it out too, 'cause people aren't used to it either. Um, so you kind of have that time to turn in and figure it out and go upstairs and enter from either floor.

Gotcha.

Yeah. There's a Target in downtown Sacramento, like a couple blocks from the convention center, that's the same way. It's a two story, fronts the street-

Mm-hmm

... like with, with very small setback, if any. And then the parking is kinda tucked away behind it in a, in a double-decker garage. Not a whole lot of parking, but it's also downtown.

Mm-hmm.

So I wanna talk about the crux of the article, which is that this is happening because after the pandemic, we no longer want to be social, or at least in part this is happening because of that. Um, because this is something that I'm generally sympathetic to, or an argument that I'm, I'm sympathetic to insofar as there's a lot of research and writing about how our social bonds are weakening. I mean, back from, um, Mark Granovetter, I think it's, I think Mark Granovetter wrote about weakening weak ties versus... Weak ties and strong ties, right? Strong ties are like close relationships. Weak ties are, um, people that we, we kind of know, and weak ties are essentially the, the types of bonds that create community because they expand our social networks, and they, they bring new ideas, um, you know, into our lives. And that those weak bonds back f- fifty years ago had already started weakening. Um, like Robert Putnam with, with Bowling Alone. Yuval Levin has talked a lot about weakening institutions. Um, I think there's a lot of reason to think that we actually are losing social capital, and so I kinda have a predisposition to say, yeah, this, this does make sense. Um, if it's true that we are losing social capital, there's a lot of possible culprits. A lot of people like to blame social media, which I think is fair to a certain extent. But-You do have to also look and see that this stuff was happening well before we got Facebook. So maybe it's exacerbating a trend, but I don't think it's the proximate cause of this trend. Um, Maria, we talked recently about just how general development patterns can affect this, right? 'Cause like you even hit on this at the very beginning, which I wasn't quite expecting, is, um, when you're in a car you just don't have the same ability for those routine casual interactions.

Mm-hmm.

Right? You're kind of isolated, um, in your little pod. Driving is actually quite an adversarial type of transportation, right? Like it's, it's as seen as a zero sum game, it kind of raises your blood pressure. Lots of studies show, uh, that the longer commute you have the worse health you have just bec- just from a stress standpoint.

Mm-hmm.

But I, I wonder in this particular case how much of this phenomenon, like fast food restaurants, QSRs leaning into drive-throughs, is because the pandemic caused us not to want to be social, versus how much of it is just sacrificing those social goods for just convenience? Like if I have my kids in the car and we need to go grab some food, I'm not taking them out of the car to go in. Um, we're gonna go through the drive-through or I'm gonna try to order, order on my, my app and then just pop in one of those spots and wait for them to come pick it up so I don't have to queue. I'm just curious in this particular instance if is it convenience versus antisocial behavior? Um, maybe there's a little bit of both, but I'm just wondering what y'all think about that.

Yeah. I... Touching up on, um, the pandemic and such, I do think this was, this was happening way before the pandemic, and the pandemic just accelerated that, um, feeling, and people are calling it the loneliness epidemic. Um, people are feeling lonelier, um, just 'cause we're just so used- because of the isolation and the loss of organic social interactions, and but we are also like unintentionally, I do believe we are unintentionally rewiring our social needs. Um, we do form fewer connections and have smaller communities, and we just start to crave minimal interactions with strangers. Um, and like you said early, uh, earlier this week, like it's just a vicious cycle that we just go through. But on your point of convenience, I admittedly, I am one of those people, even if I don't have kids yet, I do do the digital orders and I'm already allocating time out of my day to, say, drive to Chick-fil-A. S- so why would I want to disrupt that flow by stepping out of like the car to place an order when I can just seamlessly like pull it up and not get out of my car? Um-

Like keep your music on or your radio or your audiobook-

Yeah

... or whatever.

Yeah. And just-

Like not disrupt your life-

Mm-hmm

... to do that.

Yeah. And additionally, there are those incentives for digital orders too. I, I am at fault at that. I want my Chick-fil-A rewards points, um, so I would prefer to do that than choose to walk. But if I had the opportunity to walk to Chick-fil-A, um, I will still do the digital order, but you go inside and you pick up your order versus just waiting in your car for somebody to drop it off.

But Chick-fil-A incentivizes you to use the drive-through in the app. At least at my store they do.

Or the curbside.

Yeah. No, not the curbside.

Curbside.

So at my store they give you extra bonus points for going-

For sitting in line?

For sitting in line in the drive-through rather than using the curbside. And I guess that's probably how they, they handle like ... Now granted, you guys know the Chick-fil-A store that I go to is madness. It's bonkers, right? Um, and you know, but and they just did like a huge remodel on it to fix the drive-through system there, but it's crazy. Yeah.

Air quotes.

Air quotes. Still, it's still like a 12-minute drive-through at least to get through.

Okay, so we can talk about all of these things and like how do we fix this and, and yada yada, but the truth is that this is happening for a reason, right?

Mm-hmm.

These companies are trying to make as much money as possible, and if they're making it more convenient for people to buy things and they're seeing that play out in their sales numbers, we're not gonna be able as city planners and city managers to say, "Sorry, guys, like that, that just doesn't work anymore," at least not without some kind of valid solution. But my biggest concern with this trend is, Patrick, you mentioned seeing it in QSR. You see this in big box retail too.

Yeah.

I went to Walmart this morning on the way home from dropping my kids off 'cause I had to g- get a couple of things. There's like maybe 20 people shopping, and then there's like 10 employees doing their personal shopping, and they've got 10 buckets.

Mm.

That's like 100 employees wor- or 100, uh, customers worth of shopping that's being done by 10 employees. Those are people that are not in the stores. They're gonna drive up later, pull into a curbside pickup, sit there and wait for it to be brought to them, and then they're gonna drive off, right? Walmarts are starting to reduce the store frontage that they have for their actual retail space and then reserve it for delivery and, and, and warehousing and things like that. My concern is, like, where does this go? Are we gonna wake up like 10, 15, 20 years from now and everything... Like, what kind of places are we going to have? Is everything going to be that you just drive to it, get your thing, and then go? I was asking my brother about this yesterday 'cause I didn't know if this was a reasonable, like, hypothetical. It hit... He, he reminded me of when we were kids we had these like Matchbox or Micro Machines play sets-Right? And so you, you have the cars, and you have, like, gas stations and restaurants and things like that, and you just drive them around the streets, but there's no people. You're just in the cars. So, like, that's all you can do is just drive from one place to the other. Is that gonna be the type of place that we are creating if we just lean into this? Or do cities need to find some way to help change the economics behind it so that we don't end up with just these placeless car-dominated cities where there are basically no opportunities for human interaction? That, that doesn't seem like a place that most of us will want to live in when we get there.

I do think, um, as you get further from a major city, that might be the case if we don't figure out some sort of... If cities don't get together or figure out some sort of solution, um, like you said, economic, figure out the economics behind it. Um, but you do see very good examples of... For example, in Somerville where I live, those kids are out there w-walking from school. The other day I kind of had a culture shock. I saw a kid riding her scooter from school all the way back home, and my first immediate reaction was just, "Oh, where's her mom?" or, "Where's her parents?" But then my second reaction was like, "Wow, that is very cool for their parent, her parents to feel so comfortable and, um, have so much trust in their community, and s-safe, feel the, the need, the feel of safety in her community too, um, to allow their child to ride her scooter a mile from, probably half a mile from her school to home." Um, s-so there are cities-

I did that growing up. I mean, we walked and rode our bikes to elementary school. It was in our neighborhood.

In your neighborhood? Yeah.

Yeah. But-

So I, that's why I do think there's neighborhoods and communities out there that have that, like, walkle- walkable culture and that feel of safety and trust in their communities. Um, but-

Well, this is where I think it's, the vicious cycle comes in.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause an argument that you hear a lot is, "I did it growing up, and we lived in the same type of environment, so the only thing different is that you're just deciding that you don't wanna do it now." I think that there is, and I think I like the rewiring analogy. The first generation of, of sprawl development, we still kind of had the same, like, nature to us, right? So we're comfortable with our community. We still had civic organizations. We're still, like, have, had these bonds. But then over time, as these things start, like, as we successful- successively go through it, like in multiplicity when they make copies of copies, it starts to, like, seep into the DNA-

Mm-hmm

... of those places and slowly affect how we, how we interact with each other and how we, how we view, um, the process of getting around and whether it's, whether it's safe or appropriate. Like, of course, a 10-year-old should be able to drive or to, like, walk or ride a bike home from school. You see articles all the time, even in cities here in Texas, like the land of freedom, where the police will show up to your door if your kid is walking home from school.

Mm.

It's wild.

Yeah. I, I think-

I don't know if I have anything to say about that, but-

Well, I mean, it's, look-

Put it out there

... I, I think that's just a sense overall of, like, where community is going, right? Um, you know, Chad, you made the comment about social media. Maria, you made the comment about, you know, this loneliness, you know, epidemic that we're kinda hit with post-COVID, right? Um, you know, I, I actually felt like I did more to try to connect with people during COVID because it was so far disconnected for me. And I'm an extrovert, so I had to, like, work to connect with people outside of that. Like, we would sit in a street with our neighbors and, you know, just kinda, like, be apart but chat and talk. Um, but I, I do, I think we're seeing that more and more. I think people did make choices during COVID to kind of isolate because it was easy to isolate. Uh, a lot of people made choices to get divorced. Uh, I actually saw a, a deal on T- it was probably on the Today Show or some news program the other day, but, like, it was talking about the, the regret level of divorces for divorces that were made during the pandemic, 'cause obviously we had a pretty big uptake in divorces during the pandemic. People figured out they didn't wanna live with each other, right? Or couldn't handle each other for that long period of time. Um, but also what we've seen post-pandemic is that the, the regret level with both men and women, uh, I was... I do think it's interesting, about 27% of women regret getting divorced, um, and 39% of men regret getting divorced. I just found that those differences were very interesting. Um, but, you know, that's just, that kinda hits into that, like, social fabric conversation of we kinda isolated ourselves, and I think people are starting to realize the isolation, but we just continue to almost develop into isolation. Um, whether that's social media or it's actually, you know, form, uh, of, of a development, how buildings are built, um, it's something that we probably should take a, a better look at and a better glance. And I think a lot of it is driven though by, you know, we don't like to say it, but a lot of it's driven by the code we write. I mean, a lot of these things are written into our zoning codes, right? They're, they're written into the ability for developers to develop within that way. And I think if cities would just kinda step up and say, "Okay, let's, let's not just look at, you know, what, what the building looks like, but let's look at how that building actually impacts the social fabric of the community," I think you could really start to think about, you know, would things happen slower? Probably, 'cause you'd have to be denser before they'd come, right? 'Cause that's one of the things. Like, you can put a Chipotle in an area that's sprawl-Because it doesn't have density because you can get more vehicles there. Whereas if you have higher density, that Chipotle's gonna come possibly without that drive-through. I remember, uh, South Lake Texas for a long time did not allow a Starbucks drive-through to come in. That was like a big fight for a really, really long time, and at some point Starbucks just didn't care anymore, right? Um, you know, because from a density standpoint, you know, they, it was, it w- they weren't getting a second Starbucks by the way. I don't think it was the first one. But, um, you know, but the density was strong enough within like the town center development, things like that, for them to put a store in that didn't have a drive-through. So, um, so I think we just, you know, as, as communities it would be better for us to kinda look at things not just based on what it looks like, but based on how it impacts.

And to touch up on what you said about codes, there is like a code out there called form-based codes, and even though that does, it puts the building form first before the uses. I think that's a good example of like increasing our, the length of, the length of a building block. Um, it's not such a s- separate building, like a Chipotle here for one lot and then Chipotle, uh, Starbucks here for a second lot. Instead, it's all connected and then you figure out what uses go in there, and that does help with doing that f- building lot go, building on that building lot line and, um, you know, connecting people and connecting businesses too and creating a community.

Yeah. I think it eventually comes down to how much time are we devoting in the planning process to what happens on an individual lot and what kind of building can be put there and what kind of use can be put there, and a lot less time on what does our public space look like and how does it function? It's a much more micromanaging f- like approach to planning, and honestly, it's a lot, it's a lot more narrow, narrowly focused on things that don't matter anywhere near as much. If you can instead, or if you, if you opted instead to focus as a planner or as a planning practice on what kind of place are we making and like how do these spaces interact with each other, like even things as small in a residential neighborhood as having 50% of the front-facing part of a house just be a garage door and no front porch pushes every activity that that family does to the backyard and out of the front yard where other people are. And so neighborhoods that are built like that who happen to have a culture of let's all go sit in our driveways and, and chat, like it's rare these days. My parents in their immediate area, they do that, but that's only because they're all of, uh, older generation and like they kinda grew up doing that. But like no one in my neighborhood does that. Everything is in the backyard. You know, we've got our pool, we've got our patio, we've got our TV and our grill and, and w- we're gonna go entertain ourselves in, in the backyard in our private space instead of in that public space. And, um, I think thinking of our streets as like public rooms and, and how are these places going to foster that kind of interaction and, and connectivity is such a m- uh, more valuable way to spend our planning resources than things like parking minimums and these very specific types of uses are allowed on this lot but not on the one next door. It's just, it's just so nitpicky. It's like missing the forest for the trees.

And it's kind of also reducing community character too. Um, you're eliminating, eliminating a community's character. Uh, in the article it did say that people tend to go through drive-throughs because customers are angry and disgruntled and workers are difficult to be around and it's just not worth the hassle. I kind of see that as an excuse in a way. Um, if you live in community and you're, let's say that prioritizes walking versus driving and you're automatically engaging with the deli store employee that's always angry, that kind of just becomes a part of your community's character and you end up accepting and appreciating their personality versus, um, just saying, "Oh, it's not worth the, the hassle and I'm just not gonna deal with it today." And-

Every neighbor needs an, every neighborhood needs an Oscar the Grouch.

Yeah.

Matt, you got anything else to wrap up this topic on?

No, I was gonna tell you, didn't they get rid of Oscar the Grouch? I'm not sure we can politically correct bring up Oscar anymore. Or is that Cookie Monster?

Really, they got rid of Oscar?

Yeah, somebody's not there anymore. About to go down a rabbit hole here, Maria. Get ready.

Oh, man.

No, sorry, I had to mute myself there a little bit. There's, my concrete guys are cutting rebar.

No, I think he's still there. There's, uh, according to Wikipedia, there is still, uh, he's performed by Eric Jacobson since 2015 to present.

Okay. Is Cookie Monster still there? I think Cookie Monster maybe they re- they redid something with Cookie Monster.

Well, this is riveting radio. So while you do that, I'll wrap up here, uh, and, and just, uh, with a quick aside, just got back from, uh, from London. Got to go see Chelsea play Man City in what is being billed as one of the e- most epic games in Premier League history. Um, but the whole time we're walking it's like my, uh-

You're like, "I just landed or am I dead?"

... my Apple Watch after two days it pinged me and it was like, "You're walking a lot more than usual." It's like, yeah, no kidding. Uh, but, uh, after the second or third day my kids, uh, we're walking over to the tubeAnd they start singing this song about how we're going to the Piccadilly Line, and they're like, "Dad, I love taking the train. It's way better than driving." So I just wanna thank the good people of London and give them a, a sort of a proper tip of the cap, as it were, for turning my kids into new ur- new urbanists. Did Patrick just leave?

No, I didn't leave. I just... I, it, it just, like, stopped. It, like, f- everybody froze, including my face on the screen. And then it just, like, died and came back. I may be in the same boat as you.

Yeah.

It may be time for a new MacBook. I think this one's getting a little worn out. Yep. So sorry, go ahead.

That's it. That's all I have.

Oh, you-

I, I don't, I don't have the energy to give you-

You told the horror story while I was gone. I didn't... All I heard was-

You can listen to the episode

... it was billed as the most epic game. How was it epic?

Oh, I, I actually... That was just a-

Well, it's like Michael's-

... an introduction. I was actually talking about how my kids have... They became new urbanists and big fans of, uh, subways-

Oh

... on the trip.

Okay. Okay, so that's a wrap. Uh, Maria, thanks so much for coming and hanging with Chad and I. We lost Chad. He has officially left the meeting. I believe that his computer has, uh, decided that it was going to die on him. Uh, jokes aside, I was joking about us needing to get new computers, so I guess that's gonna happen this week. Uh, anyways, uh, Maria, thanks so much for coming on and hanging out. Um, it was really good to talk planning and nerdery of planning, and so we will see everybody on our next episode of ZacCast. We, uh, are dedicated to doing this about every two weeks, so we'll see you in two weeks. Yeah. Thanks for having me. You're welcome.